Aaaand we’re on part two of the Canadian Rockies adventure! This is the summer version of the Twenty Dollar view… forty bucks now, startin’ to rack up a worthwhile debt! So for this post, we’ll do a couple of fun facts. The first one that got my attention – there is quite the array of wildlife in Banff National Park, including moose, deer, bighorn sheep, bears, lynx, cougars and wolves. That’s all dandy and stuff… but one particular animal that got the world’s attention was Crasher Squirrel, a squirrel that photobombed a couple posing by the lake in 2009. It’s since received many followers and been widely “memed” – you’ll have to check out the photo! (And the memes! Always check out the memes!) Let’s do another fun fact: the Ten Peaks shown in the card have a bit of an interesting story with their status as mountains. They were first named by explorer Samuel Allen in the late 1800s, and the names he used were numbers from the Nakoda language (Nakoda being an indigenous people of Canada). All but three of the names were changed to names of individuals, in commemoration of them. Here’s the fun part: there’s some debate on which peaks are true peaks. For example, it turns out one of the peaks (Mount Wenkchenma) that’s on the official Ten Peaks list is really just a part of the larger Mount Hungabee. Some say that Allen meant for Mount Hungabee to be on the list, not little brother Mount Wenkchenma. There’s also a small peak-ish rock form by Peak #2, which has earned the unofficial name “Peak 3 1/2”. For some reason that reminds me of Platform 9 ¾ from the Harry Potter series… maybe if you climb it you’ll end up in Mount Hogwarts. No? I’ll stop. Thanks a bunch for another awesome Rockies card!
