Bearspaw Path

We take walks almost everyday, except this past week because it was minus fifteen with a foot of snow. Posting these photos from the height of the Summer weather in Early August takes us back to the finer days living in Canada. These photos are from Bearspaw Path, a few miles of paved path on the edge of the city.

This is a typical scene from the Canadian prairies. It is not just fields of endless wheat. There are swamps, trees and millions of ponds scattered around the landscape. It's not perfectly flat and the water has to go somewhere. On one side of this photo there is a large agregata mine, on the other side would be luxury homes on acreages. Bearspaw is the wealthiest suburb of Calgary where you find massive mansions with tennis courts, indoor pools and all the luxuries on plots so big they have second guest houses.

They must have built this path a while ago because it is being taken over by nature. Not many people live around here but it is nice they did preserve a green zone. This ensures when the aggregate mining is done and they build a subdivision the wealthy elite of Bearspaw don't have to stare at the middle class houses as they pull out of their mansions.

A field of fluff surrounds the pond. Someone put up a bird house in the middle of this swamp. Alberta has many ducks and migratory birds pass through these green zones. This is on the North Western edge of Calgary, between the city and the mountains.

Bees were buzzing around the flowers. I tried my best to take a macro shot, in the second half of the Summer there are a lot less wildflowers in these parts. Alberta's nickname is Wild Rose Country, a flower is part of the national emblem and it is more suitable than stampede country or cowtown or whatever other name someone wants to call these parts.

Trees hide the aggregate mine. For those of you wondering what that is, it's a gravel pit about a square mile in size where they crush rocks and get dirt to build roads, foundations and landscape the city of Calgary. It's a dusty and absolutely necessary eyesore. Who doesn't prefer a wall of greenery?

"Pick up your shit! Don't get a dog if you can't take care of it." Can't agree more. They added a nice bid to put your crap in. We are a cat house and while I don't mind dogs, the issue is they are a lot of work and there are some really shitty dog owners.

This is below a high voltage electric pylon so it isn't really taking anything from the neighbourhood. On a hot day, it doesn't smell the greatest but this is where people park their cars and enter the area to walk dogs. Almost everyone except us had a dog who was walking that day.

The overgrown unkempt path is a perfect place for walking dogs. You don't have to worry about cyclists or too many pedestrians. I wonder why they even bothered paving this path. Gravel or dirt would have been fine, the people in the area would pay more than enough property tax to maintain something like this, but maybe it's in Calgary and the houses are in Bearspaw so it's left to nature.

It's nice to have a place that is so natural on the edge of the city to walk in. We don't always have time to drive to the mountains especially during the weekdays. Seeing houses, cars and driveways gets boring and staring at trees, taking in the country air is better for one's health.

We knew we were going to see some animals enjoying the nature too. This was rather far away but it's a baby and mother dear across the road by another pond. One always has to keep a lookout on a walk for flora and fauna. Thanks for reading and enjoy your Wednesday.

All photos were taken with an s24 and are unfiltered

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