Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

We drove south from Calgary to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, in the foothills of the Rockies near Macleod. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Archeological surveys and oral history records the thousands of years of history of the site where the Blackfoot people skilfully drove herds of buffalo (bison) over the cliffs and used almost every part of each animal for food, clothing, tools, teepees and other essential items. The museum is excellent.

The cliffs at Head-Smashed-In sit well above the flat grassland plains below.

Looking back toward the cliffs from the plains below

The plains were covered by ice sheets during the last Ice Age and as the ice receded it left large quartzite rocks all over the sandstone plains. The hard quartzite rocks had been 'picked up' by the ice from the Rockies and the local peoples made use of the rocks for tools.

Quartzite rock deposited by melting ice on the sandstone plain.

Calgary

We first met the Bow River in the Rockies and here it is flowing through the centre of Calgary on its way to Hudson Bay I think. There are 11 dams on the bow before it even gets to Calgary so it's a highly modified river.

We stayed several days with Phil's cousin who lives on the north back of the Bow, opposite the city (Downtown they call it) itself. There is an island too, Prince's Island Park, which is delightful. And on the island there is a wetland that filters stormwater. And in the wetland there is a beaver dam. I didn't see a beaver.

Beaver dam on Prince's Island, Calgary

A tree cut down by a beaver. It will trim off smaller branches to take to the dam.
Many of the trees in the park have wire guards on the base to prevent beavers from gnawing them.

American Bittern on a path near the Prince's Island wetland, Calgary

White-tailed Jackrabbit (actually a hare), Prince's Island Park. In winter its coat will change to all white except for the black tips on its ears.

Peace Bridge, a pedestrian bridge over Bow River, Calgary.

Road to Jasper

North Thompson River valley

From Kamloops we turned north and followed the wide North Thompson River valley for several hundred kilometres. The railway line also follows the valley and there were several very very long freight trains moving north as well. (This is also one of the routes of the Rocky Mountaineer train.)

Rapids on the North Thompson River

Lake at Clearwater

As we moved north the snow-capped mountains started to appear.

We were doing the speed limit but large trucks passed us.
There were a lot of trucks on the road.

Clearwater

At Tete Jaune Cache we turned east onto the Yellowhead Highway and started to climb. Almost immediately Mt Robson filled the windscreen view. It is the highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies (3954 m) and looks splendid from the highway.
At the border of British Columbia and Alberta we discovered (without warning) we had to pay a National Park fee to proceed to Jasper. We also lost an hour because we moved into another time zone.
At every corner there were amazing views and we were very lucky with the weather. It's 104 km to Jasper from Tete Jaune Cache and it would be fantastic to be able to do the drive from east to west as well.

Mt Robson

Moose Lake

Jasper, Alberta