As we were driving around today, I thought I wasn’t going to have much to say in today’s blog but it turned out we had a lot happen during the day.
We slept in this morning – when we crossed the State line between British Columbia and Alberta our clocks went forward an hour and Stu and I ended up sleeping in until after 7. There is very little to no Wi-Fi and 4G at Becker’s so our phones weren’t pinging which probably also helped.
We went for an early morning walk along the river, Stu had the binoculars he is desperately trying to see a bear or Moose. The forest around here has been totally destroyed by the 2024 wildfires, as was a large amount of Becker’s. Becker’s was closed for the 2024 season to recover from the fires.
After breakfast we decided to head to the Athabasca Falls which are about 30km from here down the Icefields Parkway. The falls are beautiful and you can imagine little critters crossing the very swift river getting caught in the current and washing down through the falls. There is a sign that says that various animals wait where the water comes out of the canyon to get anything that has perished in the falls – an easy meal. There are lots of walkways and platforms so you can view the falls and potholes from various angles.
After the falls we drove down the Icefields Parkway a little longer before we turned around and headed back into town. We will be doing the Icefields Parkway on Wednesday when we head down to Banff and Field.
We went to Starbucks for lunch, predominantly so I could use their Wi-Fi to post my blog. After lunch we had a wander around town and did a little bit of souvenir shopping before returning to the chalets to wait for our pickup.
We had booked our wildlife viewing tour through Maligne Adventures – they had a van near where we parked yesterday so we went in and booked. We are on the 4:30pm tour. Our driver’s name is Sam and today we are going to try and spot Elk, beavers, eagles Moose and bears.
We have an option that we can stay on the bus after he drops people off – the ticket says don’t book anything for after as the tour may run late, but of course people have booked dinners so have to be dropped off by 7:30.
We saw a big male elk with his harem crossing the river which was amazing to watch and Sam told us how aggressive they were. We then headed to the Beaver pond and saw a beaver swimming around, however we were looking into the sun and couldn’t really see much. After a quick loo break we were off looking for bears, however they were very elusive, and we didn’t spot any. Sam then dropped those off that had dinner plans and we were up the Maligne valley looking for Moose.
As we drove up the valley, we saw a whole lot of cars parked on the side of the road and all the tourists out of their cars (idiots). Sam pulled over and we looked out the windows and we got a glimpse of a grizzly bear and her two cubs, the black one in the photo is the older male cub who is about 2 or 3. The grizzly is known as 222 and can be a bit of a problem, and one of her cubs is on a watch list (the male) as a tourist hand fed it to get better photos, and now it comes up to cars begging food. There are signs everywhere saying “A Fed Bear is a Dead Bear”. Bears that habitually come to get food from people end up having to get euthanised as they will eventually attack people to get food or if they don’t give them food. You have to look closely to spot the bear.
As the light was failing, we sped up the valley and I called out to Sam that I spotted something off to our right. When we pulled up it was a female Moose. I’d spotted a Moose! So we hit the trifecta – elk harem, bear and Moose.
We got back to the chalets after 9pm, Sam earned his tip today.
davstuholidays 