Crowfoot Glacier

Image of Crowfoot Glacier from tripadvisor

Crowfoot Glacier bears the name of Chief Crowfoot and flanks the eponymous Mountain. Early explorers also noted that the glacier, with its three toes, resembles a crow's foot.

Now two toes remain. Visible from the Icefields Parkway that links Jasper to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, this glacier is just over 30 kilometres from Lake Louise.

Bow Glacier

Image from janrik

As the Bow Glacier recedes, it feeds a waterfall that drains into Bow Lake. Bow Glacier Falls forms the headwaters of the Bow River.

At the north end of this lake, Num-ti-Jah Lodge lies just off the Icefields Parkway and from there a hiking trail leads to the glacier.

Situated in Banff National Park in the heart of the Canadian Rockies, this glacier is about forty kilometres from Lake Louise. In the past, it was connected to the nearby Wapta Icefields.

The Athabasca Glacier

Image from icecubicle.net

The Athabasca Glacier is part of an area called the Columbia Icefields in Jasper National Park, Alberta. The largest ice field in the Canadian Rockies, it gets about 7 metres of precipitation per year; most of this falls as snow.

Over the past 125 years, the mouth of this slow-moving river of ice has moved back 1.5 kilometers and lost half its volume. 

The cairn marks the toe of the glacier as of 1992, just 22 years ago. The recent retreat of this most visited glacier in North America is obvious. Some experts predict that this slow-flowing ice river, currently one kilometer wide and in places 300 metres deep, will vanish within a century.

This glacier lies just off the Icefields Parkway that joins Jasper to Banff. Alberta. It is located close to the roof of North America; from Saskatchewan River Crossing, water drains away to the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

A little further south, the Milk River system arises in Montana, enters southern Alberta, then turns once more on its long voyage to drain into the Gulf of Mexico through the Mississippi River system.

Quiet, by Susan Cain

Image from Quirkbooks

This is a book every introvert needs to read. In her groundbreaking work, this former lawyer, once painfully shy, develops a powerful argument about the serious negative effects of the American cultural bias against introversion and in favour of extroversion.

Although extroverts get much more credit in leadership positions, introverts are thinkers.

Introverts have contributed great and visionary leadership -- think Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt. All were challenged by the need to be in the public eye, but faced their natural tendency to avoid the limelight because they were "driven to do what they knew was right."

"Solitude matters, and for some people it is the air that we breathe." Lonely creatives she mentions include Charles Darwin and Dr. Seuss. They couldn't have produced what they did without their essential periods of solitude. Spiritual seekers like Buddha and Jesus also went alone into the wilderness to contemplate, then re-entered the community to share the wisdom gained in solitude.

Over the twentieth century, the author explains, our most important institutions have evolved to greatly favour extroverts. With urbanization and industrialization, western cultures, especially that of the US, have moved away from respecting individuals of good character (often introverts); people of our era are increasingly impressed by personality (read extroversion.)

Though extroverted leaders may be admired for their pleasing personalities, an unfortunate feature they share is the tendency to "take outsize risks." Cain offers convincing evidence that extroverts control society's most powerful institutions, and connects this fact to disasters like the Enron scandal.

She discusses the power of introverts on a recent TED talk, and concludes with some advice for all of us, including "Stop the madness for constant group work." Whether doing their jobs or studying, introverts need a certain amount of privacy and autonomy. The world needs us, and we have the right to be valued for ourselves as well as for our very considerable social contributions.

The Firebird by Susanna Kearsley

Image from Susanna Kearsley

This novel is built around parallel plots in the past and present, and portrays additional history of the Jacobites. Robbie, a Scottish child seer in a former novel, is now an adult. A policeman and volunteer lifeguard, he accepts his natural ability to see into the thoughts of others, both in the present and past. Nicola feels less comfortable with her similar and equally unusual gift, and Rob challenges her: '...why are ye so afeart of what ye are?'

A London-based art expert of Russian heritage, Nicola has sought him out in the hope that he can assist a Scottish client who wants a wooden firebird appraised and authenticated, saying it has been passed down from an ancestor who was given it long ago by the Empress Catherine in St. Petersburg.

Knowing that Rob might be able to trace the bird, Nicola takes an impromptu trip to Scotland, and before long, she and Rob are on the trail of the historic owner, Anna Moray. Enroute to Nicola's upcoming work assignment in St. Petersburg, they track young Anna to Calais and then to a convent in Ypres. As the child of a Jacobite, she is hidden for her safety and that of her family. Escaping partisan pursuers who would kidnap her, she throws herself on the mercy of a Scottish Jacobite Vice-Admiral who has risen in the Russian Navy, and joins his family as his ward.

As Rob and Nicola track Anna to Catherine's court hoping to learn about the firebird, they discover her love for the exiled Irishman Edmond O'Connor, along with the machinations of the world of spies and counter-spies. Unwilling at first, Nicola hones her gift at Rob's behest. Most skills, he says, are learned, or at least developed. Soon she can see into the past and trace Anna without Rob's help. On her journey, she learns from a wise nun that 'what we do not expect to see, we rarely notice.'

Susanna Kearsley's use of language gives this reader tremendous pleasure. Her stately prose echoes in the mind with the rhythm of an ancient poetic oration. I also love her stunning evocations of historical times and places, neatly juxtaposed with a present that always rings true. Past and present settings are filled with telling details that convey contemporary speech patterns, places and mindsets.

This neatly plotted novel develops in the past and present simultaneously, with startling parallels in the historic and modern story lines. As always, the historic aspects are well-researched, and her fictional characters blend in well with the real historic people who may well have been much as the author describes them.

Thematically, the work portrays issues of courage, identity, and trusting one's own intuition, as both Anna and Nicola acquire the confidence that allows them to become wiser and more mature versions of themselves.The Firebird, also known as the Phoenix, with its bright red and gold plumage, symbolizes regeneration, rebirth and even immortality.

Anti-waterfall? Spouting Horn, Hawaii

Image from Hawaii Pictures

To complete the waterfall posts, here is a reverse action. Instead of falling down, this water leaps up.

Among the most photographed spots on the island of Kauai, this blowhole is caused by large swells of Poipu surf that enter a natural lava tube, then emerge with the hiss and roar that gave rise to the legend of the great lizard Kaikapu, guardian of this coastline.

Western Australia Christmas tree

Image by O. Roberts from Atlas of Living Australia

In the northern latitudes, standing under this tree is far from the image we have of welcoming in the New Year by kissing under the mistletoe. Those from Celtic and northern European heritage may deck doorways with a sprig of viscum album, a different type of mistletoe, in remembrance of an ancient Norse myth explained here in the Sun.

The Western Australian Christmas tree is something else again. Orange-yellow in colour, the tree blooms at this season. A kind of mistletoe, this plant is a parasite that derives its nourishment from the roots of other trees.

Though mistletoe can be toxic when ingested by humans and pets, it has long been revered for its healing properties.