In endowing her creatures with the indomitable genetic will to survive, nature by coincidence also fitted them with a tribal instinct; to make common cause with those like themselves, viewing all others as competitors for resources that made survival possible. Becoming the 'fittest' to survive meant that those who were able to adapt to their environment best, did survive. It's a complex blueprint that nature devised.

Humankind prides itself on the ability to think, to observe and to plan ahead, to respond to challenging situations as befitting intelligent being. But in the same instance has never been able to use intelligence to surmount inherited reaction, primarily the survival instinct, and it is that unbridled, deeply engrained instinct that guides us to suspicion, hatred and violence toward others not of our perceived kind.

They can be distinctly ethnic, culturally variant, historically different or practise another kind of tribalism in religious choice, or ideologically opposed to the kind of politics accepted elsewhere and all become, in the primitive mind that lingers in all of us to whatever degree 'different' and as such a threat to the social mores and political contract we have devised to keep any society at peace.

Reaction to their diversity is usually on a slow simmer in more civilized societies, but it is there. In societies closer to their tribal-clan roots that visceral reaction is more direct and usually more brutal.

One can wonder how a young man privileged to grow to maturity in a pluralist society like Canada, ostensibly accepting of differences and maintaining suspicion at a low ebb, can possibly elevate a perceived threat to the status of 'us or them' to the extent that he will acquire a deadly firearm and use it at a gathering of religious faithful with the intention to kill.

But this is exactly what has occurred in a nation that prides itself on its vaunted inclusiveness and generosity in welcoming others to live among them. A young man with all the privileges of a wealthy society, including the opportunity to have a university education, enrolled in anthropology courses and political science, who could nonetheless harbour a simmering resentment against a religion other than his own, to the extent that he plans and executes mass murder, leaving in the wake of that assault countless wounded, and children who will never grow to maturity alongside a loving father.

It is to weep, and to wonder; whom to cast the blame toward? Imperious, impervious and indifferent nature, the constructor of all that exists, or the inborn characteristics of human nature, confused by the ability to make informed choices through the cerebral cortex or reacting to the influence of nature-endowed instincts so out of time with the destiny we foresee that forever glances back at the primitive creatures we once were, and occasionally revert to.

There are no hints too subtle for them not to know that something is afoot. The 'something that is afoot' that disturbs their equanimity is always when we are absent from the house without them. When we had only one little fellow, our toy poodle Riley, we went out of our way to take him with us wherever we would go, whenever we went anywhere and that could be quite awkward and limiting.

Now that we've got two little sibling poodle companions we feel that since they always have each others' company there's no need to feel badly for them if we leave them on their own at home occasionally. As we had to do this morning. We had little other choice, since dogs, small or large, are not welcome at hospitals and for obvious reasons.

So, after breakfast, we took them out to the backyard for a toilet break and off we went. Our hospital appointment didn't take long, and there was good news, so the occasion wasn't one to dampen our day. But such appointments more or less take the  stuffing out of you, and so to restore ourselves to a better frame of mind, we decided rather than returning directly home to drop by Byward Market for cheese and magazines, the combination that is so irresistible to my husband.

From early this morning, Jack and Jill sensed something different was happening. We arose a little earlier than usual. We didn't sit around the breakfast table as long as usual, reading the newspapers. We hurried to clean up the kitchen, make up our bed, and dress for the outside. And as soon as they saw us heading toward the foyer to retrieve our coats, their apprehension was affirmed.

They no longer follow us to the mud room where we put on our boots and prepare to go out to the garage. They know what will follow. They used to follow us and to plead with us to take them with us. Now, instead, they're resigned, they remain in the family room and they're quiet.

When we arrive back home again one might think they had been abandoned for days on end. They're beside themselves with agitated joy. And so are we.

"Less than a mile from the checkpoint we reached what had been a large Kurdish town. Except for a small section on the west side that had not yet been leveled, it was just piles of rubble. Between Jalawla and Suleimania, we counted twenty-nine destroyed towns and villages, but clearly there were many more in the area. In some cases, bulldozers were still at work, parked near half demolished buildings. Where the demolition was more advanced, the Iraqi Army had burned orchards and fields, blown up mosques, knocked over grave markers, and stripped wire from the utility poles. Closer to Suleimania, we passed through a landscape dotted with fruit trees but with no sign of human presence, not even a shepherd."
"By August 1, 1990, the Iraqi government had eradicated more than 4,000 of the approximately 4,500 villages in Kurdistan. In eastern Iraqi Kurdistan, the army destroyed the cities of Qalat Diza, Halabja, and Sayid Sadiq. According to the Iraqi Kurdistan Front, al-Majid's [Ali Hassan al-Majid, governor of the north, Saddam Hussein's cousin] decrees put 45,000 square kilometers of Kurdistan off limits to human life, out of a total of 75,000. Kurds living in the prohibited zones were deported to southern Iraq, or executed. After Saddam's fall in 2003, the Kurdistan government minister for human rights, Mohammed Ihssan, led forensic teams that uncovered mass graves containing thousands of Kurdish corpses near Samawa in southern Iraq and west Iraq in Salahaddin Governorate. The Kurdistan Government officially estimates that 182,000 died between 1987 and 1990 in the Anfal [from a Koranic verse interpreted to entitle the Muslim faithful the right to plunder the property of infidels]."

"On the morning of March 16, 1988, Iraqi warplanes flew over the small city of Halabja, on a plain east of the strategically important Darbandikan Dam in Eastern Kurdistan. The day before, Iranian Pasdaras [Revolutionary Guards] and Kurdish peshmerga had captured the city, but both forces withdrew, possibly suspecting an Iraqi attack. Three years later, I was in Halabja and the survivors told me what happened next. Planes with Iraqi markings dropped bombs that made softer detonations. There followed a smell that resembled burned almonds. Leaves turned brown, and people dropped dead. The corpses turned black."
"More than five thousand people died int he Halabja gassing."
From The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End
Peter W. Galbraith

Now the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant -- many of whose leaders were the elite among the Saddam military, dismissed with the fall of Iraq to the U.S.-led 2003 invasion to remove Saddam Hussein -- has picked up the bloody thread, targeting Kurds and Yazidis along with Christians and other minority ethnic and religious sects in the regions they now dominate.

In Kurdistan, the most effectively fierce opponent of ISIL, there is haven provided for all those who have been tormented and escaped slaughter by the viciously predatory killers. The Kurds themselves in Syria and Turkey remain targets of discrimination and bloody violence, perpetrated against them by the Turkish military thanks to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They are denied sovereignty in their ancient homelands which Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey claim as their own geography.

How much suffering can a people absorb? When will justice gain them their own internationally recognized sovereign state for a people representing 40 million people denied nationhood?

We know how fortunate we are for many things in life. For us in particular there are many reasons to be grateful. And they are too numerous to mention, but all of them feature largely in the quality of our lives.

Not to be overlooked is our quotidian habit of exercising our bodies and taking pleasure and comfort in seeking out leisure activities as close to nature as we can possibly imagine. This is something we have engaged in throughout our lives, and have no intention of abandoning, since being close to our natural surroundings is of such primary importance to us.

So, one of the many things we are grateful for, is the proximity of an urban forest. So close to our home that a two-minute walk up the street we live on exposes us to an entrance to a wide-ranging natural phenomenon that goes a long way to measurably improving the quality of our lives. We dip into the nearby forest and are immediately exposed to nature in all its manifestations, through every season along with the changing atmosphere and landscapes that reflect nature's moods and inclinations.

If we have one critique of the natural beauty that surrounds us there, it is the relative unattractiveness of the creek that runs through the ravine, below and surrounded by the forest. It is raw and since it is comprised basically of leda clay and sand, it is unproductive in that it does not present as a suitable venue for aquatic creatures. No fish, few frogs, no crustaceans, just the occasional sight of water striders, damselflies and cattusfly larvae.

Its saving grace is that in the spring, migrating birds passing through the area often stop there to rest partway through their journey to their ultimate summertime destinations. So on occasion we are excited to see a great blue heron or dabbling ducks like Mallards, briefly stop by. And, of course, from time to time, beaver arrive to take charge of the watercourse.

That's the utilitarian aspect of the creek. As for beauty, there is none. Except in the winter months when it is transformed and the banks of snow soften its aspect and create a vision of winter beauty absent for all other seasonal months of the year.

Remembering the Holocaust

• To ruminate upon exile, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehension, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, and to resolve to sleep no more. Sir Thomas Browne
• It is more wretched to commit than to suffer an injury. Seneca
• It is the mark of a good man not to know how to do an injury. Publilius Syrus
• It is a principle of human nature to hate those whom you have injured. Tacitus
• But when I observed the affairs of men plunged in such darkness, the guilty flourishing in continuous happiness, and the righteous tormented, my religion, tottering, began once more to fail. Claudian
• To do injustice is more disgraceful than to suffer it. Plato

 The Home Book of Quotations

• Still on Israel's head forlorn, Every nation heaps its scorn. Emma Lazarus
• Who hateth me but for my happiness? Or who is honoured now but for his wealth? Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus, Than pitied in a Christian poverty. Marlowe
• He hath . . . laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Shakespeare
• If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew. Albert Einstein 
• Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon. Benjamin Disraeli
• The Jews are among the aristocracy of every land; if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes. George Eliot
• When people talk about a wealthy man of my creed, they call him an Israelite; but if he is poor they call him a Jew. Heinrich Heine

 The Home Book of Quotations
 

•  April 20, 1943: Near Krakow, Poland, Jewish women attack their male SS guards while being transferred from one person to another. Most are killed.
• April 30, 1943: Two thousand Jews deported from Wlodawa, Poland, to Sobibor attack the death camp's SS guards on arrival at the unloading ramp. All of the Jews are killed by SS machine guns and grenades.
• May 6, 1943: Hajj Amin al-Husseini, grand mufti of Jerusalem, suggests to the Bulgarian foreign minister that Bulgarian-Jewish children should be sent to Poland rather than to Palestine.
• May 7, 1943: Nearly 7000 Jews are killed in Novogrudok, Belorussia; a group of Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto is ambushed by German troops while travelling through the city's sewer system; Sephardic Jewish homes in Tunisia are ransacked and looted by departing German troops.
• August 11, 1945: Anti-Jewish riots erupt in Krakow, Poland.
• November 19, 1945: Anti=Jewish riots erupt in Lublin, Poland.
• November 20, 1945: The Nuremberg Trials open. Defendants include Hermann Goring, Alfred Rosenberg, Rudolph Hess, and Julius Streicher.
• December 1945: Antisemitic Poles murder 11 Jews in the town of KosowLacki, Poland, less than six miles from the Treblinka extermination camp.
• December 22, 1945: The American Displaced Persons Act makes it easier for Nazi war criminals to immigrate to the United States; particularly benefiting Baltics, Ukrainians and ethnic Germans many who engaged in a "high level of collaboration:" with Germany.

 

• 1945 -- 1950: Between 250,000 and 300,000 Jews survive German concentration-camp incarceration. About six million Jews have perished; 1.6 million nonincarcerated European Jews also survive. Jews emigrate from Europe en masse: 142,000 to Palestine/Israel; 72,000 to the U.S.; 16,000 to Canada, 8000 to Belgium and about 20,000 to other countries.

The Holocaust Chronicle

Other than for times like the present, in the random appearance on the world stage of a singular individual who is given the capacity through popular acclaim or political direction to present a personality in direct opposition to all political and social orthodoxies, we generally focus on what affects us most immediately.

Which is why our thoughts are often on the weather, and related natural phenomena which erupt from time to time to challenge our placid normalcy of attitude that the world turns in our favour. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, violent storms, tsunamis and avalanches all focus international attention on stories of regrettable tragedy. Our emotion tune in to the hardships others are faced with, but we are soon diverted.

More locally those not immediately affected, turn to the weather, surely the most topical subject of all when people coalesce briefly to discuss banal matters, eclipsing the fascination that celebrity gossip has on a vast majority of any population.

For people like ourselves whom fate has not embroiled in such events directly, and who have only to cope with the vicissitudes of human nature we are exposed to in our intimate and extended connections, it is the weather that motivates us to greet acquaintances with cheery or grumpy reflections, or alternately as the case may be, comments on nature.

Judging by our own admittedly limited weather exposure in this new year of 2017, it seems that this month of this year may qualify as the warmest on record. We are still locally in the hugely appreciated grip of a mild-weather phenomenon, highly unusual for the depth of the warmth as much as for its lingering effect. Leading us to think improbably, how nice it would be if winters in our northern hemisphere always hovered around the freezing (centigrade) mark and no lower.

It makes our outside experiences that much more congenial, and it is not only how we feel, but how our walking companions react to the mild, snowy atmosphere as well. Granted, these episodic contradictions in the expectation of 'normal'-for-the-season temperatures and atmospheric events are anything but uniform, with the awareness that other parts of the world not normally given to receiving cold weather are experiencing the direct opposite of what we're revelling in.....

During terrible times, it is the better angels among us who emerge to give hope to the afflicted that represent the salvation of humanity. Like those that Yad Vashem recognizes, those non-afflicted who stepped forward selflessly to place themselves in danger for the greater purpose of exercising determination and compassion in the saving of Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

On a microscale, it is embodied in the persona of a nine-year-old boy trapped within an avalanche-crushed hotel in a mountainous region of Italy, following an earthquake. Edoardo Di Carlo was trapped, alongside two other children younger than he in the hotel's game room. For two days and nights the children: Edoardo, six-year-old Ludovica Parete and seven-year-old Samuel Di Michelangelo, huddled in a small area, bereft of food or water and the comfort of knowing the whereabouts of their parents.

Ludovica Parete, six, was one of four children who were rescued after being buried by a wall of snow, ice, rock and shattered pine trees. Credit: Claudio Lattanzio/Ansa

The catastrophic building collapse took its toll on at least half of the people who were in the hotel at the time of its avalanche-crushing destruction. When the children were finally brought to safety by their rescuers, it was revealed by the younger two that the nine-year-old Edoardo had taken the initiative to give them what comfort he could. He could and he did.

And that comfort took the form of hugs for emotional warmth and reassurance, and story-telling and singing to give them all the courage to envision and await their rescue. They might only have been in a better emotional position had the three sheepdog puppies that were eventually rescued, huddled within yet another area of the hotel, been enclosed with the children.

Hopes that survivors may still be found in the mangled remains of the resort were boosted on Monday after three sheep dog puppies were rescued from the hotel's boiler room. Credit: Alessandro Di Meo/Ansa

"Where are mum and dad?" the boy asked while being taken to a hospital. Edoardo is now an orphan, his parents did not survive their ordeal. They are among the 18 who did not live to be rescued. Perhaps they died praying that their son would survive. He will now be cared for by his older teen-age brothers and members of his extended family whose mourning will be charged with the future well-being of the surviving member of the afflicted family.

All might have benefited from snuggling together for warmth against the crushing cold and their deprivation of sustenance. That all survived represents a kind of miraculous end-of-story, although the end of the story will be reflected in the manner that all six, the children and the dogs, attain to adulthood with the haunting ghost of their memories.

Oh my, it's snowing again! First thing this morning it wasn't snow, but freezing rain. And that freezing rain pings expressively on one's winter jacket with an amazing amount of force, quite in contrast to the gentle settling of snowflakes on that same fabric where the accumulation soon mounts to cover you with a mantle of sparkling white.

By the time we entered the ravine for our usual daily ramble in the woods, snow was coming down thickly and once again the landscape looked enchanting. For the present, the accumulation from this snowfall has been light, but it will continue all day, for a total of between ten and fifteen centimetres and in so doing, we will once again find ourselves in the kind of winter arras we're more familiar with than the overcast but snowless atmosphere so at odds with our expectations, with its much milder temperatures.

Most of our ravine walk took place as though we were on our very own private estate. No one else around, no other walkers, no dogs other than Jackie and Jillie, so it was a quiet, contemplative amble on the forest trails. And, as they sometimes do, our two little imps engaged in one of their wild runabouts, racing about in front of us, behind us, one chasing the other breathlessly in a kind of celebration of the day and its weather.

Just as we were about to exit, climbing up the last long hill toward the street level, Jackie and  Jillie became aware, long before we were, of the approach of others. First to come into sight was a very large black excitable and lively Labrador Retriever, and soon afterward a slower Retriever-mix, smaller than the first. They were clearly puzzled by the mad barking Jackie and Jillie treated them to, but just as obviously intent on being friendly. In fact, physically cozying up to us. Enough so that I was almost bowled over until their human came into sight and ordered 'Bear' to desist.

He's the kind of dog you simply cannot resist noticing for his emotional neediness which requires a sympathetic response. And that sympathetic response was all he needed to validate his girth nuzzling your legs. He was just a kid of 7; his companion was 16, somewhat frail, but eager for his walk in the woods. Bear, his human informed us, we extraordinarily protective of his much older companion.

Beloved, they are, of their human and kind enough to return the compliment.

That little sprite in the bright pink jacket is Daisy. She doesn't know she has the market covered on self-assurance, but she has. She is tiny, easily half the size of our two little black imps who have a habit of converging on other dogs in a two-on-one presence that can be intimidating. Daisy wasn't the least bit intimidated. She did do a double-take, however, as though to convey her impression that Jackie and Jillie were behaving in a very ill-mannered fashion.

And she was perfectly correct. It didn't take long, however, for the three to become familiar with one another. This was the first time we'd ever seen Daisy's companion in the ravine, let alone Daisy herself. The peculiar weather pattern that descended on us almost a week ago has brought far more people out than we would normally see in a trek in the ravine through the forested trails.

Instead of the usual minus-ten C-degrees on a reasonable mid-January day, we've been 'coping' with daytime highs between minus-one to plus-five. Which translates to dressing for far milder weather than we're accustomed to on this date, and enjoying the pleasure of it all. With, or without sun.

Yesterday we came across a familiar face we haven't seen in quite awhile. We do see her adult son who lives nearby far more often. His two little companions are familiar to our two, they're fluffy little good-natured terriers. And there they were, with our friend's mother who was looking after them while her fireman-son was off to Florida for a week of hockey competition, if you can believe it. And with her was her own little dog.

Angus too is smaller than Jackie and Jillie, mostly because like his breed, his legs are so stubbily-short. But that didn't keep him from hurrying on ahead while the other four gambolled together. Angus was interested in what lay ahead, around corners where he couldn't be seen, his absence eliciting calls for his return with the promise of a treat. He wandered off so often that every one of the little dogs were the happy recipients of 'come-back-Angus' treats in the space of a half-hour.

One of the cardinal virtues of humankind is to embrace moderation as the key to good living, health and prosperity and the capacity of tolerance toward others. This is an injunction promoted by wise minds vastly predating modernity; the Golden Mean the ideal virtue of balance dates back millennia to the early Greek philosophers who recognized the vital essence of the middle way as a way to elevate our better natures, to avoid conflict, to make us more civil human beings.

Despite the endlessly proven veracity of the promise behind moderation we tend toward veering from one extreme to another. A nation that chose to select and elect the man whose brilliant oratory convinced Americans that an intellectual bi-racial man of sobriety and enduring patience would be the means by which their great country could re-invigorate and re-event itself both at home and abroad, that expression in tolerant reaction against intolerant brutality was a failure.

The chosen alternative to the administration of Barack Obama which selected the path of alienating rather than uniting the nation's two ideological political parties for the betterment of its society and its failure to recognize and address the way forward in aiding other nations in an allied move to reclaim the world order from violently lethal waves of terrorism that one of the world's most popular and perniciously irredentist religions promoted, for fear of offending popular sensibilities represented yet another miserable dereliction of global obligation.

The broadly self-selected solution to the ills of a polarized nation and a world beset by violence has been to bring to the highest office of the world's executive order a boastful, ignorant bigot, directly opposing in the raw phrases of offensive incivility the advice of moderation. His 'solutions' to all that ails the world and his nation through the superb rationality of a man ill-versed in governance and world affairs whose claim to fame has been the ability to gain wealth through questionable transactions, in the process behaving as an immoral predator of women has sent a shudder of incredulity and fear throughout the world.

My husband, whose sense of taste still hasn't returned to normal post-open-heart surgery, and nor has his appetite yet been fully restored, yesterday thought he might as well use the pint of whipped cream he had bought on a whim, intending to make up a batch of ice cream. Instead of fiddling around with the ice cream maker, however, he entertained second thought and decided he'd just whip the cream to produce a batch of whipped cream to complement the apple pie I'd baked earlier in the day.

So that's what we enjoyed for dessert last night. Apple pie with a nice flaky crust whose interior had been spiced up with snippets of candied ginger, slathered over with whipped cream, a taste-bud-filled indulgence to follow our meal of chicken soup with rice, gingered-tomato chicken breasts, potato pudding and roasted cauliflower.

Our ravine walk that took place much earlier in the day saw plenty of others out walking, either individually, or with their companion dogs. At one juncture we stopped to talk with one acquaintance and his single dog, when another came by with three dogs, and another yet with a dog of her own, and with our two that made for quite a few, large and small, milling about us excitedly, and leaping about in the snow.

Several days earlier we'd had a light dusting of snow, returning the landscape to its fairy-tale temporary state of scintillating beauty. But it was an ephemeral vision, given the turn our weather has taken of late, giving us day after day of moderate temperatures, inclining the snowpack to begin a melt, diminishing its size, though hardly noticeable in the forest.

It most surely is a grave matter to be disrespectful to the administrative choice at the very highest level of the affairs of another nation, particularly one that is situated geographically contiguously to one's own, but in the matter of the duly elected and now fully invested President of the United States, it is beyond difficult not to heave a shudder of apprehension.

When, on the morning after the U.S. presidential election, my husband awoke me to the news that Donald Trump had prevailed, when we had gone to bed confident in all the pundits' assurances that that could not possibly be the outcome of the presidential election, I was in disbelieving shock. That shock has moderated of necessity, yet whenever I hear the man speak and listen to the content of what he has to say and its manner of delivery, I shudder anew.

Like most outsiders and many Americans I had no especial regard for the other person contesting that election. In my opinion, as a rank political amateur but someone curious enough to follow the political byways of the world, her election as president would not have been much of an improvement over the disappointment of President Obama's tenure under whose watchful eye and wasted opportunities the world fell into violent chaos and limitless people lost their lives, while the world's millions of refugees fleeing war and instability grew impossibly.

Not that the United States should be expected to, nor would be capable, of solving all the ills in the world that we human beings impose upon one another, but that self-appointed task of global watchdog and intervenor was one that the United States of America, for good or for ill (with obviously mixed results) undertook in the absence of any influential and powerful other source, given the abysmal failure of the United Nations, and did manage to impose upon the world order much that was useful in the past.

Now, the people have spoken. They have elected a man who, in their opinion, will adequately represent the kind of government they want and feel they deserve. A government for the people, of the people, by the people. If only. At noon this day, a charlatan gesticulated with his grubby little hands and pompoustulated an address to give assurance to the American public that they did well when they took him seriously, as out of his egotistical little mouth came the confident claims that he was more than capable of addressing himself to and solving the ills that stalk his country in his most inimitable manner.

During this significant, celebratory event worthy of the installation of a global monarch, a good part of the world which has always valued cordial relations with the United States, shuddered. While I set about baking an apple pie. For legend has it that there is nothing as American as apple pie.

"We didn't know -- imagine! In these days we didn't know that to be Jewish and to come from Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany already had the seeds of tragedy in it."
"By the time the full horror of what was happening in Germany, and later in Austria, reached the newspapers, the whole thing had become almost too fantastic for the ordinary mind to take in. It took a war to make people understand what was happening in peacetime, and to tell the truth, very many never understood it."
"All that the ordinary man in the street thought about this was that "that man" was at it again and that Germany seemed likely to be a perpetual pain in the neck to those who wanted a quiet life. The Nuremberg Laws was a vague term to most people, very imperfectly understood -- except for the fact that they were something Hitler had thought up against the Jews. And, if the Jews were being put in their place in Germany, some people thought it was not a bad thing."
"On the terrible ninth and tenth of November, 1938, throughout Germany and Austria and the borders of Czecho-Slovakia -- now under German domination -- the order went forth that every male Jew between the ages of eighteen and sixty was to be rounded up and sent to a concentration camp. And with very few exceptions, this came to pass, in circumstances of the most horrible brutality."
Safe Passage, Ida Cook : The Remarkable True Story of Two Sisters Who Rescued Jews from the Nazis

The passages above are excerpted from a memoir originally published in 1950, republished in 1976 as We followed Our Stars, by Ida and Louse Cook, two British sisters whose parents raised them to be resolute and morally sympathetic adults. And their daughters did not disappoint their parents' expectations. Which were never spelled out to the girls, but which they had emulated from their parents' expressions and values, adopting them as their own.

Ida Cook eventually became a 'romance writer', a writer of what we call today, pulp romance fiction so popular among women as steamy romances. Neither sister ever married, so Ida's imagination filled in all the gaps in her and her sister's experience of intimate relationships between men and women. She was a writer born, however, and eventually began to earn quite a bit of money from her popularized stories, money she used for twin passions the sisters shared.

They shared a love of opera, and even as young and timid, but determined adults in their early twenties, set out to experience opera as it was mounted in Germany and in the United States, taking passage that they could barely afford to visit those countries, eventually becoming familiar to and friends with operatic stars, through the force of their personalities and obvious love and knowledge of that branch of musical performance.

This memoir was re-discovered and re-published in 2008. Oddly, but perhaps fittingly enough, by the very publishing house renowned for the publication of tawdry romance novels which had never lost their popularity with the reading public whose tastes veered in that direction. Serious readers of classic literature tend to shiver with distaste at the very name of the publishing house -- Harlequin. But this later re-publication of the sisters' World War II recollections has the Harlequin imprimatur.

And it turned out that their passionate attachment to opera opened the door for the two sisters to view what was happening in Germany to the persecuted Jewish community under the banner of the Third Reich.  Their operatic contacts in New York and then Germany introduced them in an intimate manner to the plight of German Jews and eventually the two sisters became integrally involved in aiding desperate Jews to find temporary haven in Great Britain until they were able to move on to permanent settlement there or elsewhere.

It is their dual story of their love for opera, the characters of operatic renown who became their personal contacts, and their dedication to the task of helping desperate Jews to find passage and safety out of Germany and Austria that this book focuses on. Since Ida was a professional writer, the book itself is well written, describing in fond (opera) terms their experiences and in horrified terms (the looming Holocaust) their knowledge and involvement in rescue.

They were able to bring 28 Jewish families out of harm's way by risking their own safety and security in their many purposeful trips to Germany and Austria to interview potential 'cases' that they took on, spending whatever profits were made through the publication of Ida Cook's many romance adventures which people paid attention to while studiously remaining ignorant of the colossal tragedy unfolding on the Continent predating and during the dreadful Second World War years.

At this time of year throughout the winter season of cold and wind, I always hesitate about giving Jackie and Jillie haircuts. Two weeks ago we had a surprisingly mild weather day so we bathed them and felt fine about it. They were well towelled, and afterward ran around the house like like crazies, and so dried off nicely right down to their innards.

Jillie, post-haircut

Yesterday morning it seemed, looking out from inside the house, to be shaping up to be yet another one of those modestly moderate weather days. And since the two little tramps scamps looked fairly dishevelled, which brushing their haircoats did little to improve, I knew, reluctantly, that it was time for haircuts.

They do know, when they see me assembling the tools I use, the little 'barrel' containing a variety of scissors, brushes, and a bag to contain much of what I cut away, that they're in for an ordeal. I knew of course, that I too was preparing for an ordeal that I would have to endure regardless. Jillie more or less submits to the outrage of having her hair groomed, but Jackie doesn't make an effort to hide his dismay.

Jackie, having survived his haircut

He struggles and protests and makes the enterprise as frustratingly difficult as possible. But eventually they were both done, and they looked far more presentable. I had told myself I wouldn't snip much off, to ensure they were well insulated against the outdoor cold, but as usual once I proceed I just keep going. Their haircoat grows so impressively swiftly in between these sessions.

They were dressed for the usual jaunt in the ravine, with sweater, coat and halter. But when we arrived in the forest it didn't take long to realize that though the thermometer read minus-1 C, the icy wind, the overcast sky and the humidity permeating the atmosphere made it seem much, much colder. Still, they didn't seem to mind and went about their sniffing business as usual.

Excitedly greeting one of their friends, Lilly, a patient, white German Shepherd out for her daily constitutional, just like them.

Jackie (left), Jillie (centre) and Lilly (forefront)

Because it's been close to a week since snow has fallen and in between there was freezing rain and even rain as the temperature rose then dropped again, detritus sits glaringly atop the snowpack. And among the detritus is plenty of evidence that the winds that have whipped and roared through the atmosphere in the past several weeks have taken their toll.

Apart from dead branches that have fallen off trees, there is an inordinate amount of live pine branches that have been torn by the wind off pine trees. Strangely, it appears to be the pines that have suffered these losses. Spruce, fir and cedars don't appear to have been affected the way pines have been.

Although today, to judge by the thermometer, the temperature has risen to the same moderate height as it had done yesterday, the ample sunshine and gentle wind that yesterday hosted made it a beautiful day, whereas today the sun struggles in vain to assert itself but cannot get beyond the thickly opaque-white of the gathering snowstorm set to strike later this afternoon.

The wind episodes of chill ill-will are more than evident, so that thermometer measurement aside, the dampness and the wind have assumed an identity quite at odds with the temperature. It has turned out to be a wretchedly nasty day. Even with the new down-filled mittens lined with special gloves that my husband just bought for us, my fingers were cold.

To add to the diminished pleasure in today's ravine walk was the sight of the forest floor littered by newly-felled ash trees. Municipal work crews have been working intermittently to remove the trees, immature and mature alike, that have succumbed to the Emerald Ash Borer, an intrusive foreign species of predator that has slowly killed our ash trees.

Although the ravine has a large assortment of both conifers and deciduous, with ample oak, maple, willow, poplar, Hawthorn, apple, birch and beech, among still others such as yews, and junipers among the spruce, fir and pine, the predations of the beetles on the ash trees represents a tragic end to that species. Taking down the dead ash trees has left gaps in the forest beyond sad.

And although in time other trees will grow to fill the gap left by the ash, they will be missed. They've become another victim of globalization, of pest species that have managed to make their way beyond their natural habitat, moving from Asia to North America in the transport of freighted goods and products from across the world.

Unlike some other Northern Hemisphere countries like Norway and Finland whose winters can seem dark and oppressive because of a lack of sunlight, Canada can claim with full reason to do so that winters are, by and large though cold and snowy and windy, also abundantly sunny. Even in the winter, the appearance of the sun has a warming effect, even though most days of searing icy cold are also sunny.

Today is not an icy-cold day, the atmosphere has warmed up beautifully. In the early morning hours the temperature registered minus-14C, but by eleven in the morning it had risen swiftly and steeply to minus-2C degrees. downright balmy. And headed for plus-1C by afternoon.

We decided to head out in the morning, and the atmosphere felt so mild, even the wind felt beneficent for while it mostly affected the forest canopy in the ravine we were trekking through, we hardly felt it at ground level.  And the rays of the sun, when they reached us, felt caressingly warm.

Bilberry creek was running freely, dappled with light ice around its edges. No layers of accumulated snow were left on any of the trees, but ample snowpack was in place on the forest floor and atop anything that lay horizontally.

Altogether it was a most pleasant way to spend an hour, walking the firm and icy trails of the ravine, our balance assured, thanks to the cleats we pull over our winter boots.

While acknowledging that seasonal affective disorder (SAD) does have a deleterious mood and attitudinal effect on many people, perhaps if we set aside the perception that winter imprisons us and ventured out into its wide open, natural spaces, there would be fewer people to be beset with depression through the winter months.

Years back, surrounded by the Cariboo mountain range, we went to sleep that first night at the Bowron Lakes circuit, in the tent we managed to get up at our first camping spot just before torrents of rain hit. When we awoke the following morning the rain had lifted and our eyes probed the mountains around us which had been entirely mantled with snow.

It was mid-September and it was cold, even at the three-thousand-foot level where we were. We had brought cold-weather clothing with us and we needed it. The weather was unfailingly overcast and windy with constant rain episodes for the eight days we were in the Northern British Columbia site so popular with nature-loving foreign tourists.

As Canadians, this was our ultimate wilderness adventure and one we had relished even before arriving from Ontario to British Columbia to meet up with our youngest son who lives in Vancouver. The long drive from Vancouver to our destination took us through geology cut through by the mighty Fraser River, where we saw Dall sheep alongside the highway we shared with thundering-through timber transports.

We saw tumbleweed in the desert areas, and huge cattle ranches and saw vast tracts of land with sophisticated irrigation systems where ginseng was being grown. We saw some stupendous geology at Cache Creek, and the Fraser River Canyon took our breath away.

During the circuit we paddled furiously to arrive at one lake after another. Everywhere we looked, in all directions, there were the mountains. Sometimes in the early morning hours the lakes were glassy-smooth; by the time early afternoon had evolved, the wind was up and so were whitecaps. Most of the campsites with multiple areas to erect a tent we had to ourselves. Owls called out close to our campsites, and that was the first occasion that I'd ever heard the spine-chilling screech of Screech Owls.

Toward the last third of the circuit there was a river/creek that had to be transited. Trouble was, despite all the rain that had followed us through each day's adventure, the passage was made difficult by the fact that the water level was low. Which meant that only one of us could be in the canoe, steering it, with the weight of our baggage freight (food, camping equipment) through, while the other had to wade the watercourse. It wasn't possible to bushwhack our way through the undergrowth on either side of the river. It was too densely covered with tall, spiny Devil's club (think of Stinging Nettle on steroids).

At one juncture we suddenly rounded a curve on another, more readily navigable river course when we came upon a browsing moose cow. My husband and our son were hugely enthused while I cringed backward in the canoe, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, bedazzled in the direction of stark, primal fear at the presence of the monstrous-sized creature which, in fact, took little notice of our proximity.

At night all of our food had to be elevated to ensure they issued no invitation to the Grizzlies that we were cautioned would be about. The outfitter where we rented our canoe laughed when I asked if we would be advised to take with us pepper spray as a precaution. "This your mother?" he asked our son. "Hell, don't worry", he added, "you can easily outrun any bear while it's busy with your mum", he advised, laughing uproariously at his humour.

In leisure hours, during lapses in the rain, we would sit out on the trunks of beached old giants, musing about our incomparable adventure. And one of us would take the binoculars to play them over the mountain slopes before and beyond us to see if we could pick out the form of a Grizzly. We never did. But once, when we temporarily beached the canoe on a long stretch of shale, we saw the unmistakable and seemingly fresh imprints of wolf, alongside those of caribou.

And once during the trip we came across a different type of food storage at one camping spot; a huge iron safe, that had been unmercifully thumped by some irate Grizzly, denting the safe quite out of shape.

"In that outer world that hums so urgently over the wires, wars and disasters come and go. The names might change -- and sometimes not even those -- but the tones and platitudes of The Voice never vary. Of course, the victims are to be pitied, but there is far more horror that never comes to our notice in this way. Each civilization creates its own dogma of importance, its own values, its own needs, and its own fashionable veneers. The voices I hear are qualified by the subliminal conditioning of a city of a million souls in the mild, coastal climate of Western Canada. It is as simple -- and as specific -- as that. The announcers might shape their mouths around earth-shattering events but how little their platitudes encompass life beyond their walls."
But our planet is a small place and in my chosen corner of it I am curious about those of its human endeavours and triumphs that the media deem noteworthy enough to pass on. Without TV, newspapers, telephone or regular mail, the radio is my only contact with that world. And while the wars and disasters make little immediate impact on whether the water bucket or woodshed is full, they will in the long run, for there is no movement, no decision, no destruction in this world that does not eventually have some kind of environmental impact. I might prefer to live apart from those crowded, artificial satellites by whose standards most people measure existence, but I could not isolate myself from them even if I wanted to. Twenty miles from the nearest road and neighbour I can filter much of the detritus of modern civilization and absorb what I need, but I am still undeniably part of the confusion and wonder of this sphere that we call Earth."

This, from the prologue of Chris Czajkowski's Nuk Tessli, The Life of a Wilderness Dweller. This is an account of life lived as close to the natural world as one can possibly get, by a woman whose personal convictions are so all-consuming that she easefully musters the courage to live in isolation but for brief -- and difficult to attain to -- forays into what she describes as the settled world of a gathering of people living in close proximity. But that world that she visits on occasion is itself located in a remote, northern area of British Columbia.

Chris Czajkoski lives in self-ordered isolation from the civilized world, in the company of two large dogs -- a company that revolves as nature takes its course with the life expectancy of canines -- who are both companions and work animals, helping her convey the necessities of travel, carrying packs containing food -- hers and their own -- fuel, tent, sleeping bag, stove and bare clothing necessities, including snowshoes when not being worn, sharing the burden with Chris herself. This when she and they undertake long, difficult treks out of the wilderness into settled, populated areas, however sparsely.

She is a transplant from Great Britain, who found in the coastal mountains of British Columbia her ideal home in close communion with the natural world that is her focus in life. Starting out as a seasonal tree planter, she moved from that arduous occupation into that of an artist-in-residence in cabins she built herself acquiring a facility with building and carpentry as she proceeded, so she could live among the splendours of her natural surroundings, enriching her life and eventually offering the opportunity to others to briefly share those surroundings with her, as a guide.

Her home is accessible by float plane from Williams Lake, where she travels occasionally to stock up on the necessities of living supplies; construction equipment, fuel and food when it is required, having it conveyed back to the small lake that sits in close proximity to her home cabin and the two she built to accommodate environmental tourists booking time to stay over with her in the environment that equates with the meaning of life to this woman and to the creatures whose habitat she shares.

We two resting on the ascent to Long Peak, at the Gates of Shangri-la

My husband and I had the opportunity to do some mountain treks across from the Stein Valley, years ago, when alpine camping was new to us, though we had for years previously ascended mountains in the Presidential Range of the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire with our then-young family of three children. It was our youngest son, long since occupied as a biologist, who took us to the mountains of the province in which he lives. The last adventure he shared with us was a week of canoe camping through the Bowron Lakes circuit, not all that far from Williams Lake.