Day 13 - Maligne Lake

Jasper is surrounded by National Park - everywhere you look mountains leap adorn the skyline. Outside Jasper there is wilderness to explore. We chose to go to Maligne Lake. On the way we passed Medicine Lake. This is an unusual lake as it contains sink holes through which the water disappears underground eventually coming out somewhere near the Abathagasca Falls. The level of the lake diminishes gradually until the autumn when it starts to fill up again. The lake acts as a waterhole for many wildlife, and we saw a minke and a gopher.
We walked alongside the Maligne Lake for a bit but midges here were a bit of a nuisance so we decided to take a boat cruise across the lake. This was a real treat and is described as the best boat cruise in Canada - you can see why. With mountains on either side, and the colour of the lake a turquoise blue, the colour owing its nature to being the silt being taken into the water from the glaciers that are on the mountains. In places you can see where avalanches have taken away whole areas of trees in their path. The lake freezes to 6ft thick in the winter and has snow on top of that. Part of the mountain range is the Queen Elizabeth range but she has never seen them. As the boat nears towards the end of the lake there is a huge glacier in front of us with mountains either side. We stop by an isthmus island, an island that becomes an island as the lake water rises. The name of the island is Spirit Island. During our return trip we see that a huge part of the mountainside has come away at some part of history leaving giant boulders as a reminder of the catastrophic event that has happened long ago in time. It is thought that some of the boulders rolled 13km and some locked togther helping to create the lake.
On our way home we keep our eyes peeled for more wildlife, and our efforts are not in vain for we come across a black bear foraging, looking in toppled trees for bugs. Just fantastic. Then later on we come across some cariboo, a declining species in these parts.
When we were in Clearwater our slumbers were awoken on both nights by a horn. This was not a car or lorry but a train and both nights it was at 4am and 5.30am. Here in Jasper the train is one of the main points of employment. Many long trains travel through and as we walk along the main street we watch a goods train go through - I am certain that it took at least 5 minutes for all the carriages to make their way passed where we were standing. It must be quite something to drive these trains through the Rocky Mountains.