Posts Tagged ‘Outdoor writing’

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LOONS, WOLVES AND OTHER NATIONS

March 13, 2012

Years ago, loons were killed in Minnesota, because they had the gall to eat fish that fishermen wanted to catch.

Anybody who has traveled the boreal wilderness knows that without the sound of the loon, the scenery would still be there, but the experience would be lost.  I have awakened on hundreds of nights to hear the sound of loons calling.  They have four different calls, and I love each of them.  Those who have not heard a loon in the wild, and that would be most, have missed one of nature’s great sounds.  Gavia immer is a heavy bird, because its bones are solid, not porous, so it can dive and stay underwater for a significant time.  The bird needs a few hundred meters to get airborne, but flies at 60 knots.

The wonderful ability of the loon to do so much is not unique.  To me, animals are other nations, not something we should destroy.  Loons are superbly adapted to the boreal lakes.  What will happen to them as we continue to overpopulate the Earth and damage their habitat, may spell their doom.  It’s just a bird, some say.  Well, there are many Americans who dehumanize humans by calling them Kaffirs, ragheads, and words I will never dare say to myself, they are so ugly.  Femi-Nazis has been used by Rush Limbaugh, along with his other vile comments.  Dehumanizing your enemy is perhaps a great way to win arguments and wars; however, the cost is horrific, not just in war, but how it has polarized American society.  Another way, common in my experience, is to take their words out of context, and deliberately replace them with charged words.  A lawyer did that to me one time in court, and I called him out on it each time. He finally threw a book at me.  In court.  Literally.  But I have others who do the same, former colleagues, some of whom owe me a lot, for what I have done for them, and I call them out on their language, too.  Words are important.

Fortunately, in the case of the loon, a few wildlife biologists did some good science to show that fish eaten by loons really did not adversely affect overall fish population.  Nature regulates populations well, and nature will regulate us, too, should we fail to do so ourselves.  What did affect the fish population were those who caught and didn’t release large fish, the breeders, who kept the population alive.  I know some guides, if they have a client do this, quietly go to another area on a lake to ensure their client catches nothing more the rest of the day.

During the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese killed the sparrows, only to realize later that sparrows kept insects in check.  Before one disparages the Chinese, we kill coyotes, which keep rodents in check.  Most everything belongs, including wolves, since they are, after all part of the ecosystem.  What is remarkable is the number of people, who profess being religious and patriotic Americans, who believe removal of predators a good idea.  In Alaska, people killed the national bird, the Bald Eagle, which is remarkable for a group that prides itself on being “real Americans.”  How many of you have seen a Bald Eagle or a wolf in the wild?  Perhaps it doesn’t matter, any more than reading a great book or listening to great music.  But I am better for having seen eagles, reading books, and hearing music.  Seeing a wolf in the wild, both of us alone, 4 meters away, was one of the best experiences in my life.

We face tough choices.  We have too many invasive species, and we must decide how to handle them.  None of the answers is easy.  We can bring in species to kill species, but new species can become a problem.  We can poison lakes, kill the fish, and then restock, hoping to remove invasive species.  Tucson Arundo removal is trying to remove one invasive plant.  Alone, over 10 months I removed 20,000 buffelgrass plants, another invasive species, in 8 acres, battling snakes, and heaving heavy bags up a berm.  Buffelgrass was imported from the African savannah into Mexico for forage about 80 years ago.  It was a bad idea.

Three months after I finished my work, it was like I had never been there.  Nobody cared.

There are no easy answers.  Sadly, there are plenty of talk show radio hosts and others who act as if there were.  Most of their answers are less government, which frightens me, less taxes, and more freedom.  Having seen how people trash the wilderness, even when they know the rules, I am frightened when I think what would happen without regulation.  Without regulation, we would have lodges all over the Boundary Waters and have dammed Curtain Falls, ruining Crooked Lake.  How many of you have seen Curtain Falls?

We would have logged every bit of forest, and we would have cell towers everywhere in the wilderness.  As I write, PolyMet wants to put a molybdenum mine in the headwaters of much of the country I love.  The company lawyers and managers say it will be safe.  Everything is safe, until suddenly it isn’t.  There won’t be an accident with the pipeline from the Canada tar sands to Texas, either, until there is one, and the Ogallala Aquifer is destroyed.  The Alaska pipeline was safe, until 1989.  Three Mile Island was safe, until 1979.  Unregulated, we would trash the forests, pollute the wilderness lakes, cut down all the trees, mine, and get rid of every government regulation, because people will do the right thing.

Yeah.  Right.  Have somebody tell you what it is like on opening fishing day for salmon in Alaska.

Eventually, of course, like the forests world-wide, the salmon, and the cod, the biomass will disappear.  A few will become very rich, support those who lie their way into public office and keep the cycle going.

Glad I won’t be around when the bill comes due.  Also glad we don’t have children who would ask why I didn’t stop it.  “Because I couldn’t” seems pretty weak.

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TOUCHING OTHERS

November 13, 2011

I never knew Jamalee Fenimore or Stephne Staples.  Nobody who reads this knew them, either.  Both of them loved the Sandhill Cranes, as do I.  Both have a viewing blind named for them at Rowe Sanctuary in Gibbon, Nebraska, at the southern bend of the Platte River.

Every spring, the Sandhill and the Whooping Cranes, the most and least common of the 15 worldwide crane species, begin their 5000-7000 mile migration to the subarctic in North America and Siberia.  Their final staging area is on the Platte River.  They go to the Platte because there is food nearby–formerly small animals, but now mostly corn–and because of the safety that one of the largest braided rivers in North America affords.  They feed in the adjacent fields by day and roost in the river at night, where the shallow water allows them to hear predators approach.  Before the Platte was dammed and water used for irrigation, recreation and drinking, it was a mile wide and an inch deep, “too thick to drink, too thin to plow.”

Now, the Platte in many areas contains less water, has invasive species and many trees nearby, limiting the suitable habitat to 50 miles from the former 200.  Rowe Sanctuary manages 4 miles of river and owns 1900 adjacent acres, preserved as habitat.  Every night, for 6 weeks in March and April, up to 600,000 Sandhill cranes, 90% of the world’s population, roost in the river.  Every morning, they leave.  It is a spectacle that Jane Goodall has called one of the world’s best.  I’ve been fortunate to have seen many great sights in nature.  This one is in my top three; seeing a solar eclipse and a wolf in the wild are the other two.  I love the cranes so much that I volunteer at the Sanctuary, along with dozens of others, helping the full time staff of four–that’s right, four–show visitors the cranes from viewing blinds, for cranes are shy birds and will not let people near them.

Many talk about the cranes that migrate to Arizona.  I simply reply, “You don’t understand.”  And you can’t, until you witness the a flock of fifty thousand cranes, darkening the sky.

Stevie Staples mentored one of the Rowe Staff and lived 74 years, dying in 2006 from cancer.  She was a former canoe racer and a real character.  I once raced canoes, and I would have loved to have discussed racing with her.  She touched the staff at Rowe.  She knew it, for she did live to see a beautiful picture of a Sandhill Crane in flight with her volunteer tag with “9 years of service” on it.  The picture hangs on the wall in the hallway of Rowe.  A picture of Stevie’s receiving the picture from the Rowe staff hangs in Keanna Leonard’s office.  Keanna is the dynamic educational director at Rowe.

Jamalee Fenimore grew up in Nebraska and practiced veterinary surgery in Washington State.  She died of cancer far too young at 49, donating her estate to Rowe.  Nobody at Rowe knew or remembered her being there.  But obviously, she was touched by the river, the cranes and the sanctuary.  We volunteers learn that we may touch visitors in ways we never know at the time.

When I volunteer at Rowe, I work 17 hour days, sleeping on the floor in the sanctuary so I can hear the cranes on the river in the middle of the night.  I guide people to the viewing blinds, and I teach them everything I know about cranes.  Mostly, however, I let people look at the sight, staying silent, so they can hear the birds.  I clean toilets, paint, greet people, make a noonmark, build a sundial, do whatever needs to be done.

On one tour, I took a disabled person to Stevie’s blind in an electric golf cart.  Had he been able to walk, all of the group would have gone to Strawbale blind, which had better views at that time.  But we still saw many cranes, American white pelicans, and unusual crane behavior.  My rider loved the view and tried to tip me, which I of course refused, asking him to put the money in the container at the sanctuary.  I planned to talk to other clients, because as the lead guide, I hadn’t spent time with them.  But I spent time with this man.  He was originally from Singapore; when I told him I had been there twice, his first comment was “Thank you for saving my country.”  I’ve never heard that before, and it did me good.  I hope I and Rowe did him good.

We touch each other in ways we may never know.  Good people spread kindness throughout their world.  The lucky ones receive that kindness or are those who live long enough to discover that their kindness was deeply appreciated and honored.  But all who spread kindness are fortunate that they have the ability to do so.  Stevie knew in her final days that her kindness was appreciated.  I hope Jamalee Fenimore did, too.  But if not, I know she knew she was doing the right thing.  I deeply appreciate what she did.  And every time I guide people to either of the two blinds, I tell them the story. Both women deserve to be remembered.  To have a viewing blind named for you on a river where a half million cranes visit every March is a wonderful honor.  I really can’t imagine a better one, frankly.

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JUST CUBANS

October 27, 2011

In 1900, Cuban meteorologists knew a big hurricane was going to strike the US.  We had our own US Weather Bureau (as it was called at the time), and since we were Americans, and Cubans were–well, Cubans–we did not believe them, even though Cubans had a great deal of real world experience with hurricanes.

The 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston is to date the single biggest weather disaster to strike the US.  The destruction of the city was not preventable; the massive loss of life was.  Unfortunately, arrogance trumped science and listening to people who might know what they were talking about.  It is a recurrent theme.  Congress passed a resolution stating that man-made climate change is not occurring.  I wonder when they can tell me when Tucson’s average temperature for a year will again be normal.  It has been above normal every year since 1984, and the normals have been raised 3 times.

While they are at it, perhaps these same people can tell me when Tucson will again have normal rainfall.  It isn’t just warming, it is ocean acidification, changes in rainfall patterns with floods and droughts longer lasting, and earlier springs, affecting animal life.  Two-thirds of the birds in the Christmas bird count have moved significantly northward.  Dust from Chinese pollution is falling on snow in the Rockies, leading to earlier snow melts and changes in water level.

A while back, a person challenged me to “prove” global climate change without using models.  As a scientist, and especially as a statistician, I use models as a way to depict the world.  A model is a map, and I would no sooner work without models than I would go into the wilderness without a map.

Perhaps this particular individual, who sold real estate in Phoenix, had no use for models.  After all, the mathematicians who created models for the housing market assumed that housing prices would never fall, which is a remarkably dumb assumption.  Worse, purportedly smart people believed these mathematicians.

I work with models in statistics; I use and am familiar with at least nine different weather models for predictions.  Would we do away with models for predicting a hurricane’s path?  Maybe we will, in the new America.  After all, models are an attempt to use science, and many presidential candidates are already anti-science, even as they use aircraft, electronic devices, and the media, all of which were developed by science.  Many are alive today, like me, because of science.  To deny science is to turn back the clock, and  that deeply disturbs me.

I hope everybody noted the science used with Hurricane Irene.  The models originally had Irene hitting Florida, then progressively changed as new data came in.  This is science at its best, changing predictions in the face of new data, not being afraid to admit that the Hurricane might miss the East Coast altogether, but that it would be unlikely to do so.  Should we just hope?  Is that the new America?

Why should I have my hands tied when I am asked to prove something?  We do guess what natural phenomena will occur.  But why should we do uneducated guessing?  Are the models right?  No, they aren’t.  If anything, they are under predicting the severity of climate change.  And they might be wrong, although they have confidence intervals, which is a measure of uncertainty.  If you don’t understand confidence intervals, that is fine.  You just shouldn’t be arguing against climate change.  True scientists admit where there is uncertainty, try to define it, and draw conclusions, just as clearly as physicians tell their patients what they can expect, knowing that there is a certain degree of uncertainty.  Unfortunately, many physicians, being human, are often shocked when they learn how their brain can play tricks upon them in dealing with uncertainty.  (How many people do you need in a room before it is more likely than not that 2 have the same birthday?  Answer:  23)

If I lived on the east coast, I certainly would not be using my spiritual beliefs to predict whether a given hurricane would strike near my house.  I would be tuned into the National Weather Service and looking at what the models show–the cone of uncertainty and the probability of a hurricane’s striking me.  To do anything else would be stupid.

Since I live in this world, I am using what scientific models I can find to determine what the world will be like in the next 30 years, hopefully my lifetime.  I know these models aren’t accurate, but I believe in facts such as ice core analysis, oceanic warming, oceanic acidification, and what appear to me to be major changes in rainfall patterns, with three 500 year floods in North Dakota in the last 15 years, a prolonged drought here, and in Africa.  Perhaps I am just over worried and not scientific, but again, maybe this is all normal.  If it is, perhaps somebody could tell me when we will return to the temperatures and the rainfall that we used to have.

I just want an answer with a number, the word “years,” and a confidence interval. I don’t need any reading material.  How long?

 

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EUROPEAN ODYSSEY, LANGUAGE ODYSSEY

July 27, 2011

I am a lucky person, but I think I make my luck, too.

I started learning German about a year ago.  I didn’t plan to, but on an eclipse trip in Argentina I met two young astrophysicists from Munich, both fluent in English.  We corresponded after the eclipse, and because there is a ring (annular) eclipse in the US in 2012, I invited them over.  I promised I would learn a little German.  Well…a little turned into a full time 5-6 hours a day for 9 months.  I did most of it alone, until I found a couple of language learning websites.  These allow people to correct each other, and through that I met people on line in several countries.  I don’t like to use the word “friend” for somebody I have never met, but on the other hand these people have been available for me to bounce things off more than many of my friends over here.  I regularly correspond with people in Europe and Brazil.

Originally I planned on a short visit to Europe to see the two women I met.  I figured 4-5 days was enough, trying to heed the adage that guests are like fish, after 3 days they begin to smell.  But two of my online “friends” invited me to stay with them when I went over, one in Switzerland, the other in Austria. They were serious, so I changed my plans.  Now 62, my 4 days in Munich turned out to be 26 days abroad in 3 countries.  I spent 8 days in Munich, another 4 in Switzerland, and 14 in Austria, in a small town where people speak dialect and don’t lock their doors.  Yeah, those places still exist.

The first thing I realized was how difficult German is to learn, and that what I spoke was not at all as good as I hoped, nor was my comprehension anywhere near what I hoped.  But the people around me were astounded at my progress, and they were pleased that I was speaking their language.  Not one person said anything derogatory.  Not one.  Oh, I made some funny mistakes, but we all laughed….and moved on.  I asked questions and more questions.  Some things I picked up right away, others just didn’t stick for the longest time.

One of my hosts, Niki, met me in Munich.  He spoke German immediately and I later learned that was his plan–to be “grausam” or cruel–as he put it.  I responded in German, and within 2 days, I decided that in public, I would speak German, no English at all.  There was a lot I would not say, much of which I wanted to, and a great deal I would not understand, but I decided I had to go with the flow, knowing I would do some stupid things and ask a lot of dumb questions.  But I spoke German in Europe almost exclusively.  In Austria, I explained the US financial crisis to Elisabeth in English, both because it was easier, and because I am so angry at what happened that the anger affected my ability to speak German.

As I got more comfortable with Europe, I noted things to compare with here.  Europe sure isn’t perfect, any more than we are.  There are things people on both sides of the Atlantic could learn from one another.  There is too much smoking in Europe, although they are making progress eliminating places where people may smoke.  While many bicycle, there are far too few with helmets, although motorcyclists do wear them.  Yes, I am in favor of helmet laws; as a retired neurologist, I think my credentials to say that are  solid.

Europeans have good public transportation.  With gas $8 a gallon, they need to move a lot of people efficiently.  No, it isn’t perfect.  I missed a train in Salzburg.  But there was another one two hours later.  I was able to get all around Munich using the S and U-Bahns.  They work.  Not knowing the system, I still got around.  Speaking some German helped, but it wasn’t necessary; people were just happier with me when I did speak it.  We need the same public transportation system here.  It can be done, and Portland, Oregon is a good example of how a city can work.  I doubt it will in Tucson.    I have stopped listening to my detractors and those who confuse average with “world class.”  Tucson has major climate problems, educational problems, and an immense number of far right wing people living here.  They are old people, regardless of their age, and they have damaged the state perhaps irreparably.  We need good public transportation, and if it is good, people will use it.  Yes, it will cost money, but it will pay for itself in many ways, not all of them monetary.

The food was great in Europe, and I must have walked most of the calories off, because I did not gain weight, and I ate cheese and pastries by the kilogram.  Oh yes, we need the metric system here, too.  There is no excuse for not using it.  None.  I have for decades, and most Americans don’t know the English system well.  Think you do?  Answer these without looking them up:  How much does a gallon of water weigh?  How many ounces in a gallon?  How many yards in a mile?  How many acres in a square mile?  How many square feet in an acre?  To the nearest hundredth, what is 7/16ths in decimal form?  What is the scale in inches to a mile of a map that is 1:100,000?  What is the approximate conversion for nautical to statute miles?  If you can’t answer most of those questions quickly without looking them up, I rest my case.

Restaurants in Europe open later than I am used to, and you have to get the waiter or waitress to give you the bill.  What that does is allow you to stay longer with your friends, and generally order more food and drink.  I can’t say how many times an American waitress has lost money for the restaurant by shoving the bill under my plate without asking if I wanted anything more.  I would have ordered dessert, but decided it wasn’t worth it.

Internet service fails in Europe, as it does here.  But I had cable high speed Internet in homes, even if I didn’t have wi-fi.  Phone service had its problems, but my National Geographic phone was a nightmare that I finally stopped using.  Customer Service was a long wait, and if you didn’t have minutes you couldn’t call to order them. One has to have a toll free line to the service center, and this telephone did not have that.  Nor did it fill 80% of my request for minutes.  Is that stupid or just American?

In truth, despite National Geographic, I really didn’t spend a lot of time comparing Europe and America.  I simply saw parts of the world I had never seen before with people I had never met until recently.

Europeans usually can speak another language, but I learned that their English was often like my German, passable but not fluent.  That was fine by me.  They spoke English to me, and I spoke German back.  We communicated, and we had fun doing it.  Many have been to America and have a good opinion of the country, especially Mr. Obama.  They wonder why we don’t have national health insurance and why we don’t do something about guns.  I have wondered both of those for years.  I bet my career on improving medicine and lost, and I have long since not bothered trying to fight the National Gun Association (it really is about guns, not rifles, but ‘rifle’ sounds so much better than ‘handgun’).  I don’t interpret the 2nd amendment the way the Supreme Court does, and most of those who tote guns are not US Veterans.  Am I sure of that?  Yes I am, since only 7% of Americans served this country in uniform and a lot more than 21 million people (minus me) have guns.  So much for a militia, unless the Tea Party forms one, in which case I am off to Canada.

Here is a list of what I saw that I doubt I would have on my own or with a tour:

  1. Two visits to a family on a farm outside of Munich.  On my own, I had to deal with Bayern dialect, not understanding a lot of it, but learning a few words and realizing a man my age was calling me “du”, which is something one has to be careful about in Germany.  On the second visit, there was a party of 20 young people, half my age.  Three times, for a protracted period, one of the people engaged me in a conversation in German.  They spoke slowly enough, but still at reasonable speed, that I could ask about them and tell them about myself.
  2. A tour of Munich with one of my friends from the Argentina trip and her husband.  The weather was terrible, but it did not matter a bit.  We had a lot of fun. 
  3. A trip to Chiemsee, a large lake in southern Bayern (Bavaria).  Got out to Herreninsel, and walked around the island, seeing King Ludwig’s Castle.                                4. A visit to the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestial Physics, and a look at the work going into EROSITA, an X-Ray telescope to be launched in early 2013 to L5, the LaGrangian Point (where Earth and Sun’s gravity are equal, so the orbit is stable), beyond the Earth’s orbit.  5.  A visit to Poing, a lovely wild animal park with room for the animals.

Yes, I walked around Erding, a suburb, and I had dinner and coffee with and without others.  I talked German with complete strangers, but these would have been normal parts of a visit. 

In Switzerland, the German is more difficult to understand, and I was with a family where English was spoken only by one son.  I stayed 4 nights in their house in Kerzers, a suburb of Bern.  I got off the beaten track.

  1. I was met at the Bahnhof and immediately taken to Enrico’s workplace (the husband of Teresa, whom I met online).  It was a clear Sunday afternoon, and we had unfettered access to the rooftop, where the view of the Alps above the powerlines and houses.  The views were stunning.2.  That night, I was shown a book about the first 26 hour flight with a plane whose wings were completely covered with solar panels.  The propeller driven plane used no fuel, only batteries at night, and flew as high as 8700 meters.  I also saw a DVD of the flight.  There were no American firms in the consortium.  I never heard about this flight.  If we can power an airplane with solar panels, why not a car, an air conditioner,  hot water heaters, and automobile accessories?   3.I was on the tourist track when Teresa took me through the three lakes and two canals on a boat ride.  We saw Merton through her experience, climbing high up into an old church above the old town.  We took the train to the boats, and we walked to the train again.  No cars.4.  One night, the family cleared the table quickly and I noted everybody dressing up.  I was still in shorts, so I decided I ought to put on decent clothes, really not knowing what was going to happen.  Teresa’s look, after I had changed, told me I had done the right thing.  We drove with a son to a school.  I saw a piano and drums on the stage and figured this was a concert.  I could have asked, but wasn’t sure I needed to or should to.  Sure enough, three young women appeared and played two numbers, one on the piano, one on a sax, and the third on a violin.  

But then things changed.  A man started talking, and from a few words, I realized this was their son’s graduation from school!  I was asked to take pictures, which I did, and later there was a reception, where I took the family’s picture.  There might have been other Americans there, but somehow I doubt it.  I was really deep into another country’s culture.

5.  On my second day, Teresa had to work, so I went into Bern, where I met the sons of my only cousin.  Peter lives in Bern, is the oldest, and I met him in Tucson in 2006.  He speaks four languages.  I had never met Richard, who looks like my late uncle.  Both spoke English and German to me, I spoke German back.  They were amazed, pleased, and we had a lot of fun.  They had lived in Bern for years when they were children, so we had a lot of fun together and I saw Bern through their eyes.  I have no parents living, only one cousin, and so to meet anybody in my family was truly special.6.The last day, Teresa took me to Freiburg, where there is an old church and a tower where one can walk to.  We climbed up to the tower, where really quite by surprise, a nearby lightning strike caused me to yell for Teresa to get off the tower.  She said, all in German, that everything was OK.  I screamed at her, again in German, that all was indeed NOT OK, and we needed to get out of there.  We did.

One has to be prepared for changes.  Teresa had mentioned nothing about the last morning, and I had a 0745 train to catch from Bern, meaning I needed to catch the 0650   train from Kerzers.  I was up at 5, and at 6 the house was still quiet.  I ate, expecting to take a walk to the Bahnhof.  At 0615, Teresa appeared in a bathrobe, so I assumed I would still be walking.  About as I got ready to leave, Enrico appeared at 0625, sleepy eyed and saying he would take me.  So I did get a ride, although I didn’t know it until the last minute.

I had no problem getting the train from Bern to Zurich, but I had to ask for directions for the train to Salzburg.  That was no problem, as it turned out, although the train itself was slow, frequently stopped too long, and I realized I would not make my connection in Salzburg for the trip to Oberösterreich, where Lambach was located.  I texted Elisabeth, who told me to take another train that left later, going to a different stop, which would be easier for her.

I have learned that the posted schedules at Bahnhofs are not always accurate, so I went to information to confirm my trip.  I found the train and got off at Wels, where Elisabeth met me.  People don’t use signs very often, but we had chatted on the Internet, and there were not many departing the train at Wels.  She took me to her house, where we had dinner.  I would stay there for two weeks.

Lambach is small, on the Traun River, but has good transportation.  The stores are all closed on Sundays, which is a throwback to many years ago here in the US.  

  1. I went to a school, where I was asked to speak English at Elisabeth’s English class.  She is fluent in English and is the school’s English teacher.  I soon realized that those teachers who spoke English with me were less fluent than I was in German.  I answered in German, they spoke English.  This was a recurring theme in Europe.  The students loved having me there, had many questions, surrounded me afterwards, peppering me with questions.  Later, we had a computer class where I showed them pictures of the US, solar eclipses, and explained the latter phenomenon in German.  I had a blast.2.The next day, we hiked to a Laudachsee, a small lake east of Traunsee in the mountains.  It rained, but not hard, and we walked around the small lake and then had lunch in a restaurant.  The inside was taken up by a wedding party, so we ate outside.  It was cold, but we were given blankets and stayed dry.    We walked back down the mountain and took a visit to Traunsee and a church on a small island accessible from shore.  I almost died on the walk over.  One of my big fears is riding in a car, the other is being a pedestrian.  Most cars will stop for people in a crosswalk.  Fortunately, in this crosswalk, I looked.  A black Mercedes sped through at 80 kph (50 mph), never once stopping.  Illegal, yes.  That would not have saved my life.
  1. The following day, we took the train to Salzburg.  Elisabeth had lived there 3 years, so I had a tour guide.  We saw the city, the Feststellung, high on the hill, had lunch in a lovely old place dating at least 300 years, and at the end of the day had drinks with her sister and brother in law, who lived nearby.  Again, it was a chance to work on my German with strangers, and again I was told I was understandable.  This had been my biggest concern, and I was greatly relieved to know I was able to speak correctly.  Elisabeth and I took the train back and walked back to the house from the station.
  2. I was invited to go to Linz, for a program where schools in the surrounding area (Linz is the capital of Öberosterreich, one of the nine states in the country) put on a show.  Unfortunately, the dancing, athletics, and the fair atmosphere was considerably dampened by the rain.  Still, I got to see the Danube, Brown, not Blue.
  3. On my own, I visited the farmer’s market, several bakeries, and had conversations with people in town.  I had to see a doctor about a small infection that wasn’t healing, and it was interesting to see medicine from a patient’s side abroad.  The visit was 15 euros, the medicine about 7.5.  All drugs are 5 euros for residents, regardless of what the drug is.
  4. Elisabeth and I went to a concert with a Russian pianist, held in a local church.  I figured with a town of 4000, there would be few attendees.  There were 400, and the pianist was superb.  So was the church.
  5. We visited Epps, the oldest city in Austria (800 years next year), and then went to Mauthausen, the main concentration camp in the area.  It took in just about anybody the Third Reich didn’t want, which in this instance led to 122,000 deaths.  It was perhaps the cruelest of all the camps.  Prisoners had to haul 55 kg blocks of granite (120 lb) up an incline which today has about 200 stairs and had me puffing.  Many were lined up at the top of the quarry and told to push the person in front of them over or to jump themselves.  The guards laughed as they called these people “parachutists without parachutes”.  Several thousand were shot as they tried to escape; at least 1500 committed suicide by touching the electric fence.  When liberated by the Americans in 1945, a day before V-E day, they buried 1200 the first day and 300 a day thereafter.  The surrounding countryside is so beautiful, but one cannot not escape the memorials by more than 40 countries, with words almost all in languages other than English. The words struck me deep to my core, as did the place called “Gaskammer”, and a beam where hundreds of Russian prisoners died painful deaths.  These places existed.  I had never been to one.  It is said Austrians won’t take people there, but Elisabeth takes her school children there to show them what their country was capable of.  America has MyLai and Iraq.  No country is immune to evil.  The evil at Mauthausen, however, was beyond compare.
  6. The next afternoon, we had dinner at a house of a friend–fellow teacher–and again, I had to speak German at length.  The way people opened their houses was deeply appreciated by me.
  7. We spent two days in Hallstättsee, spending the night in Obertraun.  The first day, we went up the Dachstein on the Gondola where we saw two caves, the latter the Ice Caves, where there are stalactites and stalagmites, made of ice.  The backlighting was superb, and the caves remarkable.  We spent time on the summit, over the 5 Fingers, which are projections built out over the cliffs.  It became foggy, but we were up there and again beat the rain down.  The next day we explored the town and the gondola up to where the salt mines were.
  8. That night, we had dinner at a local pizza restaurant in Lambach.  Perhaps America has better pizza, perhaps, but if we do, that is the only food I ate over there where our’s was better.  I have never just savored the taste of bread, pastries, and other food the way I did in Europe.  We were part of a group of 8, and again, many were curious about me and my life.  I spent some time talking about German grammar with a man, again, all in German.
  9. Elisabeth and I rafted the Traun, with a friend driving us upstream.  There is a 10 mile stretch with no houses, only clear water and lovely woods on either side.  It is a gentle river and with a raft, no problem.  There are plenty of places to swim or to camp.

I was not allowed to clean the house or the yard, although I did take it upon myself to empty the dishwasher, take out the trash, and feed her two cats.  We split up expenses, although I paid for dinner one night and gas one time as well.  There were just too many things she was doing for me that I needed to repay somehow.

I brought gifts for Teresa, Enrico and Elisabeth.  I had no idea and still don’t, how they will work, although the SW jewelry bracelet Elisabeth received has been worn several times.

I spoke English with Elisabeth twice, as mentioned earlier.  A third time was at the train station the day I left.  I wanted to be certain I could express myself clearly.

I then had to return to Munich, where the schedule changed, and I went from the Bahnhof to the S-Bahn and then the U-Bahn, taking that to MPE.  I met Maria and Anita and had a snack at MPE.  Maria, Niki and Maria’s uncle had dinner with me in Erding, my last night before flying home.

I was pleased that my German was understood, but I was disappointed that I still could not understand completely the news, although I knew the drift.  Nor could I read the newspaper well, although I read it daily.  I have two German books I am reading, I am spending sometime every day listening to German, and I decided to join the University of Arizona German club so I can meet with them on Thursday nights and both speak and hear German.

I do want my life back, where I am not spending every day learning German.  But I do not want to lose what came at great expense of time and effort, and is really appreciated by the German speakers whom I met.

I’ve seen the ads “Learn German in 20 minutes a day,” or “you will be nearly fluent using Rosetta Stone.”  Do not believe these.  Learning a language is hard work.  It requires mastery of vocabulary, and in German, the noun gender and plural.  It requires knowledge of grammar, which in German requires knowledge of cases and verbs/prepositions that take certain cases (in some instances two different cases for a preposition, depending upon how it is used).  I spent 5-6 hours a day for 9 months. I wrote, I listened, I practiced, I had lists of words, file cards of nouns, whose gender I needed to learn.  But it was worth it.  I could talk in sentences, and I could do more than just order things in a restaurant.  I could speak correctly, and my grammar was good.  There is just so much more I need to learn.  LiveMocha.com defines fluency as being able to carry on a simple conversation with somebody.  I don’t agree.  Fluency is speaking the language clearly with anybody, about anything, at any speed.  I am not fluent.  But I am conversational.  I can talk about any topic I want to.  Sometimes it is slow, and sometimes, I need help for verbs or nouns.  But I can make myself understood.  I just want to do better.  And that will take years.  Being “in country” was essential for the nuances that every language has.  This is a journey that won’t end, but on this particular journey, I not only spoke German, but I got to see a side of Europe that tourists just don’t see.  And I am a different and I hope a better person for it.

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HUNTER’S MOON

May 7, 2011

Muddy and wet, I reached the end of the portage to Little Saganaga Lake an hour before sunset on a dreary October day.  I pushed the canoe off my shoulders, flipped it over, caught it on my knees and gently lowered it to the ground, pushing the bow into the water.  Wearily, I removed my pack and dropped it in the bow compartment, the sound echoing from the woods across the small bay.  I picked up the wooden paddle, grasped both gunwales, and carefully stepped in, pushing off from the rocky landing.

The rain had finally stopped, but once clear of a nearby point, the cold northwest wind caught me full force, as if to say winter had nearly arrived in northern Minnesota and canoeists were no longer welcome.  For perhaps the tenth time that day, I asked myself aloud why I was out here instead of back in town.  The previous day I had spent in the tent, rain-bound.  After eighteen grueling miles of solo travel through a dozen lakes and as many portages, I was back on schedule but needed to find camp soon, pitch the tent, put on some warm clothes and eat.

The lake, dotted with islands, was undoubtedly pretty in summer, but my mood matched the dark water and low nimbus clouds.  Only with difficulty was I able to keep the canoe on course as I crossed the quartering waves, the splash further chilling my mitten-covered hands.  I was therefore satisfied to land in the lee of a half acre rocky island containing a few groves of cedar and scraggly jack pine.  The campsite would have to do; it was too late and I too tired to continue looking for another one.

I carried the pack thirty feet uphill from the shore to a flat spot, then pulled the canoe up and turned it over, tying the bow to a nearby root.  I unpacked, placing food, tent and personal gear into three piles.  Grabbing a pot, I slid down the gravel bank to the lake to scoop up some water.

I lit the stove and started heating the water as I erected the tent under a small group of cedars.  With a half hour, I had changed into dry clothes, stowed my gear and had a few handfuls of trail mix with hot chocolate.  Marginally warmer, I obtained more water and started preparing my usual macaroni and rice dinner.  As I worked, a change in light heralded sunset, but clouds were too thick to show either color or detail.  The night would again be cold, but I hoped to sleep warm.  Eleven lakes and fifteen miles awaited me the next day.

Eating my rapidly cooling meal, I looked at the gray and rapidly darkening scene, wondering yet again why I had come out here.  At least I was dry and my tent sheltered from the persistent wind.  Had anyone been near to ask, I would have said there was a Hunter’s Moon that evening.  But I hadn’t seen anybody in four days, and seeing the Moon was far from my mind.  Under skies that threatened snow, I retired early, quickly falling asleep in my cedar hollow.

The geese awoke me.

I didn’t know the time, but I immediately recognized the sound.  I hadn’t heard geese since my childhood in upstate New York.  Their honking triggered fond memories when I was a young boy, looking up, fascinated by the formations, wondering how and why they did it and where they were going.  Realizing I still didn’t know those answers made me smile, as I listened to the different calls high over the island, heading south, away from the frozen waters of Ontario and Manitoba.  From the light on the roof of the tent, I realized something else as well.  It was clear.

I unzipped the tent door and slowly crawled outside, stiffly standing, barefoot, on the hard soil.  It was cold, but I was barely aware of the temperature.  I saw a brilliant Hunter’s Moon above the darkly forested south shore, its light rippling towards me across the nearly calm water of a wilderness lake.  Overhead, heading towards the Moon, were scores of geese, honking.  It was magical.  Knowing at last why I had come out here, I watched and listened, silent, until the geese were no longer visible and their calls blended with the light wind that just stirred the trees.

This appeared in the first edition of Firegrate Reviews, put out in 2010 by The Friends of the Boundary Waters

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WINNING THE JACKPOT AT AN AUCTION

November 26, 2010

I was recently auctioned off for a charitable event.  No, nobody was buying me, but they bought a dinner with me at a friend’s house with a star party to follow.  My job was to show up for the dinner then show the stars afterwards.

For 20 years, I wrote 750 astronomy columns for the local paper.  I don’t do much observing any more, other than chasing the next solar eclipse, which I’ve done 20 times, successful on 17.  I was once an avid observer of variable stars, sometimes getting up at 2 a.m. to make visual observations on one that the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) needed.  I was so good, my eyes could detect a 0.1 change in magnitude.  I’ve seen about 400 galaxies, 2000 double/multiple stars, all the planets and once followed about 25 variable stars without using star charts.

The night sky is predictable enough to be reassuring but changeable enough to be interesting.  In 1999,  I saw 300 Leonids meteors in an hour.  I saw a red glow over the Catalinas in ’89, realized there was no fire but in fact an aurora.  I’ve seen one grazing occultation, where the Moon’s limb was tangent to a star, so that the star blinked in and out of view as the valleys and mountains of the lunar edge passed by.  That was really cool.  For many years, I did photoelectric photometry, then having to reduce the data by hand.  Other than a total solar eclipse or a total lunar eclipse, the occultation of 28 Sgr by Saturn in 1989 might have been the most striking thing I ever saw.  As Saturn covered the star, I could define every ring layer by the star’s passage.  I still have my notes for that one; the star disappeared from view 38 times in 45 minutes!  That was beyond cool.  I stayed out half the night looking, and I had an office full of patients to see the next day.  I’m sure more than a few of those patients noted the doctor was tired, but finally seeing the star in between the globe of Saturn and the inner ring was an image I will never forget.

I wrote an article for Sky and Telescope several years ago how astronomy and dark skies freed me from my shyness.  After I was auctioned, I didn’t know what would happen; the person who “bought me” was a minister, and I had some trepidation about the evening.  After all, some ministers believe the Earth is 4000 years old and don’t realize that we are made of star stuff; our Sun is at least a second generation star.  I am not religious, but I am intensely spiritual, the idea of the elements coming from stars strikes me to my core.  The iron in my hemoglobin, the calcium in my bones, and the carbon in the fat surrounding the myelin sheaths in the corticospinal tract leading from my brain to my lower spinal cord are just a few examples.

I wore my Argentinian eclipse T-shirt that two delightful women, brilliant German astrophysicists, gave me after the event.    I arrived at John’s house early, set up my ‘scope (20 cm reflector), then had a beer with John  and his wife.  John and I go back a decade as bike riders.  I quit the sport in 2006 after breaking my 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th bones, but we stay in touch.  Just as I finished my drink, the other guests arrived.

We went outside, as the brightest stars appeared.  This is navigational twilight, when the Sun is 6-12 degrees below the horizon, light enough to see both bright stars and the horizon.  I pointed out the Summer Triangle and Jupiter, and described star magic.  In Tucson, the mountains allow a rising star to suddenly pop into view, so if one can determine the exact time of its rising, she can go out 4 minutes earlier the next night and count down 4, 3, 2, 1 RISE!  And the star will rise.  It is like magic, except of course, it is entirely predictable.  I also spoke of “Earthmove” rather than “Moonrise,” for I have learned that if one changes perspective, it is possible to see the Earth rotate, which in fact is what Moonrise is.  I do it many times a year.  Seeing the Earth rotate is primal.

The minister thought all this fascinating.  His wife sat next to me at dinner and is, like me, is a teacher.  Before we finished dinner, she had invited me to her advanced junior high math class next February to talk to them about math in the outdoors, a subject I am particularly interested in.  American kids need to get out more, and this is one way.

After dinner, we went outside, and looked above us.  Even in the suburbs of Tucson, we can see the Milky Way.  I pointed out the beautiful curve of Andromeda, found the Galaxy, showed the star clusters around Mirfak in Perseus, the Pleiades and the Hyades.  I taught them how to use their fist to show that the elevation of Polaris was our latitude, and that Kochab, in Ursa Minor, is Arabic for “Pole Star.” which it was 3000 years ago.

As we turned to look at the southern sky, a minus 8 magnitude fireball, a meteor, shot across right in front of us.  Everybody saw it.  I’m not one into “signs”, but I had to be a bit impressed that we happened to turn at just the right time.  The minister and his wife were fascinated by the Moon.  I pointed out Alpenglow, where the tops of the mountains were lit up away from the terminator.  His wife loved seeing that.  I spoke of nuclear fusion in the center of stars, walking over to the sand nearby, pointing out that the silicon was made inside a star.  Heady stuff.  I showed them Albireo, a gorgeous blue and gold double star at the end of the Northern Cross, which seemed appropriate for a group of Christians.

I spoke so much that once again I forgot that I was a shy person.  I was bubbling over with knowledge about the sky.  I consider myself a profound introvert.  But it is all relative, for once I get talking about astronomy under a dark sky,  a solar eclipse, the wilderness I have seen, or the Sandhill Crane migration in March, I’m a different person.  For a long time, I thought it was the wilderness and the night sky that changed me.  But it’s more than that.  The next day I thoroughly enjoyed myself as a substitute math teacher.  What brings me out of my shell is teaching.  I am a natural teacher.  The minister and his wife learned a great deal about the sky that night, but I was luckier; I learned something about myself I had never realized before.  When I teach, I am a completely different person.  And I like that person a great deal.

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IF YOU WANT TO LEARN, TALK TO THOSE WHO SAY LITTLE

November 26, 2010

In November, I went to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for the Festival of the Cranes.  I got to see fellow volunteer crane guides and took a course in Sandhill Crane behavior, with on site examples.  I also visited the VLA, the Very Large Array of 27 large parabolic radio telescope dishes on movable tracks.

Lesser Sandhill Cranes are remarkable birds, some migrating as far as Siberia.  I now can identify juveniles, males and females by voice.  I can identify their unison calls, see the aggressive behavior they may display afterwards, and describe their dancing.  I was a decent guide last spring; I will be a far better one next year.

I stayed at a house in Socorro while the owners were temporarily living at the Refuge, volunteering.  Erv and Sandra are a remarkable couple; both well into their 60s, they are “professional volunteers,” known in the Fish and Wildlife Service as a couple who will go to a place for a few months, make a big impact, then move to another area.  In 2008, when I first met them, they “followed” the Sandhill Cranes north from their wintering spot in New Mexico, to the magnificent staging of 600,000 on the Platte, to Homer, Alaska, finally ending in Fairbanks.  While I was in New Mexico, they received an offer to go to Coldfoot, Alaska next summer.  They are either going there or to the Columbia River.  They are in demand.  Sandra can do it because she has two artificial joints.  Bravo for science, bravo for Medicare, bravo for Social Security.

My first evening, I went with both to watch the evening fly in of the cranes to a wetland.  Unfortunately, there weren’t many when I was there.  The cranes migrate south later every year, because the Arctic has warmed so much.  Indeed, the dates of the Festival will likely have to change.  One can argue about climate change, but cranes don’t argue; they sense warmth, not politics; 65% of bird species in the Christmas bird count, which I help out in, have moved significantly further north.  Erv and Sandra introduced me to several of their friends in a nearby RV park, and I was invited for dinner.  I was going to drive back to Socorro, grab a sandwich and sleep.  Fortunately, I didn’t.

That evening, I spent time with 6 other couples, all of whom older than I.  The food was good, the conversation better.  They were fascinated with my eclipse chasing and experiences.  Politics stayed out of the discussion, and mostly medical issues, too, a rarity among the elderly.   These people had worked for decades and were enjoying their retirement.  I wonder if they would be if it were not for the science so many disparage or the liberal programs of Social Security or Medicare.  I just wondered, but I kept my mouth shut.

I did open it later, however, to speak to the man who owned the RV and had been quiet most of the evening.  Quiet people often have a lot to say, if one can draw them out.  This man was no exception.  He was a physicist who worked at JPL and was surprised that I knew of it.  Are we so “educationally challenged” these days that we don’t know of the JPL, the place that allowed Americans get to the moon and do all sorts of other wonderful things?

The man was a pioneer in fiber optics.  He told me about silica (SiO2), the stretching and strength properties of the pure substance, which is the best spring we know of.  He told me that he thought it was better than satellite transmission, since it was faster and had fewer delays, so long as it was protected.  Satellites, as we all know, are far from safe, given solar radiation and space junk.  Bouncing signals off satellites leads to longer delays.  They are also more difficult to repair.  Fiber optics have revolutionized society, including medicine, although I learned fiber optics were most helpful was in transatlantic cables.

This man disparaged himself by saying that he was out of date.  But his explanation of fiber optics was by far the best I had ever heard.  Perhaps that is because he mentioned one of his teachers in quantum mechanics:  Richard Feynman, arguably the most brilliant physicist in the 20th century, and who single handedly figured out what happened to Challenger using simple science that even most Americans could understand.

I’ve come full circle.  In July, I met a young physicist from Germany, a woman who is working on an X-Ray telescope that will allow us to learn a great deal about X-Ray radiation sources in the universe.  She represents where we are going–brilliant, part of a large team, well educated, well traveled and articulate.

In November, I met an 80 year-old retired physicist who worked on fiber optic cables and studied under Feynman.  He represents the past and helped me understand how we got to where we are today.   Twice now, I’ve gone to see something and discovered far more.  In July, I went to see an eclipse; in November the Sandhill Cranes.  But my memories of both will be of two different people I met on each trip, young and old, German and American, woman and man, same field, different eras.  Both had a great deal to teach me.  All I had to do was draw them out.  For some reason I really don’t know, I did and was better for it.

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THE SEASONS OF MY LIFE

October 3, 2010

I recently took my 58th canoe trip into the Boundary Waters, having spent more than 1 month of my life camped on one lake and more than 1 year camped in the lovely country on both sides of the international border.  I’ve paddled on more than 300 different lakes, traveled 3000 miles, cleaned 500 campsites, and even dug 16 latrines in the 30 years I’ve been going there.  I’ve done half as much traveling in Ontario’s Algonquin Park back in the spring and early summer of my life.  I started 50 years ago and feel more comfortable in a canoe than in a car.  Safer, too.

I don’t travel hard any more.  I used to love to do so, glorying in 20 mile days with 15 portages, carrying a pack under a canoe for up to a mile at regular walking pace through the woods.  Oh, I was good in the summer of my life.  I could reach shore, unload and be portaging in under a minute.  When I reached the other side, I would be loaded and on the water in 30 seconds.  I could make camp at night in 30 minutes, break it the following morning in 45.  Now, however, I am happy to base camp with my wife and do short day trips around a lake we can truly say we know better than anybody else alive.  We have been on every one of the 47 campsites (the maps were in error and the Forest Service didn’t know that), and we now spend 5 nights a year on one campsite so remote that we don’t see any other human being during that time.

While I am not as strong as I once was, I am much more savvy in the wilderness.  I don’t waste effort on portages.  I am a superb weatherman in the wilderness, predicting storm onset and ending accurately with nothing more than a barometer on my wrist, reading the sky, and knowing the wind.  I thoroughly enjoy doing that.

Oh, I could do more if I HAD to.  Maybe.  But I don’t want to any more.  It’s been 9 years since I carried a pack and a canoe together.  I have nothing to prove and a lot I could hurt.  As I have gotten older, my desires have changed.  Do I miss the strength I once had, propelling me miles and miles to the next campsite?  A bit.  Do I need to do it again?  No.  For some reason, I revel in the fact that I once could do it but comfortable I don’t need to any more.  I know now that I probably took my last trip into Kawnipi Lake in 2005.  At the time I thought it would be.  Then I figured…maybe one more time.  Now, I’m not so sure I either need to, or more importantly, want to. I still want to see the northern sweep of Agnes Lake again, and a fellow teacher, who desperately wants to go, may be my partner on that trip.  The two of us could do it.  Gee, maybe Kawnipi, too, but nature may have other plans.

I have nothing to prove in the canoe country, although occasionally I still enjoy doing so.  My wife and I paddled 12 miles into our destination lake in 6 hours, with 7 carries, when several people we met, 20 years younger, were unable to get there in 3 days of work.  Neither of us is strong, but our experience, organization and leveraging of our skills, working together, enables us to still accomplish a good day’s work in a few hours.  Neither of us thought it was a difficult day.

Do I miss “roughing it”?  Not really.  I once liked sleeping under the canoe and paddling in a driving rain, but I don’t need to do it any more.  The way we camp is comfortable.  We eat well, stay clean and dry, and sleep better than we do at home.  The midnight bathroom breaks are a chance to look at one of the darkest skies in America and perhaps see an aurora, which we did a few years ago.

I find it interesting that as I have gotten older, my needs have changed, and I get pleasure doing different sorts of trips I once wouldn’t have enjoyed.  The trips I used to do no longer appeal to me.  I am at peace with that.  I expect more changes, and hope I still can paddle and portage for many years to come.  But I expect I will be doing so in a different fashion, and I believe that I will be enjoying it just as much.

We were in the canoe country in autumn, present when the colors peaked. In the autumn of my life, the colors are starting to peak.  I don’t have the strength and growth I had in the spring and summer of my life, but I have found my own inner beauty that mirrors the external beauty around me.  I still see new country, but I enjoy visiting familiar country the way some like meeting new people but enjoy old friends.

I tell myself I won’t be able to do this forever, but I am glad for the now.  I hope in ten years, in my seventies, I will be still be able to canoe and set up camp.  The gear is getting better, and my knees and shoulders are strong.  Whether my neck holds up is another matter, but I bet I could figure out a way to get a canoe on my head without stressing my neck, should that come to pass.  If not, I can paddle lakes where I don’t portage, because there are many of them, too.  In short, my body is like a well-used Old Town.  It won’t last forever, and it is showing use.  The paint is scraped, there are a few cracked ribs, but it is still sound and seaworthy.

I hope that as the winter of my life approaches, the white in my hair will mirror the brilliance of new fallen snow, untouched, in those areas of Alaska’s Brooks Range that I have been so fortunate to have explored four different times.  Could I canoe into my eighties or even nineties?  I can dream, for this year two very special people, different sex, different countries, different professions, and different beliefs had a profound influence upon me.  From each, and quite by accident, I learned that while I am a scientist and statistician, consider myself a practical person, not far below the surface lies a kid–a deeply emotional, spiritual dreamer.  I’m not planning to mentally ever grow up.  When I arrived in Fairbanks, many my age or younger went to the Princess Cruises sign.  I picked up my backpack.  In Minneapolis, I feel a bit unusual at 61, walking through the airport with my canoe pack on.  The white I want to see is not a golf ball but an eagle’s head.  With luck, I have just started autumn.  May it continue to be as brilliant inside as it was along the Fernberg east of Ely, Minnesota.  May the winter that follows it be as brilliant as the snow that made Mt. Igikpak so beautiful over the Noatak last August, up in Gates of the Arctic.

Eventually, of course, my eyes will finally close forever.  I hope at the end I feel the same as Sig Olson, the famous North Country writer, who still had written, in his typewriter, the day he died, snowshoeing, “I am ready for the next stage.  I know it will be a great adventure.”

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…AND THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

September 1, 2010

On an early March afternoon this past year, I was on my hands and knees building a large sundial at Rowe Sanctuary in central Nebraska, where people stand on the date and their shadow tells the time.  From the second week in March through the second week in April, Rowe is busy as visitors arrive from all states and a few dozen countries to witness the Lesser Sandhill Crane migration, one of the three greatest natural sights I’ve seen  and one of Jane Goodall’s top ten.  I was working pre-season and decided a nature center like Rowe needed a sundial.

I was using markers, T-squares, a calculator and duct tape when a good looking young man stopped by.  He was friendly,  and I knew him as the Great Plains photographer Michael Forsberg.  Mike was interested in what I was doing with trigonometry and ellipses and then asked if I could find him information for the full Moon azimuth as it rose. He wanted to know exactly where in the eastern sky he would see it rise.

Fulfilling a request from Mike Forsberg suddenly became my top priority, so that evening I sent him the information.  He later e-mailed me pictures he had taken out in the viewing blinds, including an incredible shot of 4 different species of geese flying together.  Imagine, the premier wildlife photographer in the American midwest e-mailing me pictures he took!  Later that week, when I saw Mike again, I had him sign one of his books for me.  I just happened to be making a sundial when he walked by.  He just happened to stop.  And that changed my life. I just didn’t know it at the time.

When I left Nebraska in early March, I felt I had unfinished business.  I had not been there when the migration was in full swing, nor had I led tours to the viewing blinds, which had been a goal–a dream–of mine.  Four weeks later, I flew back to Nebraska, to volunteer at the height of the crane season, when 600,000 birds are on a short stretch of the Platte River, flying in at night to the safety of the braided channels and flying out to the fields in the morning to eat waste corn.  That week, I worked 17 hour days, sleeping on the floor in the visitor center, because local housing was full, listening to the cranes call on the nearby Platte.  The first night I shared a floor with– Mike Forsberg– who now knew me.  We didn’t talk much but I soon learned Mike is modest as he is good.  He deeply respects Rowe volunteers, because we help make some of his photography possible.  His nature photography is the best I’ve ever seen.

I finished my training and became a lead guide, meaning I could take visitors to the viewing blinds.  I got to talk about Lesser Sandhill Cranes; I watched people smile and heard them cry when they saw the cranes land, “dance,” and call before them.  Sandhills are large and loud, their voice primitive and deeply primal, echoing across 3 million years of time.  My enthusiasm outweighed my shyness, and I thoroughly enjoyed guiding.  We volunteers were a cohesive group, all of us working together to do whatever needed to be done, even if it wasn’t our “job.”  That week, I felt alive in a way I seldom have experienced.  So often, I told visitors, “I work 17 hour days, make coffee at 5 a.m., clean toilets, sweep the walk, give “Crane 101 talks,” do odd jobs, get dinner, sleep on the floor and see the cranes morning and night.  Am I lucky or what?”  When I called home, my wife commented my voice sounded different.

Mike stayed in the visitor center a second night:  two Mikes, two nights, too cool, two of his books I bought.  Mike signed the second one, too, adding a stunning phrase, calling me “a man of great spirit,” for he had quickly recognized something in me that I had not fully appreciated:  I have a deep spiritual connection to nature, the outdoors and wilderness. Mike is a man of faith and told me he felt closest to God when he was in the photography blinds, where people are taken in late afternoon and cannot leave for any reason until mid-morning the following day.  He said the experience was beyond comparison.  I’m going to do it next spring.  It has become one of my dreams, and while I, a scientist and a statistician, consider myself a practical person, not far below the surface lies a deeply spiritual, emotional dreamer.  Somehow, Mike knew that and how to help me understand myself better.

Last July, after the eclipse in El Calafate, Argentina, I sent Mike a picture.  I was a bit embarrassed to be sending a handheld shot to a famous photographer.  Mike, however, immediately replied “very, very cool,” saying I must be the only guy in the world who was going to Patagonia in July and to northern Alaska in August.  I wrote him after I returned from the Brooks Range, 118 degrees north of where I was in South America, telling him I would be ordering one of his pictures as a gift.  I am becoming friends with a special man, because we share a spiritual bond with the outdoors, especially Sandhill Cranes.  If he hadn’t stopped when I was making the sundial, this never would have happened, and my perception of myself and indeed my life wouldn’t have changed.

*                                *                                 *

July 9 is a holiday in Argentina, independence day.  I was in Buenos Aires, appropriately staying on Avenida 9 Julio, the largest street in the world.  That day reminded me of Christmas, for it was a winter holiday at a similar latitude south of the equator as I live north.

I went to a restaurant as part of a tour, going up a narrow set of stairs to a table with other people on the tour.  One of the guides asked me to sit in the middle of the table next to a young German woman.  And that changed my life and hers, especially hers. She and I will never be quite the same again.

The woman, Maria, was a young German scientist on her first trip out of Europe.  She, like me, was in Argentina for the solar eclipse.  Both of us had expected to take a plane to fly over the clouds to see the eclipse, but the flight had been cancelled.  My trip down to Buenos Aires involved barely making a connection; had I missed it, I might have gone home, since the probability of seeing an eclipse in Patagonia in winter is poor.  What kept me going was the idea if I didn’t go, and people saw the eclipse from the ground, I would never forgive myself. I didn’t know at the time the details of Maria’s trip, but it seemed clear we would be “clouded out.”  I later learned she had been at a conference in California, had a car accident on a freeway, and brought no winter clothes with her, since she was also planning to see the eclipse from the air.  To say we were both depressed and having an awful trip was an understatement.

Maria was completely fluent in English.  I asked her what she did, learning of her work in preparing an X-Ray satellite for launch to the LaGrangian point furthest from the Sun.  Fortunately, I knew something about LaGrangian points, where the Earth and Sun’s gravitational pulls are equal, leading to stable orbits for bodies located there.  Because I had studied physics, I was able to ask intelligent questions, soon learning about the LaGrangian point 1.5 million km beyond the Earth where the satellite was going.  Because I knew about conics, the concept of parabolic and hyperbolic mirrors was understandable, and the major and minor axis of the elliptical orbit clear to me.  I listened to Maria for a good 30 minutes.  When she asked me what I did, there wasn’t much to say except I chased eclipses, taught math as a substitute, once practiced neurology, liked cats and was a vegetarian.  She taught math, liked cats and was also a vegetarian.  Naturally, she was most interested about my eclipse experiences.

On the afternoon tour of the city, we spent some time together, Maria convinced she wouldn’t see the eclipse.  This being my 20th eclipse trip, I told her many times:  “Maria, it isn’t over until it is over and we didn’t see it.”  Indeed, a year earlier, in China, a small window opened up through thick clouds right at totality.  We went absolutely nuts.  It was the only eclipse I ever saw while I held an umbrella.

I didn’t see Maria again until the next afternoon in Patagonia, when she was an invited speaker at an eclipse conference.  I asked a question, later going up and telling her she gave a good talk.  She looked like she needed to hear that.  That night, at the hotel, I invited myself to Maria’s table of 4, since I was otherwise going to eat alone.  I was the de facto trip weatherman; I was following several South American weather models, knew the barometer was rising, the streaming moisture into the “cone” of the continent was cutting off, and high pressure was building over the eastern South Pacific.  Maria wanted to know my forecast; I was cautiously more optimistic, telling her to ask me about the barometric pressure the next morning.

That night, the barometer rocketed upward, the sky cleared, and we awoke to a beautiful sight:  the southern hemisphere stars were visible.  Maria had never seen the southern sky before.  I didn’t sit on the bus with her but with Anita, a senior colleague.  When Anita pointed out the Southern Cross on the bus ride to Perito Moreno glacier, I did something quite uncharacteristic for me:  I went to the front of the bus and asked how many wanted to see the Magellanic Clouds under a dark sky.  A lot of sleepy faces raised hands.  Nobody objected.  We stopped for 5 minutes so everybody, including Maria, could view our companion galaxies.

That afternoon, I worried about clouds interfering with the eclipse, but Anita fortunately kept Maria far from me.  When totality was imminent, Maria and Anita joined me, and Maria cried as the Moon completely covered the Sun.  I shouted, as did others, and I stared in awe of the shadow cone of the Moon, which I had never seen so clearly.  But my greatest memory is hearing Maria cry.  It was one of the most moving experiences of my life, and I’ve seen totality 12 times.

The next morning, I said goodby to Maria, and I haven’t seen her since.

But unlike every other eclipse trip I’ve been on, we’ve corresponded.  First it was by Facebook then e-mail and frequent Skype chats.  That has never happened before.  Maria told me that she almost had a panic attack in the restaurant, and my listening to her calmed her down.  Just my listening.  She got so excited from the eclipse that she has cast off shackles that led her from living a full life.  My wife and I invited both Maria and Anita to the May 2012 annular eclipse in northern Arizona, so they can see the Grand Canyon and the eclipse.  Maria will cry at both. I know she will.   Recently, she went skydiving for the first time.  She is learning C++ programming so she can become indispensable on the Australia eclipse in 2012 and get a free trip there.  Maria has been the best correspondent I’ve encountered in my life and we’ve become good friends.  Because of her, I’m learning German, and I plan to visit her next year.  Maybe every year.  And that has changed my life.

Had we not had such bad starts to our trips…Had we not been seated next to each other in Buenos Aires…Had I not known something about LaGrangian points and infrared radiation…Had I not been an amateur meteorologist and in demand…Had I not stopped the bus so people could see the Magellanic Clouds…Had we not seen the eclipse, none of this would have happened. Maria would still be wanting to see her first eclipse, and I would  not be learning the four German cases.  In August, when I returned from northern Alaska, I had a four hour layover from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. in Anchorage.  Had I not met Maria, I would have been bored, tired and cranky.  Instead, I chatted with her on Skype, passing the time quickly.

The older I get, the more unpredictable my life has become.  If I hadn’t been making a sundial, if Mike Forsberg hadn’t stopped by, if I hadn’t been seated where I was, and if I hadn’t known about LaGrangian points....

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Posted in 2010, COLUMNS IN "REALITY CHECK", ECLIPSE CHASING, UNPUBLISHED OUTDOOR WRITING | 1 Comment »

I’M JUST NOT A RIVER RAT

August 29, 2010

“Hey, Mike,” my guide, Mike Reitz, called out to me, just before our float plane dropped him and Ramona Finnoff off near the headwaters of Rough Mountain Creek in the western end of Gates of the Arctic NP, “you”ll love the flight up to the Nigu and back to Bettles.  The rivers are fantastic.”

An hour later, I didn’t think they were.  From 500 feet, the Nigu had a good gradient, and the rafters on it looked like they were having fun.  Above tree line, you could see wildlife for miles.  And I might have got a chance to see a musk ox, which would have been really special.  But I didn’t think I would enjoy the Nigu, and I had just spent ten nights camped in the Noatak valley river running and five before that backpacking.  Without a doubt, the backpacking was the best part, pretty as the river valley was.

I’m not nearly as experienced as the other Mike.  He spends his life outdoors in Alaska, carrying far more than I did on the backpacking trip, and walking a lot faster, and I consider myself pretty fast on the trail, even the non-trails, which are Alaska hiking.  To my credit, I’ve seen one place he hasn’t–the Arrigetch Peaks, and run one river he hasn’t–the Nahanni.  But he has been all over the “Gates,” although our backpack was in an area neither of us had been before.

I’ve done only 4 northern Alaska backpacks–2 in ANWR, the Arrigetch and the upper Noatak River valley.  I’ve run 40 miles of the Noatak River and maybe 25 of the Alatna.   I’ve canoed Takahula Lake.  All were nice, and my 16 days in Noatak country was special, but 4 more days of backpacking and no river running actually would have made a good trip even better.  The further upstream we went, the better the Noatak valley got, and the easier the hiking got, too, at least for Alaska.  Going 1 mph to 2 mph is a big deal in this country.  Four more days, and we could have gone to the source and back. 

The Noatak doesn’t get a lot of annual visitors.  Indeed, perhaps 1000 people see Gates of the Arctic NP in a year, our second largest, and the size of Switzerland.  Many of these visitors walk in from the haul road, not traverse its valleys or paddle its waters.  I bet maybe 20 see the Noatak every year.  So I’m not complaining.  I count myself very, very fortunate!  I’m just not a river rat.

Rivers in Alaska are great.  They have good current, the rapids are generally not too bad, and one can carry far more gear on a river trip, because most of the time it will be sitting in the boat with the person.  You can cover more territory, day hike on layover days, and never run out of water.  So why am I a foot soldier in this wilderness?

I just am.  I think it boils down to Sig Olson’s 1938 quotation of “sweat and toil, hunger and thirst, and the fierce satisfaction that comes only with hardship.”  I like water; I am an avid flat water canoeist.  Maybe it is the idea that I get a free ride on a river, and I don’t get one on flat water or under a pack.  I have to get from Point A to Point B under my own power, and that matters to me.  I like having all my gear with me, too, and when I reach a campsite, all I have to do is set the pack down by the tent site and put everything up.  Sure, I have to carry more weight, and yes, I don’t cover much territory.  But what ground I do cover, I know very well.  I can still see the large rock I sat on for a picture in the Noatak valley. Or the willow thicket we crashed through, all the while calling out for bears.  Or the bog we crossed, trying to get to drier ground.  Or the creeks, streams and small rivers we had to ford.  Or the bear, whose head poked out of the grass 25 yards from us, with no retreat possible.  Our feet were always wet, the bugs attacked us, and we had to rest periodically.  We had hills to climb, not current to move us.  But I have an intimate connection with the Earth when I backpack or canoe a lake.  I see a mountain alongside me, and I watch myself slowly pass by its landmarks, carefully noting them.  We heard two rockslides because we were near a mountain, not further away on the river.

But on a day hike, one can have all these adventures and hardships, too!  That is true.  And I like day hiking; I can cover a great deal more ground, which in my visiting of the national parks, has allowed me to cover more ground and see more.  But for extended trips, there is nothing like carrying my house on my back and covering all the ground myself.  Portaging a canoe means two trips at my age (it once meant one), one to carry the canoe, the other to carry the pack.  On Alaska river trips, there are inflatable boats to maneuver, which aren’t nearly as easy to carry as a canoe.  There is a lot more gear to carry, and travel in Alaska is difficult enough with a backpack let alone with all this gear.  While portaging is uncommon on Alaska river trips, loading and unloading the boats is a long involved process with strapping in the gear, as opposed to dropping a pack into the bow or stern compartment of a canoe.

Perhaps I should suck it up, for there are so many rivers in Alaska to run–the Nigu, the Killik, the Sheenjek, the Koyukuk, the Hulahula and the Kongakut, to name a few.  But there are also plenty of hikes in a place where there are no trails, just countless valleys to explore and new places to rest my head at night.  My feelings are my own; they are inherently mine.  Some of my best friends are river runners.  More power to them, for they love what they do.  More power to me, when I do what I love to do.

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