A Different Kind of Tourist

I wonder if you can die from too much up-hill? Not likely, but I have to wonder as I watch a train of over-weight tourists hoist their thighs up Johnson's Canyon. A few of them, in between gulps for air, pull a trail of smoke from their cigarettes.

It is easy to distinguish the tourists from the nature seekers here. The tourists don't bat an eye lash as they toss their peanut shells and butts on the ground or offer a nut to a squirrel as their relatives snap the shutters. I wonder if they will even notice the "Do Not Feed The Wild Life" sign in the background when their photos are developed.

Another sign of a tourist is the footwear. For only a true tourist would wear those fashionable sandals or pumps on the trail. But fortunately most of these tourists travel only as far as the boardwalks on the park's interpretive trails. From there, where the grade would be too much for a pair of Guess Jeans and heels, the crowds thin.

Banff National Park in general caters to the tourists. One hiking guide book I thumbed through rated anything beyond a 2.2 km (1.3 mile) stroll as difficult. We have found that to escape the crowds, we must avoid the popular nature trails, go beyond the first kilometer and head up into the hills.

I find myself doing a mental comparison between this park in the Canadian Rockies and Glacier National Park in the U.S. Rockies. The biggest difference is the much-talked about and posted concerns in the U.S. for preserving the wilderness. Although both parks display signs reminding visitors not to feed wild animals, to stay on designated trails and not to trample delicate vegetation, the U.S. parks seem to more strictly enforce these. Enforcement in the U.S. it through awareness; reminding and showing people how they directly impact the environment. Here in Banff, however, that general awareness seems to be lacking, as is evident by the great number of people walking where they shouldn't, feeding marmots and squirrels and coaxing animals closer for better pictures. To me it seems, people come to Banff to be catered too, to stay at resort hotels and to spend their money on what they may see as an attraction that will always be here.

So, while I am taken in by the awesome Canadian Rockies, the lakes and the waterfalls, I feel as though I am in the middle of a wilderness showplace, a rapidly fading commodity. It is unfortunately that many people here do not see themselves as part of the process to preserve it.

Johnston Canyon

Tourists aside, we did hike in a beautiful area in Johnston Canyon. It is impressive that tiny water molecules have the power to shave rock so smooth, so straight and so deep. Hundreds of feet of this water-sheered rock, rose up from the river looking for the sky. Two of the most impressive falls in the canyon, the Upper Falls and the Lower Falls, throw pure white water into blue pools below them and then on into the hungry river.

Further up from the falls, where the interpreted trail ends and the general tourist is weeded from the day hiker, we stepped into a meadow. Dispersed in the weepy-looking meadow were seven ink pots. These springs, each a different translucent blue, bubbled up water at a constant 4C. The pool bottoms are composed of quicksand and anything that falls in is quickly eaten up.

Johnston Creak, which frames one side of the meadow, made an ideal lunch spot. We dined on yogurt and bananas and then headed back down the trail. The quantity of tourists at the bottom had exploded. We dodged ice-cream cones and made a quick get-away to our camp.

The beauty of the canyon inspired me to write this poem.

The is no sky here,
but the sound says there was.
The are no trees here,
but the sounds says there was.
The sound says the walls here
one rested on the banks.
Once when there was sky and trees.
The sound plays for the rocks now.
It sings for the dippers and black swallows.
One day three will be no more birds,
no more walls.
There will be only the sound
to tell us there was.