Bison and Edmonton, Alberta

We moved on to the suburbs of Edmonton to stay with a friend for two nights. It could have been any house in any suburb in Canada, so I won't say anything more about it other than that we had a great time and appreciated the warm welcoming.

While there we doubled back for the first time on our trip to check out Elk Island National Park, a bison reserve. The sole purpose was to see the beasts, and in the end we succeeded.

The park starts with a safari-esque drive where we happened to in fact only see a herd from afar.

At that distance they appeared as little more than glorified cows. How disappointing. We finished the drive with nothing further to report, and went for a hike within the park that was nice, but unremarkable considering some of our other escapades.

Luckily, we saw what we came to see on the drive back out of the park. First, we came upon a male who appeared to be not quite fully grown. He muzzled at the grass on the side of the road and then settled in for a bit.

He later stood up as if to approach the vehicle and we knew it was time to move on.

Down the road we saw another male, this time full grown, who was kind enough to stand around doing seemingly nothing but not actually block the way.

Kenting knew something different was out there.

We found one more male also doing not much of anything, conveniently just off the road. It was like they were being paid to station there. 

Though I have a data limit, I'll risk a video of this exchange, as it is brief.

The bison proved to be impressive creatures and they were indeed much more than glorified cattle.

The next day, we said goodbye to our friend and drove on to Jasper National Park. We were nearing our goal of making it west before the autumn leaves set in and the days became prohibitively short/cold for RV life.