Canadian Adventure, B.C.

While I was rolling the sleeping bags, I saw two people cresting the mountain. The breathless young woman mentioned last night’s storm. I said the storm was exciting, but at 58, I’d found the climb exhausting. She laughed, said she was 37 and hadn’t thought she would make it, said she couldn’t imagine her mother even attempting the climb.

We’d left Vancouver for the three-hour drive to Long Peak. Travelling the narrow coastal highway I felt nervous seeing signs warning of falling rocks from the steel-netted cliff face.

On the winding, narrow logging road I worried about squeezing past hell-bent logging trucks. When we finally parked the car dusk was falling in the shadow of the mountain. We camped on the shale beach beside the lake, cooked dinner, admired the clear night sky, and went to bed.

Early next morning we began the drive to the trailhead. The car struggled up the steep rock-strewn road and we soon realized we weren’t about to get much closer. We shouldered our backpacks and began the hike to the forest. Either side of the road grew pearl everlasting and other floral offerings in abundance, and we continually heard the sharp squeaks of pica darting for cover.

At the trailhead the pitch was considerably intensified as we climbed the steep path. At times the scree was so loose, the path so narrow I experienced vertigo observing the valley below. Our son, a biologist, was in his element; my husband was in no distress. Their backpacks were far weightier than mine, but my legs were turning to stone, and my lungs felt like bursting.

Our son had been there before and said we’d soon be reaching the Gates of Shangri-La, a widespread rockfall over which we clambered. The rocks were huge, the area wide, and it took quite a bit of effort to find our way through it. The views, too, were spectacular, looking across from where we slowly wound our way through rocks each as large as a car, a small shed.

Another milestone; a mountain hut and around it, a vertical green meadow dissected by a narrow trail. We peered into the hut and stepped inside. A big old stove, a long table, some chairs, and upstairs a sleeping loft. There was a visitor's book, signed by people who obviously slept over, intent on a longer hike than ours, presumably. A number of the messages noted the appearance of packrats, swifting away with anything not nailed down. Not far from the hut stood a reliable and stout out-house, of which several of our party made use.

“Not long now, Mom!” shouted our son encouragingly. As I struggled up and upward following a well-worn, but quite narrow pathway up the green meadow. Finally, it appeared that he was right; we were approaching what appeared to be another landscape entirely.

A marmot greeted us as we forded a stream shooting over the mountain from a blue-green glacial lake. Above the lake, after our 8-hour climb, we pitched our tent. On a bit of a shelf in the rock. A 'bit of a shelf' is the operative word here. The floor of the tent slanted downward slightly, toward to the lake. At the far end of the lake was the dominating presence of the glacier that fed it, roaring as it melted, for this was late August.

On day-trips ascending from our camp we discovered other, smaller glacial lakes and glaciers, some blooming with red algae. We crossed other rockfalls and accessed crests where we ate lunch and gazed over unending peaks across the Stein Valley.

On one of these excursions clear skies turned suddenly dark; a thunderhead began its journey toward us. We scrambled to descend. Thunder, lightening, great gusts of wind, sleet and rain pummelled our little tent, with us huddling inside, as the temperature plummeted, but it stood fast.

When the storm finally subsided, we began to think about something approximating an evening meal. Everything around us was completely drenched. And it was, by then, quite dark. Suddenly, we saw what looked like a flare across the valley, on another mountain top, opposite to where we sat. And as the flare grew, and we understood it to be someone's camp fire, we set up a loud cheer. Obviously heard on the other side, since we heard a faint response of a cheer from them.

(Made me wonder if in their distant proximity, I was as private as I thought myself to be, squatting over a fissure in the rockface, half-hidden behind a knobbly shrub.)

We slept soundly that night, though waking occasionally. I kept thinking we were going to roll off the side of the mountain. In fact, I shifted myself sometimes, with the feeling that the slant was compelling me in a direction I had no wish to go in. And when we awoke, it was to the rushing sound of the melting glacier, at the end of that fabulous blue-green lake below us.

The clear skies of the day before, that had made yesterday such an adventure, had given way, when we awoke, to a completely overcast, bruised sky, threatening to dump once again. We made another morning excursion after a good hefty breakfast of pancakes and tea, and mandarin oranges, scrambling over the rockface to find yet another rosy-crusted glacier. Returning to our camp site, with the threat of rain undiminished, we decided to break camp and descend.

As we descended the valley I felt good and brave and happy post-adventure, yet anxious anticipating the car-sized rocks at Shangri-La, the steep, narrow defile through the forest. The extent of my surprise (and deflation) cannot possibly be imagined as, halfway through Shangri-la we passed a young man with a panniered Labrador, then a family with two young children making their way up the mountain, happy in their enterprise.

How Canadian can you get?

 

Duty Above All

 

May 31st, 1884 The gale continued all day and was accompanied by a heavy snowstorm. We were not only held close prisoners in our shelter, but also in our bags, as drift over a foot deep covered us. We were unable to cook and consequently had nothing to eat during the day, not even a swallow of water. Of all the days of suffering, none can compare with this. If I knew I had another month of this existence, I would stop the engine this moment. *

He might never have been able to imagine, even in the most feverish of his dreams, that he would himself experience such desolation, fear and privation. There is nothing, he thought grimly to himself, like living through such a nightmare to bring a human perspective to the heights to which human resources might aspire, and the depths to which the human spirit could plunge. It was only through the desperate cauldron of facing death on a daily basis that each man’s strength and weaknesses surfaced, so one could finally know what lay beneath the carefully maintained and structured façade of civility that society demands of its creatures.

This was a society he was familiar with, not the kind which also existed in the world of those with scant resources, ruled by tyrants who made short shrift of human values and rights belonging to others. In his world, occasions abounded for individuals to recognize and make the best of their opportunities, and those who strove to find satisfaction in their lives thrived, while those who merged their inertia with society’s constraints remained maladapted to the vision of their very future attainments.

For him that vision encompassed adventure, glory, serving his country as an educated, astute military man gifted with certain attributes that made him the perfect selection to help lead an expedition into the frozen distances of the globe where animal life abounded despite the severity of the atmosphere, the geology and the weather, but human life could not.

So here he was, on Ellesmere Island. Two winters of it. That was the assignment. Collecting weather data, scrupulously reporting on atmospheric conditions. So his country would have a record and an understanding of conditions there to advance the science and knowledge of the geography and the hostile-to-humankind-environment. It was past time they left.

The understanding was that after the two years they would be relieved. Short of food, their equipment in a failing state. Tired of waiting. No option but to have faith, to hope for relief. Stoicism was their current lot in life. One that began slowly ebbing, as some among them became ever more disoriented, dysfunctional, minds and bodies severely malfunctioning.

It’s not easy living with that kind of cold. It is a beautiful environment. Aloof, pristine, lovely beyond belief. But even a clear day with full sun does little-to-nothing to alleviate the dread cold. The men are tired, underfed, on the verge of starvation, ailing and desperate. Some of them lie in their virtually warmth-useless sleeping bags, refusing to rise. Preferring to invite death through surrender of their imprinted imperative to survive. They have admitted to themselves that they are incapable of flailing against imminent death.

They are, however, my responsibility, he sternly reminded himself, and one I do not take lightly. I go out every day and do what I can to obtain some element of nutrition to help keep us all alive and hoping for another day. I am by no means the only one to attend to these mutual duties, but it has fallen to me and me alone to gather as much shrimp as I can manage with my inadequate nets and failing store of bait, to keep death at bay.

June 1st, 1884 Breakfast consisted of three ounces of shrimp and a cup of weak tea to each man. We were without food for thirty-six hours. Lieut. Kislingbury became unconscious at 8 a.m. and breathed his last at 3 p.m. Before he lost consciousness he begged piteously for a drink of water, but this the Doctor denied him. He then sang the Doxology in a clear but weak voice and, falling back in his sleeping bag, was soon in the embrace of Death. *

We’re all progressively weaker. But some of us do our utmost to remain of good cheer in this cheerless atmosphere, despite the beauty surrounding us. Some of the men, those whose physical condition is far worse than those of us who still go out every day to find edible mosses and lichens, or shrimp as I do, say nothing, do nothing, appear to have closed down their minds.

Awake, they lie limp and unresponsive. Some have close at hand photographs of wife, children, mother. And stare at these photographs unceasingly. Occasionally mumbling names and perhaps reminiscing about happier times. They have utterly given themselves over to the prospect of never again seeing their loved ones. The visages of their wives, mothers, children, will be the last their eyes see before they glaze over in death.

June 2nd, 1884 Salor died at 3 a.m. I was lying by his side in the same bag at the time. Not having the necessary strength to remove him and not feeling inclined to get up, I went to sleep in the same bag with the remains and did not awake until breakfast was announced at 9 a.m.
Doctor Pavy was making some rather absurd prescriptions this evening and talking incoherently.
For weeks I have noticed Linn’s feet protruding from the gravel heaped over his body. Day by day the elements have reduced the scanty covering until Linn’s feet are fully exposed to the gales sweeping over Cemetery Ridge. I have often thought that I would replace that which had blown away, but my waning strength has caused me to defer this for so long that I cannot think of attempting it now. *

Each dawning day appears more beautiful than the one it succeeds. In any other circumstances, we would be transfixed with awe at the wonder of nature’s paint brush. This morning there is but little wind, a decided relief from previous days’ incessant blowing. We have had good hunting today for a change. Along with the shrimp I have managed to gather, a dovekie was shot, and it will be cooked slowly to produce a hot, nutritious soup for all of us. We reqiure something like that to restore a trifle of capacity to our failing bodies and a modicum of hope for the near future. For if we survive the near future it is entirely possible that the ship will sail through and bring us the relief all of so dearly hope for.

Some of us have been able to eat the rock lichens that have been collected, and found some nourishment in them. Others, however, suffer greatly from the after-effects of eating these unpalatable lichens.

The sound, because of lack of the usual high blustering wind storms, looks calm, smooth and wonderfully blue. A calming, restorative sight for weary eyes, tired of tearing from the cold and the wind.

It’s come to this; our medical man is so weak and dispirited we may soon lose his professional capabilities. He refuses to any longer partake of our communal shrimp stew. He will now agree only to taking weak tea and as anyone might know, most particularly a man blessed with medical knowledge, no human body is capable of surviving long without adequate - or even in our parlous state - a minuscule amount of nutriment.

We continue to realize that one among us is a predator, caring little for the common weal in our miserable situation. Lieutenant Greely, aftersome brief consultation has been forced, by unfortunate circumstances, to issue an order:

Near Cape Sabine, June 5th, 1884 To Sergeants Brainard, Fredericks and Long:
Private Henry having been repeatedly guilty of stealing the provisions of this party which is now perishing slowly by starvation, has so far been condoned and pardoned. It is, however, imperatively ordered that if this man be detected either eating food of any kind not issued him regularly, or making caches, or approaching any article of provisions, you will at once shoot him and report the matter to me. Any other course would be a fatal leniency, the man being able to overpower any two of our present force.
(signed) A.W. Greely, Lt.5th Cav.A.S.O.& Asst. Comdg.Lady Franklin Bay Ex. *

We simply have no other choice but to this grim task of sentencing one of our own to death in the hopes of securing the lives of others of us. I find, despite my assiduous attention to the tedious work of fishing for our little life-saving shrimp that they are no longer taking to the bait. My strength is steadily diminishing and I have little appetite for further strenuous attempts beyond my present state of energy-depletion.

As it is at the present, it is all I can do to muster the energy required to stagger toward the shrimping grounds, remain there for the hours required to attempt to fish out a goodly portion of what remains and then painfully pull myself back up with my catch to the camp.

My mind and thought processes are dulling. My brain appears to be refusing to work as it should. I cannot recall what I should automatically be doing in the performance of my duties. My obligations to the men partially under my command are foremost in mind, but what, precisely, I should be doing, to ameliorate their condition, is now eluding me.

This is a most unfortunate situation. I cannot quite conceive of the reason why our rescue party has been so agonizingly tardy. Surely they must realize the situation we are in? Surely they have some intuitive knowledge that our situation is parlous? Perhaps it is better that we do not torture our minds by these useless conjectures.

We must acknowledge that something disastrous may have occurred to our relief party. That, or somehow conditions leading to their being able to reach us have somehow conspired to leave us in our present state, and they in a worried consternation over our situation.

Near Cape Sabine, June 6th, 1884 Sergeants Brainard, Long and Fredericks:
Notwithstanding promises given by Private C.H. Henry yesterday he has since acknowledged to me having tampered with seal thongs, if not other food at the old camp. This pertinacity and audacity is the destruction of this party if not at once ended. Private Henry will be shot today, all care being taken to prevent his injuring anyone as his physical strength is greater than that of any two men. Decide the manner of death by two ball and one blank cartridge.
This order is imperative and absolutely necessary for any chance of life.
(signed) A.W. Greely, 1st Lt.5th Cav. A.S.O. & Asst. Comdg. L.F.B. Ex. *

This is a sad and sorry business. But duty insists it must be met. As honourably, given the circumstances, as humanly possible. No one is the better for the situation.

After the execution was accomplished, a search of the poor man’s effects revealed him to have availed himself of a pair of seal boots, a coil of seal skin thongs, various knives and other items, some of which could be rendered down to edible product, some of which could be silently chewed in his sleeping bag in the dark of night, empowering him to a greater state of bodily comfort than has been afforded the rest of us. God save his soul.

We do know, however, that his was not the only such sin among our desperately suffering men. There are others suspected of indulging in the same, or like conspiracy to obtain for themselves certain advantages toward prolonging their lives.

Had we a trifle more strength between us we could undertake to bury the most recent dead. It is not at all decent that their bodies lay there, just beyond the camp where we have managed to drag them, away from our immediate presence, frozen and silently condemning our inaction in providing them with a resting place where they may meet eternity with equanimity.

June 7th, 1884 Biederbick and Connell gathered a few lichens and a little reindeer moss. This evening we dined on a stew composed of a pair of boot soles, a handful of reindeer moss and a few rock lichens. The small quantity of shrimps which I furnish daily is sufficient only for the morning meal.
We dressed the bodies of Dr. Pavy and Bender for their graves, but were unable to bury them. *

It is simply soul-destroying to witness the swift deterioration of the men’s earlier inspirational will to live. We who are in relatively better health than those gravely ill unto death do what we can to instill a little bit of cheer by commenting about the break in the weather and the beauty of the sky and the full sun, the import of which confuses us as we derive no benefit from any of it.

But there we are, all things being relative; we can, should we wish to do so, drink in the loveliness of our surroundings in this brief respite between storms.

Scurvy is plaguing the men, and little wonder. We celebrated the birthday of one our men by permitting him - and he alone - a spoonful of rum. Spirits are normally retained for other, more medicinal purposes. It was hoped that allowing that poor man a respite from his misery by a mere taste of what in other circumstances is taken for granted and taken in abundance, will momentarily bring cheer to his fading life. And he but 32 years of age.

We have found black rock lichens stew up nicely enough. Certainly not to everyone’s taste, as the result is rather gelatinous and tasteless, but we are certain, possessed of slight nutritive qualities. Everything we can manage to recognize as possibly nutrient-rich in some manner helps. We have taken to carefully and slowly chewing bits of seal skin cut from garments. This is not possible for those with advanced scurvy, and their end, we feel is lamentably nigh.

June 12th, 1884 We had only a cup of tea for breakfast. I found a new shrimping place this morning near the tent. After several hours’ work I returned with two pounds. Our evening meal - a few boiled lichens and a cup of tea.
Connell’s face appears full and healthy, but it is only swollen. He expressed a wish to work, cook and live by himself. This request Lieut. Greely would not grant.
Gardiner died at 5 p.m. Patience and fortitude have characterized his sufferings. He clung to life with a wonderful pertinacity and only succumbed when physical weakness had crushed his will. *

I try not to think overmuch of what I cannot do much about. We fumble and stumble through the long days of agonizing descent into hopelessness. What we remain aware of, those of us still capable of some minimal functioning, is that we must not convey to the others whose state of health is extremely delicate, our own sense of descending hope. We do what we must. And we do what we can to ensure that a small glimmer of hope remains in the wounded minds of our men.

The high winds have finally resumed. Resulting in our having had to remain close to camp, rather than venture further in our everlasting search for nutriments. I have been unable, of late, to catch more than a few ounces of shrimp. I did construct a nominal net to replace those washed out by a brief but sturdy spurt of ice-melt swelling the stream, but somehow lost the shrimp caught in it. And watched, helplessly, as they washed out of the utterly useless net and made their way downstream, depriving us of even that small portion of food.

We have no more tea left to us. We must now consider utilizing some of the lichens as the stuff of tea-making. The taste of which will doubtless be unpleasant to those still anticipating our own tea of a morning.

June 17th, 1884 The sense of hunger appears to have disappeared. We eat simply to preserve life. Crumbs of bread at our winter quarter which are occasionally exposed through the melting of the snow are picked from heaps of the vilest filth and eaten with relish. Henry ate ptarmigan droppings; Bender ate caterpillars, worms, etc. Saxifrage, lichens and other vegetation together with the intestines of animals would now be luxuries. I worked several hours in the raw, chilling winds and caught little more than a pound of shrimps. *

Some things are indescribable. How to describe to an interested ear the folly of a venture to which no ending can be visualized, but which must be embarked upon to obey orders from superiors who have their own reasons for the successful completion of a venture they themselves will never have to suffer the hardships thereof? In any event, those who have never undergone the travails which we have been exposed to, can never imagine how dreadful the assault on human endurance can conceivably be. Even those who have experienced such deprivation and exceptional danger to body and soul and survived the ordeal, cannot find words adequate to paint a picture with complete verisimilitude.

Perhaps this is just as well. For if those whose spirit takes them toward exploration and the adventure of discovery, those who fall under the spell of that great white presence of the frozen north were to completely understand what lies awaiting them, why they might never venture into the enterprise of discovery. And then, perhaps, the world would be a poorer place for lack of intelligence relating to the data thereof derived.

Now, to other more intimate things. Which have been gently pushed aside in my mind, heretofore. For I now find myself in that situation where I too, must think about that which is most precious to me.

What will I say when I greet my beloved wife? I will look deep into the wells of her soft eyes and I will absorb her love for me into the wellsprings of my soul. I will feast my tired eyes on her loveliness, her familiar face and presence. I will breathe the fragrance of her hair, the aroma of her being, and fill my tired lungs with her essence. I will carefully listen to the soft, sibilant tone of her voice expressing her undying love for me. I will embrace her and hold her and tell I shall nevermore leave her.

My destiny approaches but my ultimate duty yet awaits me.

*From Six Came Back - David L. Brainard

 

 

Dauntless Spirits, Great Adventures

 

Those people who willingly, eagerly venture into unknown territory, geology- or weather-hostile regions of the Globe present as a puzzling anomaly in basic human psyche for Nature has genetically hard-wired us with an irresistible urgency to survive. Yet these dauntless - some might venture - deliberately heedless adventurers, seek out danger, defy fear in the intent to confront their inner daemons opposing inherited existential caution.

How many among us is willing to expose ourselves to extremes of danger, privation, disease and the vagaries of chance and happenstance? Do they value life any less than we do? Or has nature tricked them into the belief that some spiritual power, within themselves or beyond, hovers protectively over them?

What irresistible siren of compulsion calls them to their destiny? What indomitable will and iron-strength of purpose propels them to forge on in the very face of Grim Death in defiance of their biological imperative?

They embark on their search for meaning and purpose, meeting head on the capricious neutrality of their maker; Divine Nature. Some live on to marvel at their escape from the uneven contest, some write inspiring narratives of conquest and the majesty of nature; the curious needs of humankind fulfilled.

There are solemn, respectful obituaries recognizing the mortal fallibility of aspirants. And account after revelation of those consumed by their need, who wander from ascent and encounter one after another as though awaiting and inviting the inevitable, leaving mourning loved ones behind, their supra-human exploits their legacy.

This bespeaks an urge of conquest vastly dissimilar to that which took Europeans to horizon-less oceanic stretches fearful to the imagination, in search of wealth and adventure: land, natural resources and the capture of people they thought of as sub-human, in a campaign to enrich their nations by the enslavement of others, through the creation of empire-building.

Leading inevitably to wars and massive blood-letting of both indigenous peoples of those conquered and devastated lands, and competing armies of ascendancy-determined conquerors.
In these searches for discovery and adventure into the great frozen places of the Earth, there is rare intention to discover sources of material wealth, but rather perhaps for some the achievement of fame.

Onlookers, awed by the trials and tribulations facing those resolute souls who venture into those isolated, weather-hostile places wonder who, in their right minds would deliberately seek to inflict excesses of physical misery upon themselves, let alone the psychical torment involved in achieving goals that sometimes elude, sometimes succeed, only to result too often in broken spirits and occasionally death.

Mountaineers face the potential of succumbing to acute mountain sickness which can be morbid depending on the depth of their symptoms, requiring immediate descent. Retinal haemorrhage can result from prolonged high altitude exposure. Diarrhoea related to food poisoning, giardia, amoebic dysentery can be problematic.

Pole trekkers can be exposed to snow blindness, frostbite, boils, bedbugs, fleas, scabies, leaches and blisters, which at extremely low temperatures can be quite different than otherwise. Modern-day mountaineers and pole trekkers have high-tech communication devices and gear and clothing to aid them, but this was not always so.

Douglas Mawson, 1912 expedition to the Antarctic: The awful truth was a blanket of cold fear, invisible, but falling over his entire world, filling the tent, flooding his mind with the terrible, haunting fact. He was alone. All that was human in this accursed place, all that had been alive - friends and dogs - were dead and gone. Loneliness was in the vast wasted land outside in the soughing wind, in the corners of his mind, in his anguish and in the fear for this own safety. He was himself sick, famished and so weak he might collapse at any moment; and he lay stretched out on this floor of snow with the heart-rending truth pinning down his body and his mind. Mertz was dead.
What would he do? What chance had he of living? Very little, he decided. This spot was some 100 miles direct to the hut; ahead ranged the heaving wind-swept-plateau ice, the great, broadly-fractured bed of the glacier, many miles of wicked winding crevasses, and then the long grinding, backbreaking climbs up the steep slopes and ice ramparts to the escarpment near The Crater - to be in sight of Aurora Peak, to leave some record there where they might come seeking his missing party. Yet he was so emaciated that the bitten, snow-clad peak seemed a million miles away. Lennard Bickel

Apsley Cherry-Garrard, June 1911: The horror of the nineteen days it took us to travel from Cape Evans to Cape Crozier would have to be re-experienced to be appreciated; and any one would be a fool who went again: it is not possible to describe it. The weeks which followed them were comparative bliss, not because later our conditions were better - they were far worse - but because we were callous. I for one had come to that point of suffering at which I did not really care if only I could die without much pain. They talk of the heroism of the dying - they little know - it would be so easy to die, a dose of morphia, a friendly crevasse, and blissful sleep. The trouble is to go on ...
It was the darkness that did it. I don't believe minus seventy temperatures would be bad in daylight, not comparatively bad, when you could see where you were going, where you were stepping, where the sledge straps were, the cooker, the primus, the food; could see your footsteps lately trodden deep into the soft snow that you might find your way back to the rest of your load; could see the lashings of the food bags; could read a compass without striking three or four different boxes to find one dry match; could read your watch to see if the blissful moment of getting out of your bag was come without groping in the snow all about; when it would not take you five minutes to lash up the door of the tent, and five hours to get started in the morning...
But in these days we were never less than four hours from the moment when Bill cried "Time to get up" to the time when we got into our harness. It took two men to get one man into his harness, and was all they could do, for the canvas was frozen and our clothes were frozen until sometimes not even two men could bend them into the required shape. From: The Worst Journey in the World

Viscount Milton and Walter Butler Cheadle, 1839: Masses of ice, the size of a man's fist, formed on Cheadle's beard and moustache - the only ones in the company - from the moisture of the breath freezing as it passed through the hair. The oil froze in the pipes we carried about our persons, so that it was necessary to thaw them at the fire before they could be made to draw. The hands could hardly be exposed for a moment, except when close to the fire. A bare finger laid upon iron stuck to it as if glued, from the instantaneous freezing of its moisture. The snow melted only close to the fire, which formed a trench for itself, in which it slowly sank to the level of the ground. The steam rose in clouds, and in the coldest, clearest weather, it almost shrouded the fire from view. The snow was light and powdery, and did not melt beneath the warmth of the foot, so that our moccasins were as dry on a journey as if we had walked through sawdust instead of snow. The parchment windows of our little hut were so small and opaque that we could hardly see even to eat by their light alone, and were generally obliged to have the door open; and then, although the room was very small, and the fire-place very large, a crust of ice formed over the tea in our tin cups, as we sat within a yard of the roaring fire. One effect of the cold was to give a most ravenous appetite for fat. Many a time have we eaten great lumps of lard grease - rancid tallow, used for making candles - without bread or anything to modify it.
Before sleeping, however, it was necessary to secure out of reach of the dogs not only provisions, but snow-shoes, harness, and everything with any skin or leather about it. An Indian dog will devour almost anything of animal origin, and invariably eats his own harness, or his master's snow-shoes, if left within his reach. From: The North-West Passage by Land

Jon Krakauer, 1997: From The Balcony I descended a few hundred feet down a broad, gentle snow gully without incident, but then things began to get sketchy. The route meandered through outcroppings of broken shale blanketed with six inches of fresh snow. Negotiating the puzzling, infirm terrain demanded unceasing concentration, an all but impossible feat in my punch-drunk state.
Because the wind had erased the tracks of the climbers who'd gone down before me, I had difficulty determining the correct route. In 1993, Mike Groom's partner - Lopsang Tshering Bhutia, a skilled Himalayan climber who was a nephew of Tenzing Norgay's - had taken a wrong turn in this area and fallen to his death. Fighting to maintain a grip on reality, I started talking to myself out loud. "Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together," I chanted over and over, mantra-like. "You can't afford to fuck things up here. This is way serious. Keep it together."
I sat down to rest on a broad, sloping ledge, but after a few minutes a deafening BOOM! frightened me back to my feet. Enough new snow had accumulated that I feared a massive slab avalanche had released on the slopes above, but when I spun around to look I saw nothing. Then there was another BOOM! accompanied by a flash that momentarily lit up the sky, and I realized I was hearing the crash of thunder. From: Into Thin Air

Hugh Brody, 1987: Do Inuit live in snow houses? Do they travel by dog team? Do they hunt seals with harpoons? Do they move about, from camp to camp, in a round of seasonal activities? Do they eat raw meat? Do they dry fish in the sun? Do they make igunaaq, "high" meat? Do they wear caribou-skin clothing? Do they speak of weather as the presence of Sila, the air spirit? Do the Dene track moose through the woods on foot? Do they use snares and deadfalls? Do they believe and follow a shamanistic spirituality? Do they think that muskrat played an important role in the creation of the earth? Do Naskapi follow the caribou herds, far inland? Do they dream their way through time? Do they travel in dreams? Do they have summer gathering grounds? Do the Cree move on to winter trapping grounds each year? Do they rely on snowshoes to move through the bush? Do they make hunting cabins each season, and lay spruce boughs as mattresses? Do they make medicines from herbs and roots? Do they use medicine power in spiritual life? Do they trap beaver under the winter ice? Do Innu prepare skins on stretcher frames and boards? Do they depend on the fur trade? Do they wear moccasins? Do they prepare dry meat each autumn as a supply of concentrated protein for the coming seasons? Are children seen as elders reborn?
A simple answer to all these questions is yes. From: Living Arctic; Hunters of the Canadian North

Dr. Jerri Nielsen, 2001: After a few stabbing gulps of thin air I was quickly reminded that I had gained almost two miles in altitude during the three-hour flight from McMurdo. While the plateau was flat as a griddle, it was also as high as the Austrian Alps. The South Pole station rests on a nine-thousand-foot thick slab of ice soaring ninety-three hundred feet above sea level.
...The temperature on the plateau was plummeting. By now it was minus 90 F. and falling, a new record for mid-March. One night I was watching a video with a friend when we heard the most horrible booming noise.
"What's that?" I said.
He said, Oh, it's just the building settling."
It sounded more like the building collapsing. We heard more of these ungodly booms over the next few days as the ice heaved in great cracks under the Dome. People were having more trouble sleeping. Sometimes it sounded like the roof was falling in or the floor was caving or people were stamping their feet overhead. Sometimes it sounded like guns or cannons.
The ice was breaking around us everywhere. Large cracks ran from the front of the galley and then spider-webbed out to the Dome perimeters There was a foot-wide crack over the ice road and a crevasse split what was left of the skiway. From: Icebound

 

 

Old King Tut

 

No, he wasn't old, at all, since he was a boy king, thought to have been 19 in 1324, B.C. when he died, having reigned for nine years. That was 3350 years ago, if one can fathom that time-frame, and in that sense it makes him old. But although chronologically he was not old when alive, physically his condition was that of an old man, having to get about with the use of a cane, and suffering severe degenerative conditions, along with a club foot.

He cannot have been too sprightly in the prime of his life, poor Tutankhamen. When his royal tomb was exhumed by Howard Carter in 1922, it was a sensation, because of the condition of the site, the splendour of the items found with him, and the exceedingly beautiful gold-worked death mask that topped his sarcophagus. The find was a sensational one awing the world, mesmerized by the legend of the boy king.

And the mystery of a curse said to have afflicted many in attendance at the excavation made everything surrounding the legend and the reality of King Tutankhamen a thrillingly fascinating discovery. Now, a team of scientists from Egypt, Italy and Germany making use of the most advanced DNA techniques has reached the conclusion that the king's physical disorders weakened his immune system making the health-vulnerable man susceptible to malarial-caused death.

His genetic endowments were grimly inappropriate for a long and healthy life. He is thought, through the tests, to have been the son of Akhenaten, the pharaoh whose paeons to the sun-god made him known to have been the first monotheist, and whose legacy of sacred buildings dedicated to Aten, the disc of the sun, were destroyed by those who followed him. The boy king's parents and grand-parents too have been identified.

Akhenaten was known to suffer from severe genetic problems caused by a disease that damages the body's connective tissues whose symptoms include a short torso, long head, neck, arms, hands and feet; pronounced collarbones, pot belly, heavy thighs and poor muscle tone. The six daughters he had with his wife Nefertiti all exhibited the same physical characteristics as their father. Unusually tall, likely to have weakened aortas easily ruptured leading to death.

Akhenaten never had artists copying his image for posterity alter his physique, and he was proud of the outstanding beauty of his wife Nefertiti. Nefertiti is thought also to have been a very close relative of her husband, further reasons why genetic problems surfaced in their offspring. Brother-sister marriages were common enough in early societies, particularly among royalty. Cleopatra was said to have married her brother.

Consanguinity in marriage does not produce healthy specimens; genetic vigour is irremediably impaired. Even much later, among European royalty throughout the later centuries up until the 18th Century, intermarriage in families was common. Charles Darwin, the great expositor of natural selection might have been thought to know better, but he married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood.

King Tutankhamun's need of assistance in perambulation was verified by the discovery of over 130 walking sticks found in his tomb. The genetic tests recently completed, headed by the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo, concluded that his and perhaps four other mummies from his family were infected by a parasite causing an often-deadly form of malaria.

 

Canadian Adventure, B.C.

While I was rolling the sleeping bags, I saw two people cresting the mountain. The breathless young woman mentioned last night’s storm. I said the storm was exciting, but at 58, I’d found the climb exhausting. She laughed, said she was 37 and hadn’t thought she would make it, said she couldn’t imagine her mother even attempting the climb.

We’d left Vancouver for the three-hour drive to Long Peak. Travelling the narrow coastal highway I felt nervous seeing signs warning of falling rocks from the steel-netted cliff face.

On the winding, narrow logging road I worried about squeezing past hell-bent logging trucks. When we finally parked the car dusk was falling in the shadow of the mountain. We camped on the shale beach beside the lake, cooked dinner, admired the clear night sky, and went to bed.

Early next morning we began the drive to the trailhead. The car struggled up the steep rock-strewn road and we soon realized we weren’t about to get much closer. We shouldered our backpacks and began the hike to the forest. Either side of the road grew pearl everlasting and other floral offerings in abundance, and we continually heard the sharp squeaks of pica darting for cover.

At the trailhead the pitch was considerably intensified as we climbed the steep path. At times the scree was so loose, the path so narrow I experienced vertigo observing the valley below. Our son, a biologist, was in his element; my husband was in no distress. Their backpacks were far weightier than mine, but my legs were turning to stone, and my lungs felt like bursting.

Our son had been there before and said we’d soon be reaching the Gates of Shangri-La, a widespread rockfall over which we clambered. The rocks were huge, the area wide, and it took quite a bit of effort to find our way through it. The views, too, were spectacular, looking across from where we slowly wound our way through rocks each as large as a car, a small shed.

Another milestone; a mountain hut and around it, a vertical green meadow dissected by a narrow trail. We peered into the hut and stepped inside. A big old stove, a long table, some chairs, and upstairs a sleeping loft. There was a visitor's book, signed by people who obviously slept over, intent on a longer hike than ours, presumably. A number of the messages noted the appearance of packrats, swifting away with anything not nailed down. Not far from the hut stood a reliable and stout out-house, of which several of our party made use.

“Not long now, Mom!” shouted our son encouragingly. As I struggled up and upward following a well-worn, but quite narrow pathway up the green meadow. Finally, it appeared that he was right; we were approaching what appeared to be another landscape entirely.

A marmot greeted us as we forded a stream shooting over the mountain from a blue-green glacial lake. Above the lake, after our 8-hour climb, we pitched our tent. On a bit of a shelf in the rock. A 'bit of a shelf' is the operative word here. The floor of the tent slanted downward slightly, toward to the lake. At the far end of the lake was the dominating presence of the glacier that fed it, roaring as it melted, for this was late August.

On day-trips ascending from our camp we discovered other, smaller glacial lakes and glaciers, some blooming with red algae. We crossed other rockfalls and accessed crests where we ate lunch and gazed over unending peaks across the Stein Valley.

On one of these excursions clear skies turned suddenly dark; a thunderhead began its journey toward us. We scrambled to descend. Thunder, lightening, great gusts of wind, sleet and rain pummelled our little tent, with us huddling inside, as the temperature plummeted, but it stood fast.

When the storm finally subsided, we began to think about something approximating an evening meal. Everything around us was completely drenched. And it was, by then, quite dark. Suddenly, we saw what looked like a flare across the valley, on another mountain top, opposite to where we sat. And as the flare grew, and we understood it to be someone's camp fire, we set up a loud cheer. Obviously heard on the other side, since we heard a faint response of a cheer from them.

(Made me wonder if in their distant proximity, I was as private as I thought myself to be, squatting over a fissure in the rockface, half-hidden behind a knobbly shrub.)

We slept soundly that night, though waking occasionally. I kept thinking we were going to roll off the side of the mountain. In fact, I shifted myself sometimes, with the feeling that the slant was compelling me in a direction I had no wish to go in. And when we awoke, it was to the rushing sound of the melting glacier, at the end of that fabulous blue-green lake below us.

The clear skies of the day before, that had made yesterday such an adventure, had given way, when we awoke, to a completely overcast, bruised sky, threatening to dump once again. We made another morning excursion after a good hefty breakfast of pancakes and tea, and mandarine oranges, scrambling over the rockface to find yet another rosy-crusted glacier. Returning to our camp site, with the threat of rain undiminished, we decided to break camp and descend.

As we descended the valley I felt good and brave and happy post-adventure, yet anxious anticipating the car-sized rocks at Shangri-La, the steep, narrow defile through the forest. The extent of my surprise (and deflation) cannot possibly be imagined as, halfway through Shangri-la we passed a young man with a paniered Labrador, then a family with two young children making their way up the mountain, happy in their enterprise.

How Canadian can you get?

He's never daunted by the prospect of a long drive to arrive at an area he's interested in. But then, in fall setting out later than intended can have its consequences. He'd meant to leave earlier, but didn't manage to depart until ten on Saturday morning. He never packs his gear in advance of one of his outings. But since he has everything down pat, it takes him no time at all to get things set up. So he figures, in any event.

Leaving Vancouver at ten in the morning, he arrived at the place where he'd leave his little truck at four in the afternoon. Which meant, after getting his canoe into the water and geared up, it would be another hour before he reached his destination. But it was a beautiful day, not too cool, with a wide open blue sky. Others felt the same way he did, he could see, paddling along and having to knock a warning on the side of his canoe to fly-fishermen along the way.

They were there for the same love of nature's environs as he was. As a biologist he was curious about everything; as fishermen they loved the landscape, and the challenge of sending out their invitation to trout. Knowing they cannot keep what they catch, and must return them to the river. Which is why hooks aren't used, but the challenge is still there.

One of the men fishing hadn't noticed him at first, and sent his fly over in a long graceful arc. Later, when he arrived at his destination he would discover the hand-tied fly lying at the bottom of his canoe, when he pulled it up onto shore to chain it around a tree. He recalled how both the fisherman and he had laughed together at the sheer pleasure of their situation.

By the time he arrived, dusk was already fallen, and he put his little tent up through familiar rote, not having to depend on daylight to perform the familiar. The river glistened darkly beside him, lapping at the shore in gentle hushed tones he was familiar with. It wouldn't be until morning came that he would discover, looking around him, a net that he'd forgotten months ago when he visited in the early summer. Not far from where he discovered it, there was that lock that he hadn't been able to find, and which he recovered with great amusement.

The pleasant but cool day had turned into a cold evening. He'd anticipated that there would be frosty conditions that night, but felt his down sleeping bag was equal to the challenge. Rummaging in his backpack he withdrew a headlamp and adjusted it over his forehead. Plunging a little further into the pack he took out his camp stove and its fuel. He positioned the stove on the canoe's underside, now upright and lit the burner in preparation for cooking dinner and tea.

Just then, he felt a terrific whomp! at his back. A wind percussion of some force, enough so that he was completely startled, and turned instantly to try to determine what had hit him. The air concussion could only have resulted from an explosion of some type, his mind immediately concluded. He turned to look upsteam and could see in the wanly lit near-distance made partially visible by the beam of his lamp, that the river was calm. He turned downstream and the same conditions prevailed, the water quiescent, gently lapping the shore.

Then a sudden movement was caught at the corner of his eye and he raised his head in time to identify the departing, widely-flapping wings of a great bird. An owl, likely; a raptor unchallenged in its predations of wildlife, obviously vetting him as a potential meal, ultimately realizing on closer inspection, perched on a nearby branch, after swooping down to his back, that it was not to be.

Sincerely Regretful

Sincerely Regretful

We enjoy our home, my husband and me.  It has been carefully crafted, in a very real sense, to reflect our aesthetic values.  We have had some experience in that arena.  This is the fourth house we have owned.  The first was in our possession for about fourteen years, the second a mere two years, though we had a great affection for it.  The second was ours for eighteen years, and the final house that is currently our home has been lived in by us for almost twenty-two years.

Each of our homes reflected how we wanted our close intimate environment to look.  An achievement in each case that was a function both of our evolving and growing appreciation for fine objects and our need for practical ones, along with a very tight budget, for in the first forty years of our marriage we balanced our income as best we could with the acknowledgement that it was not a generous one, but one that fit our values closely enough.

Which brings us to the current house.  The culmination, as it were, of our evolution from still-teen householders merging into parenthood, managing to raise three children and make the most of what life has to offer in every sphere, introducing those children to both the pedestrian in life and the sublime, which latter would include exposure to nature and natural surroundings, music, performance, artistic endeavours, and above all, a love of literature.

That's not the main thesis of this little story.  To explain what is, I should linger on the episode of my craftsman-husband transforming the powder room of our current home from attractive to abundantly so.  He ripped out the counter top that was built into the room, replacing it with one of his own design, topping it with dark blue tiles, and interspersed within the dense blue were a number of decorative tiles which held colourful tropical fish and seahorses.

He then built a door to replace the existing one, and this door was framed with wood, but the entire door was constructed otherwise of stained glass, and the design that my husband came up with was an expanded reflection of the decorative tiles, replete with exotic fish and aquatic plants.  The stained glass window he designed reflected some of those same colours but that window was a snippet of our garden with bright and beautiful irises and lilies within a micro-landscape.

Amazingly we found a liquid soap dispenser and matching toothbrush holder a lighter version of that same dark electric blue, and within the blue was encased yellow-and-purple, striped, golden-orange fish, and elfin seahorses, very similar to those of the tiles and the stained-glass door.

One day, while we were shopping at a thrift shop, my attention turned to two women one of whom held a wastebasket standing behind us at the check-out counter.  It was the wastebasket that held my attention, for it had a brilliantly coloured depiction of the very same exotic fish that existed in our powder room.  I spontaneously burst out with that information and the woman holding the basket looked intrigued, then just as spontaneously held the basket out to me.

I hadn't wanted the basket.  I merely found it fascinating that it coincidentally reflected the fish in our powder room, and mentioned it as a point of conversation between strangers.  It isn't at all unusual for me to chat with people I don't know, when we happen to be casually thrown together in some forum or other.  I felt consternation; how to react?  I explained that I hadn't meant that I wanted the wastebasket, I was just remarking on its resemblance to our decor.  Obviously, the woman thought I was being evasive from embarrassment and urged the object on me again, saying "here, take it, it will fit in perfectly with your powder room".

As she handed it off to me, I thanked her profusely, expressing my appreciation for her generosity.  I had, in fact, only meant to be conversational and friendly.  I hadn't wanted the wastebasket.  It wasn't a solid, well-made thing; the sides were comprised of plastic stretched taut over a square frame; the plastic fabric was thin and easy to puncture; the images of the fish were its only saving grace.  And it was mine.  We paid for it, and left the shop.  Arriving home, I set it on the floor of the powder room.

And there it sits to this day.  It's attractive and it fits in very well with the general decor.  And I dislike it heartily.  Each time I empty it, each time I wash the floor and move it, I am dismayed at the fragility of the material of which it is constructed; it is functional and it is a veneer, a facade of something substantial, which it is not.

So why do I keep it?  Beats me.  If I were to shed it, it would represent, I imagine, a discourtesy to the woman who had so generously sacrificed something she obviously thought had value, to a stranger who had expressed admiration and an affinity for it, even if she didn't quite mean what she said to the extent that the woman holding the wastebasket felt she did. 

You Are Here...

The scenery is immense, forbiddingly beautiful. Stunning to the appreciative eye. And there you are, standing here, viewing it up close and very personal.

It has taken a while to ascend to this level, and having done so, you rest awhile, set down your backpack and feast your eyes on the glories of Nature. Enraptured by the cold vastness, the looming mountains, the iced and snowy valleys and the glowing glaciers. At that elevation it is cold, but not unendurable.

You have come prepared. And it is a bright day, with a clear sky and a burning sun.

You knew you were capable of the trek, long accustomed to such ascents, although not in this particular geography. Ecstatic to be there, to view first-hand what you imagined it must look like. You see no one else. No human being that is. The view is completely yours, to revel in and recall at a later date. Photographs will most certainly assist in the process. And these are some of those photographs.

Photographs: J.S. Rosenfeld, 2010, Spain, Italy, France

Young, And Adventurous

It takes imagination, curiosity, energy and a true sense of adventure to set off for the purpose of exploring the geography of this planet. And no geographic areas of this planet are as mysterious and grand than the highest mountain peaks that can be ascended. How utterly admirable to be geared toward this kind of physical exertion. How utterly frustrating to view such expeditions with admiration and be unable to execute them.

Viewing photographs of someone else's climbing exploits will have to suffice for most of us. The remoteness of the mountains, their steel-grey, hard granite atmosphere with alpine growths reminding us, between the glaciers and the snow that will never melt, of how fascinating and amazing the natural world around us is.

And how puny, insignificant and vulnerable all at the same time, the human presence is, upon this Earth. We explore the ocean depths to find amazing organisms, diverse and colourful, thriving where none could be conceived of; remote jungle interiors where stone-age tribes thrive, disinterested in the larger world around them, invested in maintaining a style of life that has meaning and value to them.

And we - some of us - ascend seemingly hostile aeries to discover, when we've planted our frail and small tent, all that comes between us and the elements, that these high elevations also represent grazing areas for cattle, left to their own devices, and just occasionally and briefly accompanied by a shepherd devoted to his task and to his flock.

This is our world. We inhabit it diversely and sometimes without due regard for its well-being, while being fully apprised of the need for our own. This is the world that gives us succour, that represents our haven in an immense, unknowable cosmos whose far reaches even now advanced telescopic photographs are beginning to delineate and inform cosmologists.

There may be some advanced thinkers who believe there will come a time when human beings will transform themselves from earthlings to cosmos-dwellers, spiralling away from the Earth in spacecraft purpose-built to traverse time and space. For them exploration of outer space holds fascination and promise for the future.

For the rest of us, what we have here on Earth represents our lives, our livelihoods, our long journey from birth to death.

Photographs of Spanish mountains and French Pyrenees, Jordan Rosenfeld.

Mere Words

Words and the power of language to transform the ordinary into the exceptional cannot ever be underestimated. Words give us the power to transform thoughts and perceptions into a landscape of understanding and appreciation for the world that surrounds us. A vocabulary absent of exceptional words represents an individual lacking the wherewithal to fully express himself and the wonder of existence.

Those who have been gifted with the extraordinary ability to manipulate language and make full use of the words available to us as intelligent and aware human beings reward those of us without the gift of the craft of writing. Through the written (or printed) word we access history, the stories of humankind's marvellous journeys toward the present; the trajectory of technology, of science, of philosophy and the arts.

And words take us toward the sublime uplift resulting from creative imaginations capable of taking us to places we will never see; experience through the gift of literature, adventure, the arcane, the explicable and the inexplicable, the pedestrian and the enlightened; the mysterious and the lengths to which people can and will go to manifest their idiosyncratic observations of life on this Planet.

In the time of the Great Bard, there was no publication such as a dictionary that would explain to people what a word was meant to convey, how it was spelled, how spoken, and its usage within a coherent sentence, let alone its secular exegesis, its etymology. Spelling was a casual affair. William Shakespeare had no tome to which he could refer for any of these reasons; he did, however, heavily impact on the English language.

In sixteenth Century England a scholar, Nathaniel Bailey, issued twenty-five dictionaries between 1721 and 1782, in an attempt to bring together the lexicon of English words. His prodigious effort was given the verbiage-laden title:

A Universal Etymological Dictionary. Comprehending The Derivations of the Generality of Words in the English tongue, either Antient or Modern, from the Antient British, Saxon, Danish, Norman and Modern French, Teutonic, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek and Hebrew Languages, each in their proper Characters. And Also a brief and clear Explication of all difficult words ... and Terms of Art relating to Botany, Anatomy, Physick ... together with A Large Collection and Explication of Words and Phrases Us'd in our Antient Statutes, charters, Writs, Old Records and Processes at at Law; and the Etymology and Interpretation of the Proper Names of Men, Woman and Remarkable Places in Great Britain; also the Dialects of our Different Counties, Containing many Thousand Words more than ... any English Dictionary before extant. To which is Added a Collection of our most Common Proverbs with their Explication and Illustration. The whole work compil'd and Methodically digested, as well as for the entertainment of the Curious as the information of the Ignorant, and for the Benefit of young Students, Artificers, Tradesmen and Foreigners ... *

Now there's a mouthful, and more. Demonstrating, however, the ambitious determination of this man's mind. Still he had produced a valuable research tool, as well as one that could be used by the common folk. Previous dictionaries generally highlighted words that were quaint, little-used other than in very polite, distinguished, aristocratic society. Nathaniel Bailey's own quaint olde-English spelling might be thought to have left something to be desired. But his dictionaries were extremely popular and became best sellers of their time.

In terms of effort, production and sheer dedication to the drudgery of seeking, refining, designing and selecting a more perfected language repository and explanation of meanings, this series was followed by what was considered to be the ultimately definitive dictionary edited and assembled by the great Samuel Johnson. In contrast to the inflated title of his predecessor, Samuel Johnson's resulting, and since-used tome was A Dictionary of the English Language.

Like the later and most prestigious publication of the Oxford English Dictionary, Samuel Johnson's compilation was meant to contain each and every word used in the English language. Words with an ancient heritage, those more modern; at least up to the day when they were coined and used. Some have since slipped from usage and have been abandoned, others to take their place.

Language was eventually recognized as a living, changing expression of humanity's communication skills. And so it remains, one of our most precious tools.

* The Professor and the Madman - A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary - Simon Winchester

Language Introspection

Examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of natural sound) what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized? Carlyle.

All slang is metaphor, and all metaphor is poetry. G. K. Chesterton.

I hate to hunt down a tired metaphor. Byron.

Language is the archives of history. Emerson.

Language - human language - after all is but little better than the croak and cackle of fowls, and other utterances of brute nature - sometimes not so adequate. Hawthorne.

Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. O.W. Holmes.

Languages are the pedigrees of nations. Samuel Johnson.

It is quite simply not so, that old conceit that a picture is worth a thousand words. We convey more meaning by the language we use and the way in which we use it than a picture possibly could. If words are not intrinsically vital to who and what we are, why then do we flagellate ourselves over our failures, when we had the opportunity, to express our deep emotional attachment in words that matter, to those we cherish?

The written word is solid, not ephemeral, like an image, fleeting and of the moment. That may or may not be recalled; certainly never in the fine detail that meticulous and loving description can describe through the use of language, words.

Words convey the robustness of keen observation, the delicacy of fine thought, and every variation of each. Words are the expressive heart of our collective souls. Their meaning can present as gossamer-light, tickling sensibilities, or bracingly emphatic, moving us to alert response.

All living things have their expressions of being, their language known to themselves; from whales to crickets, robins to elephants. Unlike humankind they cannot share the exquisite pleasure of reading their history, recalling their predecessors, sharing creative imagination. We have been especially gifted. We homo sapiens sapiens, modern humankind.

Pity the persons - and they are legion - illiterate, incapable of deep expression of drawing deeply from the peerless draught of world knowledge. To them remains the irrelevancies of mutely peering at moving pictures. Can they realize the full thinking potential that is a human life?

Think of descriptives, how they limn the individual by the nomenclature human verbal ingenuity has evolved to describe individuality: repugnant, resourceful, comical, tempestuous, covert, beguiling, benign, brilliant, avuncular, mystical, iconic, solicitous, evanescent, fragile, contemptuous, grovelling, malleable, mesmerizing, compelling, bestial, autocratic, miserable, mischievous, creative, bumptious, fearful, tragic, snivelling, riotous, joyful, youthful, grim, aged, beautiful, serene, contemplative, scornful, tendentious, manipulative, scheming, loving, overbearing, intrepid, wise, lethargic, buoyant, uncompromising, tender, wistful.

Any one of these words, or in combination with one another paint an instantly recognizable personality, type, shape, appearance. In the mind of the reader, or the recipient of the verbal description, there is clear and cogent recognition of type and stereotype. Can a picture adequately portray those idiosyncrasies of temperament and behaviour?

Abrasive, sardonic, surly, repressed, calm, assertive, dominating, obsessive, obsequious, dismissive, genial, all descriptive nomenclature identifying and delineating human character, instantly conjuring opinion and observation at a remove; introducing personality. Sweeping the reader into a state of personal presence, through the charmed recognition of the nature of language.

Language challenges us in other ways, as well, as instruments to offend, to hurt, to bully. Belligerent and violent it can most certainly be, adversarial in the extreme, leading the listener or the reader to profound conclusions and encouraging them to match those words in self-defence, meeting offence. The antidote for that kind of language is expressed as compassion, patience, acceptance and understanding. Language has led to war and it has led to peace. It can confound and it can clarify. Invite or reject, bring anger or solace.

It speaks of our common interests yet often fails to ignite a necessary passion among antagonists to surmount differences. But if carefully and honestly constructed it has the capacity to close wounds and narrow great chasms of mistrust.

Language and how we use or abuse it, is a reflection of who we are, our desires and aspirations; our humanity, failed or triumphant. It is our responsibility to value its potential and to use it well; creatively, carefully, reflectively and honourably with conviction and respect.

And to value its capacity to elevate the human spirit, imbue us with hope. Transport us to a better place inside our minds, very often outside our immediate experiences.

Language is the memory of the human race. It is as a thread or nerve of life running through all the ages, connecting them into one common, prolonged and advancing existence. William Smith.

Language is the amber in which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have been safely embedded and preserved. R. C. Trench.

Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language. Noah Webster.

The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Edward Gibbon.

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language while in fact language remains the master of man. Martin Heidegger.

Remembrance Day, 2009

National War Memorial

by jamieson

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Thomas Jefferson, 1787.

From the disease-and-muck-laden trenches
the fearful misery, pain and suffering of
two world wars, the Korean conflict and now
the foreign ramparts of Afghanistan,
Canadian troops have responded to the cry of battle
for justice in the world. In the face of injustice
of atrocities whispered and deplored, Canada
responded. This response, our military history.

Now, at the armistice; the 11th hour of the
11th day of the 11th month, Canada mourns
the tragedy of human dissonance
in recalling the sacrificed lives of the young
and hale, the maimed and the heartbroken
returnees, who never again spoke of the
agony experienced, atrocities witnessed.
The deeply-scarred, the psychic misery
of nightmares lived, time refusing to
diminish their fearsome impact.

Canadians in all their generations
pay homage to those who lie in
Flanders Fields and beyond, wearing
the blood-red poppy of remembrance.
At the capital's War Memorial veterans,
garbed densely in musty uniforms, proudly
displaying medals glinting in the sun,
gather as war-experienced elders
greeted by their Chief of Staff, the country's
Prime Minister, as orders are called
for assembled regiments' response.

No wild wind this day, nor dark scudding clouds,
sleet or rain, nor snow to confront the
Silver Cross Mother of this year. The solemn
pomp and ceremony honours the nation's
young soldiers, diligent and courageous in war
and in peace. School children sing their choirs
of sweet lament and wistfully tragic hymns.
The focus of the nation on this sad
auspicious day commemorating a nation's
dedication to freedom, in honour of its heritage;
the country's reliance and gratitude toward
its sons and daughters who selflessly serve.

Blood-red poppies in grave abundance
will grace the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
speaking mutely yet volubly of Canadian
indebtedness to those who willingly
surrender themselves, steadfastly uphold
and defend values we hold fast and dear.

Each city, every town and hamlet
across this vast land, from the far reaches of
Nunavut, toward Newfoundland and stretching
over to British Columbia (ad mer a mer)
from sea to sea to sea, mount their
ceremonies of remembrance to our
dedicated fallen, those frail yet robust
survivors in a nation's grateful memory.

Oh Canada, We Stand on Guard For Thee.
Time shall not age them. We shall
remember them. This we vow to thee.
Universal liberty and justice, handmaidens
to human grace and triumph. Their valiant hearts
ever treasured memories. Peace ensured.
Rest in tranquility. Your sacrifice obligates
grateful memories, assures safety, security.
Your duty accomplished, ours to memorialize.