I’ve arrived in Jasper. The weather’s not as good here as it has been in Ontario. It’s cloudy - high cloud though, so I can see all the snow capped mountain tops.

It’s an absolutely beautiful area. The town is surrounded on all sides by mountains, rivers and lakes and the view from my hotel room is pretty special (as is the hotel room actually, still comes without milk or a kettle though). There were plenty of elk and moose that I saw from the train on the way into Jasper. Didn’t see any bears though. I’ve taken plenty of photos already, but as I don’t have a fast Internet connection here I’m going to wait until I get to Vancouver on Sunday before uploading them.

The tourist information cabin is just across the road so I went in and asked the bloke there about the local attractions - “I just came in on the train, I don’t have a car and I’ve got a free day in Jasper tomorrow. What do I do?”. So I’ve been given a map and list of walking trails to follow (of various length ranging from sensible to 30km), told I’ve ”got to go to Old Fort Point - the best 360 degree look out in the park” (“right oh.”), and I’ve been given instructions on how to get the bus to the cable-car to take me to one of the peaks. Plenty to do then - as long as the weather says dry.

I’ve also been given a leaflet, to which I’ve paid very close attention, on encounters with bears. It’s full of reassuring words about how uncommon bear attacks are and then goes into copious amounts of detail on how how to avoid and encounter, deal with an encounter (talk to it(!!), back away slowly - don’t run), work out what sort of attack it is if you are attacked - defensive or predatory (as if, in such a situation, I’d give a monkeys) and instructions how to handle an attack (if it’s defensive then play dead, if it’s predatory, fight back -I don’t care for either option). And now I’m duly scared.