Musing

Ft. Steele, Canada

Hard to miss it when you are warned

I suppose these posts could get very boring – we drive, we see scenery, we see animals, we miss “the” shot. So, maybe I’ll muse a bit today about our trip….

But, first, what did we do today? 

We decided to skip Waterton Lakes and drive on into Canada today. Our first stop was Fort Steele, a heritage town in East Kootenay, British Columbia.

Ft. Steele

Fort Steele was a gold rush boom town founded in 1864 by John Galbraith as "Galbraith's Ferry" after a ferry he set up to cross the Kootenay River. It was the only ferry within several hundred miles, so Galbraith charged very high prices to get across. 

The town was renamed Fort Steele in 1888, after legendary Canadian lawman Superintendent Sam Steele of the North-West Mounted Police solved a very nasty dispute involving a settler who had unjustly accused one of the local First Nations men with murder. Both the town and the First Nations people were so grateful that they renamed the town Fort Steele. The "Fort" part of the name comes from the NWMP setting up a station in the town, whereas the town itself was never a real fort.

Scott exploring Ft. Steele

In the late 1890s, the Canadian Pacific Railway decided to build a station in Fort Steele. But, a member of the British Columbia legislature who owned a small logging camp nearby he bribed and blackmailed his fellow legislators to bypass Fort Steele and bring the railway through his town, which later became Cranbrook. Fort Steele's population quickly dropped as the population moved to  Cranbrook.

Ft. Steele

In 1967, Fort Steele was designated a historic site and restored. It opened to the public in 1969. We just stopped briefly before heading on.

We arrived in Radium Hot Springs at about 2:00 p.m. after a  a picnic at Wasa Lake. The weather was spectacular – sunny, warm. Scott was exhausted, so he took a nap while I did exciting things like purchase a Park Canada annual pass, gas up the car, buy ice. 

Then, we drove through Kootenay on to Banff and then back. We saw eight bears and an Elk – got some nice shots of the Elk ...

Nice one!

... and of a pair of Bears – one black and one cinnamon ...

 

Two Black Bears

We also saw a mom and cubs on some downed trees that were far away, but cute to watch. 

Awwwww

Musing

So, for the musing… this is a seven-week trip and we’re acting like it’s two – pushing too hard, not savoring enough, spending too much on gas and food, missing stuff we should do. I think we’ll start to pace better now that we’re in Canada. 

We need more of this

The distance between accommodations is less and we have some open time. So, I am going to try to get out of the car more and slow down a bit. 

For example, I really want to go to the hot springs and we ran out of time today. I will also try to make the blogs more informative. So, I’ll try to add some historic or little known facts (as soon as I find some). But, not tonight – I need to get some sleep!!!

P.S. I do regret I can't be in Oklahoma to help Becca move into her new house!

Trip date: June 3-July 20, 2013