waterton lakes national park

 An hour and a half southwest of Lethbridge is the gateway to Waterton Lakes National Park. I've been running a field trip for grade seven students to the park front, teaching them about rough fescue grasses, the transition from bison to ranching, and grassland ecosystem inhabitants. Guest speakers from Parks Canada and the Nature Conservancy of Canada reinforce a natural heritage ethic, talking to the students about sustainable grazing and managed fire. 

Introducing these city kids to their fantastic back yard can be challenging -- the ground here is soft and crawling, the wind strong, the sky frighteningly dynamic. So we make webs out of yarn mimicking relationships between the long toed salamander, cedar waxwing, creeping juniper, moss phlox, trembling aspen, moose, trumpeter swan. we draw ant hills and deer poo, we take photographs of mountains, of fungus, of lichen-covered rocks, we examine medicinal plants, we open our coats like kites and feel the wind. Yesterday, so fortunate, we watched a black bear run up a hill not too far from us and then later saw a mamma grizzly with her long legs and empty springtime belly walking her tiny golden cub across the road in front of the school bus.

these pictures were taken by Luke who is thirteen years old and enjoyed looking closely at everything growing around us.