Darwin awards, Canadian region tryouts

Cantabloggia recently returned from a vacation in the Canadian Rockies, in which we spent considerable effort trying to avoid getting attacked by bears, swept away by flooded rivers, and carried off by large fleets of mosquitoes. (Success on all counts, but some close calls.) It was with some consternation that we returned from five days of hiking in the wilderness - we went for two and a half days without seeing another person - only to be confronted with the amazing stupidity of humans.

Consider the photograph above as exhibit A. It shows the Angel glacier on Mt. Edith Cavell. It is fairly difficult to get to the glacier without coming across a sign that says something like this:

Do not approach the Angel Glacier. House-size blocks of ice crash down.
(this is a quote from the Parks Canada web-site).

Looking very closely at the picture above, one can just make out a speck on the snow directly below the glacier. That is a human, who has done us the great service of providing a sense of scale for the picture, but is unfortunately not, at the time this photo was taken, officially eligible for a Darwin award, which requires an act of stupidity that actually renders the person unable to contribute to the future gene pool of our species, normally as a result of death.

In just a few more hours, we were treated to a slew of Darwin hopefuls on another glacier, shown below.


This glacier was surrounded by signs pointing out that crevasses are near impossible to see and that the last three people to have fallen into a crevasse on this glacier had died before they could be rescued (hypothermia sets in fast). Park officials had helpfully roped off a small section of glacier believed to be crevasse-free, but apparently the temptation to experience life on the edge was just too strong for most people - there were dozens of people walking around outside the roped area. Note also the well chosen clothing of the boy in the picture - wind-chill was close to freezing at this spot.

We failed to capture a photographic record of another worthy competitor, who had apparently missed the memo about bear safety. As hikers, we had read everything about what to do if attacked by a bear; carried a can of bear spray each ($40 for a can that sprays 20 feet for 8 seconds); done a lot of singing on our hike to make sure that we didn't catch a bear by surprise. One of my favorite lines from the Parks Canada site was this:

Bears can run as fast as a racehorse, both uphill and downhill.

Anyway, our only bear encounter came when we were driving a couple of miles from the town of Jasper, and spotted the tell-tale sign of interesting wildlife: a mass of cars pulled over on the side of a highway. After a minute or so we spotted a black bear, probably 100m from the road, and several people streaming across the grass towards it. One guy probably got within 20m. Fortunately for him (but unfortunately for the gene pool) the bear was in a retiring mood and headed back into the woods rather than testing the running speed of Mr. Curious.

In completely unrelated news, Tony Wilson, linchpin of the Manchester music scene of the 80s and centerpiece of one of my all-time favorite movies, 24-hour party people, is no longer
with us, and Matt over at Los Amigos de Durutti has blogged his heart out, producing a total of three Tony Wilson tributes. Check them out here.