As I said, there are some quiet times at work, even on a busy long weekend.

This day started out slow, but it was still early morning. Fire hazard was still high, so we had a helicopter on standby to respond at the first report of smoke, or - to go looking for smoke.

I had some gear and supplies that needed to go into some of our backcountry cabins. So when Craig arrived from Golden with the long ranger helicopter we loaded up and headed out.

First stop was at Little Pipe cabin, about 19 km from Lake Louise up the Pipestone river. It is a fairly tidy little heli-pad on the river bank, but we easily parked there and dropped off a chainsaw for trail clearing, and some more needed items. Then it was off further up the valley to Fish Lakes cabin.



This cabin is accessible from the main Pipestone pass trail, or from the Icefields Parkway via North Molar Pass. There is a campground nearby in the very scenic high elevation valley.





















The cabin comes into view ...




























After dropping off the supplies and loading up some empty containers for the return trip,















Craig admires the view as we look for elk or caribou in the area.


We had just returned to Lake Louise and parked the helicopter when I heard a chilling (pun intended, but not at the time) report on the radio from some park staff in Yoho National Park,
just across the border in BC. They reported that two young children had been swept away in the very cold, glacial fed Kicking Horse river, and were presently floating away! Yikes! The last time we responded to a similar call at that location was for a young adult who was swept away. In that case it took several weeks just to locate his body, so this call was not taken lightly.
Wardens in Yoho responded right away to the scene, we hooked up the jet boat for a fast road trip, water rescue gear was loaded into trucks and the sirens began to wail. Another warden who is a paramedic and I hopped in the still-warm helicopter and headed west. En route, we received the great news that the smaller of the two children had been safely hauled to shore by the frantic adults on scene, but the older one had been swept downstream by the fast current.














Several long minutes later, we were on scene and were much relieved to find that the youngster had made it safely to the far shore, where he stood shivering cold and no doubt scared.




We landed close to him on the muddy bank and gave him a helicopter ride back to his worried family members across the river.







After getting into some warm dry clothes, he was given a checkup by our resident paramedic and found no worse for wear.














And, the alert Parks staff who were on scene and made the immediate call for help to get the rescue wheels turning, rotors spinning, and boats headed down the highway. It's always nice when the story has a happy ending like this one.

Other calls in the next few days did not end as well.