With the bear viewing in the bag, we made the long jump to jasper with Paul having to drive about 10 hours through a little snow on the long mountain climb out of Bella-Coola, through some beautiful country side, stopping at Tim Horton’s for coffee of course, to the more commercial and tourism based, but none the less magnificent town of Jasper.
The stay in Jasper was designed to offer us some picturesque mountain scenery and wildlife shots such as a range of Birds, Coyote, Elk, Mule Deer, White Tail Deer, Sheep, Chipmunks, Squirrels, Pikas (The worlds smallest rabbit at only about 6 inches long) and the illusive Moose and Wolf, that we so far haven’t managed to find. This is really beautiful country and a must to see if you’re visiting Alberta Canada.
The photographers are thick on the ground here and it only takes minutes after we’ve stopped to photograph an Elk, for dozens to materialise out of nowhere. I do have a little lens envy when some of these guys pop lenses on their cameras that look more like the Hubble Telescope than a camera lens, but then again, there is a lot using the same lenses and Dad and I, so I don’t quite feel like I’m using a tiny little compact.
I’ve had a few late nights sorting thousands of photographs, so I’m going to keep the writing a little light for this BLOG. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I have prepared a sample of some of the things we’ve photographed that should give me brownie point for a huge essay. Because we’ve got so much to show you, I’ve created another new album to show you the wildlife, a few scenes, people and even a couple of lovely young ladies who were ever so helpful to a couple of Australian Tourists.
MORE PHOTOS ADDED TODAY : NEW ALBUM 3If you would like to see some more photo's of what we've seen so far, please visit our PICASA Web Albums page!
Keep smiling ...
Darren & Keith Gardiner
Jasper Jokers
So this will be about the last of the Bear photographs for this trip, as tomorrow we have a short drive (about 10 or so hours) to our next destination, where we will begin to photograph some of the other scenery and wildlife we had on our list of things to do.
We started off with a very long drive in our huge GMC Suburban from the Quality Hotel Downtown in Vancouver at a little after 6:30am and after a few comfort breaks, free doughnuts from the girls at Tim Hortons and stops for food supplies, we ended up at the Chilko River Lodge and Guest Ranch (
This is truly Canadian Wilderness country, without a bitumen road or even electricity in sight. We’re staying in a homely rustic log cabin, with gas mantles for lighting, a wood stove for heating and yes … no electricity. There is a generator up at the lodge for power to download the thousands of photo’s taken each day, but nothing in the rooms. Housi and Annette are our hosts at the lodge and they have truly offered us the warm, friendly, welcoming host experience we were looking for.
The first few days have been dedicated to photographing the mighty Grizzly and Black Bears and we certainly haven’t been disappointed. We’ve found and photographed up to 25 Grizzly Bears each day. These bears are truly amazing creatures to be in the presence of and surprisingly calm when drifting as close as a few metres away in our 6 metre tinny. Watching the mothers guarding their cubs while they play, it’s very obvious that one eye is kept on us every second and I don’t think any of us would be met with welcoming arms if we ventured out of the boat. We’ve seen so many, it’s hard to keep track, but this has truly been an experience of a lifetime.
Just like this lovely mothers dress, we 
Hope you liked all the bad puns with matching photos, all taken at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver, BC, Canada today.
He wrote down an address of a street where the Uni Students buy their gear which turned out to be a gem for purchasing the additional couple of Laptop Hard Drives we wanted. We bought a couple of Transcend 320Gb USB Drives for AUD$124.00ea … not bad for a brand name even I recognise. They had about 40 shops jammed next to each other full of laptops and every kind of computer part you can think of. Did I mention this is the place to buy laptops? There must have been literally thousands on display in this one street.
Apparently, the later flights like ours at 11:40pm to Vancouver are running on schedule, so at least for now, it looks like we’ll be leaving Taipei for Vancouver as planned on Sunday night.
