Edna — we have no idea why someone painted the name Edna on it —
traveled here from the Canadian Rockies to the west of where you
are standing. We know this because Edna is composed of Gog Group
quartzite. The nearest source of Gog Group quartzite is found in
the Jasper area and farther west (Mount Edith Cavell is one
possible source).
By now you have probably guessed that a glacier carried Edna
here. Over the past two million years glaciers that have built up
in the mountains slowly advanced (on several different occasions)
east out of the Canadian Rockies covering the place you are
standing with glacial ice over a kilometer thick. During one such
advance—we are not sure which—a rockslide occurred depositing
countless boulders of quartzite onto the glacier. As the glacier
advanced the boulders were slowly carried out of the Canadian
Rockies. During the glaciers retreat this boulder, and others like
it, eventually melted out of the glacier, left behind as a glacial
erratic (“Erratic” meaning “out of place”).
This is the first in a series of geocaches being established
across Canada logging glacial features like erratics.
This cache is also part of the Yellowhead Highway Database.
