Summer of the Dammed.: Working like a beaver

I'll give you $100 to put a few logs over there.

That is, not a lot. I've been hanging around beaver ponds all summer and I have only seen 3 beavers. I suspect they get contractors in to build their dams. I've definitely seen more logging trucks.

I need a one button mouse.

I finally managed to get my laptop back from the bear. I thought there might be a fight, but he said that he'd rather have a Mac. Aye bear. That'll be right.

Anyway, it has been a bit hectic here. I think my last post was the week after the Stampede. My mum had gone with Amanda to Saskatoon for the week, and we got some work done. On the Sunday before my mum was due to arrive in Canmore, we had an open day at the field centre. Basically a day where anyone passing can come in and have a look at the different projects going on. This meant 6 hours sitting at a table with a poster of my work displayed behind me and various items from our field work in front. It was a case of answering the same questions over and over again to a variety of people; park rangers, university professors, random members of the public. The main difficulty was maintaining a straight face every time I said the word beaver. But I am getting better at that. There was a worrying moment when the CTV crew visiting looked like they may come and interview me. I think the massive beard and unintelligible accent probably dissuaded them though. Not sure having me on the Calgary news would help with shedding the stereotypical image of "Scottish" here.

Not my ideal Sunday, but at least there was a bbq and free booze afterwards. The free booze also help bring out some stereotypes. It was nice to finally have a sociable gathering with other people, many of which I hadn't ever seen around the centre. The main two national groupings are Canadian and American. The Americans set up the drinking games early on, keen to show they are party animals. They were first to fall. The Canadians stayed until all the free booze was finished. Some pretty good going there. The Scottish dragged his field assistant back to the cabin to continue drinking whisky and watch Billy Connolly, Danny Bhoy, and Frankie Boyle clips till 4 in the morning. As I said, stereotypes. Well, the good thing about being the boss is being able to call "office" days when you need to.


Dangerous.

So monday was an office day. My mum also arrived in the afternoon. Strangely on the same flight as my supervisor. She was out doing her own work though, not checking up on me. My mum was staying in Canmore, and so was Cherie, so we all met up for dinner on monday evening at the Grizzly Paw bar. Bison burger and Beaver tail ale. If you can find me a more Canadian sounding meal, I want to hear about it! It was very good.

Burstall pass site. Not bad.

Remember when you made me do chores?

Tuesday I recruited my mother as field assistant. I had a walk planned which just happened to go past a site I needed to visit. What better way to show someone your work by getting them involved. I'm such a thoughtful person. The walk was along Burstall Pass trail. It is actually very nice. And the car journey to get there is along the Spray Valley, which is a lovely drive if you like snow peaked mountains and stuff like that. It's all getting a bit samey to me.

Falling water. Strangely interesting.

The rest of the week was mostly hiking around. Particularly memorable was fridays visit to Johnston Canyon. A very sanitised trail up to two big waterfalls. Actually paved all the way. It's very popular, but it does have some nice waterfalls. There is also a less popular trail going on from the upper waterfall towards some freshwater springs which pool up on the surface. These are called inkpots because they show up different shades of blue or green. Something to do with the speed at which the water rises. I guess they must have been rising at the same rate that day, because they were mostly

Scottish people in their element

water coloured! That was a reasonably good walk though, a nice long uphill and then about a kilometre downhill to the inkpots. The valley they are in was a nice spot for lunch. Seems to be the meeting point for 3 valleys. Made for some good scenery. On the walk back we got caught in a massive thunderstorm. At one point the thunder broke directly overhead,which was fun. In a scary fun kind of way. The storm lasted about 15 mins, which seemingly was enough to pull down a tree over the trail. The rain stopped just as we got back to the car park. Which was nice. Luckily we both brought changes of clothes.

Inkpot

Nice spot for lunch.

Juxta...

It was still reasonably early, so we decided to drive on to Lake Louise. On the drive we met the thieving bear. Quite impressive though. I guess I shouldn't have got out of the car to take a photo, but there were another 20 people there, so I thought I could probably outrun at least one of them. Lake Louise is really pretty. Probably the best view so far this summer. As long as you keep your back to the monstrosity behind you! I can't believe that that hotel was allowed to be built. The complete scene looks like a dictionary definition of "juxtaposition". Looking up the lake to the glacier is just awesome though.

...position

So that was friday going pretty well. Nice walk, bear sighting, awesome glacier viewing. Then we drove back towards Canmore. It turned out that the downpour we were caught in caused a mudslide across highway 1 just outside Banff. This is the section of Higway one where there are no alternative routes, so you get funnelled through the national parks gate and have to pay the $10 entry for the pleasure of using their roads. The pleasure turning out to be taking 3 hours to get past the mudslide! These things happen I suppose. They seemed to have mostly cleared it up by the time we passed it. I feel sorry for the people who got there just after it happened. They must have been waiting for about 6 hours. Eventually we made it back to Canmore though, in time for a much needed beer, and dinner.

It was great having my mum across, but when she left on tuesday, that meant a big push to get back into working. We did manage one site day will she was here, and got up to 74. Anything above 80 will be a bonus. Now the main focus is the GPR. Gipper has been getting many walks this week. But I'll leave that to another post, because I have to think about how to make it even slightly entertaining...

Some more photos...