CANADA - ALBERTA : CYPRESS HILLS - AN ILLUSION OF MYSTERY
by Jack Herrmann



A hot, dry gust of air glided up from Montana. It swept across the flat, high prairie 'Bench' worrying sagebrush and caressing July-yellowed shortgrass that happened to be in its path. Once, when it crossed a patch of bare earth, it teased a small 'whirly-devil' into brief, dancing life that ended like most lives - slowly dissolving within itself.

The wind puff was strong enough to toss and tangle the manes of several horses taking water in a rare, hidden sink; and later, in a den hollowed in the side of a cut-bank, it tugged at the fur of a sleeping coyote. With closed eyes but open nostrils, the animal sniffed for danger. Finding none, it recurled and gratefully went back to dreams of coolness and ample feasting.

It moved swiftly, this mid-day breeze. Drying. Evaporating. Parching the arid land even more on a journey that was to end in dissipation among evergreen forests bristling from the strange and haunting (perhaps haunted) Cypress Hills.

I heard its breath an instant before it hit me, and turning and lowering my head into it from habit, I managed to give the broad brim of my western hat the benefit of its aerodynamics and keep it in place. I sure didn't want to chase that hat all the way to Maple Creek.

The small wind was with me only a short time. It sucked the moisture from my shirt and left – much the same as an entire passionate era of mankind's adventure would be a mere warm and fleeting thought in time. It struck me then, that not so long ago, this place – these hills – was sacred to the people whose home was this land. Then, as now, the Cypress Hills contained types of animals and plants found nowhere else in Canada, for it had never felt the sting of the ice seas that had burdened the world for an eon.

I stood alone on the south side of the Hills looking west (only a mile-and-a-half from the prairie oasis that is Elkwater Lake on the north side.) Under an azure blue sky that yawned forever, my gaze flowed across this landscape of rolling hills, table-top plateaus, draws, coulees, and rim rocks; beyond creeks, sloughs and river systems; past the misty mirage which was the city of Lethbridge (LETHBRIDGE HOTELS); and on to the shining mountains - 175-miles distant. It was an incredible view. It encompassed the entire southern border of Alberta. And I realized how easily the Blackfoot – the tigers of the plains – could guard their homeland. Hell, with a dozen strategically placed hawk-eyed sentinels, a gopher wouldn't have been able to sneak through.

They were a credit to the land, these Blackfoot. They used it well. They respected it. So do I, for the Alberta prairies can be a treacherous mistress. It lulls you, calms and relaxes you; then, fills you with a loneliness that echoes a thousand miles within your soul. You forget to be cautious. That's when this land can kill you. This is country made for men who do not bend. The bones of those that do, provide spice for the barbs of prickly pears and for the sweet scent of Summer sage brush and Spring crocuses.

The Cypress Hills overflow with the ghosts of tragedy, the specters of hope, the phantoms of visions; and are studded with graves that were the sorrowful rewards of brave and energetic hopefuls. Few, who came to these hills, saw their dreams survive. Those that did, however, helped build a unique civilization.

Not far from here, on a elevation in a quiet valley with trees and birds and a fresh, cool stream, rises the reconstructed Fort Walsh. It is where the Mounties began their own great romance. Their individual names reverberate from the log walls - Macleod, Irvine, Walsh, Graburn. Each pebble embedded in the hard pack of the parade ground carries a silent tale of their exploits. Spirits ascend from the roots of every grass and each harangues the greatness of Crowfoot, Old Sun, Poundmaker, Spotted Eagle and Sitting Bull. Every leaf on every tree, and each ripple of Battle Creek, has a story of hide hunter, wolfers, buffalo runners and whiskey traders; of love and laughter, of massacre and tears; of sacred quests and sun dances; of children's play and old one's recollections.

They say the Canadian west has no history. They who claim such a thing have not been suffocated in it at Fort Walsh. Nor have they been infatuated by it along a green entombed forest trail. They remain unaware that the beauty of the Cypress Hills is an illusion designed to lull one into false and blundering conclusion. It is necessary to create such receptivity – for other dangers, that will eagerly follow, need the fertile blandness of such unguarded notion. The Cypress Hills has a way of claiming their own. There are always more stories needed – more tales to tell – and more ghosts required to tell them.

ALBERTA HOTELS

Photo courtesy Travel Alberta
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