You may - or maybe not - have noticed that I have not yet posted about our Canada trip since we got back.

As I may have mentioned, it was not only a holiday but also a visit to family that I only see very infrequently, one of whom has not been well and some of whom I had never even met!

Consequently there is much for me to digest and upon which to reflect and I have sat myself down here a number of times to describe the trip but find that it was an event of such enormity in my life that I simply have not yet figured out where to start, what to include, what to exclude and why!

But I also mentioned that a very major part of the trip was a six day visit to the Rockies and a very significant element of that time in the mountains was the variety and number of animals, peculiar to the region, that we saw.

So I will start by showing you some of them in their setting.

As I am sure you will know, the Canadian Rocky Mountain National Parks are also a World Heritage Site.

Consequently all and everything within them is protected and, in general terms, the environment and the wild-life take precedent over humans.

Were this not the case, it is safe to say that many of the animals, some of them already endangered, would no longer be there to be seen.

Not only would many of them have been hunted to extinction but they would by now most likely have been exterminated by what has become 'ordinary human behaviour': the exploitation of resources - be that water, timber or other; by inappropriate development not to mention road-kill and littering.

It is the preservation of habitat that allows the creatures therein to survive, if not thrive, and enables us still to see them.

As it is, human behaviour is depleting the region.

If one had any doubt about global warming one has only to look at the markers that the parks authorities have placed to show the positions of the fronts of the glaciers in the Colombia Ice Fields at various dates going back: the distances between the markers becomes ever greater while the duration becomes ever shorter.

Anyway, back to the Rocky Mountain animals.

Unusually for them, as they are lifelong campers, my brother and sister-in-law had rented cabins just outside Jasper for our stay: the excellent Pine Bungalows.

Ours, No. 24, overlooked the Athabasca River (about which, more another time).

Early one morning, towards the start of our visit, we went for a walk along the riverbank when Sue spotted hoof prints in the silt.

And minutes later we spotted one of their creators!

They were the foot prints of Elk known locally as Wapiti.

We reported all we had seen to our hosts and were told that we had been very lucky.

So you can imagine my excitement when I looked out of the window of our bungalow shortly after dawn the following morning and beheld this.........

I ran for the camera but it would not take a clear image through the window glass.

I assumed that opening the door would surely scare off our visitor so you may further imagine that our excitement (Sue had joined me by now) turned to amazement and astonishment when, although I could not capture them all in one camera shot, the one wapiti turned to two then three, four, five, six and finally seven!

They even allowed us to follow them as they roamed amongst the bungalows feasting on the lush, spring growth.

And this one had a radio collar so that its progress and movements could be monitored by the Jasper Park, Park-Rangers.

And after breakfast we went for another wander along the river bank and there, in the distance, we saw two Wapiti enter the Athabasca...............

.....................swim across and climb out on the far bank.

(And, as you can just see, one of then is the collared one we had seen earlier.)

This was an astonishing sight.
The Athabasca, at this point, is wide and fast-flowing as it is fed by the spring melt of the winter snows, but the Wapiti, which have long, thin legs, swam across with ease and at speed, apparently unaffected by the strong current.

Now while we ruminated on all we had seen, it occurred to us that, perhaps, the wapiti were well familiar with the Pine Bungalows and their occupants and felt no fear at Sue's and my presence.

On the other hand, the literature (including the great Mr. Gadd) and our hosts told us that we should not have been following them so closely as wapiti can be ferocious - and especially in the spring, mating season.

And indeed, the lands just to the side of the Pine Bungalows had been sealed-off by the park authorities for this very reason - the wapiti were in rut!

So Sue and I decided that we had been very lucky and that what we had witnessed was a family group (or small herd) of wapiti making its way to the higher lands, which they also do in spring, after wintering in the Jasper valley.