Alberta 2023 ~ Mount Edith Cavell ...

 A highlight during our stay in Jasper, was a return visit to Mount Edith Cavell …

Originally known as "La Montagne de la Grande Traverse", a name given to the peak by French-Canadian voyageurs using the nearby Athabasca Pass as a fur trade route, the mountain is an impressive 3300m (11000’) peak.

Named in honour of the British nurse Edith Cavell, who operated a medical clinic and nursing school in Brussels at the start of the World War I in August 1914. She bravely chose to stay in her adopted homeland when the Germans invaded and regardless of nationality provided medical treatment to injured soldiers. She also helped smuggle injured Commonwealth soldiers out of Belgium to the safety of neutral Holland. For those actions, Cavell was arrested by the occupation authorities in August 1915, charged under the German Military Code. Found guilty, she was executed by a German firing squad at dawn on October 12^th, 1915. Her execution was condemned internationally, resulting with increased anti-German sentiment in many countries including at that time neutral America.

Throughout the world, many memorials have been created to Edith Cavell including Canada in 1916 ~ Mount Edith Cavell.

To get there from the highway, we drove on a very steep and winding 14km road to the mountain's awesome north face, an area famous for interesting moraines, the Cavell Meadows, alpine flowers and spectacular views of Angel Glacier.

In a similar way to my recent observations at Athabasca Glacier, see “Alberta 2023 ~ Banff to Jasper …” at ~

https://southshoretidewatch.blogspot.com/2023/06/alberta-2023-banff-to-jasper.html

~ I was extremely shocked to compare today’s visit to Mount Edith Cavell with its Angel Glacier, to my last one on this same date in 1991. An area I walked upon exactly 32 years ago, that was once a glacier and deep snow is now a pond and has been given the name “Cavell Pond”. I also noticed that Angel Glacier had receded a good distance up the mountain and the meltwater from it was furiously falling to the ground.

For me it was a devastating and emotional sight. Normally when visiting a location after an absence of three decades, you are expected to see differences, but only in man-made infrastructure, some of which may be deemed as progress will others not so much. But to see first-hand and personally witness the results of global warming, the man-made destruction to our natural surroundings is totally and completely tragic on a grand scale ~ so very sad.

After our visit to the mountain, we stopped a little way down to see some views of Cavell Lake with Mount Edith Cavell in the background.

Below are today’s photos taken at Mount Edith Cavell, I have added notes to some of them …

Mount Edith Cavell

Angel Glacier

Cavell Pond, a feature created during the last 32 years, can be seen on the right. When I was last there, the ice and snow were level to the bottom of the waterfall.

Cavell Pond where I walked over ice and snow exactly 32 years ago.

The ice and snow that is now Cavell Pond, was level to where the waterfall lands on the ground.

Angel Glacier

Melt water flowing from the glacier landing at the level of where the ice and snow I walked upon once was. There is potential for a future collapse of the glacier, caused by the melt water running between the rock and glacier, resulting in a loss of bond and then simply sliding down.

Cavell Lake in the distance.

Cavell Lake with Mount Edith Cavell furthest away.

Melt water from the surrounding mountains making its way to Cavell Lake

Water from Cavell Lake flowing down to eventually meet the Athabasca River

Alberta 2023 ~ Remembering LCpl. Alexander Collie and The Lovat Scouts ...

The grave of a young Scotsman, Lance Corporal Alexander “Sandy” Collie of The Lovat Scouts, Service Number 326148. 

Died 20^th January 1944 aged 23.

Son of William and Grace Dolina Collie, of Aviemore, Inverness-shire, Scotland.

Buried ~ Jasper Municipal Cemetery, Jasper, Alberta, Canada

Other CWGC graves in this cemetery ~

Flying Officer James Robinson, RCAF, Service Number: C/3201.

Died 10^th November 1941 aged 44

Son of Herbert and Jane Robinson, of Carrot Creek; husband of Mildred J. Robinson, of Jasper.

Sergeant Henry Andri Hanson, Royal Canadian Army Service Corps, Service Number: K/89392.

Died 24^th February 1946 aged 41

Husband of Mary Edna Hanson, of Jasper.

CWGC ~ Grave Registration Report Form for Jasper Municipal Cemetery ...

The Lovat Scouts and their Jasper experience ~

Rated them

Rated as one of the toughest units in the British Army during the Second World War, the Lovat Scouts were sent to the Rocky Mountain resort town of Jasper in 1944 to train as a mountain warfare elite. The British had found themselves out fought in Norway and Greece by the Axis mountain warfare specialists and were determined to redress the balance. So, when Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill decided he needed a unit specializing in mountain warfare, the Lovat Scouts were an obvious choice.

The regiment had been originally raised by Lord Lovat during the Boer War in 1899. The regular troops of the British army were struggling to beat the sharp-shooting, hard-riding, farmers of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal in South Africa. So, Lord Lovat raised a regiment of sharpshooters from the private game wardens and hunting guides from his own and his Neighbours' Highland estates. Many of the officers were local landowners.

At the start of the Second World War, they were sent to garrison the Faroe Islands, half-way between Shetland and Iceland. In 1942 the Lovat Scouts returned to Britain to become the reconnaissance regiment of the 52nd Lowland Division. Churchill already had his eye on the unit for special work and at one point considered sending them to the Middle East as commandos. The 52nd Division was earmarked for a mountain warfare role and this meant specialist training for the Lovat Scouts.

In 1943 they started intensive training in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland before heading off to Wales for rock climbing instruction at the Commando School of Mountain Warfare. After the training in Wales was completed, the regiment was sent to the Canadian Rockies for even more instruction in mountain warfare.

On the night of January 6, 1944 after crossing the Atlantic, the Lovat Scouts caught sight of the sparkling lights of the legendary New York skyline – unlike Britain, there was no black-out in the United States. It had been a long dry trip, the White Star Line, owners of the troopship Mauretania, had banned alcohol on board.

But one lucky piper, a man from the remote island of Uist, somehow managed to fill his pockets with bottles of whisky somewhere between the ship’s gangplank and the train to Jasper. The 2500-mile journey from New York to Jasper in the Rockies on two special trains took three days.

They arrived to find the tiny mountain resort in the grip of winter. Temperatures were typically arctic and several soldiers suffered frost bite on their march from the train to their quarters a few miles out of town at Jasper Lodge.

The 600 men were issued with U.S. arctic clothing, including fur-trimmed parkas, down-filled sleeping bags, and rubber-soled boots. The man in charge of putting the training program together, Wing Commander Frank Smythe, must have envied the Highlanders their boots. He got to within one thousand feet of the top of Mount Everest in 1933, and might well have been the first man to reach the summit, if he had been wearing the U.S. boots instead of British hobnail soles.

The rigorous training soon took its toll. It had been planned to use the local golf course to train the men how to ski. But a lack of snow at lower altitudes meant many of the Highlanders were forced to graduate to the nearby mountain slopes before they were ready. Within a short time 30 men had broken arms and legs or were suffering from serious sprains. A 50-bed hospital had been set up in Jasper to deal with just such fall-related training injuries. Frostbite and snow blindness were major concerns, some men were slower than others to realize that while the sun might be bright in the sky, a temperature of –20C would freeze exposed skin in seconds.

Major Sir John Brook only survived an avalanche by “swimming” through the crashing flood of snow. Lance Corporal Sandy Collie, a sturdy well-liked man from Upper Tullochgrue, Aviemore, was not so lucky. While part of training party tackling Nigel Peak on January 20th, he was caught in an avalanche along with Corporal Angus Cameron. One of Cameron’s gloves was seen sticking out of the snow after the avalanche had passed and he was quickly dug out. It was Cameron who located Collie’s body about five feet under the snow an hour later. All attempts to revive Collie failed and he was buried in the little cemetery outside town four days later.

The regiment finally saw action in Italy. But not with the 52nd Division, which had been sent to France after D-Day. Instead, the regiment was attached to the 10th Indian Division, which used them either as ordinary infantry or for patrols behind German lines in the hilly country of the Apennines. The training they had done in Jasper to prepare for high altitude mountain warfare was rarely put into practice.

Alberta 2023 ~ A morning of reflection, a bear and wild flowers …

This morning, it was obvious that the energetic pace of the last few days finally got us beat. With the sky full of heavy clouds and a forecast of rain showers, it was decided to have a much slower day and take a gentle drive around the local area, and avoid hiking trails or the occasional temptation to climb a rocky hillside.

With that decision made, we drove to Patricia Lake located just a couple of kilometres outside Jasper and then to Talbot Lake, a popular location for anglers looking to catch Northern Pike.

On the way back from Patricia Lake we had the good fortune to observe a Black Bear out for a Sunday morning wander, unfortunately he did not seem very interested in giving me that perfect photo.

Finally, to fill up space at the end, some pics of local wildflowers ….