Rocky Mountain High

Sorry if you're looking for
John Denver or Mary Jane.

Tenmile Range from Boreas Pass Road

I'm talking about the incredible
Rocky Mountain high you get
walking among Colorado's glorious aspen
when the days shorten and cool
and the nights lengthen and chill.

 Aspen Trees Overlooking Goose Pasture Tarn

Just South of Breckenridge, Colorado, USA

Yesterday Terry and I hiked along
Boreas Pass Road near Breckenridge.

The aspen leaves are peaking,

and they are glorious.

Aspen Stems and Leaves

Boreas Pass Road,

This year there are a lot of aspen

sporting rich orange and red leaves

among the more typical yellow.

This may be a genetic trait,

caused by the orange and red aspens

having two anthocyanin pigments

that the yellow aspen do not.

The Ever-Patient Terry

Boreas Pass Road 

Aspen Leaves

Boreas Pass Road,

Bald Mountain

(13,684 feet/4171meters)

with Boreas Pass Road 

above the aspen in the lower right 

From New England Drive, Breckenridge 

Boreas Pass Road

Aspen, Boreas Pass Road

Terry Along Boreas Pass Road

Overlooking Goose Pasture Tarn

Boreas Pass Road

Colorado Gold

Boreas Pass Road

Boreas Pass Road

Boreas Pass Road

All of my life I have struggled with acrophobia
or fear of heights.
I have come so far over the years,
but yesterday I had a full-on attack.

In a fit of enthusiasm,
I started down a gravelly slope 
along a dead tree 
trying to shoot

the color beckoning on an adjacent slope.

All of a sudden the drop-offs registered,
and I thought I would shoot down the gravel

like a skier on a jump.

I sank to the ground,

braced my foot against a knob on the left side of the trunk,

and plunged into complete irrational and dizzy panic.

A guide friend told me long ago,

that when you sit on your butt,

it's all over ~ you've got to stay on your feet.

I was shaking so badly,

I thought I would dislodge the trunk.

Tree Trunk Pointing Steeply Downhill

Boreas Pass Road

The E-P answered my panicked pleas 
and calmly reached for me.

At one point I was lying on my belly
and clinging to the roots.

I wouldn't let go of those big fat roots for anything.

Finally, I went for it,

pulling myself and squirming above 

the dead roots of the tree,

as Terry dragged me to my feet and safety.

Yours Truly

Covered with Dirt from the Belly Squirm

Damn I was pissed!

Haven't licked acrophobia yet!

Poor E-P.

He knows another rock, ledge, or tree is waiting somewhere,

just for special me to have an irrational panic attack on.

And he knows I'll go for it.

It's one of the many reasons, I call him the E-P.

Idyllic

Not So Much

Traffic snarls clogged the Boreas Pass Road repeatedly

as other enjoyed the leaves on their wheels,

not their bellies.

Looking Through Aspen

Above Goose Pasture Tarn

We couldn't believe it!

John Denver's Rocky Mountain High

came on the radio when Terry started the car for home.

Okay, I guess you get John Denver after all!

You Tube ~ Masassa2009

The Lansdowne Letters: Kikinoamagewinini, pintiken.

My father's lessons in the Ojibway language
started the day he arrived in Lansdowne House.

The Father's Island

Photo by D. B. MacBeath, 9-13-1960

"Here are my trunks landed by canoe on the Father's beach.

The Brother hauled them from here to my cottage for me."

© M L (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Let me make clear at this point
that I will be using my father's words
that were used in that time and place.
I am not being disrespectful,
nor am I ignorant.

I want to portray how, half a century ago, 
the white people of Northern Ontario
spoke about its indigenous people.

Today Canadian Aboriginal people consist of
the First Nation, Inuit, and Métis populations.
Canadians no longer use Indian and Eskimo.
Words such as these are considered pejorative.  

In 1960 the First Nation people were called Indians.
The Indians in Lansdowne House were Ojibwa,
although my father sometimes referred to them as Ojibawa.
They spoke the Ojibway language.

Ojibwa is derived from Outchibou,
a seventeenth century name for a group of Aboriginals
living north of Sault Ste. Marie
between Georgian Bay on Lake Huron
and eastern Lake Superior.

Georgian Bay (Blue) on Lake Huron

The Great Lakes from Upper Left:

Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario

The Canadian-American border is dot-dashed in.

Wikipedia

By 1800 four groups of Ojibwa had formed.
The Neskantaga First Nation 
(formerly Lansdowne House Indian Band)
is descended from the Northern Ojibwa 
who inhabited the boreal forest
of northern Ontario and Manitoba
and intermarried with the Swampy Cree 
who lived further north and west.

Today the Neskantaga First Nation
is categorized as Oji-Cree,
and it is considered a distinct nation
from its Ojibwa and Cree forebears.
The people refer to themselves as the Anishininiwag,
which means Original People.  
The Canadian Encyclopedia

Wikipedia

Anishininiwag or Oji-Cree Territory (Orange)

Wikipedia

Now back to my father.
He flew into Lansdowne on September 13, 1960
on a Norseman bush plane with pontoons  
and bucking a strong headwind all the way.

With help from Brother Bernier,
he transported his belongings to the two-room "cottage"
he would share with Uno Manilla.

He checked out his new school 
to discover not a stick of furniture in it.

He spent the afternoon learning to operate a canoe 
he rented from the Hudson Bay post
so he could travel back and forth
between the Father's Island and the Mainland.

He met Father Ouimet, the Oblate missionary,
with whom he shared many meals at the rectory.

Norseman

Photo by D. B. MacBeath, 9-13-1960

"Close up of the Norseman in which I flew up.

The fellow on the wing is pumping gas for the trip."

© M L (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

All Rights Reserved

Finally, after a long and exhausting day,

my father found himself alone in his cottage

in the early evening,
but not for long.

Dad opened the door to shake a couple of rugs.

In a few moments he was surrounded by

a crowd of Indian children all saying,

"Kikinoamagewinini, pintiken."

In my father's words:

"To be agreeable, I said, 'Yes,' 

and before I knew what was happening, 

I had the house full of Indian children.  

I didn’t know what to do with them 

or what to say to them to get them out.  

Apparently, they did know what 'yes' is in English.

"Fortunately, the Father came along 

right at the right time and got them out for me.  

Right then, I invited the Father in to tell me, 

first, what I had said yes to, 

and then, what he had said to get them out." 

So began my father's language lessons

with Father Ouimet.

"I have learned some words of the Ojibway tongue,"
my father wrote that night. 
"Not very many, but a few.  
Here they are:

         Kikinoamagewinini...................Teacher (male)

         Kikinomatewigamik..................School

         Pintiken.....................................Come in (imperative, 

                                                            and apparently, interrogative)                                                                                  

         Ni wi pin tike.............................I want to get, or come in

         Kawin........................................No

         Ein ein.......................................Yes

         Matchon....................................Get out, or leave

         Kiwen........................................Go, go home, or go back"

There was no turning back for my father.

His northern adventure had truly begun.

Symbol of the Anishinaabe Peoples 

including the Algonquin, Nipissing, Oji-Cree (Anishininiwag), Odawa and the Potawatomi. 

Wikimedia  

A Walk to the Joggin

There is something so easy and natural

about a quiet morning walk

with my brother and sisters.

While in Nova Scotia recently,

we went on numerous walks together.

The Joggin Nearing Low Tide

On several occasions

we walked to and from The Joggin,

a tidal inlet that empties into the Annapolis Basin.

It's a good 11-12 klick/6.5 mile jaunt,

with a pot of strong hot coffee 

beckoning at the end.

The Joggin Looking in the Opposite Direction,

 Toward the Annapolis Basin

To get there we walk along 

a section of the Trans Canada Trail.

You can actually hoof it 

from one end of Nova Scotia

to the other on the TCT,

but we're not that ambitious.

Tidal Flats

from Joggin Bridge

Digby from the Joggin Bridge

The Digby Pines, a well-known golf resort and spa,

overlooks the wharves where the Digby scallop fleet anchors.

In the Smith's Cove area, 

the TCT traces an abandoned railbed  

that once linked us by train to other places 

in our far-flung and rural province.

We miss the iron horses.

Roy and Barb on the Abandoned Railbed

Now Part of the Trans Canada Trail

The tidal scenery is ever-changing,

a result of the extraordinary tides that occur here.

Nearing Low Tide at The Joggin

The Joggin fills and empties twice a day

with the rise and fall of the extreme tides.

It adjoins the Annapolis Basin

which connects to the Bay of Fundy

through Digby Gut.

The gut looks so calm and peaceful,

but it is a dangerous passage

filled with swirling currents and hidden rocks.

Frequent fogs and changeable winds

add to the dangers for boats negotiating the gut.

Generations of our family have

passed through this gap in North Mountain. 

Digby Gut

Map

The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world.

At Burntcoat Head at the top of the bay,

the tides range as much as 16.3 meters/53.5 feet.

That's change in depth of water, folks!

Wikipedia

The Bay of Fundy

Between the Canadian Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

Wikipedia

And that makes for a lot of mudflats and sandbars

in bays, basins, and inlets

as the waters ceaselessly come and go.

Mudflats and Sandbars

in the Tidal Joggin

But we're not thinking about the tidal surges 

that shape the scenery. 

We tend to take them for granted.

The tides have been running through our lives 

from the beginning.

Brother and Sister Enjoying the Morning and Each Other

Joggin Bridge

We're just happy to be together

watching the moving waters and winged wildlife.

 Nearing Low Tide on The Joggin

 Trickling Water, Sandbars, and a Lone Gull

This last photo makes me think of my father,

whose presence I feel keenly

as I write of our family's time in the North.

Dad was a painter,

and he taught me about perspective

when I was big enough to grip a pencil.

He had me forever drawing roads, telephone poles, 

and railroads receding into a vanishing point.

 Donnie, Barb, and Roy

Joggin Bridge

As we turn for home, we chat on,
talking about anything, everything,
anticipating that welcome pot of coffee
we'll share at the end.

I miss our together walks.
It's tough to be so far apart.  

The Lansdowne Letters: Neskantaga

So, in my last Lansdowne House post,
I decided to rename my Northern series
The Lansdowne Letters
instead of the more despairing 
Human Refuse.

Then, I sat down to write today's post.
I was struggling with where to go next,
so I googled Lansdowne House yet again
looking for something, anything, for direction.

There is little information on-line
about Lansdowne House ~
It is invariably described as a remote community
located in the northern reaches of Ontario
with fly-in thrown in sometimes for good measure.

And just try to find a map you can use legally!

Location of Lansdowne House

Look in the upper third of the map.

Follow the Attawapiskat River inland from the left tip of the largest island in James Bay.

Halfway along the river you will see a large, fat Attawapiskat Lake.

Lansdowne House is in the middle of that lake.

Wikimedia

Click here for a zoomed-in view.

I'm sure I've read before
that Lansdowne House is now often referred to 
as Neskantaga First Nation.
But it didn't sink in until I was struggling with this post.
I chuckled as I read about Neskantaga:
Still remote,
still northern reaches.
Wikipedia

So, on a whim, I googled Neskantaga
for the first time,
and the results plunged me into despair.

Some things don't change.
Human refuse is still human refuse.

Even a child recognizes 
when people are treated like refuse;
and a passionate, idealistic girl 
can stir up a lot of trouble
for the adults 
peopling her small world.

You can shut someone up,
bury a story,
hide the truth,
but if things don't change,
it's bound to bubble up out of the muskeg
at some point in the future.

You see, today there is a suicide crisis 
in remote, fly-in Neskantaga 
in the northern reaches of Ontario.

In 2013 twenty-seven young people attempted suicide,
and seven committed suicide in a twelve month period.
Now three more have taken their lives.
Community leaders have said that the suicides
are the result of the fourth world living conditions
in Neskantaga First Nation.
cbc.ca/news 

I read the litany of wrongs:
lack of housing, clean water, food security,
and adequate health care.
Disease.
Hopelessness.

And I remember.

Water, 
for starters. 

I remember the nurse Mike Flaherty
teaching us a lesson on sanitation, 
while sketching a map of Lansdowne House
on the blackboard in our tiny school.
Indian and white,
we children watched his white lines grow to depict
the long peninsula sticking out into Lake Attawapiskat,
the Father's Island,
the Hudson Bay Post and the nursing station,
the Indian log houses,
and my family's home in the forestry building.

Sketched Map of Lansdowne House

Drawing by Donald Blair MacBeath

© M L (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

I can hear the painful scratch of the chalk
as Mike marked waterholes on the map:
those of the Indians and ours,
and with every hard white X he scrawled,
I can still hear Mike say, "Death.  Death.  Death."

Path to Our Waterhole

Painting by Donald Blair MacBeath

© M L (MacBeath) Barbour/Fundy Blue

I don't have to contend 
with waterholes now.

No more climbing down 
the snow-packed hill
with my two five-gallon buckets.

No more hacking through the ice
with the long-handled ice chopper
to open our waterhole 
in the subzero cold.

No more lugging the heavy, slopping buckets 
back up the hill and into our house.

No more emptying and straining the ice-chunky water
through layers of cheesecloth into 
our twenty-five gallon water barrel.

No more watching the tip of the eye dropper
as I carefully add one drop of Javex to the barrel.

Yup, my harried Mom 
trusted ten-year-old, turning eleven me 
with purifying our drinking water,
so our family wouldn't get sick 
from the bad water in Lansdowne House.
Or die.

You'd think after half a century
things would be better.

The conditions in the North 
are not a new story.

They're an old, grim story.
My chapter was lightened a little 
by a loving and fun family
and the incredible human beings we met,
shimmers of light piercing the night.

I just have to wonder.
Anybody going to listen this time?

Northern Lights Near Hudson Bay

wikimedia ~ Ansgar Walk

Sunflowers for Tina

Today members of the Insecure Writers Support Group

and the A-Z Challenge are posting sunflowers

in memory of a special lady, Tina Downey,

who meant a great deal to a lot of people.

My heart goes out to her family and friends

who are feeling her loss keenly.

Here's a sunflower for you, Tina.

Sunflower for Tina

Wikipedia

The Lansdowne Letters: The Beverley Baxter of the Bush

I've been busy with my northern materials.

Instead of calling my Northern posts Human Refuse, 
I've decided to title them The Lansdowne Letters.

My brother Roy really got me thinking 
when he commented,
"You know, Louise, 
Human Refuse doesn't capture 
the wonder and the delight of the North.  
It sounds too grim.  
Don't you remember all the good times we had?"

Well, yes I do, Roy,
and you're right.

I've been letting the wrongs and the injustices
I experienced so deeply
overshadow the delight and the wonder.

And one thing I know about our family
is that good times together are a constant.
(We even have fun squabbling and competing,
as five close siblings can do spectacularly!)

Still Good Times Together!  

Donnie and Roy, Two of My Sibs
Making Dinner Remains a Family Effort
Smith's Cove, Nova Scotia, 2014

Dad's Northern letters are filled 

with the wonder and the delight 

of an adventurous place and time.

Lansdowne House

Northern Ontario, Canada

Photograph by Rev. Father Ouimet, OMI

Fall, 1960

Once he arrived in Lansdowne House,

my father quickly settled into a nightly routine

of writing letters to his wife, mother, and extended family.

On September 28, 1960 he wrote:

"Good Evening, Everyone.  

This is Donald MacBeath

from Lansdowne House speaking to you.

I feel just like the Beverley Baxter of the bush.  

I think I should call this nightly effort of mine

'The Lansdowne Letter.' "

The Beverley Baxter of the Bush

Lansdowne House, Fall 1960

I had to google "Beverley Baxter" to learn

that my father was referring to Sir Arthur Beverley Baxter. 

Baxter was born in Toronto in 1891,

and he had a successful career as a journalist, theatre critic,

and politician in the United Kingdom until his death in 1964.

So I snagged Dad's title,
which feels appropriate because the letters he wrote
are the primary resource for my Northern manuscript.

I've been sporadic with my Northern posts.
I haven't written one since last May (post).
But I'm home for now and plan to publish one each Friday.

And thanks to my brother Roy,
who has never hesitated one nanosecond
to tell me when he thinks I'm wrong.

Here’s to a plan and to the best siblings!

We Five

Roy, Louise (me), Donnie (in back), Bertie, and Barb

IWSG: 300

Wikipedia

I am not writing about 

the iconic movie 300;

but rather, about the need to limit 
IWSG posts to 300 words.

IWSG

Yikes!  
The guilt I felt when I discovered that dictum!  

I had just published my verbose June IWSG post.

Do you struggle with verbosity?

I do.

I love this antiquated Chinese character Zhé,

meaning verbose.

Arguably, 
it is the most complex Chinese character,

with its sixty-four strokes.

Read on, and see why that makes me laugh!

Wikimedia ~ Erin Silversmith

I remember my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Keast,

teaching a lesson on using adjectives in  descriptive writing.  

Wowza!  I fell in love with adjectives!  

I crafted a sentence about my house containing ~ 

I counted them ~ 

sixty-four adjectives!

I thought my sentence brilliant;  

Mr. Keast did not.  

He called my mother for a conference.  

He thought I was mocking him. 

The two sorted out my personality, 

and I learned that the liberal use of adjectives

was inadvisable.

  

I never wrote another sentence with sixty-four adjectives.  

I became a seeker of the succinct.

I have failed miserably many times.

Succinct writing takes effort.

Chopping, 

refining, 

and choosing the precise word

do not come easily for me.

It's a slog.

My mantra is advice

from William Strunk Jr.

who co-wrote 

the indispensable reference

The Elements of Style.

"Vigorous writing is concise."

Wikipedia

The complete quote: 

“Vigorous writing is concise. 

A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, 

a paragraph no unnecessay sentences, 

for the same reason 

that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines 

and a machine no unnecessary parts. 

This requires not that the writer make all sentences short 

or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, 

but that every word tell.”

Strunk

Make.  Every.  Word.  Count.  

Seek brevity, but without sacrificing clarity.

Thanks for the challenging dictum, IWSG!

It improves my writing.

Wowza!