Jasper, Alberta

21 November 2005

It was around noon when we stopped for a few hours in Jasper.

Those are the blue Canadian Rockies; that's the train called the Canadian; and there are my train tickets in my breast pocket. The train staff told me this was a good clear day for this time of year. It might have been really frigid. So I was blessed.
The photo was taken by my train buddy, Evan Barnett. A Toronto native, he's been in school at Evergreen college in Olympia, Washington. We both ate a cannabis cookie before arriving and were all smiles the whole time. He stayed behind to try to find another young cat we befriended on the train to ask him to put him up for a few nights stay. I was a little too chilled and the air was too thin for me to consider staying on. I could have caught another Canadian in two days otherwise.
So we walked around the fairly deserted town singing, taking a few more photos, and contemplating 36o degrees of snow-capped peaks. This whole region has been called the "North American Alps." It had long been a goal of mine to see it for myself.
We sat inside the train station a while to warm-up. It was quaint and alpine like the whole town. But too soon the happy-sad moment when two train whistle blasts and a call of "all aboard" signal that the clock says it's time to go.
Adieu, Evan, noble companion of mountains and rails.



Evan.
For some reason he wasn't cold in like two jerseys and a sweater. He said he had an extra sweater for when the temperatures plunged at night fall.






Animal effigies abound in an atavistic form of sympathetic magic.



The lonesome traveler. Looking Westward, the way I had just come.






A local figure watches the Canadian head Eastward.
A fond farewell to Jasper.