August 31. A blue moon tonight, the second full moon of the month. The weather is not looking good. As I trudge up the summit slope cloud sweeps in as if sucked by a vacuum cleaner. One moment I have a view, the next I'm in a whiteout and flakes of snow splatter on the rocks. I don't know why the he...

A number of years ago I happened to be driving through Hay River, NWT . It was noon, so I grabbed a sandwich at a local coffee shop and sat myself down on a park bench to enjoy a leisurely lunch. Within minutes, five or six Common Ravens had gathered around me in a perfect semicircle and fixed me wi...

Moose are huge! With a dark-brown body, super long legs, large head with an elongated nose, generous lips and big ears...there is just no mistaking a moose.   Males (or bulls) can weigh up to 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds) and grow a heavy set of antlers every year which are shed after the mating seas...

Recently I’ve been watching Alone , a reality TV show where 10 people have to survive in the wilderness, by themselves, with no food or water and minimal gear. The last person standing is the winner. To give himself the best chance of winning, one of the participants (a Canadian) adopted an unusual ...

Parks Canada is reminding the picnicking public to remain vigilant in bear country. On Monday, July 24, a family of grizzly bears approached a family of visitors who had just laid out their lunch on a picnic table at Lake Annette. When the bears got close, the people bolted, leaving their food and e...

The Miette Road is still closed after significant damage sustained from a snowstorm one month ago. In a statement, a Parks Canada spokesperson said the agency is awaiting the results of tests to determine if and when the road can be opened. “If the report determines that a portion of the road can sa...

“Hey Mark, check out these little loons!” Garth, a Parks Canada resource conservation staffer, had just walked into my office. On his camera were photos of a couple of small, black, fuzzy loon babies. Rescuing injured, lost or otherwise needy birds was not all that unusual for Parks staff, but the l...

All over Jasper National Park, bears are waking up…and they’re hungry. Wildlife photographer Simone Heinrich spotted this black bear—her first such sighting of the season—late in the evening, just as the sun was setting. It was snacking on the sticky buds of low hanging balsam branches and not reall...

May 4 is an auspicious day for Star Wars fans, but it also has special meaning for local bird watchers: it’s approximately when hummingbirds start to arrive in Jasper. In many ways, hummingbirds are like Jedi Masters. They’re fierce warriors, extremely powerful for their size, and can fly in ways th...

“Hold on!” the pilot yelled. We had been surveying arctic caribou from a Dehavilland Beaver (often referred to as the best bush plane ever built). This particular aircraft’s “tundra tires” allowed its pilot to land just about anywhere, but our makeshift landing strip would be a real test. The ridget...