An old Tibetan proverb says "All the world’s Great Journeys begin with the first step". Our planned first steps in retirement had at one time been debated around an idea to visit the Himalayas and trek there but we changed our minds at the last minute!
Although Jo and I were not going to be as intrepid as those bold trail-blazers in Canada Jimmy Simpson (born on August 8, 1877 in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, a mere 53 years before me, and not more than 21 miles from where I was born, and where I have lived all my life) and Bill Peyto (born on February 14, 1869 in Welling, Kent, England) we intended to blaze a few trails of our own in 1995.
April 1, 1995 saw my retirement after almost 50 years working here in downtown Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, England in a lawyers chambers dealing with real estate, or at least the transfers thereof (in England, Estate Agents do the buying and selling and lawyers deal with the academic aspects of people moving house, and mortgaging them and their souls to better (?) their living). I was also the Superintendent Registrar (to our overseas cousins this is the Superintendent of the Registrars of Vital Statistics - i.e. births, marriages and deaths) of this town of 22,000 inhabitants with a surrounding rural area of like population, making a Borough of 44,000 likely clients in one or other of my fields! Most of them did! I married 6001 people in the local Register Office, the place for civil weddings. But it takes two to make a marriage you say, so how come the odd figure of 6001? Well, on 4th April 1962 I married my beloved Jo in my own Office! The ceremony was conducted by my boss and we flew to Paris, France for the honeymoon. 25 years later we were to climb Ben Nevis, Scotland's highest mountain (4,406 feet or 1342 meters) in an epic 8-hour adventure; by then you see, we had become ardent walkers (averaging around 1500 to 2000 miles a year) and lovers of high places, but not, I hasten to add, mountaineers in the accepted sense. We left that to the Chris Boningtons, the Sherpa Tensings, the Doug Scotts and the Sir Edmund Hilarys of this world! Jo stood on top of the Jungfraujoch, Switzerland (11340 feet or 3456 meters) with me to mark her 60th birthday.
And so it came to pass that the days of working were ended at last, the battle over, the medals pinned on and the pensions rolling in! There was obviously a need for celebration. We opted for a Grand Expedition to The Canadian Rockies! At least they spoke English and were civilised. We studied the venture from library books and literature and had discussions with local inhabitants who had already been there and concluded that this was THE place for us.
We booked our journey at a cost of £1345 or CAN$3245 each - to include all journeys, one tour, all three hotels, airport taxes, the full journey from London Heathrow to Calgary International Airport and return - but NO FOOD included. The booking was via the agency of Melton Travel (a small travel firm run by Gunvaar, a Laplander lady married to an Officer of the Queen's Cavalry) and the trip was by a firm called Canadian Connections. It was difficult to wait from the day of booking until the Great Day of Wednesday July 12, 1995.
Patience was rewarded and after a poor Spring and an unhelpful beginning of Summer our Wednesday dawned bright and sunny and was to be the overture to a Summer in Great Britain the like of which had not been felt since the 1700s from a lack-of-rain point of view and temperatures subsequently soared to the 30ºC+ level and beyond. By mid-August there were water-hose bans, no car washes and, in some places, restricted drinking water availability. We were not bereft of troubles either: British Rail (the National Railways of Great Britain) had elected strike action and were threatening to bring all railroad and subway traffic to a halt on the very day we were due to return from our trip and we knew that following an overnight flight we would be tired. Home is 100 miles from London Heathrow Airport. We booked a local taxi firm to drive us down to the airport and to be there to pick us up on our return. This would cost £100 or CAN$241 but was well worth it in the end. We could have driven ourselves to and from the airport in the Volvo but this meant effort and facing the stress of busy British motorways and we were out for VIP treatment all the way and a restful, contemplative, celebratory, peaceful journey.
The Boeing 747 looked enormous standing by to accept us aboard: we had never flown out of Europe before but were not unduly apprehensive. Dick was all agog, had asked Air Canada's desk lady on checking-in "please a window seat" and with a smile she conceded, but Jo always buries her head in a book on landing and takeoff and rarely looks out of the window, claiming to be quite aloof of such goings on!! When the radar plot was displayed on the film screens mid-cabin we saw to our delight that we would head North, over our home area practically, and then Benbecula, Harris and Lewis of the Outer Hebrides would be our "Left turn and out to sea" point. It so happens that Jo's late mother was a true Hebridean (a MacKenzie of prime order) so Jo did venture a peek when I shouted "There it is!" to the consternation of the cosmopolitan passengers all around us. The plot further indicated that we would go out over Iceland (we did, and the volcanic landscape and snow were wonderful), over Greenland (it's huge and there was much, much snow and many icebergs visible even from our declared height of 33,000 feet or 6-and-a-bit miles) on a clear, sunny, beautiful day; more left turn and over Baffin Island, Hudson's Bay, over the northern wastes of Canada, down towards Edmonton and then into Calgary. Later I was able to demonstrate to Jo and one or two others, with a short piece of thread on a globe of the world just what Great Circles were and why they are the shortest route from here to there and not necessarily the straight lines you would imagine from looking at a normal say, Mercator, projection of the Earth. The flight took 8 hours, and throughout we were attended well by the Air Canada hostesses and Jo was pleased that the whole organisation took instant pleasure in supplying her with her vegetarian diet.
Oh yes, we just had to coincide our arrival at Calgary on the night of the Great Stampede! We were met after Passport Control and Customs by a bevy of cowgirls, lariats a-swinging, boots a-stomping and high pitched whoops, who insisted on BRANDING us before we could go into the City! Fortunately they did not use redhot branding irons in the usual place but marked us indelibly in red ink on our hands. We were met by a charming young man, holding a board with WINTERS and FORD writ large on it. The FORDs were a husband and wife with young daughter team going on virtually the same trip as us and were also en route for Banff on this their first day. We were transported in a small 8-seater vehicle down the main highway to Banff (80 miles or 128 kilometers) and dropped off at Charlton's Evergreen Court, our first stopover and had had a wonderful commentary throughout the two-hour road journey. We were beginning to understand Canada and to like it but were hopelessly tired and went to bed immediately. Canadian time in Banff was 7 hours adrift from the London time we were carrying in our heads, stomachs and bodies!! Remember E.A.S.T. = F.A.S.T. So London brain cells told us it was around 2 a.m. Thursday and we had been on the go since very early Wednesday morning. In actual fact Banff clocks were of course showing 7 p.m. Wednesday so no one knew why our bedroom door carried the important bilingual sign " PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB. PRIÈRE DE NE PAS DÉRANGER". This habit of writing all signs in both languages used in Canada proved very useful to Dick in his continual studying of the French language. (Daughter Joanne, 30, has an Honours Degree (French) from Liverpool University and is a former professional technical translator in Paris - again the French Connection!).
Morning came in our minds 8 hours later: 10 a.m. London time, an ideal time to rise when on holiday - but.....it was only 3 a.m. in Banff!!! What would the natives think if we went off walking at that hour? Jo threw off her watch and into the suitcase it went, never to see the light of day again until we hit London Town on 27th July!! I altered my digital timepiece and went back to sleep for another 3 hours. Arising at Banff's 6 a.m. the installed coffee brewer was soon fired up and became quite a habit from then on!! Breakfast had to be taken at Charlies - this was a breakfast-only restaurant downstairs under the Hotel and where Nadine (who came from up North some 500 miles, and who worked in Banff throughout the Summer) tended to our every need and proved to us that food in Canada was going to be really cheap, nicely prepared and served with a smile and a chat on all occasions. We had no subsequent difficulties over food anywhere: Jo is a vegetarian by choice and was well catered for, especially the British Colombia Salmon with blueberry sauce, and salads galore - all remarkably cheap. Dick varied between the vegetarian diet and the occasional meat dish (not the huge 18oz steaks we saw being consumed!) and since he can't live without chocolate was able to sample the Canadian uses of that commodity very well. All food we considered to be cheap in price compared with eating out in Britain.
Downtown Banff and the Bow River look super with their backdrop of mountains. We realised we were living at an elevation of around 5,000 feet but soon became acclimatised and were running up stairs two at a time as always without getting breathless as we did on our first three days, especially when carrying luggage or making a strenuous ascent. Super townsite. Banff National Park is 6641 square kilometers (2564 square miles) of a wonderland of mountains, lakes, rivers, forests and clear air, and home to an abundance of wildlife. It has a very helpful Information and Trail Guide Center. Shops all full of wonderful goods and not too pricey at that and you would never starve in Banff, there are so many good eating places. Area full of tourists (lots of smiling Japanese and many Germans and Americans) and very slow moving cars. The Japanese swooped on some shops in hordes, loaded hundreds of plastic carrier bags and disappeared next morning early on their coaches, only to be replaced by others of that ilk the next evening. Car drivers seemed to have come from a different era - we soon learned it was the way over there to be courteous and not drive like maniacs (and I didn't mention Paris did I?). It was not advisable to stand at the sidewalk edge looking across the road: if you did all motorists would stop, thinking you were going to cross the road: frequently we had to, so not to be rude after their courtesy, and had to wait 'til they'd gone to return to our original spot!! Our 5 days in Banff proved very beneficial in all respects ((we were well over our first-ever dose of jet lag and retirement seemed to be a good thing!) we took trails, albeit short ones of about 4 miles at most, one memorable one along by the Bow Falls to the Hoodoos, strange weirdly-carved shapes in rock eroded by years of snow, ice and weather; took in a lecture by a Ranger of the Banff National Park (we were in that Park) and filmshow of his 141 mile-10 day hike with wife and friends into the back country, and learned much of the dangers of likely encounters with bears etc. We also learned that if you order coffee in a café or a restaurant then you sure get coffee. CAN$1.20 for a big big cup of good quality drink. Then along comes the server (they don't call them waitresses) and she offers you more, you decline, cautious about spending a further sum, but are told, "Well, you ordered coffee, and coffee you can have Sir" and coffee you get - as much as you want, without paying a further cent! You could drown in the stuff or get free caffeine poisoning any time you like!! Wonderful. They should learn about that in England sometime soon. The railroad which runs alongside the main road outside of Banff was fascinating: 7 hugh Diesel engines hauling up to 150 freight cars full of grain bound for Vancouver and destined for export; trains a mile long and hooting through the mountains as in the cowboys and indians films we saw in our youth were magnificent to behold - especially by someone from a country where, fortunately temporarily, the darned trains weren't even running!! We saw the occasional passenger train too, glistening-clean and moving smoothly. One evening we visited a small private movie theatre and saw a locally-made film voted Outstanding Film of the Year by the Canadian Film & TV Awards Committee and winner of 7 International Awards - narrated by Peter Ustinov, it was called Challenge the Rockies, and was 3 fast-paced adventure sequences of white-water rafting, mountaineering and skiing in the area. We also visited Sulphur Mountain via its gondola and were on top of the world.
Six days of joy gone and we were scheduled to be driven to Jasper, the centre townsite of the National Park of the same name.
"The Parks are hereby dedicated to the people of Canada for their benefit, education and enjoyment....and such Parks shall be maintained and made use of so as to remain unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations" - National Parks Act, 1930 of Canada. And unimpaired they were too - penalties are severe for infringing the Rules - up to CAN$2000 fine for taking away any botanical, geological or historical item. We were told that a man shot a mountain sheep one day up high and the Rangers learned of this, closed the sole highway (the Icefields Parkway) and thus quickly caught him: he received the maximum fine and had his gun and his vehicle confiscated by the Court. The feeling is that "we don't want to hide anything but nothing is renewable". Even old bottles and plates command great protection - this is wilderness, a heritage and belongs to everybody if it is left alone. Even ancient spear heads (a Clovis point) have been found up to 8,000 feet in the mountains and the known dates of earliest mountain travel are thousands of years ago, along trade routes that existed even then. In Banff near the bridge is an Indian Trading Post where you can purchase at very reasonable prices modern-made proper replicas of Indian craftsmanship.
Jasper is 179 miles or 288 kilometers from Banff, along the one and only road (alongside which runs the railroad), and our holiday organisers had elected to make this a tour and not just a coach transfer. The Route is the Icefields Parkway, the scenic way connecting Banff and Jasper National Parks and is 230 miles long, a smooth, concrete, nearly straight, undulating two-lane dual carriageway throughout its length. Brewsters (founded by two brothers of the same name many years ago when Canada's Rockies first became a tourist attraction) were the main outfitters for this trip (I heard that they recently amalgamated with Greyhound, the big American coach operators, to gain a monopoly in North America). We boarded the coach and were introduced to one Mark Stevens who was to be our driver, guide, mentor, entertainment and helpmate (and, in my case recipient of a handsome tip at Jasper when we disembarked from our transport) for the whole of that day's long and interesting journey. I explained to Mark that as a 5-year old I had climbed my first mountain: Burrough Hill, all 790 feet of it, just outside my townsite, his reply (which to this day spurs me on in my approaching dotage), made with a fraternal hand on my shoulder was "Don't give up". We took from him a constant educational running commentary of all that we saw, he stopped instantly when we saw elk, mountain sheep, goats etc.and visited waterfalls, lakes, and were allowed photo-stops, what are called comfort stops, and also for the necessary meals as we went along our way. Our main stop was the Columbia Icefield ( a 325 square kilometre accumulation if ice feeds) and a trip up the Athabascar Glacier in a snow-mobile - a stunning experience on a good-weather day. The ice is 350 meters thick!! The driver of the snow-mobile (to show you their sense of humor) asked us on the way up the 10,000 foot mountain and icefield "Who is your guide and coach-driver for today?" Several told him it was Mark (Mark carried an essential identity badge and his name was emblazoned above his driver's seat). "Ah! Good man Mark. Very good family man. Good driver." ........long pause........"We were all so pleased when he got his driver's license back" !!! Mark was in fact the epitome of a good careful driver, a skilled and dedicated mountaineer in his spare time and like all the people we met in the Parks, very proud of this especial heritage and guarded his Parks and wild life with almost frenzy and a little jealousy!! They all did - and quite rightly too!! The drive included the inevitable bear-jam. Cars are parked every which way along the road: people run back and forth, brakes screech and traffic crawls to a halt. 10 minutes later, park wardens break up the chaos and traffic resumes. Welcome to a bear-jam. It might be an elk-jam but the effect is the same. In normal circumstances people realise it isn't wise to approach wild animals (and you are told this in every Interpretive Center or Information Center as well as being invited to read "The Bear Book" before going out on trails) or even to run across a highway, however the excitement prevails and overrides sanity. Cameras whirring and clicking the crowd is all worked up but just let the bear look towards the road, cough and.....people scatter like ants, car doors bang, engines revving and the animal is left once again to its peaceful and natural life - the intention of the Parks. Bears need not be a problem to you. Walking out in the wilds, make some noise, people do buy bear bells to hang from their rucksacks or mountain bike handlebars to bounce and ring and thus announce your presence. The bear no more needs to bother you than you do it. If by misfortune you surprise a bear or get between it and its offspring it is then that the danger prevails. If it has a lump (and that's the grizzly with his over-developed shoulder muscles), if it has a lump, be a lump (adopt the fœtal position) and with any luck it will leave you alone. If it is black, fight back! Hit it on the nose with a hunk of timber we were told! Don't run is the exhortation given by all experienced advisors: they can outstrip a racehorse over 100 yards and remember - they can climb trees. Seriously though the chances of running into a bear given the size of the country and the bear population are less than you might think. But do be careful.
As well as the Banff and Jasper Parks there are also Parks at Canmore (4000 square kilometers), Waterton Lakes National Park, and elsewhere - all known collectively as Canada's Rocky Mountain Parks and totalling 24,000 square kilometers of wilderness preserve attracting 5,500,000 people a year. Remember though that Canada itself is nearly 4,000,000 square miles (10,000,000 square kilometers) with a population of 27,000,000 souls and at the same time Great Britain has a mere 100,000 square miles (250,000 square kilometers) for a population of over 60,000,000. In the National Parks of Canada abound waterfowl, eagles, osprey, elk, deer, coyotes, bears, (grizzly and black), bighorn sheep, porcupines, marten, marmots, pikas, mountain goats, wolves, ground squirrels, red squirrels, chipmunks and there is a wealth of mountain flowers.
We ain't photographers. Well, we point and press and shoot at scenes with an ancient Olympus camera, sans iris control, shutter-speed variation etc. and you have to rember to wind the film on after each shot. But just aim your camera at anything you see and, as with us, your friends will ask where you bought all those professional cards from for your album! There are the usual 3-day and 1-hour developing services in Banff and Jasper.
Shopping: nothing seemed in short supply and prices were favourable compared with back home. Mountain shops and their foul-weather gear goods abounded, plenty of places to eat, jewellery, supermarkets, you name it, it was there. Food varieties of all sorts and nationalities. We feared that, for instance, a meal atop Sulphur Mountain would cost more than in downtown Banff: not so. Apparently there are trading regulations, no competition between shopkeepers, all prices are fixed wherever you are in the Parks and if any infringement is detected the shopkeeper's license is taken away and the franchise granted to others who are waiting to come in on the act.
Motor cars: big Fords, Chevrolets, Toyotas, straightforward motor cars, huge residential campers (special sites are provided for parking, with water and electricity supplies). In England is is obligatory to carry a fixed "number plate" both fore and aft of the vehicle, this indicates its registration with the licensing authorities etc. and identifies the machine. In Canada strangely they only have their Provincial plate and number on the back. At the front they are allowed "vanity plates" which carry, in the case of my fellow radio hams their callsign (I saw two - VE3AAJ and VE3JHH), or slogans such as "Belt them up to bring them up" referring to their children and their safety, or "No, I'm not rich, I'm spending the kids' inheritance" and many others, usually humorous.
Dick is a cat-lover but only saw two on the whole trip - both spoke to him (he can speak 4 words of Cat) and the only dogs we saw were firmly on the lead held by the tourist owners as necessitated by the Park Rules.
Jasper seems slightly less wealthy than Banff and a little smaller. We visited their Information Center and Ranger Advice Bureau mainly to bespeak a copy of the daily Bear Report. This is displayed outside the Center and warns intending trekkers of ursine activity in the Park. They gladly gave me a copy to bring home to my hick-town where I am sure the locals wouldn't otherwise have believed me of the dangers we faced when out walking alone. Within a short walk of any townsite you are into complete wilderness - nature at its rawest, and largely untouched and certainly uninhabited by man - and walking in groups, preferably with a qualified guide, was relatively cheap to arrange and was in the event by far the safest and most interesting way to investigate this marvellous terrain. The Park is around 5000 square miles in extent - my home County of Leicestershire is 984 square miles and England is only 10 times as big as Jasper National Park so you will not query why we thought things out there were BIG. The Hotel at Jasper was first class and the cuisine excellent with a buffet-type dinner in the evening as well as the more normal à la carte arrangement. We did not breakfast by courtesy of the management: you will remember no meals were included in our payment for the tour and as we had a completely fitted out kitchenette in our suite we decided to revert to our English toast and marmalade (ingredients purchased at the local supermarket) with the usual abundance of Canadian coffee from the ubiquitous coffee-maker. We had a few trips along various trails, met elk who had wandered into town and were careful to heed the constant advice given to us and to avoid them whenever possible. We visited Mount Edith Cavell, saw its Angel Glacier, ice caves and icebergs; went to Maligne Canyon and also the lovely Maligne Lake where we took a motor-launch trip and saw Spirit Island, walked along the banks to Moose Lake and yes, you've guessed it, actually came upon a moose there.
Five days later we were transported along to Lake Louise and were disappointed that our reserved Hotel there was somewhat downmarket from what we had had hitherto and was in fact situated, albeit a few hundred yards from the main townsite (which boasted at least 10 shops!) a long long ways from Lake Louise and its magnificent shoreline hotel and its sheer joy of beds of Italian poppies for which it is famous. The trail along one edge of the Lake leads to the Plain of the Six Glaciers - a well-known hike which we were disappointed of since we had rainy days for the first time on our holiday. We enjoyed some very nice walks along the (safe!) banks of the Bow River and quite enjoyed ourselves there. The former Railroad Station at Lake Louise is well worth a visit the same having been turned into an extremely nice Restaurant, where we dined each evening. Our first night at Lake Louise proved yet again the efficiency of our organisers: the telephone light was blinking, announcing thereby that there was a message for us. Reception announced the arrival of a fax for Mr. Winters. Quite concerned that my former firm had caught up with me at last (!!) I hastened to obtain the document and with relief found it was Ami-Tours welcoming me to the hotel and promising that if we were in the lobby at 5.15 the following Wednesday they would pick us up, baggage and all, transport us to Calgary Airport, where we would be divested of all contraband and sent off home by Boeing 747 leaving at 22.10 hours.
And so it came to pass that we did leave Calgary, nary a Customs Officer in sight by the way, and flew off into the already setting sun homeward. Another happy flight (Jo sleeping most of the way) and the morning light getting to us - well, it was we who flew into the morning light - very quickly so that I was able to peer down at the icebergs and countries over which we flew until the radar plot showed we would be approaching the United Kingdom via Glasgow, Scotland this time - and we did - right on time - flew down country, passing within 10 miles of our home, only to face the 100 mile journey by road back from Heathrow to Melton Mowbray in the hot weather they had arranged for us.
Fortunately the weather had lessened the need for any urgent gardening, so with a huge wash load to clear (we had availed ourselves of hotel laundry facilities frequently but even so.....) and lots to talk about to the folks back home we re-organised our internal and external clocks, mounted 110 photographs into an album to become a family heirloom, narrated a story around them and then started our mundane lives again! We soon started talking about Alaska.......I wonder why? We did book a 5-day sojourn for Paris over Christmas this year though and are now looking forward to that visit.
The downside? There isn't one. Oh, perhaps the odd German tourist pushed a bit too hard here and there in the lineup (that's the queues for the English reader) and we did have trouble with mosquitoes and black fly. Early in the holiday we were exposing flesh to the mountain sunlight (they make a big issue of issuing the UV figures (ultra-violet factor) - after all it is rarified atmosphere at 5000 to 8000 feet above sea level and with a clear-blue sky) and the biting insects took advantage of this new diet. Jo's swelled and suppurated, mainly on her legs - she doesn't tuck her trouser cuffs into her socks: mine just swelled and swelled - in fact on one occasion you couldn't tell I had any knuckles, my hand was so badly swollen. And itch!!!! Nights were the worst: in bed. The itching began - I found an early remedy in some posh French after-shave as a sort of stop-gap, but we invested in some calomine lotion from a local pharmacist - looked odd, all dabbed in pink emulsion-paint type stains but it sure stopped the trouble. It didn't stop the bites. Pam, a young South African guide, a botanist, who took us along Maligne Canyon one day with a Parisienne who spoke no English (so guess who ended up doing all the translating - well, not all, who but a Frenchman would be able to tell you about the fragmented accumulations and the solidifying into granular ice, and the geomorphology and the general shape conforming to the valley in which it lies.....etc. etc.? - back to Pam. She assured us that my bites were those of the blackfly who were "out early this year, and you don't need medical help, you will survive and be better in a day or two and after about 20 (or was it 50?) of those you will be practically immune like the rest of us." And we were, although we still carry the scars of battle.
I had a task whilst in Banff. A radio ham friend of mine, formerly of my own Regiment (by the way 2 days before we flew out I was officialy "presented" to my Colonel-in-Chief: that illustrious officer just happens to be Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal, Princess Anne - for my services to ham radio within the aegis of The Royal Corps of Signals. As part of the 75th Anniversary celebrations of the Corps I was invited to Royal School of Signals, Blandford Camp, Dorset, England and there presented - (I didn't wash my hand for days afterwards!!), my radio friend, callsign G4JHF - calls that Jolly Happy Fred - lives in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England, he had cancer at the time - asked me a favour - please bring me back a picture of a Mountie for my lad, Ken. The first day there I got the postcard picture. The next day I got another. The next day I got another. I saw they were selling for CAN$1, especially minted coin pieces of the RCMP or Gendarmerie Royale du Canada, and hooked one of those for Fred. I bought a sew-on badge of the RCMP, almost like an Army shoulder-flash. Then I had my inspiration. I visited HQ Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Banff. I photographed their lovely signboard outside and, horrors, they were shut. Next day though they were open and I approached the desk sergeant and told him his wife over dinner would never believe his corny story of this daft English tourist and his request - but the Mountie did believe me - went in back of the main office and produced a lovely 2 foot by 2 foot colour picture of a Troop of mounted members of RCMP, lances and flags all there, signed it and handed it over for Fred. He also gave me all their publicity literature in their recruiting campaign containing many pictures and details. I mailed all this to Fred by "guaranteed delivery" on my return and on the ham bands since he just keeps on thanking me and thanking me. It was such a simple thing to make a very sick man happy for a while.
We returned with much literature, maps - oh, by the way, their maps compared with UK maps are pretty useless, but then the lands are for the most part uncharted - here in the UK one has to offset the compass by 6º West, to allow for the difference between Magnetic North and Grid North (the up and down lines, then, on the map!). Out there - oh God! 20.19º East - it does feel odd to say the least!! I just had to buy two books - I so felt the place - the brief history - the wilderness - the railways - the trading with the Indians, furs etc. - and all such a short time ago. JIMMY SIMPSON, Legend of the Rockies by E.J.Hart price $16.95 ISBN 1-55153-082-1 and AIN'T IT HELL, Bill Peyto's "Mountain Journal" by the same author, price $16.95 ISBN 0-9699732-0-9. Apart from the deep-set memories though my best souvenir was a little (4 inch diameter) polished pewter gold pan: bottom filled with modern see-through clear plastic to look like water, inset are tiny stones and some "fool's gold" (pyrites) looking just like the real thing -and kneeling in the "water" is an old prospector, himself panning and just having found his gold, the laden pony stands, also in water, alongside, patiently and soon I am sure to plod on, though the old man is now rich: just as I am - richer-by-far from the experience, and with my "gold" in my heart and with my treasured Jo sharing it all with me. Prospector Pete sits on my den windowsill, and has to face outwards, looking towards his beloved Canada (I know which way it is - I've been there!) - well I did remove him from his home and bring him all these miles didn't I?
A Great Time! Would do it again right now. Probably will. Thank you Canada! Merci beaucoup Canada et à bientôt.