Old photos new quote

 Paula Gunn Allen

"We are the land… that is the fundamental idea embedded in Native American life… the Earth is the mind of the people as we are the mind of the earth. The land is not really the place (separate from ourselves) where we act out the drama of our isolate destinies… It is rather a part of our being, dynamic, significant, real. It is our self… It is not a matter of being 'close to nature'… The Earth is, in a very real sense, the same as our self (or selves)

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210420-mental-health-healing-the-trauma-of-climate-change

The Beaver

I first came to Western Canada to participate in an archaeological excavation at a Northwest Company post. I stayed for three months living in a canvas tipi and came to love the parkland. Every summer at the cabin I try to read books (often shared with my mother-in-law) about the fur trade and the Native People of Western Canada both pre and post contact. I am trying to learn a history other than my own, I find it interesting, and it seems the least I can do.

"The slow current
of the life below tugs at me all day.
When I dream at night, they save a place for me,
no matter how small, somewhere by the fire. "

from Remembering Mountain Men

by William Stafford

"I've seen you watching people

walking through this world

seen what they do to try and make it through each day.

Don't be alarmed there's something

out there waiting just for you someday.

from Everybody Cries

as performed by Jim Cuddy

THE PRAIRIE GAVE BREATH; I GREW AND DIED:

ALIVE ON THIS AIR THESE LIVES ABIDE.

SIGNATURE

                               Dorothy Livesay

I am still working through photos from our trip to the cabin

in July. On the way home we stopped to visit friends from

our days in archaeology. These are the Hand Hills in 

Southeastern Alberta. This area is described as fescue

and mixed grass prairie ( Peterson The North American

Prairie)  they also note that this area was used by native

people to  obtain stone for tools. One tribe that utilized

this area was the Blood or Kainai, they were considered part of

the Blackfoot Confererancy and their reserve is located quite some

distance away in the foothills by Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump.

It was actually the first rain we had on our trip and

the mosquitoes were ferocious.

Laraine's horses.

Other critters included the Great Spangled Fritillary

The Mountain Cottontail who can be identified by the

" rusty orange patch on the nape of his neck" Mammals

of Alberta, Pattie and Fisher. It is interesting that the

distribution map for Alberta indicates that they occur in the

Southeast portion of the province which is prairie and they 
do not seem to occur in the mountains.

The infamous Brown-Headed Cowbird

they are known for nest parasitism this behavior

is felt to have occurred because they followed the

herds of Bison and therefore laid their eggs in the

nests of other songbirds. The Cowbird chicks outgrow

the hosts own nestlings resulting in them starving or

 pushed out. Their range has expanded and they

now parasitize over 140 species. Birds of Alberta Fisher

and Acorn.

Yogi and Andi, Tim and Laraine's

Akhash-Maremana crosses enjoy a quiet moment.

During my years in archaeology I worked in the prairies,

 the foothills, the mountains and the parkland. Each area has it's

own special rhythms and unique beauty. While Helen and I have

settled on the parkland for our cabin for a number of reasons,

 the sweeping vista of the prairie is a truely wonderful thing to

experience and once you spend time in the area you realize it

is not empty but rich in both history and prehistory, and that

it has an ecosystem as beautiful and vibrant as any on the planet.

During our visit Tim who has worked at the

Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta

in the past, took us to see some dinosaur bones

he had reported to the museum. As you can see

they are fairly subtle traces of once great creatures.

A couple of weeks later a crew from the Museum

came out and removed the skeleton of a Triceratops

dinosaur. While Alberta is know for dinosaurs

Triceratops are rare in the province and about 30 %

of the skeleton remained which is fairly significant.

The story was widely reported in the media and it was

a lot of fun to have seen the bones with their discoverer.

It was a great visit.

"And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was 

one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight 

and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree 

to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. 

And I saw that it was holy."

                        Black Elk 

                                              Black Elk Speaks 1932

                                                        Oglala Lakota (Sioux)

           

            

         

I believe this is Canadian Buffaloberry ~ Shepherdia canadensis

" Plains tribes believed that when the berries were ripe,

the buffalo were fat enough to hunt "

Plants of Alberta

Royer/Dickinson

" Our berries picked,

the mushrooms gathered,

each of us hides

in his heart a small piece

of this summer,

as mice store their roots

in a place

known only to them. "

                    Poem

                   John Haines

I have decided to interrupt my posting on the

wonders of Saskatchewn for my first flower

of the year. I was away from home for work 

for three days, when  I got home my wife

mentioned  the crocus had bloomed

I was out to look right away. These

grow wild here but this one is in our

garden. As Candice Savage notes in her

marvelous book Prairie a Natural History,

they risk frost and snow pushing up

without growing leaves to take advantage

of snow melt. The coat of hairs holds in

heat and moisture. By the time the other

flowers appear they will already have

set seed.

The Crocus Teaches Wapee to Overcome Fear

"On the fifth morning, in that brief state between

sleeping and waking, Wapee heard the flower

whisper, "Who never knows fear is a fool.

Who knows fear and listens is wise. Who knows

fear and conquers is brave." Startled, Wapee

opened his eyes and stared, but the flower

only opened its petals and danced in the wind.

All that day Wapee thought about what the

flower had said, and wove its words

into his prayers. Again he sheltered the flower

with his body and robe. As he fell asleep,

he heard the flower close its petals and

sigh, "I am so pale and plain.""

from

Legend of the Prairie Crocus

A First Nations Tale About the

Origin of the Prairie Flower

Thomas Alan Gray ( from the web )

Blue sky yesterday and really warm a couple of days ago. 

Snow and 0 degrees now with more winter predicted.

A trip to the library, time for our inner Shackleton.

"Are your sure everyone else will be wearing them?"

                                                 Shaun

"Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all. "

                                        Ernest Shackleton

"We had seen God in His splendors,

heard the text that Nature renders.

We had reached the naked soul of man."

                                     
                                      Ernest Shackleton

"Now my eyes are turned from the South

to the North, and I want to lead one more

Expedition.

This will be the last... to the North Pole."

                                            
                                          Ernest Shackleton

January 11th  I blogged about the

beautiful Bison Spirit Box I received

and what I might keep in it.

A white buffalo from 100 Horses that

I can take out when I write.

"What is life? It is the flash of a flirefly in the night.

It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.

It is the little shadow which runs across the grass

and loses itself in the sunset" 

                                                  Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator