In his 1981 book, Basin and Range, John McPhee gave us a good analogy for the scale of deep time. Stretch out your arm sideways, and imagine that the 4.55 billion-year timeline of earth’s history runs from the tip of your nose to the tip of your middle fingernail. A quick swipe of a nail file would wipe out human history. […]
The solace of deep time Read More »
If you want tundra, you must either go far enough north or high enough up. So a trip up the Dempster Highway in the Yukon was perfect for my longing for arctic plants. Two days of careful driving over the dirt and gravel road will take you into the Northwest Territories and to the Arctic
The mysterious Yukon Read More »
One of the things that is constantly, and wonderfully, borne in on me as I travel is how utterly beautiful our world is. Everywhere I go, there is beauty easily at hand. And for someone who spends as much time driving from place to place as I do, the gorgeous scene along so many roads is
There is a great mystery on this journey: that I seem to choose some places to go, and that others call me to come. Alaska called. Before leaving home, I gave little thought to going to Alaska. In the mayhem of leaving, I barely gave thought to where I was going once I pulled out
Denali: the Great One Read More »
The first thing that happened in Alaska was that we lost our sense of time. There were three of us at that point. George and I had picked up our friend, Guy, in Whitehorse, in the Yukon, where he’d flown up from Vancouver. We drove to Destruction Bay the same day, staying the night
Timeless in Alaska Read More »