grain elevator


two beavers bathing


night heron


moose swimming, birds flying




sunset reeds


day 18 and 19
june 18 and 19

june 20
in EDMONTON, ALBERTA canada
internet cafe, and will post, breakneck style:

important several days. 2 camping overnights at Elk Island National Park, an exquisite wild animal preserve almost devoid of humans just half an hour from Edmonton. (my head was full of magnificent things to say but now the loud radio robs all my eloquence.)

thursday:
on the way west from Prince Albert, we stopped beside an Elk farm - odd. elk being farmed as food.

a few hours later, we drove into Elk Island park and saw a COYOTE right away and then a bunch of bison. these animals are VAST and unafraid and very impressive - like mammoth satyrs except opposite with wild hairy woolly chests and heads and completely bald back legs and behinds. they look very very ancient in the face with almost gorilla-like eyes and noses and the skin of a pachyderm. fascinating, intelligent, wise-seeming.

then we saw two beavers bathing in a pond with an enormous lodge. they were also COMPLETELY unafraid, sitting there in the sun ontop of their gigantic flat tails, stroking their wet fur clean with long pointy claws.

later, during a long devastatingly beautiful pink sunset, we saw a female MOOSE walk into the water and swim across the lake then walk out onto an island and disappear into the bush. it was so peaceful and also, somehow, quite surreal watching this tiny head bob across the pinkness knowing the huge body was beneath the water. also, in the water, a huge nesting bird which we later found out from a ranger was a Red-necked Grebe.








bison leaving with my foot for scale! big pie!


friday:
a spot of rain cleared quickly which emboldened us to drive to a trialhead and jump on our bikes. we figured we'd make the loop to the group campground and back to the van in two hours or so. hot sun, we set off with binoculars, cameras, rainjackets packed deep in our packs.
as the sky darkened it was very beautiful, flumes of every shade of grey. when it began to rain, we put on our jackets and kept riding, believing we'd done at least half the loop. the rain got heavier and heavier until it was pouring and we had no choice but to keep pedaling on a narrow wet grass track hoping to find shelter at the group campground.

wrong.

when we arrived there, we found only some picnic tables and a small open lean-to filled with firewood. our clothes were soaked, we were cold and quite demoralized. we crawled ontop of the woodpile and ate our hardboiled eggs, almonds and rye crackers.

we found a wider dirt and gravel road which made biking in the downpour easier. but then we had two gigantic surprises - bison on the road.
first, a small one eating in some bushes. we read that we should make noise so we didn't scare them - meaning, not to sneak up because they can attack and get aggressive if they are frightened. of course, this must have been a comical picture - Andrew and i soaked to the bone, dripping wet, talking to a bison who is just chew and watches us pass.

the second one was bigger and seemed more troublesome. he was more in the road and turned completely to face us and watch us. i decided to sing, improvising a bison-friendly lyric to the tune of Singing in the Rain. we'd progress a foot or two and then stop and let the bison acclimate to our presence. it probably took about 5 minutes for us to inch by this beast. every time it stopped chewing, we'd freeze and wait.

when we got back to the van, four hours later, the sun came out and it all seemed like a strange dream. except my legs were shaking and my body was exhausted. we stripped our clothes off, got warm and dry then found a tree had fallen across the road so we had to wait for a park person to come and chainsaw it to pieces.

the bison we saw by the road on the way back to the campground seemed almost fake compared to the up-close and personal ones we'd danced with on the trail.

today - on to the rockies in spite of an unfavorable weather report...