Young Men's Encampment (1 of 2)

Last week Joseph, Samuel, and I had the opportunity to attend and participate in a regional young men's encampment in a place called the Kootenay Plains. It is a beautiful valley in the Canadian Rockies, nestled in between Bamff and Jasper National Parks. The plains is a winter camp for native peoples (called First Nations here in Canada) and there are several relics of the old camps. The area is also a winter feeding ground for elk, moose, white tail deer, and other wild life. Looking north from our camp site. The lower ridge was used for the Scouts, for on-site rock climbing. It was about 40 feet high. The upper ridge was about 3 times as high, and back almost 1 kilometer from the lower ridge. The grassy meadow in the foreground is about 5 kilometers long,and almost 1 wide.
The mountains in the distance are in Bamff National Park. One of them is known as Big Chief. Can you see why? The meadow is sprinkled with wild flowers and range grasses. Some of the flowers are smaller than the heads of pins, and others are almost as large as your palm. We identified tracks of bear, moose, deer, wolf, and caribou in the muddy areas.
This is the view from the top of the rock climbing and rappelling area the Venturers used. The lake is Abraham Lake, and is almost 75 Kilometers long. The water level is down, and pale color of the water is due to the light sandy lake bed and the cold water (38 to 40 degrees F) The river we canoed on (the North Saskatchewan River) starts at the spillway of the dam on this lake. The North Saskatchewan River turns into the Athabasca River, which runs through the middle of Fort McMurray. We could have canoed all the way home (in about 1 month)
Here is the North Saskatchewan River. It looks very peaceful, and it is until you put a bunch of canoes in it.
This is the view to the south of our camp. Around the fire there are 14 pairs of shoes drying from the previous day's activities on the river, and on the mountains you can see fresh snow. Yes, fresh snow in July. We had frost in camp.

This truly is a beautiful place. I can hardly wait to go explore more places in the Canadian Rockies, or the Boreal Forest,or other great places up here. For additional historical information, look up David Thompson in Wikipedia. He was an early Canadian explorer who established the first routes over the mountains, and lived in the Kootenay Plains for several years while exploring the area.