'Evidence' of Beaver? - Jasper

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Our campground is cool. It has been taken over by elk in rut who have free reign of the grounds and emit their screeching bellows all night long, trying to woo females but, in reality, just keeping everyone awake :-). I've strapped up Quin's ankle so he able to hobble short distances now, mainly lured on by the promise of food. More trips to the bakery, haha.

After checking out the job and housing scene in Jasper (which seems more promising than Banff), I went for a short walk called the Valley of Five Lakes, largely because the Lonely Planet promised beavers and evidence thereof. Well, the beavers were nowhere to be seen, nor was the evidence, unless you count bark missing from some of the trees (which we tried to convince ourselves was indeed caused by beavers, but the fact that the missing bark was often situated several metres up the trunk did not help give this theory much credibility). However, the lakes were pretty - all different shades of blue. And I absolutely love all the fall-coloured trees :-).

Well, having been thwarted in our quest for beavers, we set off in Rufous to look for other wildlife - we figured we had a prety good chance of finding elk at Jasper Fairmont Golf Course, if Banff was anything to go by. However, we drove there only to find that the Fairmont meanies had designated the access road to the golf course in Jasper as for 'guests only'. Pfft. But all was not lost - as we were driving back towards Maligne Lake Road, what do we see by the side of the road, but two magnificent bull elk! They were grazing away happily and, for some reason, seemed to be friends, maybe because there were no females around to show off to. A little further up the road at Maligne Canyon (which, by this time of the evening, was blissfully deserted), we were met by a herd of deer nibbling someone's flower garden and a bighorn sheep trotting over the boulders. You've gotta love Jasper.

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