A Canmore Proposal
Heart Creek

Proposals are planned with hopeful precision. The location, a place you hope not to have onlookers (which can sometimes be a challenge in the Canadian Rockies if you go to places such as Lake Louise or Moraine Lake) and time, which can only be assumed will end up being a touch late, or the determining factors.

Heart Creek Trail holds a special part in these two individual’s story together so it was the perfect spot. The plan concocted was that my husband Sam and I would proceed down the canyon 20 minutes earlier and wait at the decided spot with towering rock walls and a small waterfall.

As we arrived to an empty parking lot we strapped on our gear, making sure the bear spray was handy and started down the path, cobwebs hitting our faces indicating we were absolutely the first of the morning. We whooped and hollered and made our presence known, with offkey tunes and ‘whoah bears!’ a plenty. Several minutes in we saw pressed into the muddy trail was a bear’s paw print – but it was going the other way, so we continued, perhaps being a touch more obnoxious to the local wildlife as we went. Just before you begin down the canyon there is a small meadow, as we entered it, about to leave the hum of the nearby highway behind a black bear emerged 80-100m from where we stood, thankfully it’s rear towards us, scurrying down the path we intended to take.

After a flurry of texts to the one member of the party who knew of our plans, we decided to wait where we were and join up with them when they arrived, posing, not entirely untruthfully, as hikers who needed a larger party after spotting a bear. So it was, our party of four, three aware of it’s real intentions, set off to our intended destination.

He proposed. She said yes. No more bears were seen. Success.

You can see another Banff proposal overlooking the wolf-headed Peyto Lake here.