Summer is a season when it simply does not pay to be elsewhere, but in Canada. If you love the wilderness as I do, wild horses will not drag you away from the beautiful Canadian Rockies. I am making the very best of this unseasonably warm weather. With that in mind, I spent my Canada Day long weekend at one of the most picturesque wilderness sites in the world: Mount Robson Provincial Park, home to the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, 4000 meters above sea level.

Before I serve you with the main course of my story, let me dole out some hors d’oevere to wet your appetite. I had recently befriended a beautiful couple, whom I met at an eating establishment during the NHL Stanley Cup playoff games. Everyone in my home town was giddy, jovial and high-spirited. So were Olexander Rohak, aka Sasha, and his lovely wife Iryna, whom he calls Ira.

Surprisingly, my first encounter with Sasha did not deal with the hockey game in play. It was a serving of hot chicken wings in my plate that caught his attention. He asked me what I thought of it. I told him that if he can handle a high octane pepper sauce, it was one to be had. Sasha is a soon-Canadian-to-be from Ukraine. On my recommendation, and what a trusting person he is, he ordered two dozen hot chicken wings. What followed nearly merited calling the local fire department. He and Ira finished their meal of the hot chicken wings with their respective first bites. With his mouth in flames, his ears and cheeks flaring, and his nose running like a gazelle on the Serengeti been chased by a cheetah, Sasha followed by guzzling up half a dozen pints of beer to douse the fire in his mouth. Ira somehow managed to take it in stride and got by with less fanfare. On account of the fiery incident, Sasha managed to convince the waitress not to charge him for the order of chicken wings. Well done.

Although our trip was well-planned, it was executed clumsily, thanks to this writer, who was the cause of much of the snafu. Our departure day was warm and sunny. The gorgeous weather lifted our spirits. It made us giddy and expectant of the glorious Canada Day long weekend, which lies ahead in a distant and breathtakingly handsome environment. We were determined not to let anything cramp our style and substance. We loaded all our gears and food on Sasha’s car, including my 1996 Univega mountain bike, which I hoped to ride from Jasper to Mount Robson, in a return trip of 170 kilometers. As we drove west on Highway 16, we told stories galore, joked incessantly and made a pledge that we were to leave our respective bad attitudes behind and live our Mount Robson days with abundance of goodwill and shamelessly feast our eyes with all the beauty the sites flaunted at us. This trio was determined to be happy with a vengeance.

We arrived at Jasper around midnight, a good four hours behind schedule. We set out looking for a campsite to spend the night at. We found none. All were fully populated with snoring campers happily killing their fatigues. Matters became worrisome after we were warned that the scenario may repeat itself at Mount Robson during the entire long weekend. After all, it is only a one hour drive from Jasper. We were concerned that our entire plan might unravel if we did not find a campsite for a base station. But our mood was not soured. Despite feeling tired and sleepy, we remained focused and at ease to deal with the prevailing threat. We found a solution.

As I tented in the new campsite, I discovered the first consequence of my poor preparation. I had forgotten my sleeping bag, a capita and utterly unforgivable mistake. Now you know why I spent a miserable time the night before because I had little to protect me from the biting cold of high altitude night. I was concerned that I may never be able to sleep well during the three-day stay, which could severely impact my ability to do long distance trail hiking. As luck would have it, we found a small town nearby next day, where I purchased a beautiful and warm sleeping bag that was to provide me with all the comfortable sleep I could muster.

As the elevated altitude took toll on our bodies, and mosquitoes incessantly fed on our blood, we took bouts of rest in pristine streams of rushing white water of the Fitzwilliam Creek that collected melted waters from glaciers up the mountains. We drank the water and nursed our burning feet with its cold Jacuzzi-like violent turbulence that massaged our aching muscles. After a seventeen km hike that took us four hours to complete, we reached the plateau at Mount Fitzwilliam, where alpine lakes were strewn. Along the way, we met few backpackers heading to wilderness campsites at the end of the trail. We just discovered that we had ventured in to a challenging and demanding trail that only the avid hiked. The incessant attack of the mosquitoes, as well as worries that darkness may set on us before reaching our base camp, shortened our stay Mount Fitzwilliam. The return trip took us much shorter time as we hiked on now-familiar trail. Our third day at Mount Robson, we had covered a total of thirty four km of hiking.

After bidding goodbye my Robson days, I mounted on my mountain bike and rode it on Highway 16 heading to Jasper. It had a shoulder lane wide enough to accommodate road bikers. Although the violent approach of speeding cars and trucks could be unsettling, my anxiety settled as I discovered that most motorists attempted to stay clear off me by driving in the inside lane of the two way highway. Along the way, I met many road bikers, who often rode in pairs. The road between Jasper and Mount Robson is one of the most scenic of the Canadian Rockies. I enjoyed the views of Moose Lake, the Frazier River and many mountains that were dressed with dense pine forests. It was a sixty km bike ride that ended at Lucerne Lake campground. There Ira and Sasha, and I took a pleasant swim at a chilly Yellowhead Lake.

I have taken many trips to campsite in the Rockies. I often felt letdown whenever I compared the splendor and grandeur of the Canadian Rockies to that of the Eritrean Highlands. During my childhood years in Eritrea, I had traveled much on the roads leading to Massawa and Tessenei from my then hometown of Asmara. While on the bus, I always occupied a window isle seat, and traveled while standing on my feet and hogging the views of scornful travelers sitting nearby. With my head popping out through the window, I enjoyed the constantly changing landscape caused by the moving bus. I studied the faces of fruit peddlers, beggars and new travelers the bus picked up at every stop. Out of town, I scanned the scenery to locate wildlife, rarely finding any, save plenty of wild hens (deerho kadan) I used to spot on the road between Keren and Agordat. Much of the landscape in the lowlands of Eritrea is interrupted by seasonal rivers, which remained dry for much of the year. The highland plateau is littered with nameless mountains, which for the most part look barren, sad and lonely. Few seem to have captured people’s imaginations, as have the many mountains in the Rockies, despite matching their sizes and peak heights.

According to my geography teacher at Comboni College Asmara, Padre Menegatti, much of foothills and plateaus of the Eritrean highlands once looked different. He had once told our class of grade nine students that the highland wilderness was populated by lush forest as recently as the nineteen thirties, with a rich variety of flora dominated by mahogany (auli’i) and ebony (seraw) trees. The latter took up to a century to reach full maturity. Small areas where such coveted trees once thrived became havens for prickly pears (beles) and light forests of eucalyptus (kalametos) trees, which were introduced to the region during the Haile Sellasie regime.

But the mogogo and farnello had the last say on the highland forest’s wellbeing. The trees were felled indiscriminately, leaving the landscape barren and exposed to soil erosion. Pressure for farmland accelerated their demise. The lowland plains fared just as badly. My late grandfather, Mohammed Takrurai, had once mentioned to me that the lowland plains of Barka, Gash and Setit basins were once home to thriving herds of elephants, zebras and antelopes. Those wild animals too; eventually perished due to drought, desertification and poaching. As a child growing up in Eritrea, I heard of them in stories. I never saw them. Occasionally, I spotted weary gazelles around the villages of Haggaz and Barentu, reminders of what the environment was like in yester years. I do not wish to give an impression that North American societies are blessed with more environmental consciousness than Third World people.

The contrast in beauty and majesty between the Canadian Rockies and the plateaus of the Eritrean highlands is staggering. Much of North America is a blessed continent, which enjoys four distinct seasons that initiate unique and vividly noticeable changes to the environment. While winter brings the harsh beauty of white snow, capping mountains and blanketing valleys, fall teases our eyes, only briefly, with a kaleidoscope of bright orange and yellow falling and soon to fall leaves that excite the senses. Fall is the Monet of the four seasons, whose master strokes adorn the canvas of the wilderness. Spring tames winter to ease the lives of plants and animals. It melts the biting cold ice and snow in to smooth water that the quenches the environment’s thirst and soothes its aches. Summer time is showtime in the wilderness, showcasing all forms of entertainment that pleases all the senses. Even music is played, if you pay enough attention to listen to it. The flora merrily flaunt their beauty with a sinister motive of attracting mating partners afar to and gaud them in to doling out coveted pollen disseminated by bees, bugs, wasps and other inadvertent pimps of the wilderness.

The fauna dance to the same beat as the plants. Moose bulls incessantly feed on lush green grass and grow huge antlers that rattle the nerves of competitors. They wrestle and lock horns with one another to establish a pecking order among a herd. This is a winner-takes-all contest, with the dominant moose getting all the cows of the tribe. It is an amazing wildlife culture that defies a sense equity and fairness in matters of mating. Imagine all the women in your tribe back home becoming harem to the best wrestler of the village. Yet, it makes a perfect evolutionary sense.

The cows are innately programmed to procreate with the strongest bull in order to ensure the passing of its superior genes to future generations of the herd, that have to combat an omnipresent threat posed by formidable predators of bears and wolves, not to mention the occasional surprises presented by harsh environmental conditions of drought and awfully cold winters. After grueling and dangerous life-threatening fights, to the winner bull moose go the spoils in the persona of admiring cows, which lavish it with blatant flirting. The cows immediately compete against one another for the first opportunity at mating with the exhausted stud, which is resting to get ready for an all too easy task of disseminating its coveted sperms. The cows too, go through relatively less violent combats to establish a pecking order among their sex. The emerging winner cow is the one to mate with the bull, often birthing a calf sooner so that it will have plenty of time to grow stronger before winter sets.

Similar theatrical events are staged all over the wilderness by other fauna and flora, with twists and plots that eclipse Shakespeare’s make-believe plays. Welcome to summer in the wilderness, where plays are never rehearsed, and where actors never fail to perform on time and on cue. But seats are scarce, and events are never scheduled to the convenience of the audience.

So, what have you done for you lately?

Do yourself a favor and haul get out of your concrete jungle occasionally, and visit the real one with your family and friends. Learn of it, love it and champion its causes so that your children will not settle for hearing of it in stories. Visit national parks to enjoy the wilderness and spend quiet moments of reflection that will help you set your priorities in life. Occasionally, abandon the rat race of the concrete jungle in favor of the stillness and laidback atmosphere of wilderness environment, where the scents, sights and sounds induce an inner sense of calm and composure that no other environment affords.