ALBERTA

In the drive from Galgary to Banff, in our very comfortable Nissan Sentra from Enterprise, my physicist and I began to wonder: what is the difference between a prairie and the plains?  Were we in prairie-land or plains? 

Just outside Calgary, where ugly gray box houses stacked ad nauseum against other ugly gray box houses, we noticed a complete absence of trees. We were relieved when a stand of firs, obviously planted as a weather break, signaled the end of the colorless developments, and gave way to miles of soft rippling grasses.  

No trees on this grassland, either, just a patchwork stitch of old fencing and the very occasional crumbling shack left from some earlier generation of sheep farmer.  No sheep, though, and no goats.  No wheat fields, orchards or rows of corn.  Very few head of cattle, and once, a handful of horses.  We did spy several ponds with Arctic swans, though.

There was something comforting to Catbird to see so many miles of earth at leisure.  My physicist, though, had his eye on the distant Rocky Mountains, our destination, as they emerged from a vague smudge on the far horizon.

Downtown Banff

The town of Banff sits right up against the mountains, and Banff Centre, home of Banff International Research Station--our host for the week--is just a mile or so straight up from town in the foothills.  The Centre is very university-like, compact and geared for pedestrians.  Our room is somewhere between a dorm and a small hotel; we share a bathroom with a (fortunately non-existent) suite-mate, have a queen sized bed and daily housekeeping services.

View of Banff Centre, looking West (the town of Banff is between the Centre and the far mountains)

Most striking to Catbird, in this very hilly knot of buildings there is NO accommodation to physical disability.  Our room is on the 3rd floor and we had to lug our bags up.  Likewise the conference room and break area for this conference are all available by stairway only.  There is an elevator to the dining room on the 4th floor of the Sally Borden building, but the steps leading up to the entrance assure no one in a wheelchair will get that far.  Apparently, this is no country for physical disability.

The interior of a couple of the buildings is striking, but the exteriors all run to the blah side of things.  That is perhaps the only architectural continuity among the buildings--their drabness.  Catbird doesn't think every building on campus requires a red tile roof, but it would be nice if there was some color here or there, or if the tightly packed structures at least complimented one another in some way.  Perhaps when one has the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, the exterior of your building requires no more aesthetic than to try not to block the view.

We are still studying the classifications of plains and prairies and finding that both of these, plus steppes, savanna, pampas are all described in much the same way.  Grassy flatlands, whose terminology largely depends on the continent.  In our studies we found that Alberta is one of the Canadian "prairie provinces," so we're going with that.