I am a firm believer that one of the best ways for you to spend your money is on travel. You can always unload a ton of cash on physical experience, but the experiences and memories that you gain from travel are invaluable. Even if the destination happens to be quite close to home.
Now that Susanne is done with her schooling over in Alberta, we took the car and drove it back to beautiful British Columbia. We took the Trans-Canada Highway, cutting right through the heart of the Canadian Rockies and passing through the picturesque mountain town of Banff. When we last visited Banff in the fall, we didn’t encounter much in terms of wildlife. This trip was a little different.
It might be because it’s spring and the animals can finally access a little more vegetation. Maybe it’s because they have young ones now and they have to teach them where they can get food. Perhaps it’s because much of our driving was earlier in the morning compared to last time. Whatever the case, we got to see a fair bit of wildlife over the course of the drive.
Even though you can view many of these same animals at the zoo, it’s a different experience altogether when you see them in their natural habitat. What’s interesting is that the largest herd of elk we saw were grazing at a picnic area by the town of Field, Alberta. I counted at least sixteen of them there, including a few younger ones.
Have a look at some of the pictures below and find a few more in my Flickr photostream.
Great pictures! You’re right that seeing animals like this in their natural habitat is a different experience than seeing them in a controlled environment.
My SIL just moved to Alaska and on their drive there they encountered a handful of moose and bears. They are on an Air Force base and she has said it is quite common to see moose strolling around.
Wild animals are an amazing sight, even when it is something like the hawk my son and I recently saw in our yard feasting on a bird it had caught (unfortunately I didn’t have the camera).
From where I came from, which is an urban jungle, there’s no chance to see wildife in their natural habitat other than in a controlled environment like a zoo.