Hösten

Autumn is upon us again. This past week it has been quite evident as scores of birds migrate south, leaves on the poplars turn from green to a vivid sun-catching yellow, the evenings chilly yet the days still warm. The first evening I arrived up here in the Wood Buffalo, there was the most spectacular sunset. I tried to go out to the lake and sketch today but unfortunately my work was akin to a small child's first encounter with artistic implements. Although the fall leaves are very beautiful, I can never get inspired artistically by them. I tried my hand at filmography to attempt to capture the combined sound of wind with the visual of falling leaves but again, I was unhappy with the result so I packed it up and headed back to camp.

Finally! Some more art!

At last, I have willed myself into some art! Behold the poor representation of icebergs! Pastel on brown paper bag.

Icebergs!!

Whist in Newfoundland we had the privilege of seeing the massive chunks of 13,000 year old glacial fresh water otherwise known as icebergs. It was rare to see so many this late in the year but the increase was due to the breaking apart of an enormous ice island off the coast of Greenland. To see an armada of ice-cubes the size of a battleships sitting in the bay was a sight to behold! A boat tour from St. Anthony also revealed more giants: whales! We saw a pod of whales blowing plumes of breath as they travelled and a humpback whale flippering (I think that's the term) which is basically a maneuver in which the whale rolls around on it's back, flapping it's flippers in the air. The boat took us back to the icebergs where we saw some with vivid blue lines of super compressed ice glowing under overcast skies. Bergy bits crackled in the seawater as the millions of trapped air bubbles in the ice were released. The trip was well worth it.

Cod

The last two weeks was spent on the west coast of Newfoundland. The natural beauty of the rugged land was stunning. During a weekend fishing excursion I caught my long awaited first fish: a twenty inch cod with hardly any meat on it.

Penguin Arm Part 2

Penguin Arm

The Ascent of Sunwapta Peak

On Saturday we climbed Sunwapta Peak in Jasper National Park. It was an early start as we were hiking by 7:30am. The trail as you leave the Icefields Parkway climbs steeply up the south watershed through the mosquito-infested forest. There is a beautiful canyon with some interesting rock formations as one follows the trail to the north of the creek. When we broke out of the trees we were greeted with scree with snowy patches that stretched up into the cloudy abyss. Shortly, all the scree was covered with snow. From there it was one foot after the other. Often the only sounds were the crunch of boot on snow, the metallic clink of the ice axe and our own laboured breath. The last few hundred meters were near white-out as the cloud had meshed neatly with the snow.My eyes played tricks on me as I squinted into the flat white. Swirls and spots appeared in the whiteness, a rock blinked red like an avalanche beacon, and distances that were only a few meters seemed immensely further. When we finally reached the summit, due to the rarified air, it took us a moment to collectively decide whether it was indeed the place!

"Is this the summit?"

"Well, there is a pile of rocks and it slopes down on this side."

"It slopes on this side too!"

"This must be it then."

"Woo!!"

"Yeah! Woohoo!"

"Woo!"

On the way down we were glad for the snow as we awoke our inner otter and slid down most the mountain on our bottoms! We used the ice axes as both rudders and stopping devices. I believe the mountaineers term is glissade but I call it fun! We really noticed the oxygen difference when we dropped altitude rapidly by sliding. After a quick bath in the runoff stream we stumbled back to the car, weary, sunburnt, sore and grinning.