I took this photo of a bear prop near the road leading into Red Rock Canyon at Waterton Lakes National Park, convinced it was likely to be our only wildlife sighting on the trip. And then we turned the bend… (I do have a reasonably good telephoto lens on my camera, but without a tripod, not the steadiest hand).
It was a pleasure to drive through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the Blood Indian Reserve, from the eastern Montana side of Glacier National Park to the Canadian side in Waterton Lakes National Park. The Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995, and it is a richly diverse ecological wonder. Watertown is also home to the iconic Prince of Wales Hotel (dating from the early 1920s) which sits on a wildly windy precipice overlooking Upper Waterton Lake.
It was wildflower season in the park, which added to already dramatic scenery, and we loved the red Adirondack chairs beckoning us to rest. The Canadian National Park Service places these chairs in gorgeous locations all over the country as a call to sit and appreciate…what an idea! When we finally reached sensory overload, we found refuge by taking afternoon tea in the lobby of the Prince of Wales Hotel. Very close to Heaven.
I‘d never heard of it, but as more and more of these tall white stalks appeared along the roadside, I began to wonder what it was. And then I had to stop and walk into the woods to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me.
The National Park Service website informed me that beargrass is a wildflower that blooms near the west entrance to Glacier National Park, and was named by the Lewis and Clark expedition. It can grow up to five feet tall and each rosette blooms only once. Bears don’t eat it, but sheep, deer, elk and goats do. Beargrass can be seen annually, but sparsely, in the spring… but if conditions are just right, with ideal rainfall and soil moisture, mass blooming can occur… every five to ten years! Who knew we would be so lucky?!!!!
We had hoped for smaller crowds by planning our visit to the Montana side of Glacier National Park during early June, and got our wish for a disappointing reason. The touted fifty mile long Going-to-the-Sun Road, which bisects the park, was still blocked for ongoing snow removal only eight miles from the west entrance. We may have been one week too early for full appreciation of the park, but were rewarded with beautiful weather to enjoy Lake McDonald, Avalanche Creek, mystical wooded trails, and the lovely old Lake McDonald Lodge, built in 1913. The requirement to drive around the park rather than through it brought wonderful compensation in big Montana skies.
It hasn’t been a very pretty spring where I live, mostly overcast and dank. Flowers have tried to brighten things up, but the sun hasn’t been encouraging, and they’ve mostly given up after a half-hearted effort. I was therefore taken by surprise when a field of color caught my eye as I drove on a busy commercial street past the library one day. It was not my usual route, and I had no idea this treat was waiting for me. Sometimes you just have to stop the car, and take a walk on the wild side.
Easter is over, guests gone, laundry done, leftovers tossed. Return to routine, a check of the calendar to see what’s next. A let down, really. And then I have to think again. I don’t believe the Easter story included a “back to business as usual” message. The disciples had just been through the worst experience possible with their friend and the dreams he brought, and, as our Rector said in his Easter sermon, they weren’t thinking “resurrection” when word came to them that the tomb was empty. They were experiencing desolation, fear, shock, anxiety, anger. An empty tomb created disbelief, a tinge of hope, confusion, the need to regroup, reassess, wonder, talk, wait…. Time was required to process this disaster, taken in small steps, to perceive not only what had taken place, but what they were supposed to do about it. Their lives had been changed, and the trajectory of world history altered, but how much was it possible to really comprehend then or now?
I’m not likely to change my life, and definitely won’t change anything in the world. But I’d like to stay open to new possibilities along with a return to routine. My small steps have to be taken within the world I know and see, and happily digital photography offers me a route to a more receptive mind. Imagining a spring poppy again and again through simple filters (new eyes) is a lifeline to unveiling the renewable, creative energy that permeates our world, as it seems to do endlessly with humor and beauty. I can see “resurrection” every day in small things, no matter how slowly comprehension evolves as to what it all might mean.
You may have read that Norway is the happiest country in the world according to the 2017 World Happiness Report (http://worldhappiness.report). I can completely understand that it might consider itself the most beautiful, as its close happiness competitors in Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland could do as well. But happy? Its weather can be grim, taxes are high, and I can imagine considerable financial and physical challenges to living there, having found it an expensive (but fabulous) place to visit.
The World Happiness Report looks at the role of social factors as contributors to life quality and evaluates a data base of 155 countries to reach its conclusions. The United States this year dropped to 14th in rankings, “largely because of poor social support and cohesion” quoting The New York Times in The Week Magazine.
I suspect it is easier to develop cohesion and social support in smaller nations than ours, but I still have to wonder how happiness enters a national psyche when a country tries to achieve those goals, particularly at high tax cost to its citizens. Perhaps our Congressional denizens should review the federal budget from a new perspective and adapt a thing or two from countries who seem to have a novel definition of what “quality of life” means. My guess is it has something to do with different values and ideals than we currently seem to prefer. Norway contributed to my personal happiness; my national happiness has some questions to ask, some pondering to do, and some lessons to learn.
Just as I stand speechless when privileged to view the natural treasures of this nation, I am beyond words when told that protection of our environment is less important than other economic interests addressed in the federal budget. How can that be? What amount of money, what project, what pressures, what argument for or against climate change, is of greater value than being awestruck by the wonders that have dazzled for centuries? Have we lost our sensibilities for that which is not man-made? Do we feel no responsibility for walking lightly on this earth, protecting humans and animals and plants from the carelessness we seem willing to tolerate from industry? We are fearful of so much these days; why are we not fearful of compromises to our air and water? We want governmental protection of our borders; why do we not demand government protection of our land?
The incredible nature photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984) said it for me: “It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” Horrifying, and completely unimaginable.
On a grey day like today, when my spirit is low, I often think of Ireland and the gifts it offers to mood shifts. Every day brings its own colors in which to pleasantly lose one’s thoughts. Thank you, Ireland, for your very rich and nourishing green.
My Time Too 