Probably more than any other rocks in the profuse and bountiful Western Sedimentary Basin, it brands us as Albertans -- not in how we act or behave, but in the way we appear and project to the outside world.
And there's nothing more solid as a rock than the Alberta legislature building (a.k.a. the Paskapoo Palace) or Calgary's McDougall Centre, and those historic buildings on Stephen Avenue.
They're all crafted with huge chunks of the buttery-yellow stuff, pried from the Bow River breaks at the old Glenbow Quarry, just downriver from Cochrane.
It also creates some pretty spectacular river bluffs that define the Bow east of Calgary.
The view from Antler Hill is always special, not only because of the panorama of the front range of the Rockies, but also what it stands for.
It was here -- so the legend goes -- that Anthony Henday had his cosmic Alberta moment in October 1754, when he took a gander out west and blurted "behold the shining mountains."
The mountains were shining profusely when I crested the summit and began the long QEII descent down the other side to Innisfail, still locked in its winter whites.
There's a lot of snowpack up there and it's a good bet that the mountain runoff will be a slow and frustrating affair.
When I arrived at the McKinnon's Flats access east of Indus, the lot was loaded with guide trucks and drift boat trailers.
One quick reconnaissance of the river and the reason for the parking lot gridlock became obvious.
Even though the view of the Bow from the Deerfoot Trail in town was low, clear and mint, down at Mac it was getting a little circumspect.
The Lower Bow Flotilla was making the run from Fish Creek to McKinnon's to avoid as much as possible the Highwood River snow melt, which was turning the river from murky to turbid as the afternoon progressed.
The bank anglers in the parking lot all appeared to be heading upstream, which was a clear signal for me to head down.
My destination was a high, creamy cliff of magic on the inside of a long, languid bend. Over the centuries the colliding forces of water and ice have been slowly winning the battle with the compacted sediments of the vast inland sea that was once Alberta. Large slabs of Paskapoo had broken loose and tumbled into the river.
It created one of those classic trout habitats known as a "rock garden."
May is our transition month. Frustrating, yet filled with potential all the same. So, on the Bow's sunny north side, the mourning doves were coo-cooing in the cottonwoods and the mosquitoes were making a statement. Under the south bank, where the sun doesn't shine, big blocks of shore ice still defied summer's inevitable arrival.
All this makes trying to figure out the trout all the more compelling.
I settled for a compromise, first knotting a Woolly Bugger-style fly called a Marilyn Monroe to hopefully imitate a mountain whitefish, but backing it up with a Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear Nymph attached as a dropper.
Then I began to work the tandem down-and-around through the seams, pockets, eddies and glides that the rock fall had created.
On one such swing my line stopped and when I set the hook, a rainbow hit the atmosphere and jumped three more times before submitting to the bend of my five-weight rod.
By Bow River standards a little guy, but most other places not a bad fish. It had eaten the nymph.
The next fish came off so I didn't know what it took. So did fish No. 3. But the fourth trout stayed hooked -- another "small" fish on the Hare's Ear.
I was debating changing flies until a hang-up settled it. After I broke off, I tied on a Black Cone-Head Woolly Bugger, then began working a slack off the main current, created by a submerged sandstone slab. Halfway down and halfway through the swing, the fly didn't stop. It was mugged.
Right away, I sensed a good fish. This was confirmed when it made a reel-singing downstream run.
When it didn't show I reckoned it was a brown trout. But it fooled me when it wallowed on the surface, revealing a crimson slash down its silver flank.
I'd like to say the rainbow gasping in my net was a 20-incher -- which is the Bow River standard of excellence. But the best I could stretch my tape was a tad over 19. The Woolly Bugger hung sullenly from its jaw.
History would repeat itself in the next pocket where the Bugger swung out of the heavy current and I found myself once more between a rock and a fishy place.
This time the 'bow got airborne and jumped seven more times before the fight was finished and I shook the Bugger loose.
Then I laid it on a boulder of mellow yellow Paskapoo to have its picture taken and my ego stroked.
