"There's more lakes in Canada than in the rest of the world combined," our Brewster tour guide Alan said.
Our tour left Jasper at 8:30 a.m. across from The Whistlers Inn where I'd stayed the night before.
We headed for Banff along the most scenic drive in the world: The Icefields Parkway. It would include blue and green glacial lakes, waterfalls, bear, sheep and the famous Athabasca Glacier.
But first.
"The tree-line is about 7500 feet," Alan said.
"Not much life grows well above that line."
We were going higher.
Up a glacier where nothing grew except ice. Less ice than in previous years due to climate change. Ice was melting.
My anxiety about heights returned, and with it, a determination to battle the fear.
"There's 400 feet of ice underneath the surface of a glacier," Alan said.
"When two or more glaciers attach to one another, we have an icefield.
The Columbia Icefield is six glaciers attached to one another, each going in different directions that feed nearby rivers.
The glacial-fed rivers flow into the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean.
Most glaciers in North America are in retreat, as the summer's melt is greater than the winters' accumulation.The Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park is no exception."
I recalled a few days earlier when I'd floated down the Fraser River with my eco-tour guide Doug Mooring. I learned the Fraser is one of Canada's most important rivers supporting life, farms, and commerce in British Columbia.
Now I understood how important Alberta's Athabasca Icefield was to the Fraser; the world.
I saw how global warming created run-off with the possibility for flooding and drought to follow.
The Ice Explorer headed up the Athabasca Glacier.
A million dollar plus machine built to go up glaciers without falling into a crevasse.
What's a crevasse you may wonder? A crevasse is a crack in an ice sheet or glacier, often with vertical walls.
Don't fall in one!
Hold 
on!
We're climbing higher!
Whew! I made it.
Yes, even during the hot summer, it felt cold but not freezing! Fear of heights--be gone.
I highly recommend the Icefields Parkway for beauty, clean air, and life lessons on interconnectedness and climate change.
Update: A year later on August 18th 2009 I flew to Los Angeles from San Francisco where I'd attended a travel writers conference, yes, apparently, I've morphed into that too. In addition to clean air seeker & timid adventurer.
It wasn't the plan to return to Los Angeles.
No, I was supposed to return to Victoria, BC where I'd left my car, heart, and belongings.
But LA had my heart too, (20 years and many friends, dance community and familiarity) so I arrived the day before The Station Fire started, which is to say...
Los Angeles's biggest mega-fire in history due to climate change, drought, hot temperatures, dry brush. Arson.
The smoke was horrendous. I felt sick.
Stuck indoors for two weeks with air conditioner and air purifiers running because the smoke was thick like a gray pea soup and horrible to breathe, I made my Chasing Clean Air: Climate Change video with original music from a Canadian songwriter named Paul Malysa.
Climate change is real. Happening now. Everywhere.
Please watch my video to get inspired to change your daily habits for earth's health here.
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