Canada 2010: Lake Louise Revisited

Faithful readers of this blog will recall that some of our party made a day trip from Calgary to Lake Louise while we were staying at Calgary. Linda had not been in that day trip party, so we decided to stop by Lake Louise on our way from Jasper to Banff via the Ice Fields Parkway (Highway 93).

Here is a sample of some nice scenery on the way:

At first glance these overpasses look like regular road overpasses, but they are not. Native vegetation has been established on the top of the overpasses. In order to reduce native animal road kill the roadsides are fenced so that animals are forced to use the overpasses to cross from one side of the highway to the other. These overpasses seemed to be about every 10 km or so. Monitoring of the traffic on these overpasses has confirmed that these animal “bridges” are doing what they were designed to do.

We have arrived at Lake Louise. Unlike our previous visit, it is a sunny day, so the views of the lake are even more spectacular.

The canoe folk were out in force.

The view from a bridge over the outlet stream wasn’t bad either. Lake Louise is still very much in the running for being one of the world’s most beautiful lakes.

The views of the surrounding mountains were not too shabby either.

Here are a few images just to prove that we were here.

By the way Lake Louise looks good in the winter as well when it is covered in ice. See this award winning photo.

Here is a look at the Fairmont Hotel originally built by the Canadian Pacific Railroad for wealthy tourists. The wealth requirement hasn’t changed a lot. It was located about 100 meters from the lake.

The entrance is decorated in such a manner to show that nationality is no bar to staying there if one has passed the financial threshold.

The interior of the hotel gives one a glimpse of the opulence of another time.

There were a couple of these in the main entrance area.

There were some tapestry reproductions on the wall behind the staff in the check in/out area. Doretha said that she had seen some of the originals in European museums that she had visited.