Family Weekend in Jasper

At the end of May we had our annual family weekend.  This was with my brothers and their families, and my Mom.  We started this tradition about eight or ten years ago.  It started out as an opportunity to get the whole family together, and take my Dad out with everyone.  Most of the time we have gone out to Jasper, but in years past we have also stayed at Banff, Nordegg and Waterton.  This was the first one that we went on since Dad passed away.  I kept looking around, expecting to see Dad shuffling along after the kids but it was not to be...  But this a tradition that I think we will continue to keep alive...

On the Saturday we went rafting on the Athabasca River.  There were ten of us in the raft, but Margarit stayed behind with Helena, Barb Pohl wasn't feeling well, and Mom didn't want to get wet. We put the raft in just upstream from town, and then floated down to Old Fort Point.  The rafting company had a photographer that took some pictures of the rafts as they floated by various rapids and points along the way.  Here's a few shots of our group starting out, as well as a shot of us negotiating a small Class 2 rapid they call "The Wall".

Over the rest of the weekend we were pretty much lazy and just relaxed and visited.  At one point we got a touch football game going between we three brothers and most of the neices and nephews.  With the game tied, my nephew Colin was making a run to score the winning touchdown.  I managed to run him down and tag him out before he scored, but I wiped out at a full run and fell to the ground, landing on my hand.  When I got up the pinky finger on my right hand was dislocated, with the upper part of the finger, above the second knuckle, pointing off in a wild angle.  I managed to massage it back into place, but my hand was pretty sore and swollen for the rest of the weekend.  It forced me to miss a hockey game once we got back home after the weekend.

Later in the weekend some of us adults went for a walk along the river and into the woods behind the cabins we were staying at.  It was at this very spot that my brother Wes was accosted by an irate cow elk last year.  He actually managed to capture most of his ordeal on video and it is posted to youtube.  Here's a link to it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8atDCp5cmdo