Lake Louise lived up to its reputation

Oh yes, it was good. Nay, superb. The lake, the glacier, the chateau, the snow, the conference, the people, all fantastic and energising and positive! And possibly a little cold, but you can't have everything. Days were filled with talks and eating far too many pastries, and nights were filled with drinking and eating and talking and socialising. We soon learned however that there was only one restaurant in the hotel that was even slightly affordable, The Saloon, which apparently has the "best dang burgers in town" but also seemed quite capable of churning out a tasty pizza and beer.

My big day was Thursday, as I had my presentation, and then had to dash up to my room to get changed for the "Clean Lakes Classic" 5km run around the lake (well, up one side and then back again). I'd been training for the run but was a little concerned about slipping over in the snow and tumbling into the lake, but it seems I should have actually been more concerned about being over 1700m above sea level. My lungs were pretty buggered by the end of it, and actually still felt a bit weird the next day. It was a good thing they had hot chocolate and granola waiting for us at the finish line!


We also had a banquet on Thursday night, which was quite good until the Parks Canada theatre group got on stage. Admittedly they came on following the World Champion Hoop Dancer who was incredible and a hard act to follow, but man they were bad. We suspect they were brought on to clear out the room, although it's unclear why they'd need to do that as they weren't actually putting on booze for us. We managed to hang on for a few of their skits but when the puppets came out and Shakespeare was being performed by a stuffed beaver we decided it was time to cut our losses.

The following night we went up (or down or whatever) to Banff to the hot springs, which was actually just like a heated (39 degrees) outside pool. It was kind of strange hanging out with a big pile of people in a hot pool in the middle of the cold cold night.


The next day was another organised excursion involving a tour up to the Columbia Icefields. Our bus driver was a bit of a legend, with many an entertaining tale to tell and he knew the area really well, but he managed to stick Cold Chisel in my head for the whole day as he kept mentioning Bow Lake and Bow River. We made it possibly half way to the icefields before the bus seemed to be having difficulties (the onboard computer said something was wrong) so we had to pull over so the driver could contact the mechanic. We ended up staying there for a couple of hours, waiting for a replacement bus to arrive, but this actually ended up working in our favour as we saw a big horny woolly sheep running on the road, and some beavers swimming around their dam which apparently is quite a rare site. We didn't get to spend enough time at the icefields to go up to the toe of the glacier but got to check it out from afar and not freeze too much.


Oh I also managed to pick up second place for best student presentation of the conference, yay me. Well, to be honest, apparently the prize was won by Connie Mills from UWA which is what my name turns into when a man with glasses is reading the slightly messy handwriting of another man who has also confusingly written "(female)" next to my name to prevent the first man from referring to me as male.

So now I'm back home in Montreal which has been enjoying maximums below zero lately and giving me an incentive to get my act together and buy a decent jacket. It is proving difficult however as I seem to have a preference for ridiculously expensive ones, so the quest continues as does my wearing of many layers of clothing which have to be taken off and put back on multiple times a day. I haven't been homesick yet (apart from one Friday night I found myself alone and got a bit forlorn) but I think that perhaps by the end of the year I'll be ready to head for warmer climes.

In simultaneously great and crap news, I posted the family Christmas presents off today and they should arrive in plenty of time seeing as the only possible posting option (apart from super slow surface yak delivery) for large parcels to Australia is ExpressPost which guarantees it will arrive in one week for the low low price of your first born and your spare kidney.

Coming up next time, you will hear the somewhat startling tale of the crazy internet repairman whose brother in law met Elvis...........in 1991!!!