Tag Archives: Alberta

Happy Halloween: slightly ominous, very orange

Oct
29
2016
by Betsey | 8 Comments

Orange flowers-Globe flower (Trollies species) taken in Manito Park, Spokane, Washington by Betsey CrawfordWhen I first saw the picture of the trollius above, taken at a lovely garden in Manito Park in Spokane, Washington in 2012, I was struck by how ferocious it looked, though the trollius itself didn’t inspire that thought when I took it. It was the only time I’d ever associated the word ‘ominous’ with a flower. I was reminded of it this fall, as I took pictures of fading flowers and my beloved seedheads. I realized that some, in their withered and darkened states, were slightly spooky. Others were ghost-like. One even had a seed pod like a withered claw.

Orange flowers-Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) taken at Curtis Prairie, Madison, Wisconsin by Betsey Crawford

Spooky petals and fierce spikes: purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) Curtis Prairie, Madison, Wisconsin

So I decided to do a Halloween post celebrating the slightly ominous in flowers. As I went through my collection, I was amazed at how many I found to fit this theme, whether it was a shape, or the play of the light, or the possession of spines, or the dark lure of fading petals, or simply Halloween’s emblematic color. I have photos to celebrate Halloween for years. For this one, something fairly typical of me happened — I was attracted to all the orange flowers.

Asked to choose my favorite color I would find something on the lavender/purple spectrum.  I keep my environments relatively neutral. I like the soft browns and greens of earth tones. Neither pure red nor pure yellow is at all becoming to me. But I’m drawn to orange, both in flowers and clothes. One of my most vivid childhood color memories is of a bright orange dress, pleated from the shoulders to the hem, that I wore in second grade. Another is of a coat, the color of the cactus below, that my mother bought me for Easter one year.

Orange flowers-Gander's cholla (Cholla cylindropuntia ganderi) taken in the Anza Borrego Desert in southern California by Betsey Crawford

Sharp spines and scary buds: Gander’s cholla (Cholla cylindropuntia ganderi) in the Anza Borrego Desert in southern California

It’s not a common color for flowers, particularly in the wild. On Mike Haddock’s wonderful Kansas wildflowers site, he includes 10 orange flowers in a section with pink and red flowers. Yellow flowers get their own section to accommodate 192 different flowers. Blues and purples are a close second at 186. Whites dwarf them all at 312. They are even more rare in the desert. There is a wider variety of orange flowers for gardeners and florists, because growers and propagators aren’t depending on native plants alone. They find plants all over the globe, and encourage the colors they want by creating cultivars of likely prospects.

Our color readers are cone shaped neurons embedded in our retina, six million in each eye. Almost two-thirds of them preferentially read the longer wavelengths of the warm colors — red, orange, yellow — and are able to distinguish more color variation in those tones than in blue or purple ones, which are transmitted by only 2% of our cones. The remaining third are dedicated to green wavelengths. From those ranges come all the color variations we are sensitive to.

Orange flowers-Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) taken in Sandpoint, Idaho by Betsey Crawford

Skeletal petals: purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) Sandpoint, Idaho. The bright colors in the background are orange leaves on the ground.

The carotenes in orange flowers — the same chemicals that make orange fruits and vegetables so good for us — selectively absorb and reflect light waves of specific lengths. The reflected ones enter our pupils, excite the cones that are receptive to that length, and our brain tells us that we are looking at orange. Like the proverbial tree falling alone in the forest, creating sound waves no one hears, without brains to interpret the messages brought by these wavelengths, there would be no color. The flower would still have carotenes, the light from the sun would still both be absorbed and bounce off it, cones would even get stimulated. But they only telegraph their excitement. The brain — ours, a hummingbird’s, a butterfly’s — translates the result.

Orange flowers-Orange globe mallow (Sidalcea malviflora) taken at Newspaper Rock in southeastern Utah by Betsey Crawford

Lit from within: orange globe mallow (Sidalcea malviflora) at Newspaper Rock in southeastern Utah. Malviflora sounds a bit ominous, but it only means it has mallow-like flowers.

Human enjoyment of its color isn’t a flower’s first priority. Their gorgeous hues are designed to lure pollinators, and did so for eons before we showed up. Hummingbirds see in the near-ultraviolet spectrum, which makes reds, oranges and bright pinks pop out for them. Our biblical heritage, where the earth was presented to us to use and enjoy, makes it hard to accept that these beautiful colors aren’t designed for our pleasure. Where does our delight fit in? The joy of the little girl twirling in her bright orange pleats, the joy of the woman sitting among cups of orange light? It’s hard to think of ourselves as bystanders of all this splendor, able to enjoy it, but having no reciprocity. Do flowers know they’re loved? Have they, in fact, enslaved us by their beauty, ensuring millions of us will spend hours each day growing more and more flowers? What a great plan!

Orange flowers-Monkey flower (Limulus aurantiacus) in the Charmless Wilderness in the Santa Monica Mountains, California by Betsey Crawford

A light in the dark: monkey flower (Mimulus aurantiacus) in the Charmless Wilderness in the Santa Monica Mountains, California

The idea that beauty nurtures us in order for us to nurture beauty reminds me of my discussion of Nicholas Humphrey’s theory that our ability to feel awe has been chosen by evolution to more deeply connect us to the earth we inhabit. To make what can be a very difficult life worth living. And the even larger idea, first introduced to me by Thomas Berry, that our consciousness has evolved to allow the cosmos to reflect on its own luminous creations. I love the thought of the creative energies patiently working, on a time frame we can’t begin to fathom, to insure that there will one day be enough hyper-sensitive cone-shaped neurons nestled in the retina, and a powerful enough optic nerve traveling to a large enough brain. All so that the universe can contemplate its own beauty, reflected in vivid orange flowers.

Orange flowers-Columbia lily (Lilium columbarium) taken at a roadside stop in southern British Columbia by Betsey Crawford

Just for beauty: Columbia lily (Lilium columbanium) at a roadside stop in southern British Columbia

I’d love to have you on the journey! If you add your email address, I’ll send you notices of new adventures.

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Beautiful vampires: the castilleja genus

Jul
17
2016
by Betsey | 5 Comments
Alaskan coastal paintbrush (Castilleja unalaschensis) taken in Moose Pass, Alaska by Betsey Crawford

Alaskan coastal paintbrush (Castilleja unalaschensis) in Moose Pass, Alaska

I first saw a paintbrush, a member of the Castilleja genus, in Idaho. Then again in southern California, and then northern. Then Colorado and Utah, British Columbia and Alberta, and then Alaska. I haven’t yet seen them in Wyoming, but it’s the state flower, so I know they’re there. In other words, if you’re west of the Mississippi, it’s easy to find Castilleja. They grow in almost all conditions except swamps or deep woods and are able to withstand toxic serpentine soils when they have to. There is one species in the 250-strong family that grows in the east, but I’d never seen one before coming west.

In most places they’re hard to miss: many are as vivid a red or orange as you can find, they usually stand one to two feet tall, and they grow in patches. The vivid color is not the flower, but modified leaves called bracts. These surround and protect the inconspicuous flowers, whose petals wrap around each other, forming a tube. Though the flowers are bright green, they can’t hold a candle to the brilliance around them. The colorful bracts do the job that petals normally do: lure pollinators, especially butterflies and hummingbirds.

Red paintbrush (Castilleja rhexifolia) taken in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada by Betsey Crawford

Red paintbrush (Castilleja rhexifolia) Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

Paintbrushes are also white, pink, yellow and purple. As common as they are, it’s impossible to take them for granted, because they change with the available light, so you never know what you’re going to find. On a cloudy day, high on a mountain in British Columbia, were alpine versions — one red, one magenta — that glowed in the muted gray light. The luminous yellow Alaskan native does the same thing in the long summer twilights. I found a red one on fire against the bright rock of a Utah trail, and a chrome yellow one in front of a blackened log in a burned forest. A white one shone in the shade at the edge of the woods in Waterton Lakes, and a red one, along a woodland path, glittered in a shaft of sunlight.

Alpine paintbrush (Castilleja miniata) taken on Hudson Bay Mountain, Smithers, British Columbia by Betsey Crawford

Alpine paintbrush (Castilleja miniata) Hudson Bay Mountain, Smithers, British Columbia

They are everywhere, and irresistible, and interesting, because they’re parasites. They have green leaves on the stem below the bracts, and then a cluster of leaves at the base. That means they can photosynthesize, but usually they find a host to help out, often a grass or sagebrush, but it can be other flowers and shrubs, as well. They send out haustoria, specialized roots that penetrate the host’s roots, slithering between cells. There they find water and nutrients to supplement their own photosynthesizing.

They’re not alone in this. Castillejas have recently been put into the Orobanchaceae, a whole family of parasites. Some are completely parasitic;  some, like the Castilleja, partially, or hemiparasitic. At first glance, it’s hard to see why evolution thought this was a good idea. It certainly benefits the parasite, and some do no discernible harm, but most affect their hosts in some way. About 10% of the 270 parasitic genera are invasive pests, causing serious problems for farmers, and capable of killing hosts in natural settings.

Coast Indian paintbrush (Castilleja affinis) taken in Solstice Canyon, Malibu, California by Betsey Crawford

Coast Indian paintbrush (Castilleja affinis) Solstice Canyon, Malibu, California. You can see the spiky green flowers, protected by the bracts, as well as the fine white hairs that many Castilleja share.

Castillejas don’t kill their hosts, though studies have shown that the hosts are less robust than they otherwise would be. That sounds like a negative, but one of its effects may be to allow more diversity in an area by preventing one or two species from dominating.  Castillejas are usually biennials, growing from seed one year, blooming the next and dropping their seed to germinate the following spring. Taking advantage of the mature, deep roots of the perennial plants around them means a ready source of nourishment and water, allowing them more vigorous growth in their short life. That fast cycle has another possible good effect: they quickly return nutrients to the soil through their decaying leaves.

Desert paintbrush (Castilleja chromosa) Butler Ruins, Blanding, Utah by Betsey Crawford

Desert paintbrush (Castilleja chromosa) Butler Ruins, Blanding, Utah

So, while they are not symbiotic, with obvious mutual benefit to both plants, they really aren’t vampires, despite my inability to resist the title. Parasite is from the Greek for ‘next to’ (para) and food (sitos), thus giving us ‘next to the food.’ Which, while accurate, is pretty dull. And this underground search for food is anything but dull. It brings us back to the fascinating question of what plants know, and how they know it. Although roots can bump into each other, evolution wouldn’t favor their chance meeting. Are the Castillejas sensing chemical signals given off by the roots of the host plant? The stems of dodder, the most famous of the invasive parasites, can ‘smell’ its highly desired tomato plant and sends its tendrils that way.  But those chemicals are airborne. Can plant ‘scents’ travel underground?

Apparently. Plants use their aromatic phenolic compounds, the same family of chemicals that give us, for example, flavonoids and other antioxidants,  to ‘talk’ to each other. In the case of root parasites, the host’s phenolic molecules move through the soil and are converted by enzymes in the parasite into ‘haustorium-inducing factors.’ The haustoria get underway, following the chemicals back to the host’s root system. There they penetrate the cell walls without destroying the cell membrane and begin to pipe nutrients, carbon, and water back to the parasitic plant.   This exchange is facilitated by the higher transpiration rate of some parasites. Evaporation is faster from Castilleja leaves, which pulls water away from the more slowly transpiring host’s roots.

Harsh paintbrush (Castilleja hispidus) growing in a burned forest along the Stanley Glacier Trail, Kootenay National Park, British Columbia by Betsey Crawford

Harsh paintbrush (Castilleja hispidus) growing in a burned forest along the Stanley Glacier Trail, Kootenay National Park, British Columbia

While we stand enchanted by their vivid and luminous beauty, Castillejas are busy.They have a lot to do in the two years they live, and have to pack all the nutrition they can into their seeds. All to continue to lure hummingbirds, get pollinated, and keep the family line going. Of course, they are not ‘thinking’ about all of this, but there is an intelligence at work, and I find that profoundly moving. Though our evolutionary ways parted company two billion years ago, we share common ancestors, and still share a quarter of our genes with plants. What became our prefrontal cortex has its origins in the same rudimentary processing cells that our ancient relatives once shared.

Orange paintbrush (Castilleja integra) Green Mountain Park, Lakewood, Colorado by Betsey Crawford

Orange paintbrush (Castilleja integra) Green Mountain Park, Lakewood, Colorado

In order to prosper, all living things have to be able to respond and adapt to the world around them. Some people have a hard time calling this intelligence, reserving that trait for the human mind, and perhaps for animals that show signs of operating from more than instinct. At the end of his fascinating book, What a Plant Knows, botanist Daniel Chamovitz suggests instead that we think in terms of plants being aware of the world they inhabit. But I have no trouble with the word intelligence. I like his idea that “‘human’ may be only a flavor, albeit an interesting one, of intelligence.” This concept helps open the boundaries we’ve used to set us apart from the rest of creation, a crucial step in the care and preservation of the natural world.

White paintbrush (Castilleja occidentalis) taken in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada by Betsey Crawford

White paintbrush (Castilleja occidentalis) Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

There are more pictures in the Castilleja gallery.

I’d love to have you on the journey! If you add your email address, I’ll send you notices of new adventures.

 

Ashes to petals: wildfire and rebirth

Jan
28
2016
by Betsey | 14 Comments

wildfire-Dalton-Highway-Alaska-by-Betsey-CrawfordOn the way north last summer we were stopped by a wildfire in British Columbia. It had jumped Route 97, and the RV park where we spent the night slowly filled with people who had kept driving and been turned back. The manager warned us that we might be roused from sleep and asked to evacuate further south, but late the next morning we were allowed to drive through, still in a fog of smoke. I’d never seen a forest right after a fire. The pitch black trunks were stark along the road, grayer farther back, where the dense haze softened them. Smoke rose slowly from the still smoldering black ground, rough with burned plants. Nothing green was left. I was longing to stop for a picture, but we were the first in line after the pilot car guiding us, there to keep crazy people from stopping in a still smoldering fire to take pictures. But that vertical black and shifting gray landscape was unforgettable.

wildfire-Kenai-Wildlife-Refuge-Alaska-by-Betsey-CrawfordMany people associate wildfire with devastation, and it was easy to see why, driving through that suddenly barren and spooky landscape. The power of a forest or wildland fire can be terrifying, the destruction incomprehensible. Easy, also, to see why earlier forest service personnel felt that as many fires should be fought as possible. But we have slowly learned the costly lessons of trying to outflank nature. Without fires, there would eventually be no forest. Fires keep the lands they burn healthy, whether they are forests, meadows, or deserts. A lot of the strength of current wildfires is fueled by centuries of fire suppression — leaving the forest full of flammable material: crowded, aging trees, heaps of fallen branches, dried shrubs, not enough green, succulent growth on the forest floor to slow new fires.

wildfire-fireweed-epilobium-angustifolium-Banff-National-Park-Alberta-by-Betsey-Crawford

Fireweed doing what it does best: moving in quickly after a fire

2015 was both the hottest year on record and had the most wildfires. One of our fellow campers that night was returning home to Fairbanks, Alaska. “The whole state is on fire,” she told me. These days, more and more fires are allowed to burn unless they pose a hazard to life or property, and, once in Alaska, we saw plenty of evidence that a lot of the state had burned earlier in the summer. After our arrival in mid-July, the weather grew steadily wetter. But we passed vast stands of black trunks, often interspersed with swathes of lighter trunks from earlier fires, trunks that had shed their burnt bark and were weathering to a silvery gray.

fireweed-epilobium-angustifolium-Stanley-Glacier-Kootenay-National-Park-British-Columbia-by-Betsey-Crawford

Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium)

A wildfire doesn’t immediately leave behind a pretty landscape. Those blackened trunks can stand for years while the growth around them recovers. It takes decades for trees to grow tall enough to replace the forest. But a fire opens the ground to sun, eliminates competition from tree roots and shrubs, and its ash fills the soil with nutrients. New growth is almost instant. By the time we drove down Route 97 six weeks later, the ground under the burned trunks was a vivid green. Native Americans used controlled fires to create these conditions, because the extra nutritious new grasses and plants attracted wildlife, and made hunting easier.

heart-leaf-arnica-arnica-cordifolia-yellow-hedysarum-hedysarum-sulphurescens-paintbrush-castilleja-miniata-Stanley-Glacier-Kootenay-National-Park-British-Columbia-by-Betsey-Crawford

Yellow flower: heart-leaf arnica (Arnica cordifolia); white flower: yellow hedysarum (Hedysarum sulphurescens), red paintbrush (Castilleja miniata)

The next arrivals are wildflowers, springing from seeds dormant for years, sometimes decades. In many areas deciduous trees sprout up, growing quickly, racing past the slow evergreens that will eventually outcompete them. During their long maturation, you will have years of glowing wildflowers. Then, depending on where you are, you may have years of aspen turning the mountainsides gold every fall, shimmering vivid green in the spring, their trunks silver above the snow in the winter. The conifers will slowly catch up, and take over, eventually blocking the light from the wildflowers and grasses, which will retreat into dormancy, waiting for the next fire to burn through and release them.

tall-purple-fleabane-erigeron-peregrinus-Stanley-Glacier-Kootenay-National-Park-British-Columbia-by-Betsey-Crawford

Tall purple fleabane (Erigeron peregrinus)

When I was in Banff, Alberta, I went into the visitors’ center to ask where I could find wildflowers. As soon as the friendly young woman said there had been a wildfire at Stanley Glacier in nearby Kootenay National Park, I was ready to go. The flowers accompanying this post are from that hike. Since I was so smitten with the flowers, I never took a picture of the terrain, which was full of three and four foot high lodgepole pines, lushly green and healthy. Around them grew fireweed, of course, mixed with wild orchids, and paintbrush in the most vivid colors I’ve ever seen. Columbine and fleabane were everywhere.

harsh-paintbrush-castilleja-hispidus-Stanley-Glacier-Kootenay-National-Park-British-Columbia-by-Betsey-Crawford

Harsh paintbrush (Castillleja hispidus)

The fire happened in 2003, so it’s taken that long for the forest to get to 4’. We are used to fixing things quickly. If a house burns down, there can be a new one in months. If a forest burns down, it requires a very different mindset: rebuilding is the work of decades. A house is no good until it’s finished, but each stage of a growing forest is as vital as all the others. The wildflowers growing among the toddler trees at Stanley Glacier are just as much the forest as the trees that succeed them.

yellow-columbine-aquilegia-flavescens-Stanley-Glacier-Kootenay-National-Park-British-Columbia-by-Betsey-Crawford

Yellow columbine (Aquilegia flavescens)

Life on earth is a ceaseless conversation. Growth, death, change, renewal. Fire, flowers, aspens, lodgepole pines, fire. Ashes, petals, bark. Fireweed next to blackened trunks, wild orchids among the baby pines. It’s an ancient dialectic that we interrupt at our peril, because we don’t comprehend the infinity of factors that go into the earth’s forces. It has taken from colonial times until recently to understand that interfering with wildfires damages everything we think we’re saving. We must when houses and people are at stake, but even then, suppression comes at at the cost of making the next fire hotter and more dangerous, the soil more unstable, mudslides more likely. One of the many complex challenges facing us as we assess our footprint on the planet.

white-bog-orchid-habaneria-dilatata-paintbrush-castilleja-miniata-Stanley-Glacier-Kootenay-National-Park-British-Columbia-by-Betsey-Crawford

White bog orchid (Plantathera dilatata), paintbrush (Castilleja miniata)

 

Songlines 2015: north to Alaska

Dec
30
2015
by Betsey | 3 Comments
Songlines-2015

Warm colors go west and south, cool colors north and east.

For the first Songlines post last spring, I wrote about how much I love creation stories that not only have the world sung into existence, but also have us continually bringing life to life as we relish our own passing presence. What a great joy it is to be given the task of singing of all that we touch, everything we see, every note we hear, everyone we meet. To celebrate a year of wonderful songs, of so many great adventures on the road to Alaska and back, I thought of choosing my favorite photographs from each place I stopped for any length of time, but I didn’t want to repeat any that I’d used in previous posts. That still left plenty, but, as I looked through my photos from the year, I found myself drawn to those that brought back small, special memories. Not, for this post, the wild transcendence of being at Denali, but rather finding myself at a roadside stop unexpectedly filled with flowers, or taking a hand tram across a rushing gorge, or having dinner with a family of moose. That criteria still made for a quite a list, and I’ve done my best to restrain myself.

ratany-krameria-bicolor-elephant-tree-trail-Anza-Borrego-desert-by-Betsey-Crawford-2

Ratany (Krameria bicolor) Anza Borrego Desert, California

l) I started both this year’s adventures and this website in the Anza Borrego Desert, and though I wrote of how much I loved being there and my joy in walking with its mysterious creatures I didn’t have time to include flowers, which is one of this winter’s tasks. Among the many, I chose ratany because I was enchanted by its tiny beauty, and had never seen it before. The flower is less than an inch in diameter, and grows profusely on a small, silvery, very stick-y shrub. I didn’t find out the name until I got to Arizona, and dragged a ranger out to see one growing outside the information center at Saguaro National Park.

feather-dalea-dalea-formosa-Dripping-Springs-Las-Cruces-New-Mexico-by-Betsey-Crawford

Feather dalea (Dalea formosa) Dripping Springs, Las Cruces, New Mexico

2) After Saguaro I gave the luminous cactus flowers their due, both in a post and gallery, and then went to Las Cruces, in far southern New Mexico, to visit a friend. On a hike in Dripping Springs Natural Area I discovered a shin-high shrub that appeared to be a haze of silvery gray. On closer inspection, the haze turned out to be thousands of tiny, squirrely, fuzzy seedheads. There were a few magenta flowers remaining, but I was perfectly happy with the state I found it in. Once found I ran into it everywhere, much to my delight.

Cross-Canyon-Cahone-area-Colorado-by-Betsey-Crawford-2

Cross Canyon, southwestern Colorado

3) The story behind this picture is an extra happy one. Before I got to Utah, I emailed the Four Corners Native Plant Society to ask about finding wildflowers. I instantly heard back from Al Schneider, who is the FCNPS, as far as I can tell. He was extremely helpful and friendly, and said to call him when I got there and we’d go out wildflower hunting together. Which we did, three times, with other flower lovers, enjoying wonderful hikes and picnics out in the desert. One day I went with Al and Betty, his wife, to Cross Canyon, just over the Utah border in Colorado. We were out of the red rock territory that’s so characteristic of southern Utah, and which can be seen (until I get to the Utah galleries!) in Moses in Utah and A Land of Stone Tablets. While we were hiking and taking photos of wildflowers in Cross Canyon, I looked back from a perch high above the valley floor and saw my truck in isolated and tiny splendor among juniper and sage, sitting on the Dakota Sandstone that makes up that canyon walls and bottom. Al has been cataloging the wildflowers of the Four Corners (of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona) for 15 years. His website is a masterpiece.

apache-plume-fallugia-paradoxa-seedheads-Snow-Canyon-state-park-St-George-Utah-by-Betsey-Crawford

Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa) Snow Canyon State Park, St. George, Utah

4) I love seedheads! As was clear in both the Going to Seed post and the gallery. Who could resist these? I found them in a garden showcasing Utah native plants outside a restaurant (where we had a delicious lunch) on the outskirts of St. George, in southwest Utah.

David-Austin-rose-Manito-Gardens-Spokane-Washington-by-Betsey-Crawford

David Austin rose in the Manito Park rose garden, Spokane, Washington

5) After Utah I spent a month in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where my son, Luke, lives. My posts from there explored the concept of home, contemplated what made wildflowers take over my life, and shared an adventure with Luke and Splash. Since I don’t, at least so far, write about garden flowers, the unbelievably photogenic David Austin roses at Manito Park in nearby Spokane might never see the light of day, so I’m including one here.

columbia-lily-lilium-columbianum-near-Yahk-British-Columbia-by-Betsey-Crawford

Columbia lily (Lilium columbianum) near Yahk, British Columbia

6) On the way from Coeur d’Alene to Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, for the Waterton Wildflower Festival, I pulled into a roadside rest stop for a short walk and soon found myself unexpectedly surrounded — and completely enchanted — by glowing orange lilies. My favorite was this one, delicately folded over a grass stem.

Tall-purple-fleabane-Erigeron-peregrinus-Waterton-Lakes-National-Park-Alberta-by-Betsey-Crawford

Tall purple fleabane (Erigeron peregrinus) Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta

7) This photo of very common, lovely, and exceptionally photogenic fleabane was taken at the Waterton Lakes Wildflower Festival, where I found myself in heaven. It’s in the Waterton Lakes gallery, but I wanted to include it here, because it’s one of my favorite photos of the entire year. It reminds me of a line I love from a Robert Hass poem: The light in summer is very young and wholly unsupervised.

moose-family-Long-Rifle-Lodge-Glacier-View-Alaska-by-Betsey-Crawford

Mother and two babies near Matanuska Glacier

8) I loved Alaska and loved writing about it — how we lost track of time, falling in love with Homer, the amazement of Denali, the beauty of fireweed everywhere, the extraordinary music of The Place Where You Go To Listen. I did a gallery of landscapes, and a gallery of wildflowers. So, it’s been well covered, though there are more! But these three pictures have their own Alaska stories. This mother moose with her two babies showed up to browse behind the restaurant where we ate after visiting the Matanuska Glacier. I convinced George to walk to the edge of the glacier with me, which was a challenge for him, and you can see the slightly dubious look he gave me in the picture below. But he got close, and made it back, with a bit of help on a tricky section from a sweet, hearty young man. After all that we were starving, so we had dinner with the moose family.

George-Matanuska-Glacier-Alaska-by-Betsey-Crawford

George at the Matanuska Glacier

hand-tram-lower-Winner-Creek-trail-Girdwood-Alaska-by-Betsey-Crawford

Hand tram over Winner Creek, Girdwood, Alaska

9) I gather hand trams were once common in Alaska, since this one advertised itself as a ‘real Alaskan experience.’ It’s the only way to continue on the Lower Winner Creek Trail in Girdwood, which I wanted to take, so over I went. It’s very zippy until you get to the center, where you hang for a moment, swaying, looking down at the rocks and rushing water 15 feet below. Then you have to haul yourself ‘uphill’ to the other side, a longer trip than it looks in the photo. On my way out, I found two 14 year-old boys happily pulling people across, so that part was easy. I was a bit worried about how I’d get back, since it looks like it takes stronger arms than mine. However, I decided it would all work out, and it did. Everyone helps pull everyone else over, with lots of jokes and good humor, which, to me, is another real Alaskan experience.

alpine-milk-vetch-astragalus-alpinus-Seward-Alaska-by-Betsey-Crawford

Alpine milk vetch (Astragalus alpinus) Seward, Alaska

10) I love this photo because it captures the feeling of lots of ground in Alaska — full of plants, moss, and lichen, spongy to walk on, lush and lovely. However, I’ve never fully identified the flower. I’m hoping, for my sake, it’s alpine milk vetch, but it could be an invasive pest vetch, also purple, and growing abundantly on roadsides. So, until I know, I won’t put it into the Alaska wildflower gallery, but I wanted to include it here.

alpine tundra along the Dempster Highway in the Yukon, including bearberry (arctostaphylos alpina) and lichen by Betsey Crawford

Alpine bearberry (Arctostaphyos alpina) and lichen, Tombstone Territorial Park, Yukon

11) There are words that bring up the mystery and beauty of the north instantly: muskeg, aurora borealis, midnight sun, tundra. This is a bit of tundra, which I was determined to find, easy if you’re willing to drive far enough north. We drove up the Dempster Highway in the Yukon, as far as Tombstone Territorial Park, and found a beautiful world of mountains and tundra. Had we gone on, we would eventually have gotten to the Arctic Ocean, but the next day a big, snowy storm blew in, so it was a relief to be back in Dawson City, where it only rained. I left already envisioning a return trip, when I’d drive up in July for the wildflowers, and back in August for the fall color. Such a short growing season, with lots of dry cold the rest of the year, creates a treeless biome of dwarf plants and lichen. These are barely 2 inches high.

sunset-Spokane-River-Coeur-dAlene-Idaho-by-Betsey-Crawford-2

Sunset over the Spokane River in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

Back to 5) You can catch fantastic skies everywhere, but Coeur d’Alene, with its unusually beautiful cloud formations, produces them routinely, giving me the perfect visual metaphor as the sun sets on 2015. I wish everyone an adventurous, fun and joyous new year.

Latitude 49º 6′ 33.63″, Longitude -113º 50′ 58.92″

Jul
09
2015
by Betsey | 14 Comments

Waterton-Lakes-National-Park-by-Betsey-CrawfordI have located heaven. It’s relatively easy to find, right at the end of a beautiful drive through the prairies of southwestern Alberta, just into Canada north of the Montana border. The latitude and longitude above are the gates. Not pearly, as one was led to expect, though perfectly nice examples of the rather odd Tudor/rustic combination favored by Parks Canada, since on the terrestrial plane heaven calls itself Waterton Lakes National Park. Once inside you drive alongside lovely blue lakes on the left, where, late one evening, I dimly saw a large herd of black-headed elk moving softly in the green dusk, some swimming in the luminous twilit water.  On the right, rolling, windswept prairie flows into mountains.

Western blue clematis (Clematis occidentalis)

Western blue clematis (Clematis occidentalis)

Eventually you come to a small village on the edge of the largest lake, and a campground right off the beach, surrounded by mountains. The entire town could, I suspect, fit into a New York City block. There are hotels and inns, private homes, a few restaurants, some galleries and gift shops. All very low key. In a nod to nutrition, there’s one small grocery store, but the main food in heaven, judging by the number of people eating it all the time, is ice cream, supplied by no less than four shops devoted to it.

Munching bear wandering by

Munching bear wandering by

There you are perfectly willing to stay for the rest of existence. Though, I have to admit, you may change your mind as the local gas station becomes completely covered by ten feet of snow.

Glacier lily (Erythronium grandiflorum)

Glacier lily (Erythronium grandiflorum)

I came for the Waterton Lakes Wildflower Festival. The first time I was here, in September, 2012, I saw a poster for it, and have been waiting to get back ever since. There were various events, and I took part in several. All were fun, and one, a walk up Rowe Mt. with a man named Edwin Knox, who has worked at the park for 30 years, was so sublime it’s now the touchstone for such days: walk up a beautiful, not-too-steep-in-any-one-place mountain trail with a fun and knowledgeable guide, keying wildflowers on the way up. Eat lunch at a tiny, gorgeous alpine lake. Climb to an alpine meadow full of glacier lilies. (Let the three hardiest members of the group climb all the way to the top.) Wander down slowly enough to take lots of pictures along the way.

Edwin, wildflower ID book in hand, leading the way up Mt. Rowe

Edwin, wildflower ID book in hand, leading the way

In a world full of spectacular beauty, Waterton Lakes is still a place apart. Part of it is the confluence of its elements: the prairie rolls from the Great Plains in the east into the Rocky Mountains to the north and west. The spruce, fir  and pine clad mountains cradle eighty lakes and ponds, as well as more than sixty miles of rivers and streams, within the park’s 195 square miles.  There are 1,000 species of plants in this small area, from minute unicellular algae to towering Douglas firs. Of those species, 179 are considered rare; 22 of those occur in Waterton and nowhere else on earth.

Mountain lady's slipper (Cypripedium montanum)

Mountain lady’s slipper (Cypripedium montanum)

Other creatures love it, too. Bears cross the street as you take pictures of orchids, pulling up roots to munch on. Hummingbirds pollinate paintbrush. Butterflies meet up on lovely purple fleabane. Wild sheep rest in the shade on the road as you drive, while a mother and baby pass by, so close you could reach out and feel the mother’s horns.

Big horn sheep resting in the handiest shade

Big horn sheep resting in the handiest shade

The sheer exuberance of this profusion is breathtaking. But there’s more than beauty here. With neighboring Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana, Waterton Lakes forms what is called the Crown of the Continent, one of the last truly vast preserved wild places in our two countries. The Blackfoot people call it the ‘Backbone of the World.’ Its peaks reach to nearly 10,000 feet. Its wildlife can roam they way they always have. It holds the headwaters of several major river systems. A drop of water that falls on the crown can end up in the Arctic Ocean via the McKenzie River watershed system, the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia or Fraser system, the Atlantic via the Sasketchewan system that flows into Hudson Bay, or the Gulf of Mexico via the Missouri River, making tiny Waterton an integral part of a vast arterial network.

Tall purple fleabane (Erigeron peregrinus) hosting butterflies

Tall purple fleabane (Erigeron peregrinus) hosting butterflies

Thus, many beautiful and powerful forces both meet and spread out from here: water, rocks, mountains, sky, trees, meadows, waterfalls, flowers, wind, elk, bear, eagle, big horn sheep, bison. On the ground, where I spent a great deal of time, all was quiet and beautiful beyond measure. But though I was dealing with the gentlest of elements — wildflowers, grasses, leaves — the exhilarating sense of sitting among these immense energies was very strong. The world living as it was meant to live.

Heaven is within us, the sages say. A lovely, challenging idea. But there’s no denying that some earthly places are more heavenly than others, and Waterton Lakes, the beautiful blooming bowl held in the mountains, is one of the heavenliest.

(More images are in the Waterton wildflowers gallery, which is here.)

Waterton-Lakes-National-Park-by-Betsey-Crawford