Any bears?

This wilderness hostel runs shuttle bus into town each morning, so we jumped on the 9am ride. Jasper had a really nice mountain/small little village feel so deserved a stroll round. Pretty sleepy sort of town where its hard to believe that it's steady population of around 5000 swells over 20000 in the peak summer season.

After a energy boosting coffee and cake in the fantastic "Bear Paw Bakery," (where are those bears) we started our hike around the many scenic lakes that surround Jasper. Still no bears but we saw deer, elk and possibly a mouse, we say this as a sighting of these creatures in Canada are pretty scarce now, and red squirrels but sadly no bears. I say sadly but not sure what the heck we would do if one came wandering along the track we were on. When hiking some locals carry small bells in their pockets so that it frightens any bears away prior to them actually getting close to them. Not quite sure how effective a system this is. Is it still so cold so maybe, as it's been such a heavy winter, they're not ready to emerge from their winter hibernation dens.

Though famously considered hibernators, bears do not go into "true hibernation". Its more of a deep winter sleep state where metabolic rates are much less than with smaller animals, so it can survive for much longer with the lack of food that comes with harsh winter conditions. The timing of the end of each winter is key for the survival of these animals as a few weeks either way of the abnormal conditions can greatly affect the life of a bear.

The final 3km trail back into town runs parallel with the unfenced trans-continental rail line that runs right across Canada, Toronto to Vancouver. A goods train carrying shipping containers was passing. We counted 186 carriages so a quick bit of maths, working on average container size results in a single train that well over a 1 km long! It was almost the length of the entire town.

Back at the hostel is was a quiet evening by the huge log fire, toasty.