OFF TO ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOUSE

30 June 2008 OFF TO ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOUSE

About half an hour from where we camped just outside Edmonton, in a small place called Devon, is the Devonian Botanic Garden. Eric and I arrived there at 10am just as it opened.
This Botanic Garden was established in 1959, on land that was donated to the University of Alberta by a certain Colonel Sandy Dyde. It comprises 80 acres of gardens plus 110 acres of natural area with nature trails. Evidently it is one of 300 botanical gardens in the world that have been established for research and is an “internationally recognized research centre for studies in plant and fungal diversity, conservation, botany, ecology, and horticulture.”
We started at the Kurimoto Japanese Garden, designed for strolling through or sitting quietly. Its original purpose was as a cultural exchange between Canadians and the Japanese. In the garden are 5 authentic stone lanterns, which are hand carved in solid granite. Originally they would have been used for lighting using candles or oil. Now they’re ornamental. The garden is designed to “interpret Alberta’s vast geography, mountains, hills, grassy hills, ponds, lakes”. It was interesting to find the places where rivers, lakes valleys etc were represented in the garden. I couldn’t help wishing I could visit it frequently, a peaceful, contemplative place.

We also decided to take an hour long tour through the main garden. Since we had limited time we decided this would be a wise choice. Eric and I were the only ones on a sort of extended covered golf cart with our enthusiastic and informative tour guide. We covered a large area of display gardens. Because it’s a research garden they get seeds from other research gardens around the world, which they try out in a huge area of seed beds. If the plants are able to survive in this climate they are moved to one of the display gardens. One example of this was a beautiful blue poppy from the Himalayas with a star like blossom, which seemed to be thriving in this Alberta garden.
At one point we got out and wandered around a large rock garden full of Alpine plants. The amazing thing was that every rock and boulder had to be brought in, as there are none in this part of Alberta. It must have cost a fortune. There were huge rocks down to little ones, a thousand tons of rocks! The plants come from all over Alberta, some from BC and parts of the States and other parts of the world.

From Devon we got onto the highway and headed south. I found the highway driving hot, busy and noisy. Every time a truck passed us we could feel its swaying and sucking affect on the trailer. Still, the road was smooth and straight.
I felt the relief when we turned west at Red Deer onto a secondary road. Now we were heading toward Rocky Mountain House, our next destination, with the Rocky Mountains beyond. At one point along the way the road became totally clogged with cars and we ground to an almost halt. We were in the town of Sylvan Lake and it was just teaming with people either in their cars on their way to park and then to the beach, or crossing the road with folding chairs and coolers, or already settled enjoying a hot day by the lake. Cars were parked all along the road and as we crawled along we could watch dozens of folks jostling for spots on the beach and swimming in an alluringly cool blue lake. It was Monday, the day before Canada Day and it seemed people had taken a long weekend. It had the feel of Grand Bend on a busy summer’s day.

We got to our campground in the Crimson Lake Provincial Park in the late afternoon. As I attempted to assist Eric in backing the trailer into a tricky spot, I was viciously attacked by thousands (at least) of mosquitoes. Eric has become increasingly skilled at manoeuvering the trailer but on this occasion he did decide to call for guidance from a friendly neighbour, “a little to the left then a little to the right then back some more yes keep going”, and all the while I was giving words of encouragement which I punctuated with mosquito swatting. Nevertheless, I was happy to know we were going to stop for a while and would be camping in the woods. We were to spend 6 nights here.