Podcasts about columbia icefields

Welcome to the Back to Business Podcast, where we spotlight Calgary's industry leaders and delve into the heart of entrepreneurialism in our vibrant city!Tyler Fikowski grew up surrounded by entrepreneurs with his family owning the Saskatchewan River Crossing near the Columbia Icefields. A family of business owners helped foster his passion for business from an early age. A former aviation technician in the Air Force, Tyler transitioned into sales and marketing, applying his leadership skills to build and scale businesses. He played a key role in growing a SaaS company to over 130 reps across North America, launched two television shows and Now, as the founder of According to Plan Sales & Marketing, Tyler leverages his experience to help small businesses thrive using innovative sales strategies, marketing expertise, and cutting-edge AI solutions.Get Connected With Tyler:https://www.atpsalesandmarketing.com https://www.instagram.com/atpsalesandmarketing/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/accordingto-plan-sales-marketing/?viewAsMember=trueThis episode sponsored by The Edward:https://edwardliving.com/Visit www.calpeteclub.com for information on our next networking and membership opportunities.https://calpeteclub.com/https://twitter.com/calpeteclubhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/calgary-petroleum-club-3a5868117/https://www.facebook.com/calpeteclubhttps://www.youtube.com/user/calpeteclub

Welcome to The Morning News Podcast for Monday, July 20th. We begin with a look-ahead to today's City Council vote on making masks mandatory on transit – and indoor public places. We catch up with Matthew Conrod, Global Calgary's Social Host. Next we get the latest on Saturday's deadly motor coach roll-over at the Columbia Icefields. Global Reporter Adam Toy joins us with details on the on-going investigation. With City Hall's public hearings on systemic racism now two weeks behind us, where do we go from here? We speak with Ward 9 Councillor Cian-Carlo Carra on the action plan, moving ahead. It's some good news surrounding COVID-19; an increase in the survival rate among those infected. We get the details on a newly released study from Dr. Ted Jablonski. And finally – “Nature's Calling”….but there's nowhere to answer! We speak with an author who says we need to make public toilets – a ‘number one' issue….a problem which has been highlighted due to the pandemic.

Orchids tricking Bumblebees Wandering trails around the Bow River valley, it seems like every day there are new and exciting changes taking place. The leaves have begun to emerge and the early season blooms are adding a splash of colour to the meadows and forest leaf litter. Today I saw my first Calypso orchids of the season. These tiny, delicate orchids are one of the first forest flowers to emerge in the spring. The forest floor is still a tangle of pine needles with nary a hint of colour, other than the few green leaves and similarly coloured buffaloberry blooms, willow bushes, and bilberry. Calypso, or Fairy Slipper orchids as they are also known, are one of the most beautiful of the mountain orchids. More intricately coloured than the showier Yellow Ladyslipper Orchid, it takes a keen eye to see the amazing detail in the bloom. Each plant produces a single basal leaf close to the ground. In the spring, not long after the snows have melted, a single stem will emerge to produce a single, tiny flower. They rarely reach higher than 20 cm above the ground and the flowers are only around 3 cm across. In some regions, it's nicknamed "Hider-of-the-north" because it's so easy to miss. While there are 4 species globally, there are only two found in the mountain west, Calypso bulbosa var. americana and Calypso bulbosa var. occidentalis. On the eastern side of the great divide, you'll only see the americana variety while British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana and Alaska have both. All of the flowers are similar in appearance. The first thing you'll notice on close examination is the typical ladyslipper appearance. Usually, 3 sepals and 3 identical petals rise vertically and to the side of the flower. The actual slipper has a pinkish cover and the pouch is intricately coloured with dark purple streaks. It sports a yellow beard which holds pollen, and a lower lip. In the eastern slopes, the americana variety has a white to pinkish lip while the western occidentalis variety has a lip covered with darker purple spots. Perhaps one of the most remarkable features of the Calypso orchid is that it doesn't provide nectar to the bumblebee queens that seek it out looking for a sugary reward. Instead, they get large amounts of pollen deposited on their body with no actual nectar for their effort. This is not very common in nature. As you can imagine, providing a sugary treat is a huge motivator for bumblebees to come visit. Instead, the Calypso provides bright colouration that says, come over and say hi, and then provides little in return to the bumblebee. Food deception, as this behaviour is known, has seen more intense study during the past few decades. Biologists have come up with a number of theories as to why it occurs. Food-deceptive orchids usually see fewer visits by bees for obvious reasons, but it can also help to ensure cross-pollination by making bees less likely to visit the same plant twice. Two competing theories try to explain how food-deceptive orchids are able to attract pollinators even though they don't offer nectar. The first focuses on the fact that they are often one of only a few bright flowers at this time of year, and this may increase their chances of being visited, despite the lack of nectar. Alternatively, they may still benefit from other nectar-producing flowers nearby. Their blooming period overlaps with a few other pollen producers like willows and some bilberry plants. A 2015 study published in Scientific World Journal found Calypso pollen on 7% of bumblebee queens captured on willow plants, and 18.2% of those visited more than one flower. Since flowering willows make an area attractive to bumblebee queens, the Calypso likely benefits from their proximity. On a smaller scale, the lack of a diversity of other flowering plants helps the Calypso to attract queens that may have been attracted to the area for willow or bilberry nectar. Why not just provide nectar like other flowering plants? Quite simply, it's expensive. Calypso orchids save resources by not producing nectar. A single visit by a queen can take a lot of pollen and so they don't need too many repeat visits. They still need to attract the queen though. Their bright yellow pollen beard and purple streaked pouch provide a visual attraction. They also have a strong smell similar to the smell of vanilla. Essentially, while the flower doesn't offer a reward, it still takes advantage of bright colours and a strong scent to attract a hungry bumblebee queen. In the end, these tricky flowers are able to attract enough queens to ensure reliable pollination. That brings up another question: why just bumblebees queens. The simple answer is that the queens are the only bumblebees around when the Calypso blooms. As summer begins to draw to a close, a bumblebee colony begins to prepare for the following year by producing a final brood of larvae that will contain several queens along with some males. It's those queens that will find a safe place to hibernate for the winter, usually around 20 cm below the surface. They produce glycol in their blood to keep them from freezing to death. Other than these few queens, the rest of the colony dies at the end of every season. After a 6-month sleep, these groggy queens emerge to look for the very earliest spring flowers. In this area, Calypso are one of these wildflowers, along with willow, buffaloberry, and bilberry that greet their arrival. It's this grogginess and the naivete of these newly emerged queens that is likely why the Calypso is able to fool them into pollinating them. As she gathers strength and experience, she'll get to recognize Calypso and avoid them in the future. The next year, it'll be another naïve new queen and the process begins anew. Her next order of business is to find a den. They're fond of mouse, ground squirrel, or weasel burrows. They'll even take advantage of an empty nest box as well. Once she finds a den, she begins the real job of preparing for a new brood of worker bees. Unlike honeybees that can have thousands of individuals, a bumblebee colony will only have a few hundred. She starts by building a wax honeypot that she fills with nectar. This will offer her a food supply when the weather doesn't cooperate. They don't make hexagonal honeycomb-like honey bees, but instead, she makes waxy cups. Into these, she'll lay 5-15 eggs. These will pupate in about 20 days and emerge as adults after 4-5 weeks. From this point on her foraging days are over. These solely female workers will take over those duties and she'll spend the rest of her life in the den laying and tending to eggs. At the end of summer, the colony begins to produce additional queens along with some males. They leave the nest and look for suitable mates. Once mated, the queens will try to feed on as much pollen as possible in order to store up reserves for the winter. She'll then look for a den to hibernate, waking up just in time for a new crop of Calypso to bloom. Let's Talk Parks Canada Way back in episode 26, I dedicated the entire episode to slamming some of the decisions that Parks Canada had made in the previous years that were putting the important ecological integrity of parks at risk. At that time, Parks Canada released the results of an intergovernmental panel that had listened to stakeholders looking into Canadians views on Parks Canada's management of the nation's parks. Simultaneously, they were trying to force feed an $86.4 million dollar bike path from Jasper to the Columbia Icefields - while trails with decades of history were falling into disrepair. To their chagrin, a master of the Freedom of Information Act, Ken Rubin, managed to get all of the original internal documents from Parks Canada's own scientists that reflected the same concerns that many of us had - along with some that I hadn't even considered. To the agencies credit, they didn't deflect the results of the report. They owned. It. Also in their defence, some of the decisions were a reflection of a decade of the Harper government's anti-science, anti-conservation policies. It was a decade of open the floodgates, spend money where it will return the most short-term returns and let the ecology be damned. The Liberals have taken the time to listen to a decade of frustration on how Parks Canada has lost its way. I first came to the Canadian Rockies in 1980 along with my best friend, to hike the 176 km South Boundary Trail running from Nigel Creek in Banff all the way to Medicine Lake in Jasper National Park. Today, routes like the north and south boundary trails are no longer viable backpacking routes. An April 16, 2018 document released by Parks Canada titled Backcountry Fact Sheet for Operators describes the routes as such: "Users of the North and South Boundary trails should consider these more like wilderness routes and expect trees down, with a variety of un-bridged stream and river crossings. Campgrounds are primitive with little if any infrastructure apart from designated areas for cooking, camping and open pits for human waste." When I visited in the 80's, Parks Canada was expanding the facilities at these backcountry sites by providing good toilets, trees for hanging food, and well-designated campsites. It was still a wilderness trail, simply due to the fact that it traversed long distances with little proximity to highways. At the same time, these were also the days of backcountry wardens and we regularly encountered them in the backcountry. In 2018, once you leave the highway, fuggedabout seeing any representative of the Parks Canada Agency. The days of backcountry patrols are long gone. Even the warden cabins are falling into disrepair. Now while the South and North Boundary Trails have always been considered wilderness trails, other trails like the Tonquin Valley Trail in Jasper National Park are not. Back in Episode 10, I talked about growing complaints about Jasper's most popular backcountry trails becoming virtually impassable due to decades of neglect. Jasper's Fitzhugh Newspaper profiled the neglect. It quoted one particular example: "When B.C. resident Philip McDouall set out with three friends to hike the Tonquin Valley Sept. 16, he expected to encounter challenging conditions typical of a backcountry trail. What he didn’t expect to find was appalling trail conditions, dilapidated infrastructure and facilities overflowing with excrement". Of all the trails in Jasper, the Tonquin is one of the most iconic. The article continued: "On top of the appalling trail conditions, he also said many of the campsites are in a state of disrepair with dilapidated cooking areas, broken bear poles and outhouses that were nearly overflowing. At the Clithroe Campsite, in particular, he said the outhouse was so full there was evidence people had been defecating in other areas of the site. 'It was horrible,' said McDouall, 'The way the one chap described it, when you lifted the lid up and sat down you were literally sitting on the last person’s turd'." Why do I dredge up these old stories again? Because this past week the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna published the government's response to the 2017 "Let's Talk Parks Canada" nationwide consultation. The early results of the consultation, which I talk about in Episode 26 was just the first response from the government on the many challenges facing our parks and protected areas, as well as cultural, and aboriginal sites. McKenna, in the government's official response to the consultations published just last week, has reaffirmed Parks Canada's commitment to making the protection of ecological integrity job one. The government has taken a beating over the past few years over the increased development within the parks and the endless focus on bringing more and more cars through the park gates. Most of this was the legacy of the Harper years, but the Liberals are trying to chart a new course. While the words are comforting, we'll need to see whether the words result in action. (I'll add a link to the report in the show notes for this episode). The report puts forward three priorities for Parks Canada going forward: To protect and Restore our national parks and historic sites through focussed investments, working with Indigenous peoples, working with provinces and territories, and ensuring ecological integrity is the first priority in decision making. Enable people to further discover and connect with our parks and heritage through innovative ideas that help share these special places with Canadians. Sustain for generations to come the incredible value—both ecological and economic—that our parks and historic sites provide for communities. The value they bring to fighting climate change, protecting species at risk, and shaping our Canadian identity and jobs and economic opportunity for local communities. These are all things that we have been fighting for for the past decade in the mountain west. During the engagement process, the number one concern voiced was simply that the parks were not being protected and that ecological integrity was NOT the first priority. Respondents also voiced concerns over the reduced role of science and scientific funding in the decision-making process. Parks Canada has historically produced some of the most compelling wildlife research in the country and many of the respondents, myself included, reflected this disillusionment. Along with reductions in scientific funding, rigor, and the freedom to publish, respondents lamented the lack of maintenance of existing facilities. I've covered this in the preamble to this story but the challenge remains. Decades of decline leave long lists for renewal. In defence of Parks Canada though, many good things have begun to happen on this front. There have been huge investments in trailhead facilities in Jasper, along with dramatic investments into the Mount Edith Cavell day-use area. While the focus currently seems to be on repairing long-neglected front-country facilities, it's also important that funds are equally invested in even more decrepit backcountry campsites, trails, bridges, and signage. The more backcountry facilities deteriorate, the more damage the use of backcountry trails generate. If trails are experiencing deep rutting or flooding, hikers will bypass these areas leading to widening or braiding of trails. If outhouses are not maintained than hikers will bypass them and backcountry sanitation is also compromised. Parks has also realized that decisions have not been made transparently in the past. Decisions allowing the Glacier Skywalk, and tentatively an $86.4 million dollar bike trail from Jasper to the Columbia Icefields are only two examples. Other decisions allowing expansions to the Lake Louise Ski areas should also be coming into question. The Icefields bike trail should be immediately cancelled and reviews into the Lake Louise Ski Hill Expansion properly assessed. Participants in the study displayed a lack of trust in the transparency of decisions along with the ability of Parks Canada to really put ecological integrity on the top of their priorities. When stated goals simply don't match management decisions, trust gets eroded. Minister McKenna also vowed to focus on both ecological integrity AND to "restore funding to research, ecological monitoring, and public reporting." The past decade has not been easy on Parks Canada and the nation's parks and reserves desperately need stable funding to ensure important research is ongoing. The 30-year study of wildlife movement corridors and highway crossing structures is a great example. The global value of this study is largely based on its long years of study. Good science takes time, and this study shows dramatic changes in wildlife adaptation to crossing structures over time. Without stable funding, science like this would be lost. We need the federal government to be a leader in research, ecosystem and facility restoration, and environmental assessments. These pillars can help to reduce some of the damage caused by a decade of neglect. Traffic management in busy parks was also a key point in the feedback received by Parks Canada. Over the past decade or so, with deteriorating backcountry conditions and increased frontcountry development, some 95% of the traffic visits the same 2% of the park - the paved corridors. As an example, traffic on Banff Townsite roads increased 17% between 2014 and 2017, increasing from 22,600 to 27,500 per day during July and August. This weekend's Victoria Day holiday could see a repeat of last year. On the Sunday of the long weekend, Banff saw 31,600 cars moving in and out of the townsite. The roads are only designed to accommodate 24,000 cars per day. The cars backed up at both entrances to town with delays in some cases stretching as much as 30 minutes. This doesn't even take into account the increased transit service in the mountain parks. Local Roam Transit saw an increase of 25 percent during July and August. While the final numbers are not in, it's expected that some 700,000 riders will have taken advantage of the service. In addition to this, vast numbers used shuttles from Calgary to Banff, Banff to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, and from the Lake Louise overflow campground to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise. Last summer, ATS Traffic performed magic in terms of keeping vehicles moving, reducing traffic jams, and keeping people from parking for kilometres along busy roadways. While this is laudable, we need to ask ourselves an important question: how many visitors are simply too many? If our focus is on bringing more and more and more people to the shore of Lake Louise, we may reduce traffic snafus, but we are also negatively impacting the visitor experience. Ten years of the Harper government trying to push as many cars as possible through the gates to cash in on the rush didn't factor in the importance of the experience. Tourism is fickle. The experience is critical. Last summer, I was on a multi-day trip and was finishing my day at a hotel in the Village of Lake Louise. My most beautiful lady, Jules was coming to meet me to stay the night and have a nice dinner at the Station Restaurant. She drove from Canmore to the Lake Louise exit. To meet me, she needed to take a left turn off of the exit, but the ATS Traffic staff forced all cars to turn right towards the ski hill. She complied, even though it was the wrong direction. When she had an opportunity, she did a u-turn to head back towards the village. When she got to the village, no vehicles were allowed up the road towards the Chateau. Instead, they were all required to turn right to go towards the Station. She was becoming increasingly frustrated and was on the verge of heading home when she was finally allowed the right of way. Essentially, they were stacking cars off of the highway. The roads don't have the capacity to accommodate so many vehicles trying to go up the hill to the Chateau, so the ATS staff were simply stacking the cars along any road that was available. This prevented cars from backing up into the busy traffic lanes of the Trans-Canada Highway. It was one of the most painful tourism experiences I've witnessed, but safety was the primary concern. When we walked to the restaurant, we chatted with drivers stuck in the various stacking lanes and they expressed major frustration. Many had travelled long distances to see Lake Louise but instead were stuck in Toronto-style traffic. Even if they eventually made it to the lake, along with the thousands of other visitors in their convoy, the experience was not a positive one. As a destination, we can't afford large groups of visitors flocking to sites like Trip Advisor and saying: "don't go to Banff…they've ruined it!". We need to look at hard limits to the number of people that can visit sites like Moraine Lake and Lake Louise. As much as we need to appreciate the revenue that each additional car brings, we also need to think of the future. If tourists of today slam the experience, then how many visitors will come tomorrow? This doesn’t even consider the impacts to wildlife and ecological integrity that comes about as a result of high-intensity, volume tourism. Since park fees stay in the park they're collected, it forces the park to rely on those dollars for their operating costs. When parks depend on gate fees, it's hard to imagine they can focus on improving visitor experiences and ecological integrity when doing so requires them to give up large amounts of important operating income. The funding of the park should NOT require the park to compromise its mandate in order to have the cash to keep the lights on. One of the final topics covered by Minister McKenna has to deal with expanding opportunities for new people to experience Canada's Parks. She repeatedly mentions "new Canadians" as a group that, as the future of Canada, need expanded opportunities to explore and learn from our natural landscapes. I totally agree that new Canadians can play a huge role in the future of our parks but we need to facilitate the experiences in a way that will help them understand the ecology, sensitivity, and uniqueness of the parks. When literature is only available in two arbitrary languages, we're not facilitating the experiences of visitors whose first language is not English or French.  Canada has huge numbers of tourists arriving from countries like Germany, Japan, India, Taiwan, Korea, and increasingly, China. Many of these visitors don't come from places with intact wilderness or truly WILD life. We read about wildlife habituation and other park management challenges, and often the names in the articles reflect the potential for language barriers. We need to make sure that the literature we provide to visitors is in a language they can understand. If we want visitors to the National Parks to respect and appreciate nature, we have to help them understand just how delicate wilderness really is. That is best done without artificial barriers. All literature should be available at least in English, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, Hindi, and Arabic. I would also argue that Parks Canada should reach out to diverse communities through outreach as a way to help bring the messages of conservation to these same communities in their native language. Let's make sure our visitors have all the tools they need to have the best, and safest, visit possible. The landscape will thank us for it. And with that, it's time to wrap this episode up. Don't forget that Ward Cameron Enterprises is your source for step-on, hiking, and photography guides in the Canadian Rockies. You can find us online at www.WardCameron.com or visit our Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/WardCameronEnterprises. If you'd like to reach out to me on Twitter, you can hit me up @wardcameron. Don't forget to visit the show notes at www.MountainNaturePodcast.com/ep060 for links to additional information as well as an easy subscribe button so you'll never miss an episode…and with that, the sun's out and it's time to go hiking. I'll talk to you next week.

Welcome to episode 57 of the Mountain Nature and Culture Podcast, I'm your host, Ward Cameron and I'm recording this on April 1, 2018. This week I look at three amazing fossils that are teaching palaeontologists about the evolution of some of the world's oldest creatures. I also look at the return of red fox to the Rocky Mountains. It's an action-packed episode so with that said, let's get to it. Some wisdom from John Muir I wanted to start today with a fabulous quote by John Muir. As a hiking guide and naturalist, I see too many people striding through the wilderness, eager to reach a destination, or bag a peak, yet they miss the beauty that's all around them. For me, the best way to enjoy nature is to simply bathe in it. Spend time in the wilderness and let the energy and the ambience wash over you. If you really want to experience the mountain west, then stop, sit down and listen. Wander slowly along trails while filling all of your senses with endless stimulation. Feel the bark of a tree; listen for the sounds that make up the unique chorus of each location; get down on your knees and look at the tiniest things you can find; and become a part of something far bigger than you. John Muir was one of the greatest naturalists, nature writers, and activists that the U.S. has ever produced, along with the likes of Edward Abbey, Rachel Carson, Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Aldo Leopold. He explored the American west during the mid to latter parts of the 19th century and was instrumental in helping to protect landscapes like Yosemite, Sequoia National Park, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Muir first arrived in California in 1868 and soon after made a pilgrimage into the Yosemite Valley. Muir wrote that: "He was overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower". He was one of the first people to recognize the action of glaciers on the landscape and helped debunk the existing beliefs that the vistas were the result of earthquakes as opposed to glaciers. Muir was instrumental in the creation of Yosemite National Park, first as a state park in 1890, and then as a national park in 1906. In 1892, he helped found the Sierra Club and served as its first president. By the time he died in 1914, he had published some 300 articles and 12 books. John Muir spent his entire life exploring, bathing in, documenting, and fighting to protect natural, intact ecosystems. The John Muir Trail is one of the U.S.'s most beloved trails, yet had you asked what he thought of hiking, this was his response: "I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains - not hike! Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, 'A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not 'hike' through them." - John Muir I couldn't agree more. Next up more Burgess wonders New Burgess Shale Discoveries The various exposures of the Burgess Shales in Yoho and Kootenay National Parks continue to provide new and exciting discoveries. It seems that each year introduces us to species never before described, or spectacular new fossils of old friends that allow palaeontologists to reclassify them based on new evidence revealed. One such fossil is the newly described Habelia optata. This fossil is not new to palaeontology. In fact, Charles Walcott, the original discoverer of the Burgess Shales, described the first specimen in 1912, only three years after he first stumbled on this bonanza of ancient life. A recent study published in BMC Evolutionary Biology has shed some amazing new light on this unique creature according to lead scientist Cédric Aria. In a recent CBC article, he stated: "It's like a centipede or perhaps an insect that would have not one pair of mandibles, but five." One of the challenges with fossils of the Burgess Shales is that they are found between two layers of shale. This leaves a flattened, reflective film in the rock layers. Think of them as a two-dimensional black and white photograph of an ancient creature. This means that each fossil may represent an image of a different angle or aspect of the animal and thus reveal details not visible in earlier samples. It's this constant evolution of understanding that helps fossils to eventually be classified in a much more exacting way. At a minimum, palaeontologists need to see fossils samples that show the side, top, and front views in order to begin to get a better idea of the structure. As new fossils reveal new details, scientists get a deeper understanding of how the animal fits within classic scientific categories. Charles Walcott knew that Habelia was an arthropod, but he didn't have enough information to pin down where it fit within this huge group of animals. Arthropods are one of So, what would you be willing to endure to make it home for Christmas In these modern times? These days trips home usually involve expensive plane fares or long drives on winter roads made safer by winter tires, interior heaters, and modern clothing. What if you were faced with a 112 km snowshoe trek on an unbroken trail in a blizzard - you know, just like your parents told you what it was like to walk to school in the days of yore! Well, Tom Wilson was more than just a mountain man. He was the personal assistant of "Hells Bells Rogers" during his railroad surveys through the Rockies and later started the first guiding operation in the mountains. In December of 1904, Tom was determined to be home for Christmas dinner with his family. His route began at Kootenay Plains where he had his horse ranch. Today it's located along the David Thompson Highway east of the Saskatchewan River Crossing in Alberta. His route would have followed the Siffleur River Valley up and over Pipestone Pass. He then followed the Pipestone River towards its confluence with the Bow River, and then followed the Bow into Banff. He wasn't the first to follow that route. In August of 1859, James Hector of the Palliser Expedition had passed this way. He wrote in his journal: "After camping to the south of the pass, “…opposite to a waterfall which forms the source of Pipe Stone Creek, and where the stream leaps and rushes down a gutter-like channel, from a height of 450 feet,” they set out to, “ascend to the height of land by a steep rocky path that led at some places close by snow that was still lying from last winter. After five miles we got above the woods, and passed over a fine sloping prairie, with big bald mountains on either side. Plants with esculent roots were very abundant here, and many parts of the sward looked as if it had been ploughed, where the bears had been rooting them up like pigs….Two miles further we passed over a bleak bare “divide,” where there was no vegetation, and elevated about 2000 feet above last night’s encampment.” Others had also passed that way. They included Normal Collie, Hugh Stutfield, and Herman Wooley in 1898 as they headed north on an expedition that saw them discovering the Columbia Icefields. Just a few months after Hector had passed through, the Earl of Southesk, James Carnegie, also traversed the pass. These men were all seasoned travellers, but none of them attempted the route in winter. Tom, like all of his contemporaries, would have been kitted out in heavy woolen clothing with leather boots and snowshoes. Here is how Tom described his experience in a letter to pioneer surveyor and founder of the Alpine Club, A. O. Wheeler: "There is not much to tell of my trip over the Pipestone Pass. It was simply the case of a man starting on a seventy-mile snowshoe trip across the mountains to eat his Christmas dinner with his wife and family, and getting there and eating dinner, the pleasure being well worth the trip. I rode to within eight miles of the summit and started early the next morning on snowshoes to cross the pass (8,300 feet). It was snowing a little and very cold when I started and when I got opposite the Clearwater Gap, a blizzard came up. I could not see more than six or eight feet ahead in that grey snow light that makes everything look level. I was on the trail alongside a mountainside, and was afraid of falling down into one of those steep side collars (which you remember on that side), and of breaking my snowshoes, so I turned and went down the mountain to the creek bottom. The snow was seven or eight feet deep and I fell through a snow bridge, getting both feet wet. It was below zero and a long way up to timber whichever way I turned, but I'd never liked hitting the back trail. It was eight o'clock at night before I crossed the summit of the pass and reached the first timber. I got a fire started, but it was drifting and snowing so hard that the snow covered my socks and moccasins as fast as I could wring (sic) them dry, and, owing to the fierce wind, the flames leap in every direction , making it impossible to get near the fire, so at half past nine I gave it up, put on my wet foot gear and snowshoes and started down the valley. I could not see and felt my way with a stick. By daylight I had made three and a half miles; not much, but it kept the circulation going. In the heavy timber I made a fire and dried out. My feet were beginning to pain as they had been thawed out twice already. I made three miles more that day and finished the last of my grub. The big snowshoes sank fifteen inches in the soft new snow and were a big drag on my frozen toes. I saw it meant three or four more days tramping without grub to make Laggan. I made it in three, but the last day I could only make about fifty yards without resting, and my tracks did not leave a very straight line. The chief trouble I had was to keep from going to sleep; it would have been so much easier to quit than to go on. " Wheeler tried to bring some clarity to Tom's adventure. He wrote: "Think for a moment what it really meant; that every time he put on his snowshoes, his toes got frozen owing to the tight shoe straps; that every time he took them off, his feet had to be thawed out; that every step had to raise a load of ten to fifteen pound of soft snow; that wood had to be collected and cut to keep alive during the night; that the fierce pain would drive away sleep; that he had no food, and always before him those interminable, slow, dragging miles of snowy wilderness. It must have required iron determination to make it to the end of the never-ending track, to eat his Christmas dinner with his wife and family. " Like any winter backcountry traveller that has suffered from frostbite, Tom made his way to see Dr. Brett, Banff's resident physician. He is rumoured to have stated: "I hope I won't have to loose (sic) them Doc. I've hade (sic) 'em a long time and I'm sort of used to 'em." Tom was very lucky. He did lose several toes on each foot but he liked to joke that since the doc had removed the same number on each foot, he was still well balanced. I want to thank Roger Patillo for sharing this story in his book The Canadian Rockies Pioneers, Legends and True Tales. Click the title of the book if you'd like to purchase a copy.  Tom was one of many early and modern mountain wanderers to lose toes to frostbite. Even today, it is a real danger for people out on snowshoes, as well as backcountry and cross-country skis. Always plan for changes in weather and remember, unlike Tom, you can always turn back if conditions change for the worse. Are wolves returning to the Bow Valley? The Bow River valley has not been a good home for wolves. Over the years, pack after pack has become established only to gradually get whittled away by vehicle and train impacts, and more recently, human food conditioning. The summer of 2016 was particularly bad for the Bow Valley wolf pack. The summer began on a very high note its 5 adults being joined by 6 new pups making for a total of 11 wolves in the pack. Unfortunately, this situation changed for the worse with four of the pups killed in two separate incidents with trains. The alpha female and another young female were both shot by Park Wardens after becoming accustomed to handouts from campers in the Two Jack Lake Campground. By the end of the season, none of the pups had survived. In a separate incident, one of the remaining wolves was shot by a hunter in B.C. By 2017, there were only two wolves remaining and they dispersed. As of Sept 2017, the alpha male had joined a pack in the southern part of Banff known as the Spray Pack. The surviving female had joined another male and possibly moved out of the area. Paul Paquette is a well-respected biologist who headed the largest wolf study ever undertaken in the Bow Valley. In recent years he was quoted as stating the following about the challenges for wolves in the Bow River valley: “It’s a wildlife ghetto. People need to understand, the Bow Valley has two townsites that are growing, two highways, a corridor for high transmission power lines, dams, golf courses, ski hills … They’ve got all that in the valley, so you can imagine the responses for the wolves and wildlife – it’s a ghetto for them and they’re trying to survive in there.” We are in a constant battle with developers and the town to try to make sure that we can keep wildlife like wolves and grizzly bears on the landscape. Recently, there seems to be a reason for cautious optimism. The Bow Valley is great habitat for wolves when you consider the high numbers of potential prey animals available to them. In a recent interview on CBC, Jesse Whittington, a wildlife ecologist with Parks Canada stated: "We're curious about what's going to happen," said Whittington. "Either the old male and the pack from the Spray could move back into the Bow Valley, or one of the neighbouring packs might slide in." In October of 2017, three wolves were spotted west of Banff near Castle Mountain. These were previously unknown wolves that may be looking for a new place to call home. As Jesse Whittington stated in an interview with the Rocky Mountain Outlook: "If you have a male and female who hook-up and have pups, all of a sudden you could have a pack of seven wolves, and if those pups survive and have pups again, you get a pretty large pack" The Bow Valley has not been kind to its wolves, but we still need them. They play a key role in keeping elk and deer populations in check. It's too easy to look at Banff today and point out the world-class wildlife crossings along the highway and assume that wolves will have an easy time coexisting with people. This couldn't be further from the truth. The section of highway that is fenced is primarily through Banff and a little to the east and west.  Wolves cover vast ranges and the crossing structures only protect them in a small part of their range. The train tracks and Bow Valley Parkway also remain unfenced. Just this past November, two wolves were killed on the Trans-Canada Highway east of Canmore. It was trains that killed 4 of the pack's cubs in 2016. Parks Canada and Canadian Pacific Railway have been conducting ongoing research around the idea of fencing and other wildlife warning systems in areas of highest danger. We also have rampant development in areas like Canmore which can hamper movement through the valley to the east and south into Kananaskis and beyond. And finally, we have the challenge of people on the landscape. More than 90% of the use of our designated wildlife corridors in and around Canmore was by people. If the corridors are viewed as just another recreational trail, then eventually, the wildlife will simply avoid the corridor altogether. In the past, we've been lucky enough to have several wolf packs adjacent to the Bow Valley, for instance in the Cascade and Spray Valleys, but the Bow Valley Pack has come and gone repeatedly due to the many hazards that face them when they arrive in the valley. Let's keep our fingers crossed that these wolves do stick around. We need to do our part to make sure they have the best possible opportunity to survive and thrive. Here are a few things that we can do to help keep our wolves safe: Slow down on highways like the Trans-Canada, Bow Valley Parkway, Highway 40, and Spray Lakes Road Never ever feed wildlife or stand idly by while other people offer food. Keep your distance. Moving ever closer for that selfie puts your life, and the life of the animal, at risk. Obey trail closures. They are there for a reason. If we all make a point of doing what we can to keep wildlife safe and help to educate visitors who may not be aware of the consequences of their actions, then we may be able to help keep wolves on the landscape. Next up 10 New Years Resolutions for the Mountain Parks New Years Resolutions for the Mountain Parks The mountains are more than just a place to hike, bike and explore. They are home to 53 species of mammals, 260 species of birds, 996 species of vascular plants, 407 lichens, 243 mosses, and 53 liverworts (source: http://canadianparks.com/alberta/banffnp/page3.html). There are also almost 90 species of fungi in the mountain parks (source: http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/pubwarehouse/pdfs/11896.pdf). Everything we do in the mountains has an impact and here are some resolutions that will help you to better appreciate this beautiful place. Explore less busy sites. More than 95% of visitation to the mountain parks visits the same 2 or 3% of the park, essentially the paved corridors. Many of the attractions along these roads are in serious need of upgrades to help prevent the masses of tourists from creating permanent damage. Quiet Times are the Best Times. If you really want to get the experience that you saw on the brochure, get an alarm clock. The sun comes up early in the mountains during the summer months. If you're on the shores of Lake Louise or Moraine Lake at 6 am, you'll likely have the view all to yourself…and don't tell anybody, but those two sites are best when the sun first hits the mountains. Don't forget the evening though as well. Once the hordes head back to their hotels, the landscape quiets down again and you can have that great experience. Keep track of your sightings. If you see something exciting like a grizzly bear, wolf, cougar, or wolverine - report it. Park managers are always looking to keep tabs on wildlife and sightings helps to add another data point to their wildlife research. Support organizations like the Friends of Kananaskis and Friends of Jasper. These not for profit groups do an amazing job in helping to raise awareness of park issues, run educational programs, offer volunteer opportunities to make a difference on the ground and even operate gift shops and other facilities designed to raise money for their ongoing operation. Read a good book. Our connection to our sense of place always improves with knowledge and understanding. What once was an unknown wilderness suddenly becomes a community of plants, animals, birds, and other living beings - each with an important role to play in the maintenance of the community. Every book that helps you to understand the place you call home can only enhance your ability to feel an even stronger connection to that place. Meet your neighbours. The next time you walk one of the local trails, take the time to learn the story of one new plant, animal, bird, or other residents of the mountain landscape. I say "learn the story", because each one is much more than just their name. Why are they there? What role do they play? What's the coolest thing about them? As you repeat this process, the mountain landscape becomes much more familiar and ever more welcoming as you look forward to the acquaintances you've made and begin to mark the seasons by the comings and goings of old friends. Start up a neighbourhood watch. By this I mean keep an eye on your mountain community and look for changes. Are there new plants on the landscape that weren't there in the past? New birds? Changes in the community often reflect changes in the environment. Every resident of a particular community is there because that habitat offers all the essential requirements they need to survive. Plants need the right amount of moisture, sunlight, soil, nitrogen, and perhaps even a particular neighbour with whom they have a dependent relationship. Every plant will have a different list of needs, as will every bird and animal. A small change to the ecology will be reflected in changes to the individual plants and animals in that community. Simply sit down. We hike, mountain bike, cross-country ski, and snowshoe along the mountain trails season after season and year after year. Sometimes, the best experience can be had by simply sitting quietly and absorbing everything that's around you. Take off your shoes and socks (in the summer of course), and feel connected to the landscape. Listen to the sounds. Can you recognize all the birds around you? Watch the fish rising in the water to eat insects hatching on the surface. Smell the air. Are their particular smells that spark a memory? Smell is the sense most tied to memory and often a strong smell will instantly transport you to a particular place or time in your personal history. For me, the pungent sweet smell of wolf willow represents the smell of home. Talk to a senior. Our sense of place is more than just learning the natural history. To understand the natural history, we also have to understand the ways that people have interacted with it in the past. Somebody that's been on the land for 50 years can share insights that only come with the passing of the years and the experiences that those years brought. The elders are the keepers of the stories. They are a wealth of knowledge and wisdom and time spent talking with elders about their lifetime of adventures and understanding will always help guide you to a new appreciation of the world around you. Be a tourist now and then. Take a tour. Visit a museum or attraction. Fly in a helicopter. Often, we learn more about places we visit then we do about our own backyard. Make a point of seeing the mountains like visitors see them. Spending time with people that are seeing the Rockies for the first time is one of the things that I love the most about being a guide. Every tourist sees something different. They bring a new perspective born of a lifetime of experiences in their past. I'm constantly guided towards new perspectives simply because they are looking at a scene with fresh eyes. Why not make 2018 a year where we commit to understanding and connecting to the mountain landscape around us? If at the end of the year, you've learned a few new plants, or birds, or animals, and how they both benefit and are benefitting other members of the community, then you will have started on an exciting role that will deepen your personal sense of place. I hope to see you out there. Next up, what determines success when bears are relocated outside of their home range? Success of Relocating Grizzly Bears This past summer, people were stunned when Bear 148 was moved far from her home range. Unfortunately, she subsequently wandered across the British Columbia border and was legally shot by a hunter. The media covered this story extensively and in many cases used the wrong terminology. When wildlife managers move a bear to an area within its current home range, we call it relocating the bear. This term refers to moving a bear simply to another area that is still within its territory and within which it can comfortably survive. In cases, such as with 148, where the bear is moved far from its home range, the preferred term is translocated. This means that the bear is moved to completely unfamiliar territory where it doesn't know the seasonal food patterns or their locations. It doesn't know the landscape and it doesn't know the other resident bears into whose territory it has just been placed. As you can imagine, this puts the bear in a very high-risk situation, but just how high risk? What are its chances of surviving so far from its home range? This is one area of study that has been largely neglected until recently. There really had not been any peer-reviewed analyses of the factors that affected survival when a bear was translocated. An article published in the January 2018 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management evaluated 110 different grizzly translocations within the Alberta Rockies and looked to determine what factors impacted successful movements and looked for ways to increase the success of future translocations. Biologist Sarah Milligan and her fellow researchers defined a successful translocation as one that required no additional management intervention and showed the bear surviving one entire year without returning to its home range. It's well known that the odds are not in favour of the non-resident bear when it is moved to unfamiliar territory. Of the 110 translocations examined, a full 70% were failures. A 30% success rate is still much higher than generally reported in the media. Translocations are never popular, but unfortunately, with some bears, the only other alternative is to shoot it. Conservation officers never make the decision to move a bear lightly. They know the dangers that it will face in its new home but their first priority is the safety of the community. While Bear 148 never injured anyone, it got to the point where conservation officers simply had to make the difficult decision to move her. In order to determine the success of bears in new habitats, biologists needed to better understand how bears currently living in the area use the landscape. Researchers tagged resident bears to learn how they used the landscape, feeding habits, and denning areas. Alberta also has a long history of monitoring bear movement with satellite and radio collars and this historical data is also helpful in studies like this one. One of the biggest challenges with translocating bears is their homing instinct. Many bears will simply abandon their new homes and travel back towards their home range. It is for this reason that Bear 148 was moved north of Jasper National Park. The further the movement, the lower the likelihood that the bear will return home. The quality of the habitat into which a bear is released can also have a strong bearing on reducing the homing instinct. Ideally, the release location should match, as much as possible, the home range in terms of available foods, movement corridors, and denning sites. The study found that the success rate was highest if bears were moved as early as possible in the season. Unfortunately, in many cases, the highest potential for human-grizzly conflicts occurs during buffaloberry season between mid-July and mid-September. Translocated bears also tended to have ranges some 3.25 times larger than resident bears. This shows they needed to cover more territory in order to find sufficient forage to survive. This is likely connected to their being unfamiliar with the landscape. While their home ranges did decrease over time, they continued to be larger than resident bears. Of the translocations that were considered failures, the primary causes were homing, new incidents of conflict, and mortality. Of the 77 failed translocations, 28 bears were killed because of management actions, and 30 failed due to homing. Bears translocated more than 200 km reduced the odds of homing by 95%. When it comes to the timing of winter denning, the study showed no significant difference between resident and translocated bears. The study concluded: "Repeated conflict and mortality were the greatest causes of translocation failure. Our results suggest that the most important factors for translocation success are the level of human-caused mortality risk at the release site and the time of year when the translocation occurred. Specifically, we found that the odds of translocation success decreased with increasing levels of mortality risk surrounding the release site. This result is likely related to the large post-release movements that are typical of many wide-ranging species, which can bring individuals near areas of conflict or mortality risk." Translocation remains an important management tool. Studies like this one help wildlife officers to make the best decisions to increase the opportunities for a successful movement. It's never an easy decision to move an animal away from its home range but the more we understand ways to increase their chances of success, the more the pendulum can move towards reduced mortality. In the central Rockies, people are the biggest problem. We need to work harder to coexist with bears and to respect closures. When people violate closures, it's always the bears that pay the price. And with that, it's time to wrap this episode up. Remember that Ward Cameron Enterprises is your source for snowshoe, nature, hiking, and photography guides across the mountain west. We've been sharing the stories behind the scenery for more than 30 years. Don't forget to check out the show notes at www.mountainnaturepodcast.com/ep054 for links to additional information. You can also comment on the stories and subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode. If you'd like to reach out personally, you can hit me up on Twitter @wardcameron and with that said, the sun's out and it's time to go snowshoeing. I'll talk to you next week.

So, what would you be willing to endure to make it home for Christmas In these modern times? These days trips home usually involve expensive plane fares or long drives on winter roads made safer by winter tires, interior heaters, and modern clothing. What if you were faced with a 112 km snowshoe trek on an unbroken trail in a blizzard - you know, just like your parents told you what it was like to walk to school in the days of yore! Well, Tom Wilson was more than just a mountain man. He was the personal assistant of "Hells Bells Rogers" during his railroad surveys through the Rockies and later started the first guiding operation in the mountains. In December of 1904, Tom was determined to be home for Christmas dinner with his family. His route began at Kootenay Plains where he had his horse ranch. Today it's located along the David Thompson Highway east of the Saskatchewan River Crossing in Alberta. His route would have followed the Siffleur River Valley up and over Pipestone Pass. He then followed the Pipestone River towards its confluence with the Bow River, and then followed the Bow into Banff. He wasn't the first to follow that route. In August of 1859, James Hector of the Palliser Expedition had passed this way. He wrote in his journal: "After camping to the south of the pass, “…opposite to a waterfall which forms the source of Pipe Stone Creek, and where the stream leaps and rushes down a gutter-like channel, from a height of 450 feet,” they set out to, “ascend to the height of land by a steep rocky path that led at some places close by snow that was still lying from last winter. After five miles we got above the woods, and passed over a fine sloping prairie, with big bald mountains on either side. Plants with esculent roots were very abundant here, and many parts of the sward looked as if it had been ploughed, where the bears had been rooting them up like pigs….Two miles further we passed over a bleak bare “divide,” where there was no vegetation, and elevated about 2000 feet above last night’s encampment.” Others had also passed that way. They included Normal Collie, Hugh Stutfield, and Herman Wooley in 1898 as they headed north on an expedition that saw them discovering the Columbia Icefields. Just a few months after Hector had passed through, the Earl of Southesk, James Carnegie, also traversed the pass. These men were all seasoned travellers, but none of them attempted the route in winter. Tom, like all of his contemporaries, would have been kitted out in heavy woolen clothing with leather boots and snowshoes. Here is how Tom described his experience in a letter to pioneer surveyor and founder of the Alpine Club, A. O. Wheeler: "There is not much to tell of my trip over the Pipestone Pass. It was simply the case of a man starting on a seventy-mile snowshoe trip across the mountains to eat his Christmas dinner with his wife and family, and getting there and eating dinner, the pleasure being well worth the trip. I rode to within eight miles of the summit and started early the next morning on snowshoes to cross the pass (8,300 feet). It was snowing a little and very cold when I started and when I got opposite the Clearwater Gap, a blizzard came up. I could not see more than six or eight feet ahead in that grey snow light that makes everything look level. I was on the trail alongside a mountainside, and was afraid of falling down into one of those steep side collars (which you remember on that side), and of breaking my snowshoes, so I turned and went down the mountain to the creek bottom. The snow was seven or eight feet deep and I fell through a snow bridge, getting both feet wet. It was below zero and a long way up to timber whichever way I turned, but I'd never liked hitting the back trail. It was eight o'clock at night before I crossed the summit of the pass and reached the first timber. I got a fire started, but it was drifting and snowing so hard that the snow covered my socks and moccasins as fast as I could wring (sic) them dry, and, owing to the fierce wind, the flames leap in every direction , making it impossible to get near the fire, so at half past nine I gave it up, put on my wet foot gear and snowshoes and started down the valley. I could not see and felt my way with a stick. By daylight I had made three and a half miles; not much, but it kept the circulation going. In the heavy timber I made a fire and dried out. My feet were beginning to pain as they had been thawed out twice already. I made three miles more that day and finished the last of my grub. The big snowshoes sank fifteen inches in the soft new snow and were a big drag on my frozen toes. I saw it meant three or four more days tramping without grub to make Laggan. I made it in three, but the last day I could only make about fifty yards without resting, and my tracks did not leave a very straight line. The chief trouble I had was to keep from going to sleep; it would have been so much easier to quit than to go on. " Wheeler tried to bring some clarity to Tom's adventure. He wrote: "Think for a moment what it really meant; that every time he put on his snowshoes, his toes got frozen owing to the tight shoe straps; that every time he took them off, his feet had to be thawed out; that every step had to raise a load of ten to fifteen pound of soft snow; that wood had to be collected and cut to keep alive during the night; that the fierce pain would drive away sleep; that he had no food, and always before him those interminable, slow, dragging miles of snowy wilderness. It must have required iron determination to make it to the end of the never-ending track, to eat his Christmas dinner with his wife and family. " Like any winter backcountry traveller that has suffered from frostbite, Tom made his way to see Dr. Brett, Banff's resident physician. He is rumoured to have stated: "I hope I won't have to loose (sic) them Doc. I've hade (sic) 'em a long time and I'm sort of used to 'em." Tom was very lucky. He did lose several toes on each foot but he liked to joke that since the doc had removed the same number on each foot, he was still well balanced. I want to thank Roger Patillo for sharing this story in his book The Canadian Rockies Pioneers, Legends and True Tales. Click the title of the book if you'd like to purchase a copy.  Tom was one of many early and modern mountain wanderers to lose toes to frostbite. Even today, it is a real danger for people out on snowshoes, as well as backcountry and cross-country skis. Always plan for changes in weather and remember, unlike Tom, you can always turn back if conditions change for the worse. Are wolves returning to the Bow Valley? The Bow River valley has not been a good home for wolves. Over the years, pack after pack has become established only to gradually get whittled away by vehicle and train impacts, and more recently, human food conditioning. The summer of 2016 was particularly bad for the Bow Valley wolf pack. The summer began on a very high note its 5 adults being joined by 6 new pups making for a total of 11 wolves in the pack. Unfortunately, this situation changed for the worse with four of the pups killed in two separate incidents with trains. The alpha female and another young female were both shot by Park Wardens after becoming accustomed to handouts from campers in the Two Jack Lake Campground. By the end of the season, none of the pups had survived. In a separate incident, one of the remaining wolves was shot by a hunter in B.C. By 2017, there were only two wolves remaining and they dispersed. As of Sept 2017, the alpha male had joined a pack in the southern part of Banff known as the Spray Pack. The surviving female had joined another male and possibly moved out of the area. Paul Paquette is a well-respected biologist who headed the largest wolf study ever undertaken in the Bow Valley. In recent years he was quoted as stating the following about the challenges for wolves in the Bow River valley: “It’s a wildlife ghetto. People need to understand, the Bow Valley has two townsites that are growing, two highways, a corridor for high transmission power lines, dams, golf courses, ski hills … They’ve got all that in the valley, so you can imagine the responses for the wolves and wildlife – it’s a ghetto for them and they’re trying to survive in there.” We are in a constant battle with developers and the town to try to make sure that we can keep wildlife like wolves and grizzly bears on the landscape. Recently, there seems to be a reason for cautious optimism. The Bow Valley is great habitat for wolves when you consider the high numbers of potential prey animals available to them. In a recent interview on CBC, Jesse Whittington, a wildlife ecologist with Parks Canada stated: "We're curious about what's going to happen," said Whittington. "Either the old male and the pack from the Spray could move back into the Bow Valley, or one of the neighbouring packs might slide in." In October of 2017, three wolves were spotted west of Banff near Castle Mountain. These were previously unknown wolves that may be looking for a new place to call home. As Jesse Whittington stated in an interview with the Rocky Mountain Outlook: "If you have a male and female who hook-up and have pups, all of a sudden you could have a pack of seven wolves, and if those pups survive and have pups again, you get a pretty large pack" The Bow Valley has not been kind to its wolves, but we still need them. They play a key role in keeping elk and deer populations in check. It's too easy to look at Banff today and point out the world-class wildlife crossings along the highway and assume that wolves will have an easy time coexisting with people. This couldn't be further from the truth. The section of highway that is fenced is primarily through Banff and a little to the east and west.  Wolves cover vast ranges and the crossing structures only protect them in a small part of their range. The train tracks and Bow Valley Parkway also remain unfenced. Just this past November, two wolves were killed on the Trans-Canada Highway east of Canmore. It was trains that killed 4 of the pack's cubs in 2016. Parks Canada and Canadian Pacific Railway have been conducting ongoing research around the idea of fencing and other wildlife warning systems in areas of highest danger. We also have rampant development in areas like Canmore which can hamper movement through the valley to the east and south into Kananaskis and beyond. And finally, we have the challenge of people on the landscape. More than 90% of the use of our designated wildlife corridors in and around Canmore was by people. If the corridors are viewed as just another recreational trail, then eventually, the wildlife will simply avoid the corridor altogether. In the past, we've been lucky enough to have several wolf packs adjacent to the Bow Valley, for instance in the Cascade and Spray Valleys, but the Bow Valley Pack has come and gone repeatedly due to the many hazards that face them when they arrive in the valley. Let's keep our fingers crossed that these wolves do stick around. We need to do our part to make sure they have the best possible opportunity to survive and thrive. Here are a few things that we can do to help keep our wolves safe: Slow down on highways like the Trans-Canada, Bow Valley Parkway, Highway 40, and Spray Lakes Road Never ever feed wildlife or stand idly by while other people offer food. Keep your distance. Moving ever closer for that selfie puts your life, and the life of the animal, at risk. Obey trail closures. They are there for a reason. If we all make a point of doing what we can to keep wildlife safe and help to educate visitors who may not be aware of the consequences of their actions, then we may be able to help keep wolves on the landscape. Next up 10 New Years Resolutions for the Mountain Parks New Years Resolutions for the Mountain Parks The mountains are more than just a place to hike, bike and explore. They are home to 53 species of mammals, 260 species of birds, 996 species of vascular plants, 407 lichens, 243 mosses, and 53 liverworts (source: http://canadianparks.com/alberta/banffnp/page3.html). There are also almost 90 species of fungi in the mountain parks (source: http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/pubwarehouse/pdfs/11896.pdf). Everything we do in the mountains has an impact and here are some resolutions that will help you to better appreciate this beautiful place. Explore less busy sites. More than 95% of visitation to the mountain parks visits the same 2 or 3% of the park, essentially the paved corridors. Many of the attractions along these roads are in serious need of upgrades to help prevent the masses of tourists from creating permanent damage. Quiet Times are the Best Times. If you really want to get the experience that you saw on the brochure, get an alarm clock. The sun comes up early in the mountains during the summer months. If you're on the shores of Lake Louise or Moraine Lake at 6 am, you'll likely have the view all to yourself…and don't tell anybody, but those two sites are best when the sun first hits the mountains. Don't forget the evening though as well. Once the hordes head back to their hotels, the landscape quiets down again and you can have that great experience. Keep track of your sightings. If you see something exciting like a grizzly bear, wolf, cougar, or wolverine - report it. Park managers are always looking to keep tabs on wildlife and sightings helps to add another data point to their wildlife research. Support organizations like the Friends of Kananaskis and Friends of Jasper. These not for profit groups do an amazing job in helping to raise awareness of park issues, run educational programs, offer volunteer opportunities to make a difference on the ground and even operate gift shops and other facilities designed to raise money for their ongoing operation. Read a good book. Our connection to our sense of place always improves with knowledge and understanding. What once was an unknown wilderness suddenly becomes a community of plants, animals, birds, and other living beings - each with an important role to play in the maintenance of the community. Every book that helps you to understand the place you call home can only enhance your ability to feel an even stronger connection to that place. Meet your neighbours. The next time you walk one of the local trails, take the time to learn the story of one new plant, animal, bird, or other residents of the mountain landscape. I say "learn the story", because each one is much more than just their name. Why are they there? What role do they play? What's the coolest thing about them? As you repeat this process, the mountain landscape becomes much more familiar and ever more welcoming as you look forward to the acquaintances you've made and begin to mark the seasons by the comings and goings of old friends. Start up a neighbourhood watch. By this I mean keep an eye on your mountain community and look for changes. Are there new plants on the landscape that weren't there in the past? New birds? Changes in the community often reflect changes in the environment. Every resident of a particular community is there because that habitat offers all the essential requirements they need to survive. Plants need the right amount of moisture, sunlight, soil, nitrogen, and perhaps even a particular neighbour with whom they have a dependent relationship. Every plant will have a different list of needs, as will every bird and animal. A small change to the ecology will be reflected in changes to the individual plants and animals in that community. Simply sit down. We hike, mountain bike, cross-country ski, and snowshoe along the mountain trails season after season and year after year. Sometimes, the best experience can be had by simply sitting quietly and absorbing everything that's around you. Take off your shoes and socks (in the summer of course), and feel connected to the landscape. Listen to the sounds. Can you recognize all the birds around you? Watch the fish rising in the water to eat insects hatching on the surface. Smell the air. Are their particular smells that spark a memory? Smell is the sense most tied to memory and often a strong smell will instantly transport you to a particular place or time in your personal history. For me, the pungent sweet smell of wolf willow represents the smell of home. Talk to a senior. Our sense of place is more than just learning the natural history. To understand the natural history, we also have to understand the ways that people have interacted with it in the past. Somebody that's been on the land for 50 years can share insights that only come with the passing of the years and the experiences that those years brought. The elders are the keepers of the stories. They are a wealth of knowledge and wisdom and time spent talking with elders about their lifetime of adventures and understanding will always help guide you to a new appreciation of the world around you. Be a tourist now and then. Take a tour. Visit a museum or attraction. Fly in a helicopter. Often, we learn more about places we visit then we do about our own backyard. Make a point of seeing the mountains like visitors see them. Spending time with people that are seeing the Rockies for the first time is one of the things that I love the most about being a guide. Every tourist sees something different. They bring a new perspective born of a lifetime of experiences in their past. I'm constantly guided towards new perspectives simply because they are looking at a scene with fresh eyes. Why not make 2018 a year where we commit to understanding and connecting to the mountain landscape around us? If at the end of the year, you've learned a few new plants, or birds, or animals, and how they both benefit and are benefitting other members of the community, then you will have started on an exciting role that will deepen your personal sense of place. I hope to see you out there. Next up, what determines success when bears are relocated outside of their home range? Success of Relocating Grizzly Bears This past summer, people were stunned when Bear 148 was moved far from her home range. Unfortunately, she subsequently wandered across the British Columbia border and was legally shot by a hunter. The media covered this story extensively and in many cases used the wrong terminology. When wildlife managers move a bear to an area within its current home range, we call it relocating the bear. This term refers to moving a bear simply to another area that is still within its territory and within which it can comfortably survive. In cases, such as with 148, where the bear is moved far from its home range, the preferred term is translocated. This means that the bear is moved to completely unfamiliar territory where it doesn't know the seasonal food patterns or their locations. It doesn't know the landscape and it doesn't know the other resident bears into whose territory it has just been placed. As you can imagine, this puts the bear in a very high-risk situation, but just how high risk? What are its chances of surviving so far from its home range? This is one area of study that has been largely neglected until recently. There really had not been any peer-reviewed analyses of the factors that affected survival when a bear was translocated. An article published in the January 2018 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management evaluated 110 different grizzly translocations within the Alberta Rockies and looked to determine what factors impacted successful movements and looked for ways to increase the success of future translocations. Biologist Sarah Milligan and her fellow researchers defined a successful translocation as one that required no additional management intervention and showed the bear surviving one entire year without returning to its home range. It's well known that the odds are not in favour of the non-resident bear when it is moved to unfamiliar territory. Of the 110 translocations examined, a full 70% were failures. A 30% success rate is still much higher than generally reported in the media. Translocations are never popular, but unfortunately, with some bears, the only other alternative is to shoot it. Conservation officers never make the decision to move a bear lightly. They know the dangers that it will face in its new home but their first priority is the safety of the community. While Bear 148 never injured anyone, it got to the point where conservation officers simply had to make the difficult decision to move her. In order to determine the success of bears in new habitats, biologists needed to better understand how bears currently living in the area use the landscape. Researchers tagged resident bears to learn how they used the landscape, feeding habits, and denning areas. Alberta also has a long history of monitoring bear movement with satellite and radio collars and this historical data is also helpful in studies like this one. One of the biggest challenges with translocating bears is their homing instinct. Many bears will simply abandon their new homes and travel back towards their home range. It is for this reason that Bear 148 was moved north of Jasper National Park. The further the movement, the lower the likelihood that the bear will return home. The quality of the habitat into which a bear is released can also have a strong bearing on reducing the homing instinct. Ideally, the release location should match, as much as possible, the home range in terms of available foods, movement corridors, and denning sites. The study found that the success rate was highest if bears were moved as early as possible in the season. Unfortunately, in many cases, the highest potential for human-grizzly conflicts occurs during buffaloberry season between mid-July and mid-September. Translocated bears also tended to have ranges some 3.25 times larger than resident bears. This shows they needed to cover more territory in order to find sufficient forage to survive. This is likely connected to their being unfamiliar with the landscape. While their home ranges did decrease over time, they continued to be larger than resident bears. Of the translocations that were considered failures, the primary causes were homing, new incidents of conflict, and mortality. Of the 77 failed translocations, 28 bears were killed because of management actions, and 30 failed due to homing. Bears translocated more than 200 km reduced the odds of homing by 95%. When it comes to the timing of winter denning, the study showed no significant difference between resident and translocated bears. The study concluded: "Repeated conflict and mortality were the greatest causes of translocation failure. Our results suggest that the most important factors for translocation success are the level of human-caused mortality risk at the release site and the time of year when the translocation occurred. Specifically, we found that the odds of translocation success decreased with increasing levels of mortality risk surrounding the release site. This result is likely related to the large post-release movements that are typical of many wide-ranging species, which can bring individuals near areas of conflict or mortality risk." Translocation remains an important management tool. Studies like this one help wildlife officers to make the best decisions to increase the opportunities for a successful movement. It's never an easy decision to move an animal away from its home range but the more we understand ways to increase their chances of success, the more the pendulum can move towards reduced mortality. In the central Rockies, people are the biggest problem. We need to work harder to coexist with bears and to respect closures. When people violate closures, it's always the bears that pay the price. And with that, it's time to wrap this episode up. Remember that Ward Cameron Enterprises is your source for snowshoe, nature, hiking, and photography guides across the mountain west. We've been sharing the stories behind the scenery for more than 30 years. Don't forget to check out the show notes at www.mountainnaturepodcast.com/ep054 for links to additional information. You can also comment on the stories and subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode. If you'd like to reach out personally, you can hit me up on Twitter @wardcameron and with that said, the sun's out and it's time to go snowshoeing. I'll talk to you next week.

Home for Christmas - Tom Wilson has a close call So, what would you be willing to endure to make it home for Christmas In these modern times? These days trips home usually involve expensive plane fares or long drives on winter roads made safer by winter tires, interior heaters, and modern clothing. What if you were faced with a 112 km snowshoe trek on an unbroken trail in a blizzard - you know, just like your parents told you what it was like to walk to school in the days of yore! Well, Tom Wilson was more than just a mountain man. He was the personal assistant of "Hells Bells Rogers" during his railroad surveys through the Rockies and later started the first guiding operation in the mountains. In December of 1904, Tom was determined to be home for Christmas dinner with his family. His route began at Kootenay Plains where he had his horse ranch. Today it's located along the David Thompson Highway east of the Saskatchewan River Crossing in Alberta. His route would have followed the Siffleur River Valley up and over Pipestone Pass. He then followed the Pipestone River towards its confluence with the Bow River, and then followed the Bow into Banff. He wasn't the first to follow that route. In August of 1859, James Hector of the Palliser Expedition had passed this way. He wrote in his journal: "After camping to the south of the pass, “…opposite to a waterfall which forms the source of Pipe Stone Creek, and where the stream leaps and rushes down a gutter-like channel, from a height of 450 feet,” they set out to, “ascend to the height of land by a steep rocky path that led at some places close by snow that was still lying from last winter. After five miles we got above the woods, and passed over a fine sloping prairie, with big bald mountains on either side. Plants with esculent roots were very abundant here, and many parts of the sward looked as if it had been ploughed, where the bears had been rooting them up like pigs….Two miles further we passed over a bleak bare “divide,” where there was no vegetation, and elevated about 2000 feet above last night’s encampment.” Others had also passed that way. They included Normal Collie, Hugh Stutfield, and Herman Wooley in 1898 as they headed north on an expedition that saw them discovering the Columbia Icefields. Just a few months after Hector had passed through, the Earl of Southesk, James Carnegie, also traversed the pass. These men were all seasoned travellers, but none of them attempted the route in winter. Tom, like all of his contemporaries, would have been kitted out in heavy woolen clothing with leather boots and snowshoes. Here is how Tom described his experience in a letter to pioneer surveyor and founder of the Alpine Club, A. O. Wheeler: "There is not much to tell of my trip over the Pipestone Pass. It was simply the case of a man starting on a seventy-mile snowshoe trip across the mountains to eat his Christmas dinner with his wife and family, and getting there and eating dinner, the pleasure being well worth the trip. I rode to within eight miles of the summit and started early the next morning on snowshoes to cross the pass (8,300 feet). It was snowing a little and very cold when I started and when I got opposite the Clearwater Gap, a blizzard came up. I could not see more than six or eight feet ahead in that grey snow light that makes everything look level. I was on the trail alongside a mountainside, and was afraid of falling down into one of those steep side collars (which you remember on that side), and of breaking my snowshoes, so I turned and went down the mountain to the creek bottom. The snow was seven or eight feet deep and I fell through a snow bridge, getting both feet wet. It was below zero and a long way up to timber whichever way I turned, but I'd never liked hitting the back trail. It was eight o'clock at night before I crossed the summit of the pass and reached the first timber. I got a fire started, but it was drifting and snowing so hard that the snow covered my socks and moccasins as fast as I could wring (sic) them dry, and, owing to the fierce wind, the flames leap in every direction , making it impossible to get near the fire, so at half past nine I gave it up, put on my wet foot gear and snowshoes and started down the valley. I could not see and felt my way with a stick. By daylight I had made three and a half miles; not much, but it kept the circulation going. In the heavy timber I made a fire and dried out. My feet were beginning to pain as they had been thawed out twice already. I made three miles more that day and finished the last of my grub. The big snowshoes sank fifteen inches in the soft new snow and were a big drag on my frozen toes. I saw it meant three or four more days tramping without grub to make Laggan. I made it in three, but the last day I could only make about fifty yards without resting, and my tracks did not leave a very straight line. The chief trouble I had was to keep from going to sleep; it would have been so much easier to quit than to go on. " Wheeler tried to bring some clarity to Tom's adventure. He wrote: "Think for a moment what it really meant; that every time he put on his snowshoes, his toes got frozen owing to the tight shoe straps; that every time he took them off, his feet had to be thawed out; that every step had to raise a load of ten to fifteen pound of soft snow; that wood had to be collected and cut to keep alive during the night; that the fierce pain would drive away sleep; that he had no food, and always before him those interminable, slow, dragging miles of snowy wilderness. It must have required iron determination to make it to the end of the never-ending track, to eat his Christmas dinner with his wife and family. " Like any winter backcountry traveller that has suffered from frostbite, Tom made his way to see Dr. Brett, Banff's resident physician. He is rumoured to have stated: "I hope I won't have to loose (sic) them Doc. I've hade (sic) 'em a long time and I'm sort of used to 'em." Tom was very lucky. He did lose several toes on each foot but he liked to joke that since the doc had removed the same number on each foot, he was still well balanced. I want to thank Roger Patillo for sharing this story in his book The Canadian Rockies Pioneers, Legends and True Tales. Click the title of the book if you'd like to purchase a copy.  Tom was one of many early and modern mountain wanderers to lose toes to frostbite. Even today, it is a real danger for people out on snowshoes, as well as backcountry and cross-country skis. Always plan for changes in weather and remember, unlike Tom, you can always turn back if conditions change for the worse. Are wolves returning to the Bow Valley? The Bow River valley has not been a good home for wolves. Over the years, pack after pack has become established only to gradually get whittled away by vehicle and train impacts, and more recently, human food conditioning. The summer of 2016 was particularly bad for the Bow Valley wolf pack. The summer began on a very high note its 5 adults being joined by 6 new pups making for a total of 11 wolves in the pack. Unfortunately, this situation changed for the worse with four of the pups killed in two separate incidents with trains. The alpha female and another young female were both shot by Park Wardens after becoming accustomed to handouts from campers in the Two Jack Lake Campground. By the end of the season, none of the pups had survived. In a separate incident, one of the remaining wolves was shot by a hunter in B.C. By 2017, there were only two wolves remaining and they dispersed. As of Sept 2017, the alpha male had joined a pack in the southern part of Banff known as the Spray Pack. The surviving female had joined another male and possibly moved out of the area. Paul Paquette is a well-respected biologist who headed the largest wolf study ever undertaken in the Bow Valley. In recent years he was quoted as stating the following about the challenges for wolves in the Bow River valley: “It’s a wildlife ghetto. People need to understand, the Bow Valley has two townsites that are growing, two highways, a corridor for high transmission power lines, dams, golf courses, ski hills … They’ve got all that in the valley, so you can imagine the responses for the wolves and wildlife – it’s a ghetto for them and they’re trying to survive in there.” We are in a constant battle with developers and the town to try to make sure that we can keep wildlife like wolves and grizzly bears on the landscape. Recently, there seems to be a reason for cautious optimism. The Bow Valley is great habitat for wolves when you consider the high numbers of potential prey animals available to them. In a recent interview on CBC, Jesse Whittington, a wildlife ecologist with Parks Canada stated: "We're curious about what's going to happen," said Whittington. "Either the old male and the pack from the Spray could move back into the Bow Valley, or one of the neighbouring packs might slide in." In October of 2017, three wolves were spotted west of Banff near Castle Mountain. These were previously unknown wolves that may be looking for a new place to call home. As Jesse Whittington stated in an interview with the Rocky Mountain Outlook: "If you have a male and female who hook-up and have pups, all of a sudden you could have a pack of seven wolves, and if those pups survive and have pups again, you get a pretty large pack" The Bow Valley has not been kind to its wolves, but we still need them. They play a key role in keeping elk and deer populations in check. It's too easy to look at Banff today and point out the world-class wildlife crossings along the highway and assume that wolves will have an easy time coexisting with people. This couldn't be further from the truth. The section of highway that is fenced is primarily through Banff and a little to the east and west.  Wolves cover vast ranges and the crossing structures only protect them in a small part of their range. The train tracks and Bow Valley Parkway also remain unfenced. Just this past November, two wolves were killed on the Trans-Canada Highway east of Canmore. It was trains that killed 4 of the pack's cubs in 2016. Parks Canada and Canadian Pacific Railway have been conducting ongoing research around the idea of fencing and other wildlife warning systems in areas of highest danger. We also have rampant development in areas like Canmore which can hamper movement through the valley to the east and south into Kananaskis and beyond. And finally, we have the challenge of people on the landscape. More than 90% of the use of our designated wildlife corridors in and around Canmore was by people. If the corridors are viewed as just another recreational trail, then eventually, the wildlife will simply avoid the corridor altogether. In the past, we've been lucky enough to have several wolf packs adjacent to the Bow Valley, for instance in the Cascade and Spray Valleys, but the Bow Valley Pack has come and gone repeatedly due to the many hazards that face them when they arrive in the valley. Let's keep our fingers crossed that these wolves do stick around. We need to do our part to make sure they have the best possible opportunity to survive and thrive. Here are a few things that we can do to help keep our wolves safe: Slow down on highways like the Trans-Canada, Bow Valley Parkway, Highway 40, and Spray Lakes Road Never ever feed wildlife or stand idly by while other people offer food. Keep your distance. Moving ever closer for that selfie puts your life, and the life of the animal, at risk. Obey trail closures. They are there for a reason. If we all make a point of doing what we can to keep wildlife safe and help to educate visitors who may not be aware of the consequences of their actions, then we may be able to help keep wolves on the landscape. Next up 10 New Years Resolutions for the Mountain Parks New Years Resolutions for the Mountain Parks The mountains are more than just a place to hike, bike and explore. They are home to 53 species of mammals, 260 species of birds, 996 species of vascular plants, 407 lichens, 243 mosses, and 53 liverworts (source: http://canadianparks.com/alberta/banffnp/page3.html). There are also almost 90 species of fungi in the mountain parks (source: http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/pubwarehouse/pdfs/11896.pdf). Everything we do in the mountains has an impact and here are some resolutions that will help you to better appreciate this beautiful place. Explore less busy sites. More than 95% of visitation to the mountain parks visits the same 2 or 3% of the park, essentially the paved corridors. Many of the attractions along these roads are in serious need of upgrades to help prevent the masses of tourists from creating permanent damage. Quiet Times are the Best Times. If you really want to get the experience that you saw on the brochure, get an alarm clock. The sun comes up early in the mountains during the summer months. If you're on the shores of Lake Louise or Moraine Lake at 6 am, you'll likely have the view all to yourself…and don't tell anybody, but those two sites are best when the sun first hits the mountains. Don't forget the evening though as well. Once the hordes head back to their hotels, the landscape quiets down again and you can have that great experience. Keep track of your sightings. If you see something exciting like a grizzly bear, wolf, cougar, or wolverine - report it. Park managers are always looking to keep tabs on wildlife and sightings helps to add another data point to their wildlife research. Support organizations like the Friends of Kananaskis and Friends of Jasper. These not for profit groups do an amazing job in helping to raise awareness of park issues, run educational programs, offer volunteer opportunities to make a difference on the ground and even operate gift shops and other facilities designed to raise money for their ongoing operation. Read a good book. Our connection to our sense of place always improves with knowledge and understanding. What once was an unknown wilderness suddenly becomes a community of plants, animals, birds, and other living beings - each with an important role to play in the maintenance of the community. Every book that helps you to understand the place you call home can only enhance your ability to feel an even stronger connection to that place. Meet your neighbours. The next time you walk one of the local trails, take the time to learn the story of one new plant, animal, bird, or other residents of the mountain landscape. I say "learn the story", because each one is much more than just their name. Why are they there? What role do they play? What's the coolest thing about them? As you repeat this process, the mountain landscape becomes much more familiar and ever more welcoming as you look forward to the acquaintances you've made and begin to mark the seasons by the comings and goings of old friends. Start up a neighbourhood watch. By this I mean keep an eye on your mountain community and look for changes. Are there new plants on the landscape that weren't there in the past? New birds? Changes in the community often reflect changes in the environment. Every resident of a particular community is there because that habitat offers all the essential requirements they need to survive. Plants need the right amount of moisture, sunlight, soil, nitrogen, and perhaps even a particular neighbour with whom they have a dependent relationship. Every plant will have a different list of needs, as will every bird and animal. A small change to the ecology will be reflected in changes to the individual plants and animals in that community. Simply sit down. We hike, mountain bike, cross-country ski, and snowshoe along the mountain trails season after season and year after year. Sometimes, the best experience can be had by simply sitting quietly and absorbing everything that's around you. Take off your shoes and socks (in the summer of course), and feel connected to the landscape. Listen to the sounds. Can you recognize all the birds around you? Watch the fish rising in the water to eat insects hatching on the surface. Smell the air. Are their particular smells that spark a memory? Smell is the sense most tied to memory and often a strong smell will instantly transport you to a particular place or time in your personal history. For me, the pungent sweet smell of wolf willow represents the smell of home. Talk to a senior. Our sense of place is more than just learning the natural history. To understand the natural history, we also have to understand the ways that people have interacted with it in the past. Somebody that's been on the land for 50 years can share insights that only come with the passing of the years and the experiences that those years brought. The elders are the keepers of the stories. They are a wealth of knowledge and wisdom and time spent talking with elders about their lifetime of adventures and understanding will always help guide you to a new appreciation of the world around you. Be a tourist now and then. Take a tour. Visit a museum or attraction. Fly in a helicopter. Often, we learn more about places we visit then we do about our own backyard. Make a point of seeing the mountains like visitors see them. Spending time with people that are seeing the Rockies for the first time is one of the things that I love the most about being a guide. Every tourist sees something different. They bring a new perspective born of a lifetime of experiences in their past. I'm constantly guided towards new perspectives simply because they are looking at a scene with fresh eyes. Why not make 2018 a year where we commit to understanding and connecting to the mountain landscape around us? If at the end of the year, you've learned a few new plants, or birds, or animals, and how they both benefit and are benefitting other members of the community, then you will have started on an exciting role that will deepen your personal sense of place. I hope to see you out there. Next up, what determines success when bears are relocated outside of their home range? Success of Relocating Grizzly Bears This past summer, people were stunned when Bear 148 was moved far from her home range. Unfortunately, she subsequently wandered across the British Columbia border and was legally shot by a hunter. The media covered this story extensively and in many cases used the wrong terminology. When wildlife managers move a bear to an area within its current home range, we call it relocating the bear. This term refers to moving a bear simply to another area that is still within its territory and within which it can comfortably survive. In cases, such as with 148, where the bear is moved far from its home range, the preferred term is translocated. This means that the bear is moved to completely unfamiliar territory where it doesn't know the seasonal food patterns or their locations. It doesn't know the landscape and it doesn't know the other resident bears into whose territory it has just been placed. As you can imagine, this puts the bear in a very high-risk situation, but just how high risk? What are its chances of surviving so far from its home range? This is one area of study that has been largely neglected until recently. There really had not been any peer-reviewed analyses of the factors that affected survival when a bear was translocated. An article published in the January 2018 issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management evaluated 110 different grizzly translocations within the Alberta Rockies and looked to determine what factors impacted successful movements and looked for ways to increase the success of future translocations. Biologist Sarah Milligan and her fellow researchers defined a successful translocation as one that required no additional management intervention and showed the bear surviving one entire year without returning to its home range. It's well known that the odds are not in favour of the non-resident bear when it is moved to unfamiliar territory. Of the 110 translocations examined, a full 70% were failures. A 30% success rate is still much higher than generally reported in the media. Translocations are never popular, but unfortunately, with some bears, the only other alternative is to shoot it. Conservation officers never make the decision to move a bear lightly. They know the dangers that it will face in its new home but their first priority is the safety of the community. While Bear 148 never injured anyone, it got to the point where conservation officers simply had to make the difficult decision to move her. In order to determine the success of bears in new habitats, biologists needed to better understand how bears currently living in the area use the landscape. Researchers tagged resident bears to learn how they used the landscape, feeding habits, and denning areas. Alberta also has a long history of monitoring bear movement with satellite and radio collars and this historical data is also helpful in studies like this one. One of the biggest challenges with translocating bears is their homing instinct. Many bears will simply abandon their new homes and travel back towards their home range. It is for this reason that Bear 148 was moved north of Jasper National Park. The further the movement, the lower the likelihood that the bear will return home. The quality of the habitat into which a bear is released can also have a strong bearing on reducing the homing instinct. Ideally, the release location should match, as much as possible, the home range in terms of available foods, movement corridors, and denning sites. The study found that the success rate was highest if bears were moved as early as possible in the season. Unfortunately, in many cases, the highest potential for human-grizzly conflicts occurs during buffaloberry season between mid-July and mid-September. Translocated bears also tended to have ranges some 3.25 times larger than resident bears. This shows they needed to cover more territory in order to find sufficient forage to survive. This is likely connected to their being unfamiliar with the landscape. While their home ranges did decrease over time, they continued to be larger than resident bears. Of the translocations that were considered failures, the primary causes were homing, new incidents of conflict, and mortality. Of the 77 failed translocations, 28 bears were killed because of management actions, and 30 failed due to homing. Bears translocated more than 200 km reduced the odds of homing by 95%. When it comes to the timing of winter denning, the study showed no significant difference between resident and translocated bears. The study concluded: "Repeated conflict and mortality were the greatest causes of translocation failure. Our results suggest that the most important factors for translocation success are the level of human-caused mortality risk at the release site and the time of year when the translocation occurred. Specifically, we found that the odds of translocation success decreased with increasing levels of mortality risk surrounding the release site. This result is likely related to the large post-release movements that are typical of many wide-ranging species, which can bring individuals near areas of conflict or mortality risk." Translocation remains an important management tool. Studies like this one help wildlife officers to make the best decisions to increase the opportunities for a successful movement. It's never an easy decision to move an animal away from its home range but the more we understand ways to increase their chances of success, the more the pendulum can move towards reduced mortality. In the central Rockies, people are the biggest problem. We need to work harder to coexist with bears and to respect closures. When people violate closures, it's always the bears that pay the price. And with that, it's time to wrap this episode up. Remember that Ward Cameron Enterprises is your source for snowshoe, nature, hiking, and photography guides across the mountain west. We've been sharing the stories behind the scenery for more than 30 years. Don't forget to check out the show notes at www.mountainnaturepodcast.com/ep054 for links to additional information. You can also comment on the stories and subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode. If you'd like to reach out personally, you can hit me up on Twitter @wardcameron and with that said, the sun's out and it's time to go snowshoeing. I'll talk to you next week.

Wolves are a grizzlies best friend - at least in Yellowstone Yellowstone has become a world renowned laboratory for what can happen when long absent carnivores are returned to the landscape. For decades across North America, predators were seen as the enemy, and targeted for extermination. Bounties were paid for the pelts of wolves, coyotes and other carnivores in order to make the wilderness a more human friendly place. The program resulted in a natural system that ran amok. Food chains evolved over millions and in some cases 10s of millions of years. Every hoofed animal was partially designed by its need to escape predators that were in turn designed to eat them. In some cases, as in the case of snowshoe hare and lynx, both predator and prey evolved the same strategies. Snowshoe hares gradually developed huge back feet to enable them to stay atop deep snows and escape the lynx. In time, the lynx evolved to also have huge feet, negating the hare's advantage. As biologists, we call that co-evolution - two species evolving in concert with each other in the age-old chess match of hunter and hunted. Over time, the predator control programs were very effective over much of their range and wolves were long ago extirpated from places like the greater Yellowstone ecosystem. In their absence, nature didn't rest on its laurels. It continued to evolve based on the now more limited numbers of actors on the stage. In a 2013 study, a research study looked into what impacts removing wolves from Yellowstone may have had on other species, in particular grizzly bears. Normally, we think of animals like wolves and bears as adversaries, both competing for similar prey. Hop onto Youtube and you can find countless examples of wolves and grizzlies battling over carcasses. However when you remove the wolf, might the entire equation change? This study tried to look at what how the Yellowstone ecosystem was impacted by the removal of wolves and how it was further impacted with their return. Looking at mountain landscapes is not all about the pretty pictures that we as visitors take home. Less wolves meant, more elk. Tourists love to take photos of elk. They are one of the main large, charismatic animals that bring tour bus after tour bus into the mountain west. However we also need to remember one important fact. Elk are…what's that word again…oh yah…food! Elk are here not because they are cute and charismatic. They are here because they are made of meat. Ecosystems are a combination of predator and prey. Pressure from predation stimulates adaptation and evolution in their prey animals. This in turn forces the predators to also adapt. Take away the predator and the prey population simply explodes. This is what happened in Yellowstone. With an absence of wolves for more than 70 years, elk and deer numbers had exploded. Everything that was edible was, well, eaten. During this same time, the population of Yellowstone grizzlies also suffered. Could there be some relationship between wolves, elk and grizzly population? This study looked to quantify this relationship. We like to think of bears as carnivores, but in reality, they are omnivores. Most of their diet is made up of plants rather than meat. Uncontrolled elk numbers may have impacted the bears by simply grazing on the plants that produced berries important to those bears. This study examined the idea that taking wolves off the landscape simply changed the landscape to make it less suitable to bears. Grizzlies thrive in forests of aspen, poplar and willow because they tend to have a diverse understory of berry-producing plants like buffaloberry, Saskatoon or Serviceberry and chokecherry.  Too many elk, meant that these shrubs, and even the new shoots of aspen, poplar and willow trees were mere fodder for the endless appetite of the ever growing elk population. In the early days of the absence of wolves, the park did some elk reductions but they stopped those in 1968 with a population of some 3,000 elk. With the programs cancellation, by 1994 the population had grown to a high of approximately 19,000 elk.   New growth of trees and shrubs essentially stopped during this period as every edible shoot, leaf and berry was consumed by the elkopolypse. In a further hit to bear populations, the park closed all of its garbage dumps in 1971. Anyone visiting parks like Yellowstone, or even Banff in those days knew that if you want to see the bears, go to the dump. For bears already stressed by a loss of berry crops, the loss of the easy calories offered by landfills represented another loss in food opportunities for grizzlies. Coincidentally, in 1975 the grizzly bear was designated as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Could reintroducing wolves reverse this trend? In 1995 wolves from Jasper National Park in Canada were captured and reintroduced to Yellowstone. The results have exceeded any expectations although this report was looking at just the impact on grizzlies. With the return of the wolf, populations of both bison and beaver increased, likely due to the increase availability of food. Did the increase in forage improve bear habitat as well? This study looked into the situation before and after wolves were re-introduced. When looking at the amount of fruit composing the diet of Yellowstone grizzlies prior to the reintroduction, they found it was just 2 to 4% as opposed to 28% in British Columbia and 18% in Alberta. In normal ecosystems, fruit composes a critical part of the grizzly bear's diet. The contain huge amounts of carbohydrates that are easily converted to fat. In fact, in episode 42, I spoke about the amazing realization that grizzlies in Alaska will choose Elderberries over salmon when given the opportunity. It seems that berries are the way to go. You can check out that episode at: www.MountainNaturePodcast.com/ep042. So, we brought the wolves back. Did it make a difference? Well, OK, it exceeded anyone's expectations. Returning wolves to the Yellowstone released something biologists call a trophic cascade. This means that by reintroducing wolves, biologists returned the balance to the landscape and the benefits trickled down through the entire ecosystem. More wolves meant less elk. Even today, the wolves take very few bison simply because they are very formidable prey. Elk, on the other hand are manageable, even in cases where bison are more plentiful. Removing elk allowed forage to grow. Poplar, aspen, and willow, in turn allowed bison and beaver populations to increase. More importantly they also allowed plants to grow. Aspen, poplar, and willow trees thrived. Beneath their canopy berry bushes also began to regenerate. Looking into the effects on the diet of bears, the study showed that fruit consumption more than doubled with the reduction in elk numbers.  In some years, fruit consumption could account for up to 29% of the diet of male bears and as high as 39% for females once the wolves were returned to the landscape. Wolves reduced the elk population by an order of magnitude; from an average of 12.1/km2 in the absence of wolves to just 1-2/km2. If we look at the real benefits of the reintroduction of the wolf and the downward cascade of benefits we would see many things. Wolves preyed on elk, but more importantly changed their behaviour in order to avoid the wolves. They moved out of the valleys allowing those areas to regrow. The height of trees skyrocketed with the freedom to simply grow. Long absent forests of aspen, poplar, and willow thrived. This brought in songbirds that used the trees for nesting sites. Less competition for trees allowed beaver populations to grow as well. The beavers helped the ducks, the fish, the muskrat and even the otters. Wolves are a big predator of coyotes, and as they did this, rabbits, hares and mice numbers exploded, helping to spur populations of weasels, hawks, fox and badgers. Many scavengers rely upon animals like wolves to open up carcasses to allow them to feed. As a result, raven and bald eagle populations increased. We've already mentioned that the bears benefited with more available berries. Remember thought that bears will take a significant amount of newborn elk and moose calves. This meant that the bears worked in concert with the wolves to reduce elk populations, while at the same time benefiting with more available berries. Ok, now are you ready for this. The wolves impacted the landscape, and with that the rivers. The regrowth of plant life helped to stabilize the riverbanks and in turn helped to change the course of the rivers. Scientists call this a trophic cascade. It refers to situations like this, where a predator can create a series of benefits that trickle down the entire food chain. I'll include a link in the show notes to a great video that highlights some of the incredible changes that wolves have brought to the Yellowstone ecosystem. Most importantly for this story though, the wolves have helped the bears to thrive in this renewed landscape. This study also helped to reveal a historically negative aspect of this story. Grizzlies once roamed the mountain west all the way south to Mexico. Looking at the history of the mountains, people moved onto the landscape and culled predators, allowing herbivores to reproduce unchecked, while in many cases introducing cattle to the landscape. All of this would have reduced the forage necessary for bears to survive. Think of this as a grizzly bear famine. 20 to 30% of their normal annual food budget had been removed by overgrazing. Perhaps associated with this, grizzly populations began to drop. This means that the removal of wolves may have played an important role in the disappearance of grizzlies from much of the southwest. Could programs like wolf reintroductions allow bears to also be reintroduced to new landscapes? While bears are much more difficult to reintroduce, I'd love to see the scientists make a concerted effort and investigating the possibilities. It all starts with wolves. Trails - the good and the bad Let's talk about a few trail projects in and adjacent to the Rockies. First I want to talk about the grand-daddy of them all - the Great Trail, formerly known as the Trans Canada Trail.  This month, the world's longest recreational trail opened - and it's in Canada. Formerly known as the Trans Canada Trail, Canada's "Great Trail" has officially opened. In total, it covers some 24,000 km, traverses all 10 provinces and 2 territories, and travels from ocean to ocean to ocean. The announcement means that you can now hike across the country from coast to coast, with an option to head all the way to the Arctic Ocean at Inuvik (although you'd need to follow the East Channel of the Mackenzie River a bit to truly meet the ocean. It is not a true trail, but a collaboration of hundreds of trails, each operated by differing jurisdictions, and then joined together by stretches of road or river where necessary. All-in-all, there are more than 400 trails winding their way across all 10 provinces with a potential detour to the far north. Like any network of its kind, it's a work in progress. Over time, sections involving walking on the shoulder of roads will be replaced by bonafide trails, but after 25 years, it's now a reality. Can you hike it all? Not yet. Think of this as a multi-disciplinary trail. The best way to take in the magic will be to combine hiking, cycling and paddling. Like the earliest days of Canada, for some stretches, the waters show the way. Some 26% of the trail follows waterways, so best to practice your J-stroke if you want to conquer this trail network. Other stretches that are dominated by connecting roadways are better covered on two-wheels. If you want, you can even strap on cross-country skis (or if need be fire up a snowmobile) for some sections. The great trail is a reflection of Canada. It crosses diverse landscapes with varying amounts of development and urbanization. Each section will offer its own unique challenges along with its own vistas. Traveling west across the country, when the trail reaches Edmonton, you'll have to decide whether you want to head south towards Calgary to continue the westward section of the trail, or north towards Inuvik and the Arctic Ocean. Along this northern route, you can select a land-based or aquatic route depending on your preferred mode of exploration. As Canadians, most of us have never traveled from coast to coast to coast. It was less than 10 years ago that I finally traveled west to east but I have yet to explore the north. Perhaps the magic of the Great Trail is in its possibilities. It offers each of us the ability to explore Canada in our own way. Lovers of history can follow the footsteps, or paddleways of those that traveled long before we did. Urban explorers can look for trails that connect in ways that allow them to cycle or perhaps hike from hotel to hotel. Nowhere else is there a network like this one. In some ways, it's not ready for the prime time, but in others, it's prime time to begin to imagine the possibilities that await you on the existing pathways, as well as where new additions of the trail may beckon. As you can imagine, this didn't emerge out of the ether. It took 25 years of volunteer hours and thousands of individuals to bring the trail to the point that we are today. If you'd like to learn more, check out their website at: www.tctrail.ca. If you can contribute to the effort, the Federal Government will contribute 50 cents for every dollar you can spare. There is also an app available on both Android and iPhone to help you navigate along the way. I'll see you on the trail.     Now onto another trail. Over the past year, I've spoken at length about a proposed bike trail planned to run between the town of Jasper all the way to the Columbia Icefields, and eventually to Lake Louise and Banff. This trail was poorly conceived and rammed through with little or no public input, and against the best advice of Parks Canada's own scientists. You can read more about the trail plans by checking out episodes 3, 23, and 26. Episode 26 especially, brings out the backroom dealings that occurred in order to force the trail through the approval process. You can listen to it at www.MountainNaturePodcast.com/ep026. The public opinion on the trail has been overwhelmingly negative and it seems that, for the moment at least, the trail has been put on hold. The trail was tied to dollars that had a deadline of 2-years to be spent and that time is running out. Jasper currently has hundreds of kilometres of trails that are virtually impassable due to a decade of neglect during the Harper years. During that time, all the focus was on getting more and more cars through the park gates so they could claim the $8 bucks a head per day. The backcountry was largely forgotten. I first came to the mountains in 1980 to walk the South Boundary Trail in Jasper. At the time, this 176 km trail was the longest in the mountain parks. Today, parts of the original route are impassable. $86 million dollars could go a long way towards repairing overgrown trails,  replacing bridges and upgrading long neglected backcountry campgrounds, hanging racks and outhouses. It now seems that there is hope that this trail will be cancelled. The time limit on the money is running out. The park is now, after being pilloried in the media, doing more extensive public consultations, but the trail is no longer connected to any definite timeline. According to a recent article in the Rocky Mountain Outlook, Parks spokesperson Audrey Champagne stated: “After the consultation periods, if the decision is to move forward with the concept, new project timelines would be established” If the decision is eventually made to move forward, they'll try to get a continuation on the original $70 million that was earmarked in the 2016 budget.   As the author of two books on mountain biking, I'm not opposed to mountain biking as a valid use of the backcountry. However ill-conceived trails will always be ill-conceived. New trails need to take into account new realities, like wildlife movement corridors and habitat patches for endangered or threatened animals like caribou and grizzly bears. This trail not only traveled through critical habitat for the endangered mountain caribou, but also that of grizzly bears, a threatened species in Alberta. At the same time, creating a trail would also create openings in the canopy which would promote the growth of buffaloberries. Bikes and buffaloberries don't mix. The trail would increase the likelihood of bear bike conflicts along its route. The public consultation ended in April of 2017, but the Indigenous consultation is just in the process of ending. There should be an opportunity for further public and indigenous consultation once the draft of the detailed impact analysis is competed so stay tuned. I'll leave a link in the show notes so that you can stay on top of current updates on the trail's status (https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/ab/jasper/info/plan/sentierdesglaciers-icefieldstrail) Hopefully, we'll see this project quietly slip into the dustbin of history and see the dollars dedicated to iconic trails that have been neglected in favour of the frontcountry. Parks are for all Canadians, and not just for those visiting the paved corridors. Let's all fight to make sure that the backcountry trails are refurbished to make sure that tomorrows wilderness wanderers will have an opportunity to explore the further reaches of the park. Thars Gold in British Columbia Many years ago, I wrote a magazine article on the legend of the Lost Lemon Mine in Alberta. I interviewed a long time prospector, Mike Czech who had prospected in the Yukon and southern Alberta in search of the famed Lost Lemon Mine. I was writing an article on this legendary bonanza when suddenly, his wife looked at me and said…"don't get the gold fever!" Her message was that once you get the fever, there is no inoculation. She had been married to a prospector for more than 50 years and had moved from place to place and the hope for the big strike had always been a part of her life as well. Gold Fever is real…once you catch it, it stays with you, and the genesis of British Columbia can be, to a great extent, connected to gold fever. Now if you're not familiar with the symptoms, they often began/begin accidentally. Wilderness wandering was often a pre-requisite. Gold doesn't just pop up anywhere but, like finding a unicorn, it suddenly appears to that individual that not both wandered and observed. In British Columbia, like most places where gold is discovered, discoveries began with a rumour, which evolved into a story which excited the imaginations of adventure seekers, leading to a sudden migration into a wilderness area lacking utilities, support systems, or any of the things people took for granted in civilization. In 1851, a 27 oz nugget from the Queen Charlottes, known as the Haida Gwaii today, was traded in at Fort Victoria. Now you can't just walk into a trading post, drop of an almost two pound chunk of gold and then just wander back to your pickup like nothing unusual has happened. A nugget means people take notice and after this nugget was traded for 1,500 Hudson's Bay Company Blankets, it was brought to the attention of Governor Richard Blandshard. He sent a message to the British Secretary of War and the Colonies (Yup, we were part of the department of war). In it he stated: "I have heard that fresh specimens of gold have been obtained from the Queen Charlotte Islanders. I have not seen them myself, but they are reported to be very rich. The Hudson's Bay Company servants intend to send an expedition in the course of the summer to make proper investigations. The brigantine Huron was dispatched accordingly, ostensibly to trade, but really to search for gold. Failing in which, the men broke up part of a quartz ledge, and carrying pieces on board their vessel, returned in triumph to Victoria" In the end though, this first goldrush didn't produce much gold, but it did see enough people flooding into the territory that the region was designated as the unified Colony of British Columbia. Prior to this, there was a colony on Vancouver Island, with James Douglas as the governor. Douglas was also an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company and so was also in charge of the lands on the mainland although they were not part of the original colony. In a way, the crown colony of British Columbia owes its genesis to the search for gold. While the first taste of gold in the Haida Gwaii had not panned out, in 1857 rumours surfaced of a new gold strike on the Thompson River, downstream of Fort Kamloops. The gold was acquired by the Hudson's Bay Company and in Feb of 1858, Douglas dispatched the steamship Otter to San Francisco with 800 ounces of gold for minting. Within weeks, miners began to arrive on the Fraser River. The first gold strikes were around just a few kilometres above the city of Hope. The new governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas, hired gold commissioners to intercept American prospectors and make them buy licenses, stake claims and record their progress. This was needed to help maintain sovereignty over the new colony as much as it was to make sure that the gold didn't disappear into the U.S. without helping to enrich British Columbia first. In the spring of 1858, shiploads of miners from San Francisco began to arrive at Fort Victoria. Now keep in mind that Fort Victoria was home to a mere 400 people, but between May and July, some 23,000 gold seekers departed San Francisco to arrive at a Fort completely overwhelmed. When they arrived at the growing tent city, only then did they learn that Fort Kamloops was still 600 km distant, and on the mainland, across the Strait. Many built their own boats to try to beat the crowds across the 32 km crossing and up the Fraser towards Fort Yale. Many miners simply began to pan there, pocketing 4-5 ounces per person per day. The more adventurous though, headed upriver on foot. If there was gold in the gravels, then the motherlode must be upstream. Some miners brought with them both experience and instinct. Some, it seemed, could smell the gold. One of these included a group of five Americans led by Peter Curran Dunlevy from Pittsburgh. Like their contemporaries, they began staking claims upstream from Fort Yale, but soon ventured upstream, far upstream. By May, they were panning near the confluence of the Chilcotin and Fraser Rivers, near to present-day Junction Sheep Range Provincial Park. While there, they met a native named Tomaah, the son of Chief Lolo St. Paul. When he asked what they were doing, they showed him a few flakes of gold. Tomaah then claimed that he could "show them a river where gold lay like beans in a pan." The miners would need to stock up on supplies though, and Tomaah promised to meet them at Lac La Hache, some 65 km east as the crow flies. The party purchased a tonne of provisions and 12 packhorses in Fort Kamloops and headed to Lac La Hache. Tomaah, asked his friend Baptiste to show them the river of gold and after several days of travel, they came to a river that they named the "Little Horsefly" because of the hordes of biting flies that plagued them. One of the party, Ira Crow panned the very first gold from the area of British Columbia that would soon be known as the Cariboo. Dunlevy's party had swelled to some 12 men but they struck it rich. They left the area with gold rumoured to have been worth more than a million dollars - that's a million dollars in 1859 dollars. It's the equivalent to winning the lottery. They took their money and moved on. Some, like Dunlevy, continued to invest in the goldrush, opening roadhouses and freighting operations to help other miners along the Cariboo Road as it the area was opened up to easier access. The route to the Cariboo was long, hard and dangerous. James Douglas, the acting Governor of the Crown Colony, informed London: "Another important object I have in view is the improvement of the internal communications of the country, which at present are, for all practical purposes, nearly inaccessible beyond Fort Yale." A road to the Cariboo would not only assist the miners in traveling safer, but would also assist in making sure that the 49th parallel remain as the border between Canada and the U.S. Long before getting permission to build the road, Douglas met with miners and promised that his government would trade them transportation, equipment and food in exchange for a 1.2 metre-wide mule trail through the wilderness as far as Lillooet. To make sure they didn't desert, the miners were required to place a $25 deposit which would later be redeemed in supplies from Lillooet. It also helped to add a few dollars to the road building fund. This road wouldn't follow Fraser past Yale though, but would rather follow the route of the Lillooet River across Harrison, Lillooet, Anderson and Seton Lakes. Alexander Caulfield Anderson had traversed the route in 1847 and was put in charge of the construction. Workers were organized into groups of 25 and dispersed along the route. There were 500 workers on the road by mid-August. In the meantime, the British Government replied to Douglas' original dispatch: "Her Majesty's Government propose sending to British Columbia at the earliest possible opportunity an Officer of Royal Engineers and a Company of Sappers and Miners made up of 150 non-Commissioned Officers and men." By December, 1858 it was reported by the Victoria Gazette that: "Good boats are running on all the lakes, while numerous houses for public entertainment are opening up all along the line. " In one of the strangest stories of the Cariboo Goldrush, Gustavus Blin Wright imported 23 camels at the cost of $7,000. He believed that they could carry twice the weight and cover more distance than mules and horse. What he didn't count on was that their feet were far too soft for the coarse terrain and the fact that horses and mules would stampede when they smelled the strong smells that the camel radiated. In the end, the idea was a total bust. Miners petitioned to have the "Dromedary Express" banned from the road and, in the end, they were simply turned loose. The last one died in 1905 south of Kamloops near present-day Westwold, B.C. Douglas then shifted his attention to the Fraser Valley route to the Cariboo. In 1860, he sent out construction parties to improve the road between Yale and Lytton. There was already an established route from Lytton up to the gold fields. In the end, this Cariboo Road turned out to be a much faster route than Douglas' original route to Lillooet and it quickly took on the majority of the traffic. In just over a year, Douglas has built two major roads towards the gold fields of the Cariboo. He has developed a system of gold commissioners to monitor the miners, the claims and the findings. For many, he is considered the father of British Columbia. Next week we'll follow the story as the Cariboo really begins to get the gold fever. And with that it's time to wrap this episode up. I want to thank you for sharing your time with me and be sure to check out the show notes for links and additional information. You can find them at www.MountainNaturePodcast.com/ep045. Don't forget to click the subscribe button - cmon…do it now! To make sure that you don't miss any episodes. And as always, if you'd like to reach out to me personally you can drop me a line at ward@wardcameron.com or hit me up on twitter @wardcameron. You can also visit our FaceBook page at www.Facebook.com/wardcameronenterprises. And with that said, the sun's out and it's time to go hiking. I'll talk to you next week.

Flying Dinosaurs as Tall as Giraffes If you're a regular listener of this podcast, then you know that I love dinosaurs. Living in Alberta is the perfect mix because we have one of the best landscapes for finding dino remains and there are new discoveries happening all the time. The Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller is one of the leading research centres in the world and for many visitors to Alberta, it is there first real opportunity to look at some of the most unique fossils that have been placed on display. One of their most recent exhibits shows the most well preserved dinosaur ever found, a Nodosaur, essentially an armoured dinosaur similar to the more well known Ankylosaurs. You can learn more about it in episode 30 at www.mountainnaturepodcast.com/ep030. Now comes an even stranger story from the Royal Tyrell Museum that has to do with those strange flying dinosaurs known as pterosaurs. These were formidable creatures, in some cases being as tall as a modern giraffe but potentially soaring on wingspans similar to airplanes. No creature, before or since has ever been a more fearsome presence soaring overhead. Donald Henderson is the curator of dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrell, and he came across an artist's rendering of the largest of pterosaurs, Arambourgiania philadelphiae, placed next to, and as tall as, a giraffe. The giraffe weighs in at 1,500 kg but a similarly sized pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus northropi, was thought to weigh far far less, perhaps as little as 70 kg. For Henderson, he felt that a pterosaur that tall had to weigh far more than 70 kg, and he did his own math and came up with an estimate of some 550 kg. This immense weight also meant that it was highly unlikely that the Arambourgiania could fly at all. He concluded that, like penguins, it had likely evolved to be flightless. A bird of this mass would have needed incredible muscle strength in order to take to the air. Based on his research, he was clipping its wings and grounding it. Well his paper got little response from fellow researchers…oh wait, it was like he'd said something crazy like pterosaurs can't fly. Well the opposition to his research was not long in coming. Mark Witton is one of the most recognized authorities on pterosaurs, and it was his rendering that Henderson had encountered that started this whole process. As he was quoted in a recent interview in the publication Inverse: “There’s a handful of people who sort of dip in and out of pterosaurs, who have suggested that they can’t fly, but most people who work on pterosaurs have never really questioned this. And that’s not in the sense of, they’ve not ever wondered it, but they’ve never seen any reason to think it’s a good hypothesis.” When Witton looked at the fossil physiology, his estimate showed these pterosaurs to be less than half of Henderson's estimate, closer to 250 kg. Pterosaurs had many of the same adaptations that modern-day birds have to help them fly. They had small torsos, hollow bones, and interior air sacs. All of these things combined to dramatically reduce their weight specifically to enable the ability to fly. As Witton put it: “All the ducks line up in a row, and it’s actually far more complicated for us to think of a reason why they’re not flying,” Working with Witton to refute Henderson's estimate was paleontologist Michael Habib. He is a recognized expert on the biomechanics of pterosaur flight but has now partnered with Henderson to take a renewed look at the Quetzalcoatlus based on new skeletal reconstructions. Their work has led Habib to the conclusion that they may have weighed far more than he previously thought, although not as big as Henderson's original estimate. Despite this, he's still two thumbs up on flight. I love science. The proper scientific method forces researchers to constantly challenge established research in order to test, verify and update previous peer-reviewed papers. Good research should be repeatable if it is to be proven correct. Good scientists embrace dissent and Habib and Henderson's recent work proves this. The thought of these massive predatory birds flying around, seeing small tyrannosaurs as a light snack is a visual that even the producers of Jurassic Park couldn't have conceived. As these two scientists continue their research it seems that a middle ground may be appearing. Habib believes that these pterosaurs did still fly, but that some of the largest ones may have been mostly ground dwelling but that the young would have flown immediately since the eggs were not tended by their parents. Young pterosaurs that lingered were essentially dinner for larger dinosaurs. The model that's emerging has these giant pterosaurs flying when they were young, and spending more time on terra firma as their large size made it harder to fly but also made them large enough that they didn't have to worry about becoming a meal for tyrannosaurs. They may have still been capable of short flights, perhaps to move between prime hunting grounds. Conversely, they may have become completely terrestrial as they aged. Comparing the bones of these giants to smaller pterosaurs, the bones show all the same adaptations to flight that their smaller relatives display. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…well you get the idea. Really, what is needed is an complete fossil. Pterosaur fossils are rare simply because the bones are so delicate that they rarely are preserved in the fossil record. Thinking of such huge creatures soaring overhead would have been a truly magical thing to see - all from the safety of a pterosaur proof bunker of course. Next up…loving the mountains to death. Loving the Mountains to Death As the 2017 tourism season begins to wane, This is a good time to take stock of what we have learned from the growing influx of tourists and how we can better manage the parks that we all love so that our grandchildren's grandchildren will be able to experience the same wonders that we do. Ideally, we could create a world in which the landscape they visit is even better than it is today, with more ecological integrity and less personal self-interest. Seeing the huge crowds at many mountain viewpoints these days makes me sad. When you can't take a photo without people crawling over railings and swarming over the very scene that has brought you soooo far to photograph. If you've gotten to the point where you really believe, in the pit of your stomach, that something's gotta give, then you're in good company. Many, many local people, people like me that earn their entire income from tourism, have come to the same conclusion. And we're not alone. Parks across Canada and the US are collapsing under their popularity and run the risk of being loved to death. Parks like Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Yosemite, and Great Smokey Mountains in the US are feeling the same pressures that parks like Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and Kootenay are. Visit Peyto Lake in Banff or the Natural Bridge in Yoho, and you can't even take a photo without clowns going out of the designated viewing areas to do selfies in areas that are either sensitive to disturbance or downright dangerous. If we look at Banff and Jasper National Parks, we can see time and time again where the Harper Government allowed developments that have no place in a national park to move forward. These include developments like the Glacier Skywalk at the Columbia Icefields, new 'roofed accommodation' at Maligne Lake in Jasper, glamping (glamorous camping) sites in Two Jack Lake in Banff, and even a paved bike path from Jasper to the Columbia Icefields through critical habitat for endangered caribou. Thankfully, this last development is currently on hold due to the strong negative public reaction. The Harper years were characterized by budget cuts for classic backcountry trail networks and over-emphasis on getting more cars through the park gates. $8/person, kaching, thank you very much…next! This creates a situation where 95% of the visitors see the same 2% of the park, the paved corridors. As locations like Moraine Lake and Lake Louise collapse under sheer numbers and parking lots and feeder roads clog up due to traffic, what kind of experience are visitors to the area getting? What kind of image is it giving the mountain national parks? What do we do when people flood to sites like TripAdvisor to say: "don't go to Banff, it's overrun, why not go to…?" In a Globe and Mail article, former Banff Park Superintendent Kevin Van Tighem stated that Canada's National Parks are being used merely as: "raw material to be commodified into a bundle of Disneyesque visitor attractions and marketing packages." It is as if "nature was no longer enough" Parks Canada's mandate, and I've harped on this time and again on this podcast, is that parks: "shall be maintained and made use of so as to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." More importantly, the role of the federal minister of parks shall be the: "maintenance or restoration of ecological integrity, through the protection of natural resources and natural processes." I don't know anyone, either within parks or within the communities that serve to provide the services to park visitors that feels that this goal is even being attempted. Even the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has made some huge blunders. Seriously…free park passes! I can guarantee that nobody working in the mountain national parks thought this was a good idea. While the numbers aren't in yet, I'm betting that we added another half a million visitors to an already overburdened landscape. They could have said: "here are 10 parks that are underutilized and so we're going to offer free access to them to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday", but alas no, the gates were tossed wide open. I'll give Justin this one giant oops. He did send out an intergovernmental panel to the mountain parks last year to see how people living and working in the parks felt about the current park management. They got an earful. If you'd like to learn more about the panel, check out episode 26 at www.mountainnaturepodcast.com/ep026. Parks Canada received failing marks for its lack of transparency in its decision making process. Projects like the Glacier Skywalk in Jasper were approved despite overwhelming negative feedback. The panel couldn't find any logic in the way decisions within the organization were being made at the highest levels. Again, I stand with the parks employees working locally, because they are merely the receiver of directives from on high and to a man (or woman), most would agree that developments like this should never have been approved. Has Justin done better than Harper? Somewhat. He allowed all government scientists across the nation to publish their research, whether or not it was supportive of current government goals. He also immediately removed the muzzle that the Harper government had put on park wardens from speaking to the media. As a guide, I can't do my job without the amazing work being done by park wardens and scientists. The wardens of the mountain national parks are responsible for incredible research into the wildlife and ecosystems that are critical to these mountain landscapes. If I'm critical of something that Parks Canada approves, it is often because of the good science their rank and file perform on a daily basis has helped to contradict the justification for those approvals. When discussing another national park development, Van Tighem stated: "Rules? We don't actually have those anymore, so what did you have in mind as a money-making idea for our park? We'll dress it up in heritage language and funky marketing-speak to persuade ourselves it's good for national parks, and then you can have at 'er." I'll leave a link to the Globe and Mail article in the show notes a mountainnaturepodcast.com/ep044. (https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-disneyfication-of-canadas-national-parks/article28359840/?ref=https://www.theglobeandmail.com&service=mobile) Tourism doesn't have to mean sacrificing the very thing that you're trying to showcase. There has to be another way. Thankfully, we don't have to muddle our way through the challenges of excess alone. We can look to other jurisdictions that are also doing some muddling of their own. One of those is Yellowstone. Like the mountain national parks, they are drowning in visitors and seeing their most iconic locations swamped with an ocean of tourists. One of the things that is hampering any discussion into limiting visitors has to do with the simple fact that nobody wants to be the guy (or girl) that says: "No, you can't visit Lake Louise" Most of the focus over the past decade has been to bring more and more and more and more visitors. I think anyone visiting these sites would agree that this hasn't worked. There is an inverse relationship between the number of visitors and the visitor's experience. The busier a site becomes, there will be a threshold where the visitor experience begins to suffer. Someone has to say the word! NO! I will say that things have been much better this year. Because of the Canada 150th, Parks put out an army of people working for an amazing company, ATS Traffic, that have done an impressive job reducing the amount of vehicles in places like Lake Louise and Moraine Lake this summer. In past years, I have had days where it's taken me two and a half hours to drive the 3 or 4 km between the village of Lake Louise and the actual lake. That has not happened this year at all, mainly because of the amazing work being done by ATS Traffic. The traffic control has been supplemented by the shuttle service that the park has sponsored this summer. There are free shuttles everywhere, and they have been working. I've spoken numerous times to the staff organizing the shuttles to Lake Louise from the Overflow Campground to the east of the village along the Trans Canada Highway. They have been doing impressive numbers, in the range of 2,000 plus people on busy days. That's some 1,000 cars or so that are NOT trying to drive to Lake Louise. Moraine Lake has been even more dramatic. In past years, there would be cars parked for kilometres along the all too narrow road. It made the road almost impossible for buses or wide vehicles to navigate. This year, the road has essentially been closed to cars by 9 am. The road and associated parking area can only accommodate so many cars. When the lots are full, the road is closed. Has that had any impacts on the shoreline of Lake Louise and Moraine Lake? It's been impressive. Closing the roads and parking areas when they reach a capacity, and preventing miles and miles of roadside parking means that there are fewer people at the actual sites. This means that the people that did arrive early enough presumably are having a much better experience. What about those that didn't? Those are the visitors that will leave the park with a negative experience. I've met them. I've walked past traffic jams and had people ask why they can't get to Lake Louise. The fact that it was simply too busy did not compute when they had traveled all the way from Toronto to see it. The traffic management is a key first step to creating a balance between expectation and experience. As a guide, I've been pushing my groups ever earlier in the morning to try to manage the experience they will have when they arrive. Unfortunately, hotels, will only make breakfasts available at certain times, so you can't always be 'early enough'. One thing that is an unknown at this point is whether ATS traffic will be hired to do the same job next year. So many things were tied to the funding for Canada 150, that the funds that are paying for their critical work may only be a one-time deal. If that is the case, then we go back to endless traffic jams again next year. If you applaud the work done by these mountain heroes this year, then be sure to let your elected officials know that we need this to be the new norm. There is no going back. In addition to traffic management, we also saw extensive parking restrictions implemented in 2017. Long sections of road approaching places like Johnston Canyon and Moraine Lake are now tow away zones with parking barriers. Managing traffic and parking are two of the critical pillars towards capacity management, but how do we manage the visitor experience? What we need to do for the long-term is to sit down, and create a comprehensive visitor experience plan. What do we, as tourism professionals, park managers, and stakeholders want people to say about our destinations when they leave? How do we create that experience? The only way that can happen is if we place a finite limit on the number of people that can visit certain locations. It's not too late to decide the kind of destination that we want to be when we grow up. I like to think that we're in the adolescence of our role as keepers of the ecological jewels of the mountain landscape. We started slowly some 130 years ago. We marketed our butts off to try to carve our little piece of the world tourism market. We coerced, cajoled and click baited until the dreams of many hoteliers, restaurants, gift shops and tour companies were given the taste of success. Like a drug addict, that first taste is always free. Twenty years ago, I believed it was time to stop building hotels. The number of hotel rooms provide a natural limit to the number of visitors to a destination. We are still building hotels like a drunken sailor. Destination Marketing organizations like Banff Lake Louise Tourism and Travel Alberta are still singing the siren song of more, more, more. However we're now at a tipping point. Can we learn anything from this summer that can help us to start to navigate towards a better, more sustainable future? I think we can. I know we can! This year we managed traffic. Now we need to envision a future where the experience is managed in such a way that the traffic is pre-managed for us. There is only one way - quotas. Fabulous destinations around the world have had to deal with these questions decades ago. We need to look at their examples. Did people stop going when they created quotas? Or did they plan their trips in such a way to make sure they had the experiences they saw in their Lonely Planet guide? In Banff National Park, we have four places that jump to the top of the list, in order of priority 1. Moraine Lake 2. Johnston Canyon 3. Lake Louise 4. Sulphur Mountain Gondola Three of the four are a challenge because they are at the end of one-way-in and one-way-out roads that back up very quickly. Johnston Canyon is simply a victim of its incredible popularity. The list contains four of the most popular destinations in Banff. We can add Emerald Lake In Yoho to this list, along with Mount Edith Cavell in Jasper Are limits bad? Hockey games have them. There are only so many seats at the stadium. We are surrounded by limits, but when it comes to a natural feature, the prevailing wisdom is to squeeze as many people and cars as possible. More, more, more! Well Lake Louise, is not a dairy cow. We can't keep squeezing the unique landscape. The environment around Lake Louise also contains the highest concentration of breeding female grizzlies in the central Rockies. There is something in that landscape that is just a good place to raise a family if you're a grizzly bear. OK. Here's my pitch. How do we create finite limits? For many sites, we create parking lots designed to collect visitors that are NOT at the destination. We make sure that shuttle buses can take them to the site with minimal inconvenience. Do you want to visit Lake Louise? Click this link to book your shuttle bus. The shuttle system this year has been awesome in showing that this works. Here's how I would supercharge it. Take away all public parking at Lake Louise, or Sulphur Mountain, or Moraine Lake. Those lots are for tour and shuttle buses only, and the tour buses would also be limited. If shutting parking down is too hard a sell, than create a financial disincentive to park at the destination. The option of a free shuttle versus a $20 parking fee will likely help to shift the trend towards free, scheduled shuttles and away from driving directly to the destination. If a parking rate can be found that provides a sufficient disincentive to driving but still helps to fund the resource, I'm all for that. One scenario might be that there are 200 parking spots for Lake Louise and they cost $10 or $40. What will the market bear? Ideally though, most of the visitors should arrive on shuttle or tour buses. One of the final things I would like to see the mountain parks do is to try to implement more active restrictions to people moving beyond the designated visitor corridors and start climbing over barriers to get ever closer to the view. . We can't stop determined visitors from forcing their way beyond barriers to do their worst, but we can create better discouragement barriers. As Canadians, we have perhaps been too polite. In places like Peyto Lake, it would not be too hard to create a pretty convincible barrier to prevent tourists from swarming the cliff below the public viewpoint. The viewpoint is there because it's designed to reduce the impact on this lower cliff. Alternatively, the park could extend the viewpoint to include this lower outcrop. The most important thing is to manage the visitor experience while also managing the visitor. A recent article on Yellowstone National Park in the publication Mountain Journal, really has had me thinking more about this issue. So far in this story, I focused on simple human use management to address the issue of ecological integrity. If the mountain national parks have to look anywhere for an example, the first national park in the world might be a great place to start. This article, penned by long-time Yellowstone advocate Todd Wilkinson really ties into my philosophy of how we might combine a better visitor experience with better ecological integrity within the mountain park landscape. One of Wilkinson's key concepts requires "saying yes to saying no". We have a finite limit on the number of people that can visit Old Faithful on a given day. Get your permit here! His article contains some pretty inflammatory statements, but I agree with them all. One of the most challenging for a community like Banff is: "The irony, of course, is that some of the biggest financial beneficiaries of the dividends of conservation are people who, for their own ideological reasons and motivations of rational self-interest, are today opposed to limits.  It’s probably fair to say that most possess no malicious intent, but the needs of wildlife, the underpinnings of what enables biological diversity to thrive, do not register with them." Wilkinson also states: "There is no example on Earth where conservation of nature, over time, has not generated huge ecological, economic, social, cultural, and spiritual benefits." Did you say economic benefits? Yellowstone and its surrounding landscapes are a billion dollar a year industry. Like our mountain parks, Yellowstone has one word that it has yet to utter: NO. According to Wilkinson: "We live in times, which some commentators describe as America’s new regression back to adolescence, where it is not fashionable to ever say no.  It is an age when some claim that natural landscapes have no limits for the amount and intensity of human activity that can occur on them without serious ecological harm being done. We live in a time of climate change and population growth in which users of landscapes (for profit, recreation or lifestyle) conclude that unless they can actually see impacts being caused by their own actions or by the larger acumulating wave of human presence, such impacts, therefore, do not exist. He sees three big challenges that parks like Yellowstone, and by extension, Banff face: • The deepening impacts of climate change and what they predict, especially where water in the arid west is concerned. • The deepening inexorable impacts of human growth (both an unprecedented rise in people migrating to live in the Greater Yellowstone from other nature deprived areas, and accompanied by a somewhat related surge in unprecedented numbers of visitors and recreationists to public lands. • The inability or reluctance of land management agencies to see the writing on the wall. Yellowstone, unlike Banff, still hosts every major mammal and bird species that was there before the arrival of the Europeans. Banff gets points for the 2017 reintroduction of wild bison back to the park, but loses points because it was not able to keep its northern mountain caribou herd. Now Jasper's remaining caribou are also at serious risk of vanishing. Wilkonsin states: "The 22.5-million-acre Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is actually pretty small. Functionally, it will be made ever smaller, squeezed by climate change altering its ecological carrying capacity because of less winter snowpack, hotter and drier conditions, and further fragmented by a doubling or tripling of the human population likely to occur in just two human generations." I know that for me, this could just as easily be said about the Bow River Valley. Combine growth without proper cumulative impact assessments, with vast increases in visitation, and we can see real challenges in our future. According to Wilkinson: "If we don’t get the “growth” component of Greater Yellowstone addressed, experts have told me, it won’t matter how fond we are of thinking about ecological processes playing out at the landscape level, like terrestrial migrations of ungulates, protecting wide-ranging species like grizzly bears, wolverines and elk that need escape cover free of intensive human intrusion." These are problems that are apparent throughout the entire Mountain National Park and surrounding areas. Canmore is in the middle of the battle to protect continentally significant wildlife corridors. If we don't get this right, nothing else matters. We, as a community, need to continue to fight to make sure that big development does not get to compromise critical connecting routes that are a key component of the much larger Rocky Mountain ecosystem. Even now, the town of Canmore is not only negotiating wildlife corridors, but developing within metres of them. The new bike trail being designed adjacent to Quarry Lake is a folly that the town cannot afford. Already, bears like 148 are being removed from the landscape for spending time on corridors dedicated to their movement. Having more and more and more development encroaching on these corridors will lead to a continued eroding of the ecological viability of the town of Canmore corridors - and maybe that's exactly what development focused mayors like John Borrowman want. Once the corridor is gone, he can promote the valley to his heart's content. Canmore has an election coming up. Make a better decision this time Canmore! You may not have many more chances. One advantage that Canada has over Yellowstone at the moment is that we are no longer afraid of science. We can look to great research being done within our parks that shows that the current trends are simply unsustainable. Wilkinson quotes Thomas Roffe, the former National Chief of wildlife health for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: “Science doesn’t define what the proper thing to do is. Science helps to define what the conditions will be if you choose one vision or another. Science will help you understand what the advantages or disadvantages are to your perspective. But it doesn’t tell you what’s right or what’s wrong.” We have the science. We can all see the changes. What are we going to do? Will we make the right choice? And with that, it's time to wrap this episode up. If you'd like to hit me up personally, you can email me at info@wardcameron.com or send me a message on Twitter @wardcameron. Ward Cameron Enterprises is your source for step-on and hiking guides as well as wildlife biology safaris, snowshoe animal tracking and corporate speaking programs. We've been sharing the stories behind the scenery for more than 30 years and we can help to make sure your visit to the Rockies is one that you'll be talking about for years. You can visit our website at www.WardCameron.com for more details. And with that said, the rain has thankfully come and now stopped so it's time to go hiking. I'll talk to you next week.

Story 1 - First Bison Born in Banff Well, today, I'm able to share several good news stories that makes all the work worth it. While we are constantly being bombarded with bad news, it's always exciting when the hard work of thousands of people has a tangible impact on decisions taking place in the places we love. So let's take a look at the great announcements filling the newswires this week. First on the list has to do with the cutest thing on earth – baby animals. Spring is the time of new life in the mountains. Over the next month we'll begin to see mule and white-tail deer fawns, elk calves, and those oh so cute black and grizzly bear cubs. So what makes this year so special? How about the first bison calf in 140 years to be born in Banff National Park? Now if that's not cool enough, not only is it the first bison in more than a century, but it was born on Earth Day, April 22, 2017. Story 2 - Icefields Trail Stalled Parks Canada has been planning a paved bike path running all the way from Jasper to the Columbia Icefields, and eventually all the way to Lake Louise and possibly Banff. This 86.4 million dollar trail has been hugely unpopular by conservationists, researchers, and as was revealed recently, Parks Canada's own scientists. Freedom of Information crusader, Ken Rubin peeled back the curtain of secrecy and has been revealing the long trail of public documents and emails that led up to the decision to build this trail. One of the most telling signs was the fact that Parks Canada actually posted a tender for engineering firms to begin the design of the actual trail. This is especially troubling since the trail is not even through the public consultation phase and has not been given any official go-ahead from the powers that be. Well it seems that the overwhelmingly negative response to this tender has finally caused Parks Canada to pay attention. This week, the tender was withdrawn. According to a story in the Fitzhugh Newspaper, Minister McKenna's press secretary, Marie-Pascale Des Rosiers said: "This was determined to be premature given that the agency is currently focused on the consultation process and the environmental assessment for the proposed project". Story 3 - Big Wins in Canmore's Wildlife Corridor Battle This has been a week of very good news in Canmore particularly in terms of the struggle to designate the last critical wildlife corridor on the south side of the Bow River valley. On April 26th, Alberta Environment and Parks announced that they will not be making a decision on the Three Sisters Mountain Village and Smith Creek Wildlife Corridors for at least another four to eight weeks. The very next day, Three Sisters withdrew from consideration, its area structure plan for its Smith Creek Development until the provincial government renders it's decision on the corridors. They did move forward with their submission for first reading of the Stewart Creek Village Centre area structure plan. But in a third blow to the developer, on May 2nd Canmore Town Council unanimously rejected Three Sisters asp for its village Centre development. Story 4 - Anglers Beware If you're one of the many anglers that love to cast a fly in the Bow River to test your luck against the prevalent trout population, you'll want to pay attention to this story. Beginning on April 1, the entire stretch of the Bow River from its headwaters at Bow Lake in Banff National Park to the Bassano Reservoir is now catch and release only. And speaking of Whirling Disease, it has now been confirmed in the entire Oldman River watershed as well. The disease now affects rivers throughout the western boundary of Alberta from Bow Lake south to the Montana Border and Waterton Lakes National Park. Despite this recent report, the Oldman River system will not see any changes to fish regulations at this time. Story 5 - Updates on Transportation and Parking for Banff In the past, it has been difficult to get to and from the mountains without a vehicle. There are a number of airport shuttle companies and a few regularly scheduled buses, but not really a proper transit system connecting Calgary with Canmore, Banff and Lake Louise. This summer, it looks like a number of players are combining to help solve this problem. One of the first stories was a new transit service between Calgary, Cochrane, Canmore and Banff. The service will run on weekends and holidays, beginning in mid-June and ending on Labour Day. The buses will be run by the Calgary Regional Partnership and will also allow valley residents to use the buses to travel to Calgary for the day. The cost of the buses will be $10 each way per person. The program would dedicate 3 buses to do approximately 13 round trips per day. The first bus will arrive in Banff around 8:30 am and the last one would leave Banff approximately 10:30 pm. The buses will pick-up and drop-off at the Crowfoot LRT Station in Calgary. A few morning and evening trips will pick-up and drop-off in Okotoks, Somerset-Bridlewood in South Calgary. There will also be additional bus service this summer between Banff and Lake Louise, as well as the Lake Minnewanka Loop. Both of these buses are also intended to encourage people to park their cars and reduce some of the strain on the busy road systems. On sunny summer days, the highway interchange at Lake Louise is completely closed as the roads become overwhelmed by the number of cars that want to visit. And finally some great news for traffic in and around Banff Townsite. On April 25th, Karen Sorensen, Mayor of Banff announce a new transportation hub and 900 stall parking area to be developed adjacent to the Banff train station.

This week we're looking at some important changes to the tourism infrastructure in Jasper National Park as well as some insights into the life of bats in the mountain west http://traffic.libsyn.com/mountainnature/Ep025_Mountain_Nature_and_Culture_Podcast.mp3 Story 1 - The Tourism Files As the summer season approaches, there are a number of new announcements taking place within Banff and Jasper National Parks that are definitely worth taking note of this year. If you work in the guiding industry, definitely stay tuned as these stories will affect your tours in a good way this summer. One of the big announcements is a complete overhaul of the food services at the Columbia Icefields Chalet. For years, the scenery has been spectacular, but the food…well..not so much. Over the years, options for motorcoach tours and family travelers have been slim along the scenic corridor between Banff and Jasper. A few years ago, the Chateau Lake Louise closed down its famous lunch buffet in the Victoria Dining Room and this left a huge hole in the dining options outside of the major centres of Banff and Jasper - especially for larger groups. Brewster this year has hired a new company to help manage the Chalet. Forrec is a global company specializing in developing attractions all around the world. They're the people behind sites like LegoLand in the U.S. In Canada, they developed the Bat Cave at the Royal Ontario Museum and also worked on the Muskoka Boat and Heritage Centre. In a recent article in Jasper's Community Newspaper, Fitzhugh, Matt Dawson, Forrec's senior director of visitor operations stated: “The building is crowded and underwhelming, It’s a missed opportunity – Brewster ranks high (on online travel sites and apps) but the building gets poor or non-existent reviews. People are just blanking it out of their minds. So we want to have complementary experiences inside that enhance what they have outside.” I can certainly agree with this characterization. The building has historically been the pain before the pleasure. It has been a cram of people, all in a rush, pushing their way through a crush of equally rushed crowds. Their first order of business has been focused on cuisine. There have always been two separate restaurants in the hotel. The first, located just above the main staircase, has been a buffet restaurant largely catered to motorcoach tours. The food was adequate at best and never changing. The second restaurant was the public cafeteria style free-for-all. The food was passable but really uninspiring. It was simply…necessary. The day is long, ya gotta eat, so eat. Nobody ever remarked about remarkable food. To be fair, these two restaurants feed some 600,000 hungry visitors every year. The buffet restaurant is now known as "Altitude". According to Dawson: “Altitude is a 450-square-metre buffet style servery,” Dawson explained. “It takes inspiration from the natural environment. So the colour palette is inspired by glaciers, lots of icy blues and whites, harder surfaces – it’s cool and contemporary, and would not be out of place in downtown Vancouver.” When it comes to the food, in an article in this week's Crag and Canyon, menu items will include "rack of lamb with mint sauce, fish, steaks, burgers, flatbreads, and pizzas." Well- hay…I can work with that. An upgrade to the Icefields Chalet has been a very long time coming and this is welcome news. One thing I would like to see is a way to better design the human traffic flow. I'm stoked about the improved food because, as a guide, I eat a lot of meals there every summer. The newly designed restaurants look great as well. If you want to see some images, Check out this story in the Crag and Conyon Newspaper: http://www.thecragandcanyon.ca/2017/04/12/glacier-discovery-centre-completes-interior-renovations-to-restaurants Can Forrec improve this iconic destination? If they can, I'll be impressed. Let me know if you visit. I'd love to hear some first-hand impressions. Mount Edith-Cavell is one of Jasper National Park's premier destinations. The interpretive walk to the Angel Glacier overlook is one that inspires awe and, a few years ago, terror. Permits Required for Mount Edith Cavell Road In 2012, the Ghost Glacier came loose from the steep slopes of Mount Edith-Cavell and into the tiny tarn known as Cavell Pond. The resulting tsunami-style wave erupted from the tiny lake and swept down the valley taking out an interpretive trail as well as much of the public parking area. This event really brought to the fore, the dangers of a rapid glacial melt. It also led to the closing of the Mount Edith Cavell road for the remainder of the 2012 season. While it reopened in 2013, it was clear the combination of increased visitation as well as increased risk due to rapid glacial retreat meant that Parks Canada needed to do some redevelopment in order to move the parking lot out of the danger zone while also increasing the capacity. As of this summer, there is now a limit on the number of cars that can travel the Mount Edith Cavell Road. If you want to visit the area…and you really really DO want to visit this site. Limited access is a really really good idea. It makes sure that the people that do get an opportunity to visit the site will get a great experience. Starting this summer, in order to visit Mount Edith Cavell, you'll need a permit issued by Parks Canada. The free permits will be available outside of the Jasper Information Centre in the heart of Jasper between 08:00 and 10:00 every day. Only one permit per vehicle is required. It is being put in place primarily to ensure that each vehicle should have a place to park in the main lot. It will also help to reduce the overcrowding challenges at the site as well as the long line of vehicles parking along the really narrow access road as it approaches the parking area. For those of us that are part of an organized group tour, we won't need vehicle permits, nor will backcountry users, cyclists, or hostel guests. Parks Canada staff will be on location at the start of the road to check permits for vehicles as well as tour operator licenses, reservations for the Tonquin Trail, Tonquin Valley Backcountry Lodge, Amethyst Lake Lodge and the Edith Cavell Hostel. This is a great development for Mount Edith Cavell. We need to make sure that the access to the location is both safe and sustainable. If you are a repeat visitor, I truly believe that this will improve the access to the location. While fewer visitors will be able to snap photos of the glacier, it will help to reduce the impact and the crowds. Story 2 - Going Batty As days slowly warm up, it won't be long until, if you're lucky and very watchful, you may be able to see dark objects flitting across the night sky in search of flying insects. Bats are still largely a mystery in the mountain west with scientists in the dark on most aspects of these furry mammals. Researchers don't know very much about their population, distribution, or even where non-migratory bats overwinter in the Rockies. In most instances, the bats we see locally are likely to be big brown or little brown bats (also called the little brown myotis). The remaining 7 species are more solitary and less likely to be spotted by the average viewer. If you're lucky enough to a rarity, you'll likely not know, for as the saying goes, they all look mostly alike when flitting across the night sky. Alberta is home to the Big and Little brown bat, Eastern Red Bat, Hoary Bat, Long-eared Myotis, Long-legged Myotis, Northern Myotis, Silver Haired Bat and the Western Small-footed Bat. All bats are members of the order Chiroptera which loosely translates to 'hand wing' in Greek. Essentially, the bones that form the structure of the wing, are the bat's finger bones,  which are connected by a thin skin membrane called the patagium. Because the wing is essentially, well, a hand, bats can move it like a hand while flying, which allows them to literally swim through the air. Only the thumb remains exposed, extending from the wing  as a small claw used for climbing. Bats represent one of, at least, four times in history that self-propelled flight has evolved. In addition to bats, birds, and insects, my personal favourite, the pterosaurs, took to the air some 228 million years ago. The first known ancestral bat dates to around 50 million years ago. Canada's bats are all a member of the family Vespertilonidae which means "evening bat". This refers to their preference for hunting at night when insects are more active. Birds, with their rigid wings are better at providing lift but the wings of bats are more flexible allowing them to bend them into different shapes which in turn almost instantly varies the direction and degree of lift. Their flight is also more efficient than that of both insects and birds. As an example, a hovering bat uses 40% less energy than hawkmoths and 60% less than hummingbirds. Unlike the rigid wings of birds, they have almost two dozen wing bones that can each be controlled independently to some extent. Add to this the pliable nature of the wing membrane, and you have an aerial predator of unmatched flying abilities. If you ever have the chance to watch the beautiful flights of bats as they fly, tumble, barrel roll, and almost instantly change direction to hone in on a their dinner, you will have marveled at their nimble aerial displays. Bats combine aeronautic agility with active sonar to hone in on flying insects using echolocation combining millisecond timing and millimetre accuracy. While not all bat species use sonar, all the bats in Canada DO. Bats emit high frequency pulses of sound at a rate of up to 200 per minute. While we can't hear these pulses, they can hear the pulses reflect off of objects in their flight path. Depending on circumstance, bats produce three different types of pulse. One pulse is used when searching for prey. Once located, they change to an approach pulse and at the last minute, change to a feeding pulse as they prepare to capture dinner. Sonar allows the bats to literally see with sound!  It helps them find all manner of flying insects, but also to navigate around obstacles. Echolocation is an almost magical way for bats to navigate the night skies in search of dinner. As autumn approaches so does the mating season. Bats swarm together for this purpose and once impregnated, female bats carry the active sperm for several months, waiting for late-winter or early spring before fertilization takes place. This delayed implantation is often talked about when referring to black and grizzly bears, but bats and some members of the weasel family also utilize the same strategy. Once the pups are born, usually one, or rarely two, per year, they're fed milk by their mother for the first 6 weeks, beyond which they are on their own to fend for themselves. Occasionally, female bats gather in maternity colonies in frequently used locations. When we think of bat swarms and winter hibernation in bats, we think of caves. In fact, Banff National Park has just discovered the very first cave to show evidence of hibernating bats within its boundaries. The cave is in the northern reaches of Banff, close to the Columbia Icefields. Biologists believe the bats are little brown myotis, but they are sending out bone samples in order to get a more accurate identification. Outside of Banff, Canmore's Rat's Nest Cave also shows evidence of bats using the warm cavern for hibernation. I have photographs of bat skeletons that I took back in the 1990s from this cave. A 2013 study stated that: "There are four known bat hibernacula in the Province of Alberta: Wapiabi (Chungo) Cave, southwest of Nordegg, Cadomin Cave, south of Hinton, Procrastination Pot (or NDP Cave), east of Jasper and Walkin Cave south of Fort Smith. The nearest hibernacula west of Banff in British Columbia are a couple abandoned mines near Cranbrook sheltering Townsend’s bigeared bat (Plecotus townsendii). Recent research by Lausen 2006 has determined, using radiotelemetry, that big brown bats (Eptesicus fiscus) use narrow deep rock crevices or erosion holes located in steep valley walls in Dinosaur Provincial Park. The potential possibilities of sub-human size cracks and crevices suitable for over-wintering bat use in the Canadian Rocky Mountains verges on uncountable." Very little is known as to the winter use of bats in caves within the Canadian Rocky region. Within Banff National Park, there are at least 11 caves that have been explored by spelunkers, but the potential is there for many more caves to be hidden within the vast wilderness that is Banff. There may also be many smaller caves that would not attract the attention of people due to their inaccessibility, but that may serve bats just fine. There is another potential habitat in Banff as the same 2013 study mentioned: "One fairly unique Banff habitat that might be used by bats is the geothermally warmed zone around its hot springs. Both caves and crevices, plus sub-human size cracks and holes may provide seasonal roosting and nursery bat habitat." Along with caves, abandoned mines can create a perfect location for hibernating bats, Banff, Kootenay and Yoho National Parks each have abandoned mines with open entrances that could be worth closer inspection by researchers. And of course, caves are not the only places bats will hibernate. Many species, like the big brown bat, are fond of rafters, air vents and other man-made structures that may have some artificial heat. Bats also use hollows in bridge structures as well. One bridge in Waterton Lakes National Park has been very popular with little brown myotis. Bats look for warm, moist, dark places in these structures, ideally with a temperature in the 39-42 C range. They rely on existing openings in order to access buildings because, unlike rodents, they lack the gnawing teeth to excavate their own entrance. Potential hibernation and maternity sites worth investigating are the Banff Springs Hotel attic, some of the areas older churches, the Park Administration building, Banff Park Museum, Deer Lodge, Num-ti-jah Lodge and any other classic old structure that still has not been fully modernized. One trend that has had an impact on bats over the past few decades has been the move towards updating old buildings, many of which may have been home to large colonies of overwintering bats. One 1983 study indicated: “Although the big brown bat is clearly associated with the townsite area, no nurseries have been located and only one roost has been identified. Old buildings with accessible attics are being replaced by well-insulated and generally inaccessible attics. Thus, artificial nurseries, roosts and hibernation sites are disappearing. Natural sites used by these bats may need protection if the species is to remain in the mountain national parks.” Alberta's bats do not gather in the huge numbers that you see in movies. Many hibernate in small groups or even as individuals. The eastern red, hoary and silver-haired bats avoid hibernation altogether by migrating south. Understanding where bats spend their winter is critical in helping to mitigate the effects of white-nose disease when it eventually makes its way to western Canada. This deadly disease has been steadily migrating westward since its discovery in 2007. Last year, it made a sudden western jump and was for the first time identified in Washington State. To the east, it's approaching the Ontario-Manitoba border. It's inevitable that it'll make its way to the Rockies and researchers are hoping to be prepared. As they find locations, like the recent cave discovery in Banff, they are looking at seasonal use while also studying temperature and humidity. White-nose fungus grows best in temperatures between 5 and 14 C. It appears to disappear in areas where the temperature reaches 20 C. . As the fungus attacks a bat, it will be spread to neighbouring bats through physical contact, with each developing a white colouration on the hair around the mouth. The fungus doesn't kill the bat, instead it creates discomfort, causing the bat to wake more often. The bat then wastes energy grooming in a futile attempt to be rid of the fungus. This, in turn, uses precious energy and depletes fat stores. They slowly starve once they've drained all their fat reserves. In areas where white-nose has gained a foothold, bat mortality ranges from 75 to 99%. So far some 5 and a half to 7 million bats have been wiped out in the 10 years following its arrived in North America. It's for this reason that renewed interest in bats winter strategies is critical in the mountain west. One advantage we may have is that bats often don't gather in densely populated hibernation sites. The greatest mortalities occur where the bats are tightly grouped and can spread the fungus from one to another across an entire colony. Once infected, the fungus can remain in the cave until the next year's hibernation begins, starting the cycle anew. (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121218094216.htm). This means that once a hibernation site is infected, it is likely to stay that way, infecting successive generations of hibernating bats. So how do researchers learn more about the bats found within the mountain west? Field research into potential hibernation and maternity sites is just one step. Some bats can be fitted with tiny tracking devices allowing them to share their location for a brief period before the devices naturally fall off. Since most bats are incredibly light, most can only carry a minuscule 0.35-gram transmitter. This would transmit over a 1 to 3 km range and would fall off after 8 to 10 days when the adhesive naturally breaks down. Acoustic monitoring is another up and coming technique for monitoring bats. Audio detectors can be  purchased for use in stationary locations, mounted to vehicles, and even used in a hand-held manner. This allows for a variety of uses. Unfortunately, most equipment is designed for a single monitoring method. As an example, a stationary monitor can be set up near, or in suspected hibernation sites to monitor bat vocalizations. Vehicle mounted detectors would allow mobile, wide range detection along routes that can be traversed on a regular basis. Handheld detectors allow active monitoring of bats in an area with the acoustic pulses being displayed as real-time sonograms on the screen to assist in identification. All three techniques will be needed to get a handle on bat populations in the Rockies, and they'll be needed soon. The thought of white-nose disease devastating our bat populations is terrifying. Bats are an essential part of the mountain ecosystem - especially when we realize that many eat up to half their body weight in insects every night. That's a lot of mosquitoes that don't need swatting. Conclusion Please remember that Ward Cameron Enterprises is your one-stop shop for getting the most out of your visit to the Canadian Rockies. Step away from packaged tours and let us create your custom experience. You can drop me a line at ward at wardcameron.com or check out our show page at www.mountainnaturepodcast.com. There you'll find show notes, links to additional information and all of our back episodes. If you want to connect personally, hit me up on twitter @wardcameron or check out us out on facebook at: www.facebook.com/wardcameronenterprises.

Story 1 - Why do wolves hunt in packs? Have you ever wondered why wolves hunt in packs? After all, a single wolf is capable of taking down a 300 kg (1000 lb) moose all on its own. Theoretically, if a wolf hunted alone or in a group of one or two, they would just get more of the meat to themselves. New research from Isle Royale National Park in Michigan has focussed on another reason - ravens.  Biologists John Vucetich and Rolf Peterson of Michigan Tech and Thomas Waite of Ohio State University led the study which delved into the mechanisms prompted wolves to hunt in large coordinated packs.  When wolves take down a moose, there is far more meat than they are capable of eating in a single sitting. Unfortunately for them, leftovers are not simply ignored. Within minutes of a kill, ravens begin to arrive. These aggressive scavengers can down up to 2 kg or 4 lbs of meat per bird per day. In many cases, the wolves can lose up to half a carcass to ravens.  By hunting in a larger group, the wolves are able to reduce the percentage of a kill lost to ravens, making it more efficient to hunt in larger groups. The ravens hunt in groups, and they may be forcing the wolves to follow suit.  Story 2 - The bears wake up It's official, the bears are beginning to emerge from their winter dens. At this time of year, it will invariably be the big male bears that wake up earlier, with females emerging several weeks later and new moms waiting until May to show themselves. There are a lot of challenges to these early risers. Food is scarce and the first shoots of spring are some weeks away. The Boss, also known as bear 122,  The Boss, also known as bear 122, is usually the first grizzly spotted every spring. He spends the early part of the season patrolling the CPR mainline in search of carcasses and grain spills. Other bears may look to avalanche slopes for bighorn sheep and mountain goat carcasses. This year is experiencing record avalanches so hopefully, most of the bears are going to wait a while before venturing into steep terrain.  Other spring foods include bearberries, which are the only berry that remains on the plant throughout the winter in the central Rockies. Other bears will search for squirrel caches of whitebark pine nuts. These highly nutritious foods will prompt grizzlies to excavate several metres into the snowpack in search of a squirrel's cache.  It's also a time of year where they may be attracted to human food and garbage. It's time to take down your bird feeders and make sure there aren't any attractants around your property that might draw a hungry bear in. It's also time to make sure you're carrying your bear spray as well.  Story 3 - Icefields Parkway bike path Last summer, Parks Canada announced plans for a new bike path that would run from Jasper to the Columbia Icefields. I first introduced this plan way back in episode 3 and over the past few weeks, parks has held public comment sessions on the proposed trail and is in the process of compiling the results. The trail will run 109 km or 65 miles from the town of Jasper to the Wilcox Campground. At a Public Consultation held in Jasper on March 14, Siivola indicated that the route was chosen specifically to "ensure users feel comfortable while enjoying nature, to maximize the use of existing infrastructure, to minimize the effects on natural and cultural resources, to connect day-use areas, viewpoints and campgrounds, and to minimize the number of crossings". That's a tall order for any trail - especially given Jasper National Parks poor record in recent years for maintaining even its most iconic trail systems. On February 8, Jasper National Park finally reaffirmed its commitment to increased maintenance of its backcountry trail system. In a story published in the Fitzhugh, Jasper's Superintendent, Alan Fehr was quoted as saying: "We have a lot of assets in Parks Canada and a lot of them were built 40, 50, 60 years ago, maybe longer, and they are in need of repair or maintenance, and in some cases replacement. This trail seems to be just another push to increase the number of people in the front country of the parks. Over the past decade, we've seen the backcountry neglected while the front country got bike races, via ferratas, summer ski hill operations and vast increases in vehicle traffic. If you missed the recent open houses, you can still make your voice heard. Public comments are open until April 24th 2017. To learn more about the trail, visit: http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/ab/jasper/plan/sentierdesglaciers-icefieldstrail.aspx To add your feedback check out: http://pc.sondages-surveys.ca/surveys/sondage-survey/icefields-trail-north-consultation-feedback-form/?l=en-ca The more people that weigh in on this trail the better. If you believe that corridors like the Icefield Parkway should remain wild, then please add your voice to the opposition towards this proposal. There are so many great ways that Parks could use these dollars. This is not one of them. Story 4 - Winter Olympics take two Calgary is considering a bid for the 2026 winter Olympics. After the success of its first Olympics in 1988, the city was able to boast the first winter Olympics in history to actually turn a profit. It's also unique in that almost 30 years after the games ended, all of the venues are still in use.  As the exploration committee looks at possible venues, Lake Louise Ski Hil, as it did during the 88 bid process, is up for consideration for the alpine events. Currently, it hosts the season openers for both the men's and women's downhill events every year so it clearly has the terrain necessary for an Olympic event. It is controversial more for the fact that it lies in a sensitive location and there are fears that any Olympic bid will be used as leverage to increase development at the ski hill.  My support would be to use the original Olympic venue, Nakiska at Mount Allan which was built specifically for the 88 games. It would need a retrofit, but it has everything needed to host the events, and it's closer to Calgary. 

Well it's official. We're now on the iTunes Store. You can subscribe directly by searching for us on iTunes or simply by clicking the following link: http://apple.co/29V9UOh. Subscribing is the best way to make sure you have access to every episode as soon as it's uploaded. We also appreciate any reviews from happy listeners. Every review helps more people to discover this podcast so please give us a rating and help the message spread. Story 1 - Citizen Science If you regularly find your way high into the Alpine, why not help out scientific research taking place in the Rockies. The High Elevation Localized Species (or HELS) initiative is designed to keep real-time records of sightings of hoary marmots, mountain goats, pikas and white-tailed ptarmigan. Each of these animals are alpine specialists and so it can be difficult to collect ongoing date simply due to the remote and often widely separated locations that these animals call home. By crowdsourcing sightings from those of us that like to play in the mountains on a regular basis they can begin to gain a much clearer understanding of their range, behaviour, movement and population. Participating in the program is easy. Head to www.BowValleyNaturalists.org and follow the links to the HELS reporting area. You'll simply be asked to register followed by a simple reporting process. Important information includes the species, number of individuals, any details of the sighting and the location. If you don't have gps coordinates (as most of us won't), you can pinpoint your location on a digital topographic map. Story 2 - Bear 148's Wanderings Bear 64 was one of the greatest bears of the past several decades. She called the town of Banff home and helped scientists learn more about the use of wildlife over and underpasses as well as the bears use of important seasonal foods. She passed away in 2014 and now her female cub, bear 148 has taken over her territory with gusto. Recently she took to exploring her home and decided to take a bit of a walkabout. She travelled east along the Trans Canada Highway all the way to Canmore, and after passing the Legacy Trail on the highway (and causing a brief closure), she headed up to the Spray Valley and wandered all the way to the south end of Spray Lakes Reservoir. After turning north, she made a beeline back to the town of Banff covering the distance in just 20 hours. Now that it's buffaloberry season, she'll be looking for good patches to spend the next month or so until the first frost of autumn brings the berry season to an end. If you're travelling the trails in and around the Bow Valley be sure to make lots of noise. When bears are feeding on these berries they are completely focused on feeding and may not hear your approach. It's up to you to be vigilant for the both of you. Leave your ear buds at home and be sure to have bear spray on your belt and know how to use it. Over the past two days there have been two bear attacks, one near Cochrane and a second today near Canmore. The bears are on the trails and because the buffaloberries need sunlight to grow, they line our low elevation trails. If you haven't listened to episode 1, check it out as we talk in great depth about the importance of these important berries. Story 3 - We're Off to See The Icefields…By Bike! Jasper National Park has announced a 66 million dollar plan to build a paved bike path from the town of Jasper all the way to the Columbia Icefields. This trail would use portions of the original highway as well as paralleling the current road as it winds its way uphill toward the glaciers. The plan has received mixed reviews with cyclists applauding it and environmentalists warning of the loss of habitat as well as the potential for increased traffic along this important wildlife corridor. This is a difficult story since the environmental impact would be very high but at the same time the highway is becoming more and more dangerous for cyclists to take the risk. This is a story that we'll be watching unfold for some time and Parks has yet to reveal all of the details of the proposed trail. Story 4 - Book Report I love images taken from camera traps. You know the ones, where researchers have set up special cameras that are triggered by movement so that they catch wildlife unaware. They are critical for studying very wary animals and have been used in every corner of the globe. There are some awesome local videos produced by using these cameras as well. Glenn Naylor of Kananaskis Country did this amazing video in Kananaskis by monitoring a scent tree used by bears:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AihvuZiDhsg. Jasper National Park has also produced a series which you can watch here: http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/ab/jasper/ne/prissurlevif-caughtintheact.aspx. Now back to our book. Biologist Roland Kays of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences has used camera traps for years in his work. Recently he realized that he was not the only biologist with a 'greatest hits' folder on his computer. He began to reach out to other biologists to see if they might be willing to share some of their best images as well. The result is a fabulous book called:   Candid Creatures: How Camera Traps Reveal the Mysteries of Nature, looks at the history, the techniques and the humour related to using camera traps. The images reveal a world that is hidden to humans and in many cases reveal behaviours not previously observed. Why not pick up a copy at Amazon.ca. You can buy it from this link: http://amzn.to/2awoLi7. By purchasing the book from this link you are helping to support the show.

Come along as we take a journey on one of the world's classic train routes from Vancouver to Jasper National Park on the Rocky Mountaineer. This luxury train trip through the Canadian Rockies includes amazing food, wildlife viewing and activities while passing through a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the bonus content (available by downloading the Travel in 10 App on iTunes) for this episode you will also find a timelapse tour of the Columbia Icefields near Lake Louise, Alberta.

Where does our water come from? Where does it go? Tara Narwani and Paul Steenhuisen trace the path of their drinking water from it's source in the Columbia Icefields, through farmlands, to their sink