Elk Island Golf Course was built in 1936, during the great depression. Designed by Stanley Thompson, Canada's greatest golf architect, it is said to have been built using the labour of prisoners from the nearby Fort Saskatchewan institution. Of the 100 best courses in Canada, Thompson has signed 15, and five of those rank in the top 8 courses. Although when this course was built it may not have had the financial resources of Banff Springs, or some of the other, richer courses, Thompson's signature can still be felt in his use of the natural surroundings of this national park.
When playing Elk Island Golf Course I had a feeling this is how golf was meant to be played. The course appears to have been sculpted out of nature. All the fairways are highly undulated, they are all quite wide and cut to the edge of the forest with no rough other than the woods themselves. There are no yardage markers other than the white 150 yard posts, no GPS signals available, all you have is your own visual stimuli, which have to take into account the heavy undulation. Not an easy task, but such a satisfying one when you land the green in regulation.
Thompson and his first associate, Robert Trent Jones Sr. believed that no par should be easy, but no bogey difficult. This philosophy is certainly reflected here at Elk Island where many of the greens are hard to reach in regulation, particularly the long par 4's. The greens themselves are however quite simple if fairly slow. It is on those greens that Brenda managed her pictures of dragonflies. Thanks to their presence in droves, there were no mosquitoes left to bother us.
The dragonflies weren't the only wildlife around. On our way to the golf course we were also fortunate enough to find some of the local bison grazing by the side of the road or simply lying about. Click on the images for an enlargement. While playing golf we could hear the coyotes howl and even waited for one to cross the road on our way out. What a day!
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