An hour later, Cameron was knee-deep in the Bow River, where glacial melt kept the current shockingly frigid despite the lingering heat. Leo had led them to a spot just past the canoe docks, where the trees overhung the water like green curtains. Priya had conveniently wandered off to “take photos.”

And if you’re ever in Banff when the mercury climbs, the locals still say, ask Leo about the girl from the coast who didn’t melt. He’ll smile and pour you a cold one, and maybe—if you’re lucky—tell you the story of Cameron, Canada hot.

She felt exactly the right temperature.

“You from around here?” he asked, looking directly at Cameron.

They spent the first day hiding in the cave-like coolness of the Banff Park Museum, staring at stuffed bison and marveling at how the taxidermy seemed less dewy than Cameron’s forehead. By late afternoon, the heat broke—not with rain, but with a thick, rolling thunderhead that turned the sky the color of a bruise.

“And still hot,” she replied.

So when her best friend, Priya, texted her “Banff. August. No excuses.” Cameron had replied with a single emoji: a melting face.

Leo tilted his head. “Or maybe you’re just tuned to a different frequency. Some people are. They feel everything more—the heat, the cold, the way the light changes before a storm.”

“You’re soaking,” he said.

But here she was, three months later, stepping off a shuttle into a wall of mountain air so thick with pine and heat that it felt like breathing soup. The Rockies rose around her, ancient and indifferent, while the town of Banff simmered in a record-breaking heatwave. Thirty-seven degrees. In the mountains. Even the elk looked miserable.

That night, Cameron sat on the porch of their rental cabin, the storm passed, the air finally cool. Leo had gone back to the guide shack but left his number on a receipt tucked into her jacket pocket. She looked up at the stars—so many more than Halifax ever showed—and for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel like she was running too warm.