Day 28: Hinton, AB to Canmore, AB
We definitely weren’t ready for just how busy the parks would be today. The drive is still beautiful, yes, but Jasper and Banff were a little clogged. You kind of had to keep reminding yourself to look up at the scenery, rather than focusing on the 15-car lineup in front of you. We did our best, chugging through the parks with just a few quick stops (including a slightly anxiety-inducing stop to get some gas near Saskatchewan Crossing—kind of like a Black Friday parking lot but with more RVs).
We didn’t mention it specifically on our last trip through the parks, and perhaps it’s common knowledge by now, but one of the highlights of the drive is seeing the wildlife overpasses on the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff National Park (see photos below). They’re nothing new for Banff, but they’re still a relatively new concept and something that more places need to adopt. Basically, there are a massive number of people driving through the parks every year, and yet the various animals that inhabit the parks still need to get from one side of the highway to the other side, usually to find food or shelter, to escape predators, or to find mates—an important element for the genetic diversity and health of a population.
So, Parks Canada set about the fairly costly project of constructing six overpasses and 38 underpasses, along with extensive highway fencing. The effort has massively reduced the number of wildlife-vehicle collisions, in addition to helping the genetic diversity and overall health of the grizzly bears, wolves, elk, moose, and other animals that use the passages. Fun fact: while the animals mentioned above prefer the high, wide overpasses, the black bears and cougars prefer the long narrow underpasses. (Wild Ways is definitely worth watching for more on this!)
We arrived in Canmore, which was equally booming today, and made our way over to our friends’ house for some much-needed time out of the car. We cooked up the last of our Alaskan sockeye salmon on their grill, then headed over to The Market Bistro for some pie for dessert. After a quick evening walk near the Three Sisters, we called it a night.