Category Archives: Nature in All Its Glory

Jasper Elk

Posted on August 24, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I traveled the last couple of days and, as I went through Jasper National Park, I came across these two elk. They were just off the side of the highway and have a full rack of antlers.

This one was by himself eating.

This one was not as cooperative in showing his face.

The shy one decided the grass was greener over in the other one’s pasture and began to move over.

The interloper begins to push the original out of his pasture. You could hear the clash of the antlers and the intruder seemed able to push the first one back.

I was closer to an elk when we were in Yellowstone several years ago. There is a story to the picture I took as I climbed down the embankment into the ditch and a moment later one of the other tourists we were with tumbled down the embankment. I told her it was OK because I thought could run faster than her.

I was probably 50 or more feet away from the ones in Jasper. I was only about 15 feet from the one in Yellowstone.

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Logan’s Pass

Posted on August 9, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Logan’s Pass includes the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park. When I looked, the view was spectacular and breathtaking. The park was named for the many glaciers that are part of the landscape and so visible through Logan’s Pass. The glaciers are slowly receding and some estimates suggest they may be gone by mid-Century.

Looking straight across from the road, you can see the ice and snow almost at eye level and further out is Jackson Glacier. The road is dotted with short barriers and are not very wide.

The Montana sky is a constant backdrop for the mountains, the ice and snow, and the green in the foreground.

A person constantly feels like they are on the top of the world here. People refer to Glacier National Park as the Crown of the Continent and closeness to the tops of the mountains is a reason. Waterfalls are often in view.

Here, there are no real barriers at the edge of the road.

Kathy took this picture over her shoulder. It shows the switchbacks and curves in the road.

I enjoy the contrast provided by the grey granite and the white snow and ice. There is stability and, at the same time, instability visible in nature. The granite looks like it forms a stairway to the top of the world.

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Posted in Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Reflective Moments, Uncategorized and tagged creativity, Glacier National Park, Going to the Sun Road, Jackson Glacier, Logan's Pass, Mindful Practice, montana sky, nature, photography, Rocky Mountains. Bookmark the permalink.

Glacier Park Mountains, Glaciers, and Logan’s Pass

Posted on August 8, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Kathy took most of these pictures driving through Logan’s Pass. Glacier National Park is appropriately named. Most of the white spots in the pictures are glaciers or snow pack. There are about 37 glaciers left in the park and most of them are receding or shrinking in size.

We came through the park a later in the summer, but there we saw some of the wildflowers in bloom on the way up Looking Glass Hill overlooking Two Medicine Lake. The mountains and lake serve as a spectacular backdrop. We walked around the lake later.

This is looking downstream from Running Eagle Falls or Trick Falls. The glacier on the mountain would likely be considered one of the 25 active glaciers in the park. An active glacier is one that is 25 acres or more. Over 90% of the park is wilderness.

This is Jackson Glacier. Although it does not look very high, it is deceptive. The roads climb well up into the pass and travelers end up closer to the mountain tops.

This is the tourist stop in Logan’s Pass with the mountains in the background. Parking is at a premium here so we did not get to stop.

Most of the pictures we took going through the pass were from the car without stopping. Again, the peaks are not much above the road level.

Waterfalls ribbon the mountainsides as they are constantly fed by the glaciers.

If you look closely at the picture below, you can see about 3/4 of the way up the road on the left side. It is a slight darkening. The middle of the picture, below the background peak, is basically where the road reaches the summit of Logan’s Pass .

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Glacier Waterfalls

Posted on August 5, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I am fascinated by waterfalls. It could be they offer paradox in their fury and the stillness found in their sources or in the pools that lay at the base of the falls. Glacier National Park offered opportunities to see waterfalls up close and from a distance

We saw this one from the car as we drove through Logan’s Pass. We saw several waterfalls that fell either right on the highway or right beside it. Literally, we shot pictures from the car as we drove. Parking is at a premium throughout the pass.

I want to give perspective on driving through the pass. This is common with even more pronounced switchbacks in places. I can look out of the car window when there is vegetation along the side of the road, but my fear of heights is paralyzing. I don’t drive these roads. Kathy was a mountain goat in an earlier life and is far more comfortable with this driving.

We walked in to Running Eagle Falls or Trick Falls. Earlier in the summer and spring, there are two waterfalls caused by spring run off from the snow melt. I copied a picture, which shows the second waterfall above the one in our picture. The link I used rated these falls among the top in the Pacific Northwest.

We hiked into Avalanche Lake. We took pictures from both ends of the lake. The first picture shows a series of waterfalls coming down from the mountain side. The snow on the mountains is actually in the form of glaciers.

We hiked around the lake and were able to take a few more pictures. Another hiker told us he tried to get closer, but once he was a few feet into the trees he said it was impassable. You can see in this picture that it does not look far but the underbrush is heavy. The link to Avalanche Lake has some pictures taken by someone who was able to get closer to the base of at least one of the waterfalls. As we got closer, the waterfalls look quite different with more ribbons appearing.

We were furthest from this waterfall, but the ribbons were clearer as we got closer.

I took two pictures in Logan’s Pass. This was one. Once we got to the top of the pass, it was less open and I was able to manage a camera shot. It was right beside the highway. I rolled the window down, as there was no parking and took this picture.

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Glacier Wildlife

Posted on August 3, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Kathy and I went through Glacier National Park in Montana on our way home. Kathy traveled the route on her way to Spokane. Americans seem to build mountain national parks around the geography which means we saw little wildlife, but we did see some we don’t in Canadian mountain parks. This was clear on the Going to the Sun Road where we saw mountain goats. When we travel through Canadian mountain parks, we see mountain sheep which come down into the valleys during the summer. Goats stay high up where it is cooler. Unless a person hikes the back country, Waterton Lakes National Park, which borders on Glacier, does not have the goats for people to see easily.

This one was on the patch of glacier on the side of the road where it was able to stay cool.

This one posed. You can see they are somewhat comfortable with humans being around, but I still think of them as wildlife. It almost looked a statue.

As we hiked, I came around a corner and this spring’s fawn was separated from its mother and twin. I don’t know who was more surprised: him/her or me. Initially, we were 4 or 5 feet apart. Kathy had her camera and got great pictures. The background is part of an amphitheater and the deer were grazing around it.

The doe and another fawn were across the amphitheater, but I had inadvertently blocked the path for the first fawn to rejoin them. They made a kind of whistling sound to each other and the doe never appeared overly concerned. She actually grazed on the trees and waited patiently.

The separated fawn took off along a path that was across the clearing.

The fawn re-appeared across the amphitheater and they went off. It seemed like it was all in day’s work for them.

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Posted in Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Reflective Moments and tagged Glacier National Park, Going to the Sun Road, Mindful Practice, Montana, mountain sheep, nature, teacher as transformer, waterton lakes national park. Bookmark the permalink.

The Seven of Pentacles

Posted on August 3, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Marge Piercy wrote of the time it takes to create what is good in life. In a fast-paced, hectic world, it is nice to view life as an ecosystem. Good things in life, those things I cherish, were nurtured and took time to appear. They depend upon many things to grow.

In the rich ecosystem, there is mystery and wonder. I ask, “What happened” and expect no definitive answers. I grow to accept it is good and healthy there are no answers and questions lead me forward, slowly and gently into the newness of each moment.

I took the picture at the farm earlier this spring. The tree in the centre is a woodpecker’s roost and, when I look, I see holes in the tree. A trail wanders through the underbrush. I ask who or what else uses the path? Who or what else lives close by? What are the connections? The lifeless tree sustains the ecosystem. Everything is important. I only have to let it be so. When I slow down, questions emerge and sometimes answers, but only occasionally.

Under a sky the color of pea soup

she is looking at her work growing away there

actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans

as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.

If you tend to them properly, if you mulch, if you water,

if you provide birds that eat the insects a home and winter food,

if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,

if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and bees,

then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly. sometimes they grow underground.

You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.

More than a half a tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.

Penetrate quietly as the earthworms that blows no trumpet.

Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.

Spread like squash plant that overruns the garden.

Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.

Live a life you can endure: make love that is loving.

Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,

a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us

interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:

reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.

This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,

for every gardener knows that after the digging, after

the planting,

after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

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Posted in Community, Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Photography, Poetry and tagged community, creativity, eloquent questions, Marge Piercy, Mindful Practice, photography, poetry, teacher as transformer, The Seven of Pentacles. Bookmark the permalink.

Those Images

Posted on July 26, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

Kathy went shopping and bought a book. It sounds mundane, but, when she opened the book, she found a small piece of paper with this Yeats‘ poem written on it. We are headed home tomorrow. We will take a few days, travel into Montana, across Glacier National Park, and head north. We will see some of the wild on that trip. I doubt lions will appear but a mountain lion might show up and maybe an eagle on the wing. Certainly, we find better exercise in sunlight and wind.

On the back or it might be the front of the slip, someone wrote the Gandhi quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world and PEACE”.

What if I bade you leave

The cavern of the mind?

There’s better exercise

In the sunlight and wind.

I never bade you go

To Moscow or Rome.

Renounce that drudgery,

Call the Muses home.

Seek those images

That constitute the wild.

The lion and the virgin,

The harlot and the child.

Find in middle air

An eagle on the wing.

Recognize the five

That make the Muses sing.

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Ars Poetica

Posted on July 13, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

My writing is one-dimensional now. I wrote a lot this week. I spend 15-30 minutes everyday free-writing and do more formal writing for classes and dissertation. Nothing has popped up for new poetry, but I feel that will change over the next week or two. Slowly, I am finding that creative, meditative space that poetry occupies and speaks when I am quiet enough to hear.

I read earlier today and came across this poem by Archibald MacLeish. I am unfamiliar with the poet or poem, but the lines about poems being silent and wordless make sense. It is sometimes in the spaces between words that we find the greatest meaning. Here I find my soul. In those moments of silence, regardless their length I am present and attentive.

A poem should be palpable and mute

As a globed fruit;

Dumb

As old medallion to the thumb;

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown–

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs;

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees–

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory of the mind.

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs.

A poem should be to:

Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf;

For love

The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea–

A poem should not mean;

But be.

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Posted in Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged Archibald MacLeish, Ars Poetica, creativity, Mindful Practice, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

How to Regain Your Soul

Posted on July 6, 2013 by ivonprefontaine

I opened a poetry anthology to the index and this title jumped off the page. It has been an eventful week. I settled into Spokane including a place to lay my head this fall. When I come here, I find I feel I am in community. It was word-of-mouth that led me to the apartment I will have. One person told me to check with another who referred me to another and eventually the circle was complete.

When I am here, I drop some screen time with no television. I turn my computer on and listen to CKUA the greatest little radio station in the world.

I need to settle into a regime now to tackle the reading, writing, and research that is around the corner. Gonzaga has excellent to a beautiful river walk to the Spokane Falls and Riverfront Park which I visited in its heyday. Spokane hosted the World’s Fair in 1974 and I was in Nelson BC then and came down with friends.

The river walk is a great place to let my brain relax, my mind to expand, and physically be invigorated. Last summer, as I walked, I found my poet’s voice and I am counting on that happening again over the next couple of weeks. I regain my soul in nature as William Stafford so eloquently puts it. When we got to Waterton, it was dragonflies over Red Rock Canyon that were my white butterflies.

Come down Canyon Creek trail on a summer afternoon

that one place where the valley floor opens out. You will see

the white butterflies. Because of the way shadows

come off those vertical rocks in the west, there are

shafts of sunlight hitting the river and

a deep long purple gorge straight ahead. Put down your pack.

Above, air sighs the pines. It was this way

when Rome was clanging, when Troy was being built,

when campfires lighted caves. The white butterflies dance

by the thousands in the still sunshine. Suddenly, anything

could happen to you. Your soul pulls toward the canyon

and then shines back through the white wings to be you again.