Trans-Canadian: H2 Ode

As my candles has just blown a new decade, my thirty-years-old heart follows its own fate, my wandering soul regrets to leave comforting the Black Cat Guest Ranch; I enable a bigger step than the moment. I slowly hit the road for a week to reach Vancouver Island’s soft atmosphere, half rushed because late on my schedule, like the traders of Hudson Bay, one of the biggest Canadian institutions. Back in the days, when traders traveled the continent to sell furs and other goods, they didn’t leave before 3 pm, delaying as much as possible their long absence. The first night, they always camped not more than four miles from home, so one could have a last trip to town in order to get what they forgot. It was an organized delay, not like mine.
Thankfully, because I am on a rush, I don’t have time to be sad, I miss the usual departure stomach hole. It is only later, when I pass mountain goats at our usual meeting point on the frozen concrete, that my doom and gloom really occurs, it cradles me like an old friend. Built by both this fleeting feeling and freezing cold, I don’t feel like hiking Maligne Canyon, too far for my lazy steps. Instead, I draw a well known road, stunned with old landscapes completely transformed since our last encounters. I try some detours, I go along highway 93A to have a glimpse on Edith Cavell Mount, but early winter is already there, annihilating National Parks’ opportunities, and makes me turn back. I still take advantage of this side road to quickly look at Athabasca River’s current struggling against ice though. It resists, keeps going on its unfailing move, carrying snow and ice, in order not to know surrounding lakes’ fate. It has to surrender sometimes though. Earlier for instance, above Maligne Road’s bridge: water was too low to win and Brûlé’s race had to stop over there for magic and white winter.

I then go back on my usual track. Water is not the only one to slow down, the entire scenery is freezing in the iced winter beauty. I stop by Beauty Creek trail as advised, and follow Stanley waterfalls’ upside down and half frozen move. I don’t know if those cascades look as pretty in summer time but they are absolutely mesmerizing in these first winter days. As snow powders some rocks. As water is cloudier in the ice. As it doesn’t actually snow but tiny snow flakes escaped from sunny trees sparkle like hopeful glitters. I follow each stream, each waterfall, praising for water strength which looks like mine.
Water is an insoluble strength. Undivided. Total. It digs canyons in rocks, deep to the Earth’s heart. It draws valleys in between mountains, stretched to the edge of the world. Water is an untamed strength, both overwhelming and leading us. Even cold can’t utterly enslave it. Any lake will only freeze on the top; its invisible and unreachable depth will always contain a secret and immortal life. Any waterfall will freeze in some places; a furious stream will keep racing under icicles, dancing under its frozen tears. Water is one and only; therefore, if one part resists, the whole torrent stands for its power as well. Water is where I come from, where we all come from. Water is an invincible strength, tormented, soft. Magic. It is my fascination for West, the call I always feel on that side of the world, it gives me a western force and leads my audacious soul.
Then, I want to change my ultimate landscape to breathe my last breath. If I had to choose between mountains, forests or waters, if I didn’t have any other choices than to choose, it would be water for sure. A sea, a lake, an ocean, it doesn’t mater. Water with all its wars and peaces.

This walk is so beautiful, so precious, my mind gets lost in hushed and naive conclusions. There is a state of grace you only know when you are in love, it is deep, it is magic, it is intense, it is fleeting; a state of grace I was afraid not to feel ever again. Yet, today, I am crossed by immortal and transformed changes. My wandering’s state of grace is endless, daily, repeated and peaceful. It is independent. My extreme feelings doesn’t come from the outside anymore, they were born in my inner, they go with the place, with the day, but don’t feel slaved anymore. I had to travel so many places to understand that. After my Irish crush, I couldn’t stop praising Ireland thinking the place mattered, I couldn’t see it was only a piece of the big picture, I couldn’t understand no place could heal my pain if it was my only medicine.
After this wonder, I end my daily road without a stop. Surprised by a waterfall now frozen when it shined last week. Impressed by a green lake totally iced now. My trip gets tired and I am happy to reach Banff whose snowed mountains are blushing in the sunset.

I wake up at 7am, like a Switz clock. I finish some writings and start my day in a cold morning wind, without knowing what my today will look like. I want to explore unknown new rocky landscapes. They will be memorable. Lonely. Mesmerizing. Frozen.
I still follow a bit my friend Caroline’s steps, looking upon Bow waterfalls and those curious fairy’s houses from cold eras curiously named: Hoodos. It is not enough to fulfill my discoveries though, I then drive to Minnewanka Lake in order to cross Stewart Canyon. I walk along the shores, fascinated by morning sun in various mountains around. I walk in between trees, listening to the icing lake. A freezing lake has a peculiar sound indeed, especially when the still swell hits the iced layer. I eventually get to the rebel canyon, where waters still rush faster and faster the closer to the land they get. I walk and dream about tomorrows, designed by new desires, maybe Canadian ones…

After a frozen tuna sandwich for lunch, I stop one last time in Banff for some errands and to really feel like I was there. Then, following vermilion road along the frozen lake where some people already skate even if the water is not completely iced a few centimeters further, I ride Bow Valley panoramic road to reach Johnson Canyon where some magic, alike Beauty Creek waterfalls, is awaiting for me in stunning freezing process. The path, more similar to a highway, misses a bit of authenticity though.

Another canyon waits for me in this already late day, after BC’s limit, in Kotenay National Park. Stunned by Castle Mountain’s impressive shape, by its blushing sun, I run towards two other sun setting mountains above the highway. But Canyon Marble is closed, as other trails are… Some signs promise improvement for the end of the year… 2017! but other “no trespassing” signs disagree. There is like a delay I would say.
It is already the end of the season over here, Chinese people – only winter survivors – don’t care about Kootenay.

I go through, one time zone behind, those mountains evening particular lights. It looks more remote, more untamed because desert. I stop at the only opened trail head, Dog lake’s; I could sleep here but I have a strange bad feeling about it and decide not to. I thus follow the last sun’s move, get some pink sparkles, when it is not moon light. And I get to Radium Hot Springs, closed until Nov, 23rd of course! It is definitely not my day!
My evening ends on the top of the town’s ridge, where mountains’s shadow color so beautifuly, in a pink or blueish sky, just above the uneven and darker horizon.