JON WHYTE: Keeper of PlaceQuote: The Sound of the River Activity |
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The business of the river is one of Banff’s sustaining pleasures. I suppose I have looked upon the Bow now for thirty or more summers, and have always found it to be among the most pleasing of rivers . . . Since the Bow is to me all rivers, Saskatchewan, Nile, Amur and Lena – all other rivers I judge by the Bow, a tough standard. The Ganges can never be so beautifully green as the Bow; for all rivers must be judged by their greenness, the Bow being so beautifully coloured. The Amur, as we saw it a Khabarovsk, is too wide; a river should not be so wide its other bank seems not to be part of the river. The Mississippi, which I know only from Minneapolis-St. Paul, is too narrow a river, and does not have forest on its far shore, nor sweepers to increase its graciousness. The Ottawa in flood is too tormented, huge, and dangerous. The South Saskatchewan in Medicine Hat flows between hills that are too soft. But the Bow at Banff is properly wide, wild, shored, and green, gracious, soft, and swift. It would be difficult to find any other river anywhere which sustains itself so riverly. – Jon Whyte
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Jon Whyte: Keeper of Place || Whyte Museum |
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