The Day a Bison Nearly Set on Our Tent in Elk Island

 

Lea and I had been camping in Waterton Lakes National Park and Glacier National Park on the border between Alberta and Montana, Canada and the United States, for eight days. They turned out to be two of our favourite camping and hiking spots on our journeys through Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Alberta, British Columbia, South Dakota, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia (again). 

We decided, however, that it was finally time to head north. So we hopped in the Camaro and left Waterton. On the way north we passed through Cardston, the earliest LDS settlement in and capital of Mormon Alberta and hence Canada, High River, later one of the Alberta homes of the superb CBC show Heatland, Calgary, and Red Deer finally arriving in Edmonton in the early evening. We went straight to the West Edmonton Mall to see the waterslides, something my then friend Lea had a fancy for and wanted to see. Needless to say, they were impressive. When we learned that we could get free tickets to the waterslides if we stayed in the hotel attached to the West Edmonton Mall we decided to check into the hotel, a nice luxury after weeks and weeks of tenting in “primitive” conditions. We stayed at the hotel four days and not only did we get free tickets to the waterslides but also to the submarine, the second largest submarine fleet in Canada folklore has it, to the skating rink, and also a host of other attractions in the small city that was the mall, a mall which had its own police station and chapel. 

One of the first things we did when we checked into our room was to get into the hot tub for a bath, something that we had not really had to that degree anyway, for weeks. Sink baths and one minute showers (which all the “civilised Canadian national parks we visited had) are just not the same. We spent four days in the mall sliding on the water slides, riding in the submarine, and reading free copies of the Globe and Mail amongst other entertainments. I bought a sweatshirt (which I still have), got a haircut—my hair was too long for camping and tenting in “primitive” conditions, and we ate at some very good restaurants. We had a great time. I even got to visit one of my mentor’s in Mormon Studies at the University of Alberta and several nice nearby bookstores.

But Murphy’s Law was, as it almost always in, in operation though we didn’t know it at the time. The weather was wonderful during the four days we spent in the mall. It was sunny and only partly cloudy. When we went east to camp and tent in Elk Island National Park, however, the weather turned rainy and we “enjoyed” four days of rain in that park tramping around in our Sierra Designs rainwear. 

One of the most entertaining aspects of the park, as it always is in national parks, was the geology, the flora, and particularly the fauna. We saw, for example, a large moose enjoying a frolic in one of the ponds of the park. And we saw a lot of bison. One of these bison, a big bull bison, “liked” to be around us so much he walked and walked around our lonely tent in the campground, the only tent in the campground. At one point it appeared as though he was going to sit down on it crushing it, we were sure, in the process. We were, to say the least, a bit disconcerted by the absurdity of it all.

Fortunately the bison decided not to sit on our tent. It survived to live another day. So did we. We left Elk Island for Jasper National Park arriving there several hours later.