BANFF

Christmas has been and gone for another year, though the stores aren't finished with us all yet as they wind up for their new year sales.

I spent a lovely Christmas in Banff, Alberta. Banff is one of the great  national parks of Canada. High snow covered mountains compliment, deep valley's filled with snow that looks like icing sugar. Forrests of pine trees cling to the mountainsides, weighed down by snow. How they stand the weight I don't know. Some of the rivers and streams are sheets of ice whilst others have been reduced to just a trickle by the cold.

It is cold, around -20c, but the air is fresh and the sun casts an aura over the high mountains. The summer crowds of shorts and t-shirts are long gone replaced by heavy clothing and ski's. It is cold walking down the streets of central Banff. Christmas decorations abound and storekeepers look hopefully at anyone that enters their store.

Compared to the rest of the year Christmas is a quiet time at Banff.

I stayed at a very nice hotel that came with a fireplace that we put to constant use. The cold outside makes the room more desirable, especially when we have a view of a beautiful moutain capped with blinding white snow. We walk to dinner. It is now -25c and I forget my hat, I can't feel my ears. Of course I only realise when we get to the restaurant that I have a hood on my coat. Stupid man!

I did something this year that I have never done before and that is I went to a Christmas Eve church service. I did feel a little hypocritical but what the heck, it's Xmas and a time of goodwill. The scary thing was that I remembered many of the carol's as well as the Lord's Prayer. Something that I learnt by rote over 40 years ago. Some things we never forget!

Christmas day was a quiet affair with an exchange of gifts and a nice Christmas breakfast follwed by a day of just chilling. We had dinner in the hotel and a course was a Canadian Xmas treat called turducken, which is chicken stuffed into a duck which is stuffed into a turkey. Sounds rather distgusting and a little like animal cruelty but it sure tastes good. Who ever dreams up such dishes?

That was Christmas spent far from family and friends and bbq's on the beach. 

As I drove out of Banff this morning I reflected upon the last time I was there as a teenage soldier who came to the town to drink and carouse. All of my friends and I bought Daniel Bonne coonskin caps to wear around town. We created havoc wherever we went but the Canadian's were nice enough to put up with our silly Australian antics.

You know I could not remember one site from that visit all those years ago, nothing looked familiar which is just another example of what alcohol does to the memory.

I am now back in Okanagan Falls after a beautiful drive through the majestic Rocky Mountains. I am over mountains for now as I have had my fill over the past few days. I am spoilt I know.

A few days here then off to Vancouver.

akmacca08@live.com.au