Great Divide’s Fall Newsletter, 2020
Greetings from wintry Lake Louise. Our snow came early this year, leading to the earliest opening day in the history of the Lake Louise Ski Resort: October 29! And I’m excited to report that I got in ten days of cross-country skiing in October. I never would have thought that possible. A couple of days ago, I skied to the Great Divide, between Banff and Yoho, and my friend Josee snapped a shot for this newsletter.
The Freeze on Lake Louise
Lake Suwa and Mount Fuji. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Yesterday, November 9, 2020, Lake Louise finished freezing over, and was even thick enough for skating on the front half of the lake. I’ve been tracking the “freeze-up” and “ice off” dates for Lake Louise for almost thirty years, and recording them on the citizen science website icewatch.ca.
But that’s nothing! Shinto priests in Japan have been recording the freeze-up dates on Lake Suwa, in the Japanese Alps, since the 1400s! The date of ice formation has been shifting ever later, and in recent decades, there have been many years in which the lake doesn’t freeze at all. It’s a fascinating record, and shows yet another effect of climate change.
Our Local Grizzly Moms
#142 and one of her cubs in June, 2018, near the shore of Lake Louise. Photo by Joel Hagen.
I’ve watched generations of grizzly bears make their living around Lake Louise, and the last two years have brought both hope and heartache to bear fans in the park. Two sisters, named #142 and #143, were both first time moms in 2018, and that summer a lot of us locals got to see the family in unexpected places, including on a grassy lawn beside the shore of Lake Louise! I’d never seen anything like it, and thousands of visitors enjoyed a scene usually found only in nature documentaries.
But after that joyful start, this year there was tragedy. In the spring, one of #142’s two-year olds was killed by a male grizzly bear, and in early September, #143 was struck and killed by a train.
Locals were saddened by both events, but #142 and her remaining cub had a good summer. My friend Amar Athwal, who is a superb photographer, saw the cub enough times this year to see him go from a skinny two year-old in June to a chunky two and a half year-old in October. He put together this photo collage a couple of weeks ago, and it really tells the story.
#142’s surviving cub, in June, July, August and October, 2020. Photos by Amar Athwal.
If you’d like to see more of Amar’s wildlife and landscape photos, he posts one or two shots to his blog each week.
Free Hikes for our Healthcare Workers
Firefighters from Manning, Alberta, getting some time off in September, 2020. Photo by Ryan Voorderhake.
Covid-19 has has put some groups of people, like healthcare providers, at greater risk, and as a thank you, I wanted to do something special for these brave folks. So all summer long, I offered free hikes once a week for essential frontline workers as a way to say “thank you.” I ended up taking out doctors, nurses, surgeons, firefighters, and hospital volunteers. It was a great experience. The last of these hikes, in late September, was probably my favourite. I led a group of wildland firefighters who had been stationed in northern Alberta all summer. They were enthusiastic about nature, fire history, and our hiking destination, and it was a wonderful and goofy way to escape from Covid talk.
COVID-19 Update
Speaking of COVID talk, here’s how coronavirus is playing out in the park, and what I’m planning for the winter.
The national parks closed during the peak of the first wave, and re-opened starting June 1st. The pandemic shut down my snowshoeing business, and delayed the start of my summer hiking season. From March 15 until the end of the summer, I dealt with the cancellation of almost 80 guided hikes. I ended up leading only 19 trips this summer. Needless to say, it has been a very challenging year.
But outdoor activities have proven to be good therapy for many, and COVID-19 transmission is very uncommon in outdoor nature settings. I have taken many steps to keep my guests safe, like signing waivers remotely, loaning out hand sanitizer for the day, and maintaining safe distances while we hike. My COVID policy is posted on my website.
We’re just a few weeks away from snowshoeing season, which is a perfect outdoor activity in these coronavirus times. I hope you’ll feel welcome here in Lake Louise and Banff National Park, and I warmly invite you to join me for a snowshoe tour.
Be well and stay safe.
-Joel
In mid-March, with the declaration of the Coronavirus pandemic, things ground to a halt here pretty quickly. The Lake Louise Ski Area closed, as did almost all local hotels and businesses. Even the Chateau Lake Louise is shut down, which hasn’t happened since WW II. We currently have only essential services open, and Parks Canada is urging visitors to stay home until the park can safely re-open.
The writer, Sue Morse, is one of North America’s most celebrated animal trackers, and founder of 
Here’s to 2020, and whatever nature brings. My New Year’s wildlife resolution is to finally see a wolverine! Well, we’re all allowed to dream a little, right?
By now, many have heard of “shinrin yoku,” the Japanese art of forest therapy. This is more than an art, it’s also a science, and Dr. Qing Li is Japan’s most well known forest therapy researcher.
But one of them was a brilliant glacial green. The problem, and you can see it in the following photograph, is that there is no glacier above this lake, and you need glaciers to create this colour. The moving ice grinds the bedrock and produces ‘rock flour,” a fine silt that stays suspended in glacial lakes, rendering them green or turquoise.
I could not figure it out, but Nadine knew immediately. “It’s a rock glacier,” she said. Yes, dear reader, there is such a thing. Wikipedia says rock glaciers consist “either of angular rock debris frozen in interstitial ice, former ‘true’ glaciers overlain by a layer of talus, or something in-between.”
So I was delighted to learn that in the early 20th century, there was a secret society of Canadian (and some American) biologists and ecologists who paved the way for modern thinking on conservation. They called themselves the “B”, and they came together to stop the transfer of plains bison to Wood Buffalo National Park in 1925. As the host of the podcast, Briony Penn says, “the members of the ‘B’ went on to influence an underground environmental education movement that resulted in much of North America’s early protected areas, conservation legislation and environmental ethos.”
Emerald Lake is our most reliable local spot for nesting loons, and this summer’s pair raised a single chick. The youngster was a real crowd-pleaser, especially in the first few weeks it took to the water in its fluffy down coat.
Some people can’t believe how short summer is around here. (Trust me, it’s short – a couple of days ago I skated on Moraine Lake… on October 11!). Sometimes the proof is in the birding. You can mark the beginning of autumn when you see the first shorebirds migrating south. This Greater Yellowlegs was already on his way to the southern US or Central America… on July 20!
Harlequin Ducks are famous for living in whitewater, both in the fast streams of the Rockies, and in the surf zone along the rocky west coast. True to her whitewater roots, this gal was motoring right up through the current of Opabin Creek.
Feathers like this are nature’s high art. And sometimes these grouse are as bold as brass. Remember, I’ve got a point and shoot camera: I’ve gotta get close to fill the frame with feathers. This one didn’t budge as we crept by on the trail. We could have touched it…
There’s nothing common about the Common Raven. Bold, cheeky, playful, tough, and just downright interesting. Plus, they carry hints of green, purple and navy blue in their iridescent feathers. Stick around for winter, and you might see a rare pair of Ice Ravens!
