Banff

Banff

Fri Sept 11-Tues Sept 15 We liked the Banff campground, the local library (for internet work) and the beauty of the area so much we stayed there for several days.

Bears
Bears continued to be a major concern for the National Parks Service, and every camper was required to keep a “bare” campsite. If you were travelling without a hardsided vehicle, there were lockers in which you were to put all your foodstuffs, cooking implements and cosmetics whenever you were absent from your site. According to the ranger, they had few incidents with bears because of this policy.

But though bears may not have regarded the campground as the local fast food site, the RAVENS were fully tuned in and they were as big as small cats. Every morning the ravens scoured the sites for crumbs and dropped bits of food. The people next to us, who were juggling two toddlers and all their toys, cleaned up their site except for one tied plastic shopping bag of rubbish, and the next morning the bag was torn to shreds and their entire campsite was littered with its picked-over contents.

Showers
The showers at Banff were wonderful because there was heat! A forced hot air blower kept the shower stalls at 73 degrees F, despite the mornings being just above freezing. That was a great pleasure after running across the campground freezing!

Deer
Though we didn't see any bears, we did have a mule deer leap right up over an embankment fence to almost in front of our van. I hit the brakes and the deer sproinged off back over the fence, as if it were on a pogo stick!

Museums
Mostly the Banff pics will speak for themselves, but there are always those times when you don't use the camera. We loved the Buffalo Trading Post Museum which had fantastic and huge displays of First Nations people in their customary lifestyle and their tools and artwork.

The Whyte Museum was good for the social history of Banff, especially the Luxton and MacDougall families, and the history of the national parks wardens, and it had an exhibit on glacier photography as well.

Correction: In the last blog I mentioned “Projects in Time” but I stand corrected by my son Lucien. It's Passport in Time which is a public archaeology program run by the United States Forest Service. Founded in 1988 by Gordon Peters from an idea by the Ontario Archaeological Society, the PIT became a national program in 1991. The Passport in Time offers opportunities for amateur archaeologists to experience excavation and survey of archaeological sites in National Forests in many states throughout the US.
www.passportintime.com/

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