Irving and I have always been interested in Polar exploration, reading of what the determined explorers went through as they forged their way through extreme weather conditions, particular geological areas of immense cold, beauty and alien-to-human-survival conditions, straining all their physical resources to reach their goal. Many of course did not, but all without exception suffered exhaustion, mental fatigue, the desperation of uncertainty and fear in their chosen enterprise. Some succeeded while others were not meant to.

My interest also steered me to the mountains in Canada's far North and the Arctic along with Himalayan adventures; reading about them, certainly not engaging in the pursuit of summiting those incredible heights of vast geological proportions while battling inclement elements. Physical feats of fearsome demand on the human body requiring resolute endurance, physical stamina and ambition beyond the ken of most folks. I've been more lately immersed in a fascinating book about scientists in the first quarter of the 18th century enduring hardships and physical strain on an adventure of their own, one with a decided purpose, not merely recreational in nature; to measure the Earth and to prove through their calculations a more exact shape of the Earth.

These were French astronomers, a small group of less than twenty dedicated scientists who were dispatched by the French National Academy of Science to settle a dispute over the Earth's shape, a kind of intellectual/scientific dispute between France (Cartesian theory) and Britain (Newtonian theory) at the time, but with the more direct purpose of conducting a geodesic survey, a truly ambitious one for the time using the latest and most precise instruments to calculate that dimension that were available at the time.

And they set out to do their measurements in an area of Peru (now Ecuador), then a colony of Spain, eliciting Spanish authorities' permission to proceed, which they succeeded in persuasive terms to receive. Spain appointed two young Naval lieutenants schooled in science, astronomy and navigation to accompany the French delegation of highly renowned astronomers, and together they spent an arduous number of years -- close to a decade -- setting up their survey triangulation points for miles along the Andes climbing mountain summits and the tops of volcanoes in the pursuit of their mission.

I read just yesterday a brief news item asserting that a growing number of people in the United States reject the grapefruit-or-egg-shape theory of the Earth's dimensions in favour of that old canard, the flat-Earth theory. Talk about scientific regression! That, and the hordes of wannabe adventurer-celebrities lining up to have themselves guided and cossetted up Mount Everest.

As for us, our adventure-climbing days are long over; not that we did any truly spectacular ascents, contenting ourselves with the coastal mountains in British Columbia and the White Mountains in New Hampshire, a few in the Great Smokies, along with a few modest summits outside Tokyo. 

We're content now having the good fortune in our elder years to live beside a forested ravine. And in the winter there's a faint resemblance to those faroff elevated geologies that so fascinated us all our lives. The terrain here is hilly, it's forested and in winter muffled deep in snow. Inviting us along with our two little dogs to daily tramps through the forest trails, which we graciously and gratefully accept.