2016: A Year In Review

I'm getting worse at these blog posts. Two whole years since my last end of year review! Anyway, luckily I have plenty of photos to remind me of what I got up to back in 2016.

Last time I wrote something here, I was preparing to leave Banff once again and head back to city life in Cardiff, something I always have a hard time adjusting to. However, on that occassion things changed all of a sudden.

About a week before I left, I went to check the post office one last time and to my surprise I had a letter from the Canadian government, which stated that they were extending my work visa for another year! I had applied for an extension because you can stay in the country and continue working if you have an application being processed. Even though most people have their applications for an extention refused, it buys them a few extra months in the country on 'implied status'.

I had been working on implied status for four months by this point, and knew the impending refusal was on its way, so I had booked a flight home already. I was in complete shock when I opened the letter to find out that my application had been successful and that I had eight months worth of visa remaining. The transition back to full time city life suddenly turned into an extended visit home instead. I caught up with friends and family, went back to work to save some cash, and renovated a house in Cardiff that I had bought with my brother. Within two months of getting home, I was on a plane back to Canada to enjoy the remaining six months I had left on my visa.

The wildlife encounters I had that year were some of the best I've ever had! I spent an entire afternoon with a wild lynx, who was so unbothered by my presence that she took a nap just a few feet away from me, I photographed two different litters of coyote pups (something I'd been dreaming of doing for years), and I had some of my best black and grizzly bear encounters in the Rockies to date.

So here they are, my favourite twelve images from 2016.

(click on an image to enlarge)

Black Bear cub - Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

Canadian Lynx - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Grizzly Bear claw detail - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada

Black Wolf in a rain shower - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Short Eared Owl - Alberta Prairies, Canada

Morning sunshine - Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada

Columbian Ground Squirrels - Kananaskis Country, Alberta, Canada

Coyote Pup - Rocky Mountain Foothills, Alberta, Canada

Canadian Lynx - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Great Grey Owl - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Larch Valley in fresh snow - Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Coyote Pup - Rocky Mountain Foothills, Alberta, Canada

My final summer living and working in Banff was easily my favourite spent in Canada. I bought a lot of camping gear and managed to get out into the backcountry on almost a weekly basis. I hiked well over 300km that summer, and spent close to twenty nights in a tent (or sometimes just in my hammock if it was warm enough).

I also managed to visit Vancounver Island for the first time and was blown away by its beauty. I hiked the Juan De Fuca trail in five days, and it was the best multi-day hike I've ever done. I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance, and it wasn't very busy which made it a perfect alternative to the more popular West Coast Trail.


Thanks for reading once again, and don't forget you can get an almost-daily dose of nature if you follow me on Instagram. I tend to post there more regularly than I do on my Facebook page these days.

Cai