conservation

David Thompson
by

David Thompson

1814 map of the Pacific Northwest and central ...

1814 map of the Pacific Northwest and central Canada by David Thompson. The Kootenay River is shown near the bottom left as McGillivray’s River. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Always, there are heroes.  Always there are those whose feats are more daring, whose lives are more accomplished, whose endeavors more respected, whose praises more deserving.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Thompson_(explorer)

A name rings out from our history.  A name of the fur trade, a name of accomplishment, unparalleled achievement, a surprise!  A victory for us in the mapping of the land.  The long stretches of river lay before them, the endless land.  On it goes, seemingly forever.  The land, the water, the endless travel, the constant voyage.  How far?  To map the country, how far?

Day after day, the endless journey.  Mile after mile the endless mapping, negotiation, fur trading and establishing fur trading posts.   On and on into the annals of history for this one persistent and indomitable being.  The great negotiation saves us and the great negotiation lasts forever.

This almighty human was David Thompson and the great negotiation was his metis bride, Charlotte Small.  Together they travelled thousands of kilometers throughout the country.  On and on, mile after mile with a mission to accomplish an enormous feat.  The endless mapping, the constant surveying, the passion!  It must be done.  The thousands of kilometers of surveyed land all throughout Canada and Northern United States.

http://www.thefurtrapper.com/david_thompson.htm

To pass the route to another.  No more the unknown land.  No more the fear of failure, the lost souls of the misguided would now have a marked route, a secure map, a written guide.  Someone has gone before and secured the way, spoken to the people, traded, claimed the unknown, claimed the land and its people and saved their lives.

Oh, to be the aptitude of the brave and daring.  To set the pace of adventure, skills, knowledge and courage. To be the champion.

The vast river system of continental Canada and northern United States provided a lifetime of travel and adventure and professional pursuits as well.  From Ontario to the Pacific, down the Columbia River to it’s end at the Pacific Ocean, down to the Mississippi River,  along the boarder of Canada and the United States, north to Lake Athabasca.

The spirit soars in a human who has no disability, only a limp and the loss of site in one eye.  All of the surveying, the astronomical calculations, the travel by canoe, horseback, on foot, limping along an unknown course, his vision impaired by loss of site.  No disability here.  Only the passion, only the drive, only the will to succeed and the call of adventure.

Come, almighty man!  Becons the great unknown and the adventure begins.  It ends with the congratulation for the achievement “the greatest land geographer who ever lived”  For mapping millions of kilometers of land and producing maps so accurate they were used in Canada for approximately 150 years.

Hail bravehearts.  Let your stories be known.

In a nation of fantastic achievers, one name calls to us from the past.  I live forever.  I am David Thompson.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 17, 2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

http://www.empowernetwork.com/?id=louisehayes

The Fur Trade
by

The Fur Trade

The French fur trade was based in Montreal and...

The French fur trade was based in Montreal and the later British trade at York Factory. The shading shows Rupert’s Land (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oh the wonder of it all.  The endless beauty, the landscape the forest, the smell, the  sound, the quiet, the glory!  The freedom of adventure, the challenge of skills, the might of our strength to be pitted only against ourselves with the adversary being the landscape.  Oh the land!  The call of the great wild.  To hear the sound of the soul searching cry.  Come, mankind, venture forth oh diligent and aspiring soul.  For the land becons the voyageur and it calls them by name.

Almighty man, it whispers, come harvest my treasure.

From all walks of life the hero responds.  The lure of the magic entices.  The earth song sings and the sirens of the great north call to the almighty human.  Walk my soil, forge my rivers, the catch lies just beyond.

Feel your strength as the paddle pushes through the water.  Stroke after stroke of the rhythmic beat.  The voyageur, with canoes laden with supplies, pushes onward to a destiny of treasure.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzFHfS1BWm0

Fur.

The cry of the century and the wealth of the nation.  Fur!

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/fur-trade

The  boastful preoccupation of a wealthy nation, the fur trade entices the entrepreneur.  Come, almighty human, into the land of plenty.  The trade in furs will make you rich and there is plenty.

Explore the great rivers in your birch bark canoes, in your voyageur canoes.  The nation opens its waterways to you and presents the thousands of kilometers of river systems throughout the land.

The vast watershed of lower Canada is accomplished.  Onward we push to the limitless north.  The Hudson Bay and the rivers beyond.  Up  to the forts of York Factory, where the trade in furs grows to coin, bullion, gold!  The land is rich in harvested fur.  The champions of navigation press onward through the river systems, the tributaries, the lakes, the voyage north to trade.  The fur trade opens the nation to commerce, entrepreneurialism, wealth, fashion, merchants, the gold of the country.

From province to province, to province the voyageur paddles on.  Prosperity, trade, union, negotiation all for the almighty man, be he the king of a great nation, the sovereign of a tribe, the Coureur de Bois.  All are connected to the forest, the rivers the place of prosperity.  Fur!  The cry of the aristocrat becons and the sovereign lord of the forest responds.

Hail, almighty human, the sword and the musket never raised against yea.  The trade of commerce is the negotiation of the nation.  Blend, you great human, you moral man.   The fur trade and the conquest of the river systems opens the world to the intelligent human.  Yes, the mortal strength of one man cannot accomplish feats so daring, but the might, the privilege, the brilliant mind, knows no other recourse than to win.  Win the trust of the people, win the support for the venture in trade and in human harmony we bond and become.

Hail, almighty human.  A collection of huts is a settlement, a sanctuary.  Home!  The country is called Kanata, that is HOME.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 14,2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

Coureur des bois
by

Coureur des bois

Bonjour, almighty human.  Welcome to this day.

This is an awesome day of great courage, adventure, exploration and discovery.  A day filled with the life of brilliant mankind, the negotiator, the peacekeeper, the intellectual, the athlete.

The investigation and settlement of our great nation comes from the brilliant aspirations of great minds, healthy bodies, bold and courageous spirit and constant daring.  To travel where no European had gone before.  To take the challenge of everyday courage and to explore a land of unknown peril,  sometimes, to fight the unbeatable foe.

To take up trade items and to develop trade routes through a land of changing conditions, constantly battling the weather,  negotiating treaties, fighting the currants of swift flowing rivers.  The constant negotiation for good relations, the constant perils of unseen deathtraps.  The unknown, always, the unknown.

The passage into the interior of the country was mainly by water. Rivers, lakes, canoes!  The canoe of the Coureur de Bois, laden with trade items to maintain the negotiated peace with the native peoples.  Trade for wealth, trade for exploration, trade for peace.  A land established by the peaceful negotiation of mutual prosperity.

http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/fp_furtrade/fp_furtrade2.html

Hail Bravehearts!  For the peace amongst you was for the beneficial, mutual prosperity of the peoples of the nation.  The negotiated peace was trade to make your lives easier, trade to make your lives more secure, trade to reduce barriers, strengthen bonds, build congenial relationships, allow exploration and the building of forts and settlements.  Trade, without hostility, trade to connect to an unknown peoples, trade for influence and to reduce war faring.

Trade to encourage contact, to learn new ways, to respect.  Trade.  The nation was built from trade.  Not only trade in commodities, but trade in culture and language as well.  The curiosity of the peoples reduced their hardships and the mutual respect saved their lives.

The Coureur de Bois, with canoes laden with items for trade, navigated the lakes and river systems of this great land.  They explored the country, opened the nation, found new river highways to travel throughout the country.  They negotiated the great peace, survived the call to the wild.

Come, beckons the great land.  Come!

The courageous explorers paddled their canoes into the heart of the dark, foreboding stillness.  The great wild!  Where only the birds call and the penetrating quiet of life deafens the thunder of remote civilization.  Gone is the city.  Now, the only street is the river.  The thunder is now the rapids and the gossip comes from the birds.

Wonderful peace!  The wild allures.  The remote shore, the distant horizon, the untravelled land.  The unrivalled superiority.  All of this for the freedom of adventure, for the challenge of a great day, a life of unrivalled adventure.  All of this for the building of a great nation, a great life and a bold and daring existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coureur_des_bois

Welcome, to the Coureur de Bois for the lasting peace.  For exploration and community and for the fight that beats the unbeatable foe.

Written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 13, 2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

http://www.empowernetwork.com/?id=louisehayes

The St Lawrence River
by

The St Lawrence River

English: Map of Jacques Cartier's second voyag...

English: Map of Jacques Cartier’s second voyage to North America in 1535-6. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Good Day!  You Awesome Human.

As we explore our great country through Rivers to Oceans week, we celebrate the daring, the courage, the monumental feats of bravery.  The country was explored and opened by brave hearts.

The exploration by Jacques Cartier in 1534 to 1542 was the first European exploration of the St. Lawrence River.

The oceans brought the European to the already well inhabited land.  The country had been populated for thousands of years already, by migrants who crossed the northern land mass and settled in  the continent.

The Europeans crossed the oceans in a daring adventure of exploration, to discover what lies beyond the horizon and to unite worlds separated by water, tides, waves, weather, distance and fortitude.

Only your dreams will push you on, only your nightmares will stop you!

The bold adventurers came, onward, onward, into the straits of the St. Lawrence and pushed their crafts farther into the heart of the nation.  The contact was made, the discovery excels.  A new people, a new world, new trade, new prosperity.   The St. Lawrence River was the channel of discovery for these fortunate mariners.  It brought them fame, fortune, trade and the exhilarating right of conquest.  It secured their mission, proved their aptitude, yes, almighty human, the doors to the nation opened and the country let them in.

The mighty St. Lawrence River was the pathway to prosperity, negotiation, settlement and pride.  Oh, you worthy stalwart, to set sail on that day, one day, for the quest of your lives, for the rest of your lives.  To be the history, the making of a great nation.  To be the almighty man.

That one awesome, inspired day, became the might and greatness of several great nations.  Jacques Cartier for France visited a country named for a collection of huts.  Kanata!  And so it was born.  Born from the passage of a great river, born from the passage of a great ocean.  Born from brilliant aptitudes of navigation, sailing, shipbuilding, negotiation, leadership, compassion and daring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_cartier

The bold adventurer seeks the challenge and the brilliant aptitudes achieves it.

The consequential negotiation brought fantastic prosperity to France.  The oceans yielded a seemingly unlimited harvest of fresh fish for the hungry. Food in abundance, led early settlers to a new land, a new life of promise.  The negotiation was successful, colonization was possible.  The impossible dream would be attempted.

For France the colony meant new lands, new life, new wealth.  The daring challenge was met, the conquest told.  Oh you fortuitous stalwarts, climb aboard.  Climb aboard for the adventure of you life.  There’s no looking back.  And so they did.   Pioneers who could settle an unknown nation, with unknown plants and soil.  To cut a tract of land for farming, build houses, invent.   To set the course of history.  To be the indomitable human.

http://suite101.com/article/jacques-cartier-and-charlesbourgroyal-a173492

The first colony was on the banks of the mighty St. Lawrence River.  It didn’t last, but the failure didn’t stop  them.  Another attempt would be made.

Rivers to Oceans.  This week is for us. This is our cultural heritage.  From rivers and oceans our nation was born.

Hail, almighty human.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 12, 2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

http://www.empowernetwork.com/?id=louisehayes

Rivers to Oceans Week
by

Rivers to Oceans Week

Congratulations you awesome being.  This is National Rivers to Oceans Week and this is our cultural heritage.

The immense cover of ice and snow that we call the Columbia Ice fields is the birthplace of some of our great rivers.  The vast sheet of ice at the border between Jasper and Banff National Parks is an awesome place of remote grandeur.  The spectacular, stark beauty of the masses of snow and mountain are a land unto themselves.  A land of life in high altitude and cold.  The streams from the melted ice are flowing with todays  first water and cascading into rivers and waterfalls, avalanches and crevases.  The ice fields are where some of our mighty historical rivers are born.  The daily melt water is the first drop of water into a river system that flows throughout most of the country

The huge icefields cover 215 square kilometers and is 300 to 360 metres deep in some places.  This massive sheet of ice provides us with clean, fresh, new water.

http://www.explorerockies.com/columbia-icefield/

Water! Our national heritage was formed from these rivers.  Great explorers ventured into our nation by these same rivers and lakes.

The historic Athabasca River, a fur trading route, is one of our national heritage rivers which starts at the Columbia Ice fields.  The importance of the Athabasca river, with its designation as a Canadian Heritage River  is its connection to exploration and the settling of the country.  The rivers in Canada played a major role in establishing the country.  Fur traders embarked on lengthy journeys of adventure and trade to explore, meet and negotiate trade with the indigenous peoples.

The fur trade was the most important industry in the country in the early years of settlement.

http://www.chrs.ca/en/main.php

The Columbia Ice Fields are also the source of the North Saskatchewan River and the headwaters of the tributary of the Columbia River.  This is the top of the Continental divide, where waters flow to the Pacific, the Artic and to Hudson Bay.  The significance of this, is waterways all across the country.  For exploration, the waterways provided access all throughout the nation.

The mighty St Lawrence River was the first river accessed by explorers from Europe.  Jacques Cartier explored this area for France in the late 1400’s and made connections with the local people who resided near the shores.  The St. Lawrence is an access route into the interior of the country.  By exploring this route, Europeans were able to penetrate far into the nation and in doing so, discover the wealth and abundance of the land.   The sea wealth for fishing and the forest for furs.

The river and lakes system is so vast it connects one province to another through historical waterways that were travelled frequently by early explorers.

Water!  A wealth for our land. A country filled with lakes and rivers.  The play land for sports.  The abundance in fishing.  The salvation of our populace.  Our good fortune is to have water.  Clean water.  Unpolluted water.  Water filled with life.  Aquatic life, plant life, animal life and ultimately, our life.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 11, 2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

http://www.empowernetwork.com/?id=louisehayes

by

Recycling

English: A picture of compost soil

English: A picture of compost soil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Feel the earth under your feet.  The life producing quality of the soil.  Rich in nutrients for our harvest, the soil is key to our survival.  Healthy soil, healthy food.  No pollution or contaminants for the earth

Our land fills are overflowing with recyclable debris.  Recycling reduces waste and increases our productivity.  It increases our ability to make use of used products and to turn discards into useful products.  It helps us to use our imaginations in discovering a purpose for items that would otherwise have been discarded to the landfill.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/queen-of-green/faqs/recycling/?gclid=CIDhn_3Yz7cCFYo-Mgod32sAJw

The landfill is a nasty brew of toxins.  Although it may be possible to the cover mess with soil, burying toxins contaminates the soil and makes it dangerous for plantings.

http://www.edmonton.ca/for_residents/garbage_recycling/what-can-i-recycle.aspx

http://www.dosomething.org/actnow/tipsandtools/11-facts-about-recycling

Some of your recyclables are very good for the soil.  A composting bin where you can recycle vegetable food scraps, leaves, lawn cuttings and egg shells reduces itself to a highly nutricious black soil.  This soil is very beneficial to your garden and to the earth.  Even a small composter will help to reduce the amount of food waste that is dumped unnecessarily into our landfills.  Black earth is an expensive product to purchase.  That nutricious soil comes to you via your own discarded vegetable waste.

Since it is environment week, please consider the beneficial effects of recycling for yourselves and for the earth.  There are many products that can be recycled and reused.  A healthy, productive garden is only one of the many benefits of recycled materials.

Written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 7, 2013

Commuter Challenge
by

Commuter Challenge

And God created the Earth.

The vast heavens, the bountiful  oceans, the abundant life on the planet.  And He also created us, the human.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFq42IibUeY earth song meditation

It’s environment week and there are many ways to enjoy this national celebration of preservation and environmental protection.  We all need clean air, clean water, sunshine and healthy living.  We all need to stretch our legs and join the crusade to walk, run, hike, bicycle and to be the champion.  The more often we leave our vehicles at home and use other methods of transportation to reach our goals, for example, public transportation, car pools, bicycling or walking, the fewer emisions we put into the atmosphere.  With less emmisions the air is cleaner and clean air is better for us and better for the planet.

http://www.environment.gov.ab.ca/edu/eweek/

Yes, the trees and plants are capable of cleaning the air, but they can’t do it all.  Pollution is a cause of decreasing life expectancy and disease.

To take to the trails or the streets for running, walking and cycling is a pursuit of the joy of living.  The increased fitness level powers you on and the earth sighs with gratitude.  Only footsteps, only the power of the muscles.  Each step increases lung capacity and cardiovascular strength.  Each step promotes healthy living and promotes the health of the planet.

Each breath that you take, fills your lungs with oxygen for the health of your blood and your cells.  The increased oxygen feeds your cells and helps them to fight off disease.

Feel the cool of the forest as you pass under the canopy of the trees.  There is life in the foliage and oxygen productivity in the leaves.  The cool shade is a welcome retreat from the scorching sun.  The busy birds and insects hurry onward with their own day.  The plantings save the water shed and the rushing sound of water fills our ears.  Clean water!  Water for our bodies, we can’t live without it.  Clean water with no pollution,  no water born disease.

The busy sidewalks turn into a carpet of grass.  Soft, green, fresh grass.  The life under your feet saves the soil, with all of it’s life supporting nutrients.  Under your feet is the domain of the soil and all of the tiny micro organisms and earth life.  The soil, the building block of plant growth.

Feel the earth under your feet.  The life producing quality of the soil.  Rich in nutrients for our harvest, the soil is key to our survival.  Healthy soil, healthy food.  No pollution or contaminants of the earth

As we prepare ourselves for another day of healthy living, for us, for the environment, for the earth, remember to give thanks for life itself, all life.

The commuter challenge promotes healthy bodies, healthy lives, healthy living.  Brilliant mankind, the choice has always been yours, choose health.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 6, 2013

Clean Air Day
by

Clean Air Day

Before the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955, ...

Before the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955, air pollution was not considered a national environmental problem. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Save the forest!  Save the trees!  Plant a tree a shrub a bush a flower.  These plants are our salvation, they are our clean air.

Save me, sighs the great planet, I need the forest for my lungs.  I need that immense diversity of plant life so that I can breathe.  It’s not enough to clean the air with anti-pollution devices. Cleaning the air doesn’t create oxygen.  I need the mighty forest, the green earth to breathe.

Breathe mankind.  The clean air keeps you healthy.  No airborne diseases and pollution ridden skies.  The clean air is your health and your life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOCy7FYwN6E

Almighty human, with your immense mind, your brilliant aptitude, your compassion and nurturing.  Save us, calls the Earths creatures.  This is our home!

http://www.sustainability.ualberta.ca/Events/EnvironmentWeek.aspx

One more tree to plant, one more life to save.  There are 7 billion people on the planet and those people need air to breathe.  Clean air.  No pollution, no war, no more deforestration.  The deserts are increasing and the sand gives us nothing.  Nothing to eat, no shelter, no life forms, no oxygen to breathe, no plants to create oxygen.  The increasing desert brings death to the planet.  This fabulous oasis in the universe can’t sustain itself without the forest.

http://www.edmonton.ca/environmental/programs/air-quality.aspx

A small oasis in the desert, is like the Earth in the universe.  All of that vast, uninhabitable space, with a minute amount of life giving force.  That is the Earth in this solar system.  A small planet of life amongst a void of rock and gases.

We are alone in the solar system.

The life giving forces of the planet are strong.  The creative force that creates life is still giving. Human babies are being born every second.  The human population of the earth is constantly increasing and there is less oxygen in the air.  More lungs demanding air to breathe and less oxygen to fill them.  More bellies demanding food and less aerable land to produce it.  More bodies needing fresh drinking water and a water table diminishing.

The Earth still provides at the maximum capacity that it can, but it can’t create oxygen without it’s plant life.  Plants and trees are essential to the survival of the planet and to the survival of all animal life forms on the planet.

It is not enough to say, plant a tree, but it’s a start.  We need to start.  Planting a tree provides shelter for animals and birds, shade for your grass and for your comfort, sometimes food and healing products for your bodies.  Trees help to take pollutants out of the air, they provide oxygen to clean the air and oxygen for our lungs to breathe with.  The mighty planet provides all, but sustainability is not enough.  We are producing humans at an alarming rate and these people need to survive.

More lungs needing oxygen, more bellies needing food.  How will you save yourselves, almighty human.  The earth is stretched and provides what it can, but you, almighty mankind, must save yourselves.  A tree for the Earth is a tree for yourselves.  A forest to save the planet is a forest to save ourselves.  We need clean air to breathe.

Save our forests, plant more trees.  Even your shrubs and bushes will help.

Your call to action:  share this post.  Participate in Environment week.  It’s only one short week to remind us of the dying planet and the need to save it.  One ecosystem, one forest, one week of salvation.  Heed the call, your garden is needed.  One more tree, one more chance.

http://cleanairmakemore.com/make-the-commitment/commit-to-one-day/

Written by: Dr Louise Hayes

June 5, 2013

Environment Week
by

Environment Week

http://www.ec.gc.ca/sce-cew/

Listen to the Earth song.  The rapture, the glory.  The song from the mighty planet, it fills our lives.  Hear the sounds of the planet, with joy, with gladness.  Great, bountiful Earth with songs of praises, songs of joy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCJ5DwPWIIw

The brilliant, beautiful displays of colour.  All the hues of the forest, all the vibrance of the meadows,  all the showy flowers and the cascading waters.  The Earth.  So magnificent, so powerful.  All life comes  to us from this mighty planet.

Here, you awesome planet, the oasis for us.  We live our lives with gratitude, with compassion. For the world presents itself with boundless  discovery!  Each day gives us the opportunity for more knowledge, more sport, more information, more aptitude.  The mighty Earth with its seasons and  changes.  The great, good Earth, how to praise it.

This week, this short space in time, we contemplate the protection of the planet. How to save it, how to save ourselves.  One short week of sharing ideas, information and knowledge.  Too little.  To take a week out of our year to concentrate on environmental protection, is  not enough time.  In the lifespan of the mighty planet,  the needs for protection of the planet is constant.

Constant striving for zero pollution, constant striving for human population control, constant striving to reduce the impacts of development.

Environment week praises the planet for all of life.

http://www.edmonton.ca/environmental/programs/environment-week.aspx

Thank  you, sighs the great planet, Earth, for the protection of that ecosystem. for unpolluted waters, unpolluted skies, unpolluted soil.  Thank you for no plunder, all life survives.  Thank you, almighty human, for compassion, nurturing, reforestration.  Without the forest, the planet will suffocate, it will die.  Without oxygen in the mighty ocean, it will die.

The mighty planet sighs, with the burden of pollution.  Too much for its natural abilities to recover.  Too much waste, too much plunder.  Too much hardship for the great planet.  It’s immense variety of animal life is being destroyed, it’s wonderful  forests, for air to breathe are vanishing,  it’s mighty oceans are dying.

Brilliant mankind, sighs the great planet.  Thank you for your efforts.  Each ecosystem is fragile, each is needed, each is a creation of its own divinity.  Each is a refuge to a world of it’s own.

Brilliant mankind, sight the great planet.  Thank you for environment week, even this small gesture, is worthy of praises.

written by: Dr Louise Hayes

June 4, 2013

Discover
by

Discover

English: A map showing the location of the Nor...

English: A map showing the location of the Norwegian Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean with Irminger Sea Magyar: Térképvázlat a Norvég-tengerről és környezetéről (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Discover

http://www.vikingrivercruises.com/

The world awaits the dawning of the age of discovery.  Any age. Any time.  Brilliant mankind who’s inspiration is boundless, whose pursuits are limitless, whose energy is constant.  The imagination, the intelligence, the inspiration, the courage.  Nothing surpasses brilliant humankind.

The age of discovery presents itself in the unchartered waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.  Seafarers in worthy, well constructed craft voyaged for adventure, to discover, to appease their Gods of plenty.  Nothing is too great for this stalwart human, no challenge will beat them, no obstruction will stop them, only miracles and salvation will present themselves, only their lives of bold dignity will last.

Brilliant mankind, oh stalwart being, so bold and daring.  The Gods demand your might and dutiful acceptance of onward, northward passage.  To new lands, oh dauntless human, to new conquest, new soil, new discovery.  Oh, the immense mind of the mortal man, with so much daring.  To set sail for life unknown, to travel to destinations unpredicted.  To travel, travel, travel, to where?  Where do you go?  Oh, awesome human?  Where does your craft take you?

By fortunate miracles the landmass becomes visable.  Hail, mankind for a safe landing, for the discovery of an island so remote in the North Atlantic.  Brilliant mankind for the colonization of a land so remote.  This mighty island of glaciers and geothermal activity.  Even in those ancient days of yore, still to call it Iceland.  The land of unconquered beauty, with  no lasting settlement  there, only, perhaps the dutiful monks of Celtic origin, from Ireland, on seasonal migration.   To dare to be the inhabitant, the adventurer, the colonialist.  The  inspired mind of a willful, bold and courageous mind whose challenge on the planet, was to discover.

Hail, you mighty Norse man from the Scandinavian lands, who also took the British with you on your grand voyages of worldly conquest.  This proves the might of a seafaring nation.  The conquest of the North was yours.  The hundreds of  years of seafaring discovery, of travels in the far northerly reaches of the planet.  This was the home to the Viking.  The seas were plenty, the harvest was abundant, the skills were superior,  the trade was grand.

The life of the courageous conquerer, the adventurer.  To set sail with the inhabitants of a new land, to create a colony of humans which far surpasses the might and will of average.  The dauntless human, who goes where no one else has gone before.

Iceland.  Appropriately named for the great land mass that it is.   Iceland!  With glaciers and snow mass.  This wonderfully beautiful place.  This awesome grandeur of ice and snow.  The wild land, still abundant with life and plenty.

Hail, you almighty, ancient human.  You bold and daring, courageous human.  For life everlasting.  To live, only for this day, for this day and only for this day, always.

http://www.vikings-history.com/

written by: Dr, Louise Hayes

June 2, 2013