rivers

The Mighty River Flows
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The Mighty River Flows

Hail Brave hearts

Yes, it’s here, the spring has arrived, in snowy, blustery style,  In like a lion, with  heavy snow falls, March has ended the winter with a cold snap, that keeps us bundled up and happy.  Of course, the summer will eventually come, but now the trails are white.  The forest floor is covered, a late spring, with no drought in sight.

The itch is on, to turn the seasons, pull out the canoe and test the current.  Ice flows passing with the water as the melting winter turns to spring.  Catch us in our history, as we wave farewell to winter, the icy highways turn to melt waters and the dangerous ice flows temp.  No  more the sleighs to speed us along the slippery, white rivers, now it’s canoes and boats and water craft, to take our time away.

Go back, fine fellows, to days gone by, to times of yesteryear.  To the fur trade and the brave at heart the times of the voyageur.  A dangerous time of year, this is, when winter turns to spring.  The trails are wet, the rivers are thin ice and the progress becomes slow.  Take a nap and wait a week, a well deserved holiday.  The harshness of this difficult time, will melt the winter away.  Soon the canoe will be laden, with supplies to take inland.  To visit with the natives and to find a brand new land.  Off come the winter fur coats, hats and mitts are stored.  Onto another adventure, to the watery highways of this world.

A well traveled route, the St. Lawrence, filled with Coureur de Bois.  One of the most dangerous occupations of that lifetime, to travel, explore and trade in the great unknown wild.

http://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=25887&type=pge     Trois Riviers, Quebec

The canoes are large enough, they carry several men.  All trained and skilled in many ways, to tackle the obstacle at hand.  Come from far away, in European style, to make a living the hard way, adventure, in the Canadian wild.  A fearsome, mighty river, the St. Lawrence is cracking up.  Pretty soon, it will be show time, pack your bags and liven up.  No more naps or holidays, the spring torrents are flooding.  It’s an adventure too dangerous for us,  spring break up is not even for the daring.  Icy flows and chilly woes, we’ll wait for another day.  This is not the best of times, for watery, river play.

But if you were an itchy voyageur, with bills at home to pay, perhaps the tempting season, would  cast him adrift anyway.

A lovely camping trip, with lakes and rivers to follow, the Canadian rivers of highway, still bind us to our past.  Traditions of camping and canoeing, following well traveled routes.  Today, we love this great wild land and praise the nations splendor.  Our ancestors did a very fine job, of protecting and implementing the heritage that we covet today.  A land of unspoiled wonder, with historical routes to travel.  This is our fine country we still travel in style.  From winter sleigh to summer canoe, the adventure has never left us.

written by Dr.  Louise Hayes

April 18, 2018

Northern Ontario Canoe Trip,  The Nat River

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6ie5jptrgY
A Great Escape
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A Great Escape

Good Day Bravehearts

The splendid great wild, with its remote and awesome places. Here, in a world class national park, a UNESCO world heritage site, we live and play and hike to our hearts content. The world of opportunity knocks and we respond with enthusiasm, for the endless adventure in hiking the great wild.
This week, we travel into a remote and little known mountain pass, high up in the alpine. where the curiosity of remote, wild adventure takes us. Ever cautious, we prepare for all weather, rain suites, first aid kits, water ,sunscreen, food, insect repellent, hat, gloves, binoculars and cameras, maps and gps.   It can be cold in the alpine, with changeable weather and here it can be blistering hot, or freezing rain, sometimes turning to hail or snow. We all pack bear spray.
It’s been a good year for bears. Many sightings of females with two and three cubs and the powerful grizzly bear has made her presence well known, with frequent sightings and photo chances of her and her healthy offspring. The alpine is a favorite place of the grizzly and we don’t want to startle one, so our group is large and loud. It’s better to be safe, with large numbers, so the resident predator hears us coming.

The climb is steep and the footing is uneven.  We spent three hours hiking to this remote place, high up into the alpine for a view of the glaciers on another mountain range.  The intermittent showers cooled us and the climb was not as difficult as it sometimes is.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/pn-np/ab/jasper/index.aspx  Jasper National Park

Our fathers fought for this great land.  A magnificent mountain range in a far off place.  They fought for  freedom, for prosperity, for a better world and here, in a remote and little known mountain pass, we enjoy and praise the brilliance of that choice.  To protect the land, to save it for future generations, relatively untouched, preserved and intact.  A home for the wild and an escape for us.

We are early in this years adventure.  The spring was late and the wild flowers are not yet as showy as they will be.  But also, we have left the great bear behind us, to forage in the valleys until the alpine will give them a meal.  They will be here soon.

Today, the pass is for us, with only the calls of the birds and the rushing water, the insects and the wind.

The far off glacier is the head waters of our rivers and the source of our daily water supply.   Protected high up in a mountain top, the glacier lies in its own protected domain.  Remote enough, that it is rarely visited and high enough that is remains intact.  The grand great wild, providing fresh drinking water for us and the planet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF05-slHnNk  Fukushima

These rare, protected places, great mountain ranges like the Rocky Mountain National Parks are home to the awesome wild, the glaciers and the beautiful flowers. The power of the earth lies in these special protected places, where only the fortunate few can roam.  Our drinking water, our air supply, our dark sky,  our much needed connection to the natural world.

Here is where we live and play and praise the foresight of brilliant people who saved this land for us to enjoy.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

 

And they are us
by

And they are us

The heroes of the past haunt us with their defiant perseverance.  Here us,  oh mortal man, we are your blood, your kin, your heart, your soul, your mind.  We are your yesterdays, your todays and your tomorrows.  We are the spirits of the conscience that will not die.  We live forever, oh mortal human.  Live forever and you will never die.

We are the example of your spirit.  The uncontested might, the strength, the courage, the path less followed, but always sought after.  We are the yearnings of your soul.  The leaders of the pack, the fortitude of the confident, skilled, accomplished human from anywhere.  We choose ourselves, to be the champions, we choose our lives to be the heartbreak.  Follow our footsteps, everyday heroes, test your strength against ours and feel the worthy soul of a brilliant life, cast in clay, dust and joy.  All that we live for is joy.

Joy!  Feel your heart sing!  Your call to order.  Claim your place.  Choose your prize.  The hero is you.

To follow in the path of a brilliant ancestor is a call to challenge your own space and time.  Limitless resources, limitless time, limitless company.  The path is the same, the company different, the skills unknown.  Would you dare to pursue the same adventure?  Would you dare to be a voyageur?

http://www.tfo.org/emissions/rendezvousvoyageur/en/world/worklife/daybrigade.html

The rivers are still tumultuous.  As long as they ever were.  The North Saskatchewan River passes through three provinces.  The Columbia River’s headwaters are in Canada and it ends at the Pacific Ocean in the United States.  Hundreds of kilometers of travel in voyageur canoes. Would you be the awesome voyageur.  The weeks of travel in open canoes, paddling hundreds of kilometers of rivers, battling currants, weather and fatigue.  Epic voyages of grand adventure.  To retrace the paths of centuries old man.  To relive the challenge of that call to adventure, that companionship, endurance, nature and freedom.  The love of the open water, the risk and the self worth.  To be the champion!  To rise to the call  of your heart and your mind.  To cast aside the daily toil.  What is a human?  What is it that is humanly possible?  The unreachable star.

The test of strength is good for the body and the test of will is good for the mind.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fort-Langley-Canoe-Club-2013-Fraser-Brigade/195684620567080

Play!  The joy of being, the fun of it all.   Play!  For sport, for relaxation, for companionship, for fun and for your body.  Come you awesome human.  Follow your ancestors on a path to glory.  Come and join the grand adventure of your life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLCBXdTA0Yg

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

June 23, 2013

www.bbcanada.com/10895.html

David Thompson
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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