I was back up to Wood Buffalo National Park for a week to continue work on one of our new sites. The first day out to the site we saw the first of many Bison.

Fort Smith is the closest town, it sits on the Slave River.

Pelican Rapids, the white dots are American Pelicans that spend the summers in the area.

A beaver that came swimming by the shore.

Along with the Bison, we also saw a lot of black bears along the highway.

The Salt Plains.

Walked out onto the Salt Plains, the last time I came, it was too muddy and didn’t get very far. Some bison tracks on the Salt Plains.

Some bison droppings, it’s like a cloud in the sky, what does the dropping look like?

The salt plains are formed from salt that was left behind about 390 million years ago, when a prehistoric saltwater sea evaporated. Today, underground water dissolves the salt. The water is forced to the surface and evaporates and the salt is left behind.

The mosquitos were plentiful out on the Salt Plains.

These are the only salt plains in Canada and part of the reason Wood Buffalo National Park is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This bear ambled across the highway and then headed for the power pole on the left. He stood on his hind legs and started rubbing his back against the pole.

The last day at the site, this bull was in the clearing, before heading down the power corridor.

These photos were taken from the back of a pickup truck.

By the end of the day he made it down to the far end of the power corridor by the highway and was soaking up the sun. These things are enormous.

We stopped at the Little Buffalo River Waterfalls.

One of the guys had his fly rod and was trying to catch some pike.

The plane we were going out on. Only Northwestern Air services Fort Smith. We had a friday morning flight back to Edmonton. I’ll be back a couple of more times this fall to complete the installation and probably for the opening of the site. Parks Canada is a partner and they are looking to make it a big deal for the site opening with first Nation elders and school groups involved.

The white patches are the Salt Plains from the plane.

First time I have seen an ice cream vending machine. Almost as cool as the beer vending machine I saw in Levis, QC. This one was at the Edmonton airport.