Mt. Edith Cavell

There is an amazing, beautiful mountain in Jasper National Park called Mt. Edith Cavell. When I first heard this name, I thought it was odd. Who in the heck is Edith Cavell? Well, it turns out that she was one of the bravest and most noble women to ever live.

Edith Cavell was a British nurse in charge of a nursing school in Brussels, Belgium. When WWI broke out, Edith refused to leave her post, and even as the Germans conquered Brussels and and the Red Cross took over the nursing school, she stayed. She said, "I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved". She was free to return to England, but she wouldn't leave. She was not only saving German lives in the hospital as a nurse, but she also began hiding British soldiers and helping them escape to neutral Holland. She is credited with saving at least 200 soldiers through an underground organization. When the Germans discovered this, she was charged with treason and shot. The Canadian government later decided to name the grandest peak in Jasper Park after her to honor her.

On one side of this mountain, there is a mile-high cliff, and beautiful Angel Glacier. We love to visit Angel Glacier. It is a small hike, but you come to a beautiful lake of blue glacier melt, and you can see icebergs breaking off of the glacier and floating across the lake toward the shore. We interrupted a film crew there this year. They were annoyed, but we had driven a long way, and you have to get up to the glacier early in order to avoid the crazy crowds that visit it each day, and we weren't going to let them push us around. "But we are going to be showing this movie all over Europe." Big deal. We had driven 1000 miles in a van with 9 people. I wasn't in the mood for a temper tantrum.

Here are some random pictures from our adventure that day.


















If you're ever in Jasper, you must take the windy, one-lane drive up the mountain to get to Angel Glacier.