What's your passion?

When you meet a person who is passionate about something, you cannot help but become at least a little bit interested in what it is that sparks that fire in them. When you are surrounded by a few hundred people with the same passion for four days, the energy in the room is undeniable and you get caught up in it. I believe I am passionate about photography, but what I feel is nothing compared to the knitters and spinners, crocheters and felters, weavers and whatever else one can do with fibre, who attend the Olds College Fibre Week the last full week in June.

A big part of Fibre Week is the Merchant Mall for the first four days.  This was the third year we had a booth with Jan’s wooden “quality tools for discerning fibre artists.” And those fibre artists are a mixed lot—young and old, and yes, a couple of men thrown in for good measure among the women. They come from all walks of life, some even take the leap and make a business out of their passion, but the one thing they all have in common is the soothing calmness they get out of their particular fibre art. Feeding batt through your fingers onto a spinning wheel and creating “pretty string” as one person described it, is meditative for most. The stresses of the day seem to be spun out of your mind, the tension leaves your shoulders, and you enter a very relaxed space as your bare feet rhythmically go up and down on the treadles of your spinning wheel.

I have a long way to go with my photography before I can get to such a place… don’t know that I ever will. But in the meantime I’ll continue to look for interesting subjects to photograph, experiment with manual settings, read some articles, and most of all have fun with it.

A Curious Spin lets you create your own batt from fibre in delicious colours

Hiking on a Monday

One of the activities Jan and I have looked forward to when both of us retired is hiking on a weekday. The hiking season is short enough as it is, and to be able to get up in the morning, look out the window, check the weather forecast for the rest of the day, and decide to take off, just like that, seemed to us to be the epitome of being retired.

Last Monday was such a day. Mid-morning we headed off towards Elbow Valley, excited about the day before us. But as we were driving west, this strange feeling suddenly came over me: this is so wrong! It felt very weird to be heading for the hills on a Monday instead of a Saturday or Sunday. Traffic wasn't bumper to bumper, and there was no one in the parking lot when we arrived. The most lovely birdsong filled the quiet as we got out of the car.

With the description of the 7.3 km loop in the Mustang Hills from Gillian Daffern's Kananaskis Country Trail Guide, 4th edition, in my mind--and the book in Jan's backpack--we set off, boots on our feet, poles in our hands, lunch in our backpacks, and sunhat on our heads. My camera was harnessed on my chest as usual, and the wildflower geek that I am, I was on the lookout for what is in bloom now, on this trail. I found many of the common wildflowers I see on many trails, but also some intricate ones like the silky scorpionweed.

Early June is when the calypso orchid usually flowers in these parts, but the ground was fairly dry and they like their feet a bit damp, so I was not sure if there would be any on this trail. But one can always hope. On the first of the three hills--west, centre, and east--the ground cover of the forest changed dramatically to being more mossy, and a feast for the eye soon appeared : a pink carpet of calypso orchids in bloom by the hundreds. Never in my life have I seen so many calypsos in one place, and I marveled at this delicate little spring flower's proliferation. In the heat of summer all living traces of the plant disappear. In the fall, a single leaf is produced, persisting under winter snows until spring blooming [Royal Botanical Gardens, www.osrbg.ca]. Such a short time this beautiful wild orchid graces the forest floor, and I consider myself very lucky to have laid eyes so many in bloom in one spot.

The Mustang Hills Trail is an unofficial trail and as such is not maintained by the province. We fared well on the first half and enjoyed the view of the Elbow River Valley from each of the three hills. Coming down from the east hill is where the trail became a little obscure, less and less defined, deadfall to step across, but we finally made it down to the river, not quite where the book said we'd exit the forest! While we were never in any danger, it might be better to stick to official trails from now on...

Walking on the Beach

There’s something soothing about walking on the beach... the sound of the waves crashing onto shore, the water receding back out… over and over again. I hear nothing else, just the water, the wind, the occasional shriek of a seagull… it calms my soul.

In landlocked Alberta I don’t get to experience this sensation. I have to rely on my Dan Gibson’s Solitudes: The Classics CD to take me to that place. It adds gentle classical music and bird twitter to the waves, and whenever I have a migraine or just need to relax, I reach for the iPod, close my eyes, and drift into that space.

Growing up, the ocean was never far away, and I have fond memories of finding a sheltered spot (“gryde”) in the sand in which to spread my towel and settle down for a while. Now that I have to travel hundreds of kilometers to reach the ocean, I drink it in tenfold to sustain me until next time.

On our recent road trip I got to walk on several beaches, Crescent Beach being one of them. It is a long strip of sand south of Crescent City in Northern California, and at low tide the strip is quite wide. The mist coming off the ocean on this day made the beach walk almost ethereal… me, all alone, at the end of the world.

Most people, at some point or other when they walk on the beach, bend their heads and look for rocks, shells, feathers, and whatever else is washed up by the waves. I am no different, and at the same time I challenge myself to capture a story from the beach in my viewfinder.

The Pacific Ocean is one wild ocean. I have a healthy respect for her and she has rewarded me. We shall meet again.

Redwoods

Hiking in the redwoods… how often have I said these words and wished it was something I had done instead of something I wanted to do sometime.  Well, recently “sometime” arrived and my wish came true.

The first time I stood among the towering coast redwood trees in Northern California I was in awe. So straight and tall, like soldiers side by side, they were, and most so wide across the base I could only reach a fraction of their girth with my arms stretched out. One after the other, on and on they went as the trail wound itself through the forest. How many before me had trod here over the centuries? Millenniums? For coast redwoods can survive for 2000 years, but most live “only” 500 to 700 years. Imagine the stories the forest could tell!

Some trees sacrificed their lives to become log roadbed of the Redwood Highway in the 1800s. Even though they are almost covered by ferns and other vegetation, the logs are still visible under US 101 along Hobbs Wall Trail. And in the forest the stumps of felled redwoods are encircled by new growth redwood trees in what is known as fairy rings. Survival is paramount… the old tree suckered from its roots to give life to new trees. Generations from now those trees will be towering giants themselves.

Despite a wide and intertwined root system, it is shallow, only 10-13 feet deep, which isn’t much for a 300 foot tree. It is not advisable to go for a hike in stormy weather as trees might come crashing down without warning. After one recent storm a tree blocked the trail in Stout Grove, and rangers went out with a two-man crosscut saw to clear the trail. Why a hand tool? Nesting birds nearby would be disturbed by the noise of a chain saw. But the downed tree was so wide the saw got stuck halfway through! The tree stayed across the trail, saw imbedded, and the “Please stay on trail” sign leaning on the trunk. Law-abiding citizen that I am, I crawled over the tree trunk and stayed on the trail!

The Boy Scout Tree Trail hike is the one that stands out in my mind as “the” hike in the redwoods. Listed as one of the longer redwood forest trails at 5.6 miles (9 km) out-and-back, the trail winds up and down through a sea of ferns beneath the gigantic trees. I had to stop often to take in the sight and imprint it in my mind. Although I have some amazing photographs from this hike, pictures just don’t do the experience justice. I felt humbled to be in the presence of these old trees. I felt privileged to be allowed to witness with my own eyes the grandeur that is the coast redwood forest. I am now part of redwood history.

I have struggled for days to find the words to write this post, probably because there are no words to adequately describe the redwoods and the emotions they brought out in me. So I will leave you with a quotation by John Steinbeck that says it much better than anything I could write:

“The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”

Prairie Crocus (Anemone patens)

The true harbinger of spring for me is the prairie crocus. As a wildflower geek, there’s something exhilarating about discovering the first one of the season. It tells me winter is over… snow from now on is called a spring storm. It tells me I can soon start to look for other wildflowers… everywhere. It tells me hiking season is here… dust off those boots.

I usually start looking for prairie crocuses in early to mid-April when winter’s snow has melted, but since we had such mild temperatures in most of March, I wondered if they had peeked through the dead grass on hillsides around here a little earlier. Last Friday Jan and I walked in Nose Hill with our noses to the ground, but no fuzzy purple flowers were to be found. Sunday I walked along the path behind our house and up through the coulee, not really expecting to spot any, but a little voice inside me kept whispering “maybe.” No. Monday I walked in Confluence Park by Harvest Hills with my eyes peeled on both sides of the path at the top. I had gone down the hill to the path by Nose Creek when I decided “enough of this” and started to look for other things to take pictures off. I found a bush with wrinkled red berries on it, and intertwined in its branches were the tufts of wild clematis seeds from last year. So even though it wasn't what I had hoped to take pictures of, I was happy to take some shots of last year’s faded glory.

As I made my way back towards the parking lot, the path took me by a south-facing slope, and I thought to myself “if they are out, this is where they will be.” And no sooner had I finished that thought when what to my wondering eyes should appear? Four little clumps of purple! I broke into a big smile and said aloud “there you are!” If anyone had seen or heard me they would have thought me a little odd, I’m sure! But to me it was like I had found the treasure on a map marked with X. Save for one other small clump a little further along the path, this was the only place I laid eyes on my prairie crocuses.

This furry little perennial is actually not a crocus, which is in the Lily family; it’s really an anemone, in the Buttercup family. Early settlers called this native anemone the “prairie crocus” because it reminded them of their early crocuses back in Europe [http://plantwatch.naturealberta.ca/choose-your-plants/prairie-crocus/].

I’ll leave you with this lovely quotation:

“The name of ‘gosling’ given the downy buds by prairie children is eminently suitable, but the Indian name is even better. The Indians… had a perfect genius for choosing the most poetic and significant name for things about them. ‘Ears of the Earth’ they called these furry ears which, so soon after the snow drifts melt, the prairie thrusts up to listen for the first faint rustle of summer.”
A. Brown. 1970. Old Man’s garden. Gray’s Publishing Ltd., Sidney, B.C.

Peace Bridge (Calgary)

Last week a Councillor proposed a motion to suspend the public art program until the economy turns around again. A motion has to be approved before it can be debated at City Council, and since it was not, the motion died within days, but not before it had received wide publicity and criticism from a host of people. In the big scheme of things, the saving would have been minimal. City of Calgary capital projects over $1 million allocate 1% of the first $50 million of eligible project costs and 0.5% of the portion over $50 million to public art, up to a maximum of $4 million per project [The City of Calgary Public Art Mandate and Funding]. I for one would rather look at fish swimming on a concrete wall than a blank sheet of grey, or mountain peaks reminding me how close we are to the real thing... and how I long to be out there again.

The controversy made me act on something I have wanted to do for three years. On March 24, 2012 pedestrians and cyclist crossed the Peace Bridge over the Bow River for the first time. It was a long time coming... construction started in March 2010 and the bridge was slated to be completed by that fall. One construction issue after the other delayed the event by a year and a half. There had been much opposition prior to construction start about the need for a $25 million showpiece bridge designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava as well. But the project went ahead, and now that we have it, most citizens have embraced the bridge. Calgarians and tourists alike have their picture taken on the bridge or with it as the background from the Bow River Pathway.

In the past three years I have only glimpsed the red and white tube occasionally while crossing the Louise Bridge in a car, but on February 23 I finally saw it up close for the first time. Jan and I walked on the pathway from Poppy Plaza towards the bridge, and as it came into view, my first thought was "it looks like a bullet train!" But as we walked closer and finally stood at the end of the bridge, I appreciated the symmetry and the simplicity of the design. I felt like I was enveloped by a piece of art as we walked across... and it felt good to live in a city that is home to this structure. In 2009 when the debate over the cost raged as well as "why do we need a Spanish architect?," Jan and I visited St. Gallen in Switzerland and saw a bus and tram station there designed by Santiago Calatrava. For all its controversy, this bridge of ours is one more way for Calgary to be noted on the world stage.

I took many pictures on this unseasonably warm day in February of the Peace Bridge. It was too difficult to pick just one, so I have chosen to share with you five of them. I also dug into my vacation folder and found the picture of the St. Gallen bus/tram station. Both of these structures are functional art in my opinion. Calgary's public art program is something totally different and something I would like to explore a little more. Not sure where I would park to photograph Travelling Light, aka the giant blue ring...

St. Gallen bus and tram station, Switzerland

Signs of Spring

Last weekend we switched to Daylight Savings Time. As usual, there was some discussion whether it actually saves electricity this day and age, and some people are affected worse than others, suffering from “jetlag” for a week or so before they adjust to the time change. It’s always been easy for me so I don’t mind losing an hour of sleep once a year if it means I can stay outside a little while longer on lazy summer nights.

When DST arrives, it also means winter is almost behind us and spring looms in the near future. We have had an unseasonably mild winter here, and for the first time in recent memory spring seems to have sprung a month earlier than usual. Spring bulbs and early perennials have awoken and are showing their welcome green in the surface of crusty soil or protective dead foliage from last fall; the air is warmed by the sun shining from a blue sky sometimes dotted with white clouds; birds are singing and looking for building material for their nests and places to build them; rabbits are changing colour and tearing around the backyard staking out territory for a safe place to have their young. It’s spring, all right!

We are lucky to have a walking path right behind our house, and we make good use of it—sometimes we just walk to the end of the path and back again for a quick bit of exercise and sometimes we do the loop for a longer walk. Usually I do not take my camera with me on these walks, but the new me did yesterday. It’s not that there is anything spectacular or particularly interesting to take pictures of along the path, but I remembered the words of a pro who said, “there’s always something to photograph… you just have to look for it.” Trees and bushes line the path in pockets, and lo and behold, there was evidence of spring in them, too! Swollen leaf buds and catkins begged to be seen through my viewfinder against the blue sky and I had a lot of fun shooting from different angles.  The one I share with you is my favourite.

It would be naïve to think we have seen the last of snow. We always have one or two spring storms which brings with it wet heavy snow and lots of it. But for now I’ll enjoy each spring day… after all, spring is my favourite season of the year.