No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
It’s the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it’s a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it
For no land on earth—and I’m one.
– Robert W. Service (1874-1958)
Canadian Rockies
Raised on the romantic image of the Canadian Rockies – Robert Service poems about manly wilderness adventures, and Jack O’Connor stories about big game hunting in remote alpine meadows and across craggy peaks – I longed for the day when I would venture into the forested mountains of British Columbia and Alberta, pack upon my shoulders and rugged boots upon my feet, eyes taking in the wonder of some of the most savagely beautiful lands on Earth.
And that is what my beautiful blond wife and I did for nine days in June to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary. Travel weary and still recovering from sensory overload, we returned to our North Country farm with the visions of a thousand new sights and experiences tumbling through our brains, memories that will have to be sorted out and stored away over the next several weeks while we try to understand what we saw and learned as we traveled by airplane, train, automobile, and boot leather across hundreds of miles (or should I say hundreds of kilometers) of mountainous country.
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Dispatches from a Northern Town 