CanaDream

For nearly two weeks we felt so close to the sky only dreams could fit between us and the clouds.

While we did not necessarily set off to find some place heaven and nature might sing, Canada gave proof that the world can be kind, diverse and breathtakingly beautiful all at once.

After a week in Dead Man's Flats, in a condo overlooking the Bow River, we headed north toward Jasper. The Icefield Parkway runs parallel with the continental divide, so we were basically driving on the backbone of North America, hiking through the lungs of the planet.

As a great vacuum cleaner of a collector, we imagined Hank might enjoy filling Tolliver's leather foraging bag. Turns out most of the berries and leaves and flower petals he found were immediately woven or twisted into the tiny crocheted cat he carried, a new outfit for every adventure. Hats and necklaces, sashes and skirts, the rest of us joined in creating too, offering interesting bits and ideas; foraging bag be damned, the cat just wore it all. The cat cleaned up in Grotto Canyon's creek and was only not in Hank's pocket on the Athabasca. Hank's fondest memories of this trip will for sure be cat costumes and the hot chocolate machine in the lodge lobby.

Sixteen years in and I'd call it another season of learning, but at this point it feels safe to describe it as a lifetime, the way Tucker is never not curious. We came to the mutual opinion that an outdoor adventure ought to count for a day of college. Guided hikes like the medicine walk and the glacier expedition were obviously more formal opportunities to learn ecological, geological and historical lessons. But even on our own, throwing rocks into alpine waters and watching clouds form along mountaintops, meteorology and physics felt fun. Tuck can explain the phenomenon of limestone silt  or "glacial flour" scattering sunlight means the lakes really are as vivid at the pictures!

Tolliver would've fished every day if the itinerary allowed. Not that the agenda was unwavering, but we definitely didn't suspend our bodies in the sky between faith and physics for a few hours only to stare at the same turquoise lake. For a boy who likes to move - on foot / bike / motorcycle / boat - Tollie did a lot of quiet sitting by the water. He and I grew a new appreciation for elevation gain as listed on trail maps while he and Andy twinned in old Orvis sweaters and good spirits. Tolliver discovered the fastest route down from Parker Ridge, and convinced us all to follow him... only Tucker lost his pants.

One of the books I read while the boys fished was My Friends, by Frederik Backman. It's the story of a group of young people around Tollie's age who bond over summer break...

 “...a teenager, the best kind of human. The evidence for this is very simple: little children think teenagers are the best humans, and teenagers think teenagers are the best humans, the only people who don’t think teenagers are the best humans are adults. Which is obviously because adults are the worst kind of humans.” 

― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

Some itinerary highlights:

Canmore - Policeman's Creek Boardwalk, the old Engine Bridge, plus wading to our own little island

Johnston Canyon - suspended trail clinging to the canyon; worth going all the way to the Ink Pots!

Cascade Ponds - Indigenous led medicine walk, Bankhead ghost town

Lake Minnewanka for fishing (and apparently weddings)

Banff - Lake Louise and Bear Street Tavern

Sibbald Meadows for trout catching

Grotto Ponds - fishing and Grotto Canyon hike to waterfall

Yoho - Emerald Lake, Natural Bridge, hike to Wapta Falls 

Kananaskis (gravel route 742 / Smith-Dorrien Trail) stopping often, a playground of unfiltered wilderness

Icefield Parkway to Jasper - Peyto Lake and Parker Ridge hike to see Saskatchewan glacier 

IceWalks Tour - guided exploration of the Athabasca from Glacier Lodge

wildlife sightings: 

four bears (three black, one grizzly) coyote, mountain goat, big horn sheep, moose, elk, ptarmigan

Canada

In Canada, a scale of feeling swelled to match the immensities - curiosity as colossal as the cerulean lakes and awe the size of the Auroraed sky, longing as massive as the mountain range and love as large as the glaciers.

It's hard to recount the sensation of wild discovery, unmoored and revelatory -- rounding a corner to see the hillside full of lounging bighorn sheep, peering into the depths of a crevasse or the shallow microhabitat of a cryoconite hole - postcards come to life.

Near the beginning of our trip we took a Medicine Walk with a Cree man whose mother is a traditional Knowledge Keeper. I was reminded that many Indigenous people don’t name things like caves and rivers as much as they use words to describe them. Naming implies ownership, and the land doesn’t belong to us, we belong to the land. For example, nearby waterfalls are called things that mean cold and wet, lacy and magnificent. 

Led along a flat trail at Cascade Ponds, we listened to stories of how our guide's ancestors used (and still use) many of the plants that grow in the Canadian Rockies. He pointed out buffalo berries beloved by both bears and humans; aspen bark dust that works overtime as a natural sunscreen, a wild yeast, and a pain reliever; spruce trees that serve as pharmacy, grocery and hardware store all in one; and rosehip, edible berries the name of which in Cree roughly translates to a riotous “itchy bum berry.” 

This anecdote allows an apropos segue to the incredible joy of traveling with three boys who are so special, who tolerate our initiatives to fix wings to their backs, who appreciate our efforts to navigate traffic and chaos and fatigue, who carry around hearts that stretch to see the beauty in it all. And also who called "pluh" when the noise from the backseat might've bore a hole into my head, who tricked one another to look down the collar of their shirt and spell attic, who played an absurd guess my fart game because they are apparently made entirely of beans and what else are you supposed to do when you're thirteen, die of boredom at bedtime in a hotel room?

The five of us are still in the foothills of what I hope will be our travel adventures together, but I really loved the way the boys looked when they were looking at the Canadian Rockies.

I also love the boys' given names, but considering they don't actually belong to us either, I would like to know what it might sound like to call them things like creative, intrepid, mystifying, brilliant, malodorous...