Stories, Excerpts, Backroads
Nice brisk morning at -6°c. Willow and I went out at about 5:30. It was just starting to lighten around the mountains in the east. The waning moon was bright to the southeast. I pointed the camera in the direction of where Comet Lemmon should be located as I wasn’t able to spot it with my naked eye. Later when I was home I was able to easily locate it on the downloaded photos. Now that I know where to look it will be easy to spot next time out. And it should get brighter!
It’s finally starting to have a chill in the air. I found a home for most of my giant red cabbage. Sophie from Sophie’s Choice Pickles took it to make fermented sauerkraut. Her pickles are incredible and she sells out every year.
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The good neighbour Larry has been enjoying the carrots. I left a bag of them on his doorstep the other day. I didn’t stay to talk as I was in a hurry and figured he’d find them as soon as he came out the door. They are Chantenay carrots. If you know your carrot varieties you know Chantenay have short thick tapered bodies.
Later that day a friend stopped by who is quite religious. I behave myself in his company. As we talked outside, Larry came out and found the carrots. He grabbed them by the stems and walked to the edge of his property, celebrating the gift raised high, yelled across the road, ‘Thanks for the buttplugs!’
I looked to my pious friend and sheepishly said, ‘They are carrots.’
But I couldn’t resist an answer to my good neighbour as he expects it from me, and yelled back across the road, ‘They are various sizes so you can work your way up!’
He didn’t miss a beat and yelled back, ‘I’m no amateur!’
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If it clears a little, Willow and I may head out tomorrow morning to look for Comet Lemmon in the coming dawn. Hard to know if it will clear however as some are calling for snow.
It seems every summer takes a little more out of us. It has been a zoo. This year has been especially trying, balancing work and life. It came down to not much life and a lot of work.
We haven’t had a frost yet. I remember having frost on occasion at the end of August. Those days are gone I suppose. There is kale, cabbage and carrots left in the garden. Even a few tomatoes.
I am looking forward to short days and a chill. We have plenty of wood. The freezer has some meat, a couple of pies and plenty of huckleberries to remind us of the best of summer, playing on the mountain side, away from the ruck of the crowded valley bottom, picking berries and watching the dogs munching them right off the bushes.
The snow can’t come soon enough.
Thirty-nine years ago we visited Waterton Park on our honeymoon. The Prince of Wales Hotel looked abandoned. I took a few pictures with the 2.25 Yashica. Once I developed the B/W film all the negatives were blurry from the wind. The negatives were also bad because the film was expired. I didn’t print any of them.
This time the pictures turned out better. The Hotel was a lot more expensive. We even got out under the stars for a wander around.
The wind still howls at The Prince of Wales. The skies are dark in Waterton. A piece of The Milky Way is still bright before midnight.
It was nice to get away even for a short time to celebrate our anniversary.
A magnificent sight this morning with the waning crescent moon beside Venus and Regulus.
A few things to consider:
The moon is about 385,000 kms away from earth. It takes 29.5 days to orbit earth. Amazingly the same time it takes to complete a rotation or day.
Venus is close to the same size as Earth. It is the second plant from the sun. Earth is the third.
Both the moon and Venus have been observed through history and have important cultural significance to humanity.
Regulus is part of the constellation Leo. It is 79 light years away from us. It is actually four stars in a star system. The largest of the four is four times larger than our sun. It is a dominant star in the night sky.
I could go on with more facts. The point is, we know all of this from observation. I consider this fantastic. Think of the speed, time, math, angles and experimentation needed to prove what we now take as fact. It has been figured out by people like us (smarter than me I concede). Of course, it has taken generations. Something is learned and it gets added to, and so on. It is amazing to me.
It also shows what humanity is capable of when we collectively work together. Of course it takes time.
Most of the time on this blog I speak of the spiritual importance of nature. There is something I do in my head; I use the word nature and science interchangeably. I mentioned this to a teacher in high school long ago and was told how wrong I was. I took his word, but didn’t change my mind. I know I don’t understand either. Somehow that gives me peace. The same way watching wild orchids appear shortly after the snow melts or watching The Milky Way reappear, rising sideways in the east, curving above the Rocky Mountain Trench. I get the same feeling considering distance and time working out the trip in light speed to Betelgeuse or The Andromeda Galaxy.
I will leave this earth without contributing to the great pool of knowledge needed for the next great discovery. But shouldn’t the wonderful discoveries we already have be honoured. Shouldn’t that be enough to inspire us to do our best and treat our fellow humans with kindness and respect. It is not a jump from marvelling the brilliance of Regulus to loving your family or even pointing out the moon or sharing a mountaintop to someone interested.
It’s in our nature.
The Huckleberries have been tremendous this year. We have picked plenty. Lisa has made delicious squares and other desserts.
The crop could be attributed to a wet spring and summer. Much different than we have experienced in recent years. The bushes may have produced a mast year, similar the way trees produce large number of cones some years.
This is an evolution strategy to overwhelm predators from consumption, and also catch up for years of bad weather. Humans may also have these cycles for similar reasons. The only difference is our enemy is often ourselves. For instance we have population spikes after wars. Natures way of replacing the species perhaps.
Right now population is in decline due to the state of the environment and humanities action towards ourselves. It is interesting, if the trend continues, population growth will stop and quickly decline. The earth may need a rest. Hopefully we won’t destroy ourselves completely, but it is possible. It is also possible, something else may come along to do the job, such as a virus or cataclysmic event. Nature has a way of evening the score and restoring balance.
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The garden has been good. The garlic has been harvested and dried. I have set aside the largest heads for seed to be planted in the fall. The kids have enjoyed the peas and Lisa pulled the vines today. There is plenty of beans and at least a few ripe tomatoes everyday. The carrots are delicious, the cabbage is forming large heads and will do it’s best growing once it starts to cool.
The weeds have been hell to keep up to this year. Probably due to the rain. The best year for lack of weeds was a few years ago when the grasshoppers ate everything down to the ground. Of course they did the same with the vegetables except a few that they seemed to dislike, including peas, tomatoes, zucchini and spuds.
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I’ve noticed the loggers cutting new roads into the bush in a spot we frequent. They are even building a bridge across the creek and heading straight up a mountain that had been spared until now. It is a mountain I’m well acquainted with having roamed it’s side since I was a kid. I’ve even walked it in the dark looking for stars, my ears cocked for voices talking in cyphers, while spirits stole my breath.
Long ago, when I was a youngster, I picked out a rocky bluff and cliffs, half way up, with overhanging trees, figuring if things ever got bad enough I could toss a rope around one and swing out never to return.
The view would be good with the high cedars and creek below. It was a spot I always kept in my back pocket. I think everyone has a spot whether they know it or not.
Now there will be a road below leading to massive clear cuts. I would have never guessed, when I was a young wanderer, it would go before I did.
It was good to leave the valley where everyone is trying to separate tourists from their money. It is a scourge, troubling watching the lake and town gasp at it descends into overconsumption.
We were off into the mountains to a place my father and I hiked until his legs ached. I didn’t then but I appreciate it now. He let me go following the dry creek runoff all leading up.
Dave and I hadn’t hiked together for awhile. My fault as work has consumed me the past two years.
Once we turned towards the Palliser, the people were gone. The trail head was deserted. I slipped off a boulder at the creek crossing and had one wet foot that lasted the hike. Certainly not as sure footed as I once was.
The old skid trail was overgrown. We both carried bear spray. We remarked at the amount of bear sign. Dad used to attach bells to me a long time ago. I also carried granddads 30 30 rifle so often dad said I had one arm longer than the other.
The trail gained elevation through the alders and skunk cabbage. It has been wet and Dave stopped to take pictures of various plants and mushrooms. The spruce had new dark blue pitch covered cones at their tops. The nuthatches and grosbeaks will be plentiful come November.
Strata once layered horizontally, under a sea of prehistoric shell fish, is pushed vertical in the highest spots. Millions of years work which we can’t fathom, thinking a lifetime is a long time. That these mountains don’t consider us is peaceful. We are of little significance in the hands of time. Even our damage will one day be undone the same as the trail we followed was grown over and hard to follow.
Once off the rise we stopped for a bite. I scoped the old trail across the slides north for grizzlies and moose. The trail we were on was much better than the one my father and I followed.
The remaining trail was flat with only a few deadfalls across the trail. The lake was right where we left it. It still takes my breath away as we clamoured out of the spruce and soft footing onto its rocky shore.
The slides on all sides of the lake were overgrown. On rounding a corner a large brown hump appeared. I started reaching for the bear spray and realized it was a cow moose. A moose can be as dangerous if it decides to charge. Since we had no where to go we took a few pictures before it turned our way and trotted not fifteen feet from us into a small pond leading to the lake. A fine encounter.
We found a flat rock to have another bite and look around. I took some directions measuring where the stars would align during the night at this time of year. Dave pointed out thousands of tadpoles swimming the shallows. Fish jumped in the middle and around the shores. I had caught some big fish here long ago. I found the old camping spot completely grown over.
After lunch we picked up the trail and headed above the lake to get a good look at the emerald water. We stopped as long as we could before we turned to follow the trail back as we were due back at the bottom three valleys over.
When ever I leave this place, even when I was a boy, I always wondered when or if I would ever see it again. To be here on this tiny sliver of time sharing the earth with these large spruce, rocks, flowing water and animals is a gift.
Sometimes you get lucky.
It is refreshing to have rain in July. The land is still green, unlike in recent years where it was yellowing and tinder dry at this time of year.
Lisa and I avoided the valley bottom yesterday opting for the higher country. The berries were abundant with the excess moisture. We could smell them on the cool mountain breeze.
We came across a new batch of huckleberries that deserves a better look. It could be a good year for this delicious fruit. We picked a few handfuls that we enjoyed on the spot, letting Willow also have a few.
The garden has taken off with giant heads of broccoli and lettuce. The garlic is just about ready to harvest. Peas and beans are developing pods. Raspberries are ripe. Carrots are fingerling. All and all it’s looking good.
Thank goodness for the coolness.
Up the creek early, before the sun, the tourists still asleep after tearing it up.
The river is full reaching almost to the top of the banks. Flowing quickly to the north. Catching the red willows, straight as arrows, flicking them forward until the spring back in a gracious whip. Green mud that mixes perfectly with the sky. Colours you only see at this time of year. A calendar without dates only sounds, bird calls, trickles and thunder. Smells like heat and moisture, the service berry ripening, some call Saskatoons, sweet, and the river running with high country snow and last nights rain.
The osprey doesn’t recognize me. It leaves its nest and circles above. Sizing, evaluating threat. I try to let it know we are old friends, but feel its distrust.
So often they would follow above as I walked the paths of bush to the lake. Back then it watched as my mind was on fish, railroad tracks, the spring in poplars, the wind putting a ripple on the water, just enough to obscure the weeds and fish swishing shadows, languid almost undetectable during calm, as I wondered how they saw their prey during a storm with a chop on the lake. Other than that I was oblivious most of the time, happy to roam the shore. A whistle would make me turn skyward or to a snag then back above to the railway and someone approaching. My signal to move along, to avoid the day being interrupted by the crudeness of conversation or worse, a scolding or beating. Once further down the shore or back under the canopy of bush the osprey would have followed. But I didn’t keep track back then.
The mosquitoes had me. Lifting me among the clouds. They buzz in my ears and around my nose, I shut my eyes and try not to swat, in case I am to fall from such a height. Above the river I can’t see the fish through the summer murk. The osprey still holds me in its eye, assessing, wary. Its wingspan and hooked beak, turbulent, knowing honour can put it at risk. I hope it can see through the chop on the surface, through time and hurt, even if I can’t.
Palliser Pass 