I was thinking about the book I'm almost finished reading about Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic in 1915. And I was surprised to read that back in those days, over a hundred years ago, processed, 'convenience' foods were being manufactured. Who might have imagined that bouillon cubes were produced so long ago? They were important as a source of robust hot drinks to the men on that ill-fated voyage (which they all survived, amazingly). They had a processed product made of compressed nuts; so much for access to fat and protein. And they had packed with them tons of powdered milk. Imagine!

What brought it to mind was being busy in my kitchen after breakfast, where I'd decided to make a sweet bread dough with egg, milk and honey for a change, though I'm not quite certain what I'll use it for some time in the next few days. Maybe just croissants. And then I turned my attention to baking chocolate-chocolate cupcakes; chocolate cupcakes laced with tiny chocolate chips, frosted with chocolate-cream-cheese icing. And I thought how fortunate we are now to be able to stock our kitchen pantries with all manner of edible products enabling us to produce whatever we feel like putting together for our tables.

Sweet and rich, a real indulgence, the cupcakes but only once weekly do I bake such things (of course there's leftovers that will be used another day) for a mealtime's dessert. And that too brought me back to the Antarctic voyage after the crushing of their ship Endurance in the pack ice, leading to subsistence life on ice floes where seals and penguins and other seabirds were hunted in that vast frozen wasteland to provide for the shipwrecked crew. Month after month after month of seal steaks, using the blubber for cooking fuel, the men dreamed of eating sweets, swearing they would never eat meat again if they survived their ordeal. But in their food stores they had sugar cubes, and each of them was apportioned several cubes daily.

Last night we had the first really hard frost. All our beautiful begonias have been lost, ice-blasted by the cold. Making garden deconstruction inevitable; I just have to make a start of it. Tomorrow, I tell myself. Today we decided we'd go out mid-afternoon with our little dogs for a protracted roaming hike through the woods. We enjoyed some sunshine, with ribbons of bright light combing through the still-intact forest canopy. Frost didn't bother the asters and the compass plants; they're fall vegetation, after all.

There's plenty of green in the overall leaf mass. Those maple, beech, birch and poplar leaves that turned colour weeks ago have now fairly well exhausted their time on high and have tumbled to the forest floor, a kaleidoscope of bright colour. But the bulk of the leaf mass remains bright green for now. Jackie and Jillie sniff about everywhere, picking up secret messages in canine code, as avid to 'read' it all, as we are when we read the newspapers.

There was a small garter snake immersed in the foliage that seemed happy to just lay there, warming itself in the rays of the sun, loathe to move, seeming not to care about our presence. Jackie and Jillie didn't notice its presence, they just trot by, but my husband's sharp eye caught the distinctive bright stripe of the little snake and drew my attention to it. There's lots of snakes in the forest, we just don't get to see them very often.

Spring and fall is when we do glimpse them occasionally, however. And at both seasons they're trying to comfort themselves with a little warmth from the sun; in the spring with memory of the winter cold, and in the fall because they're beginning to experience the onset of winter. The tiny creature's head was clearly toward us; watching us as we watched it.

We've been seeing an awful lot of woolly bear caterpillars, large and small, and all of them sporting wide red middle-stripes. Which, according to country legend, is supposed to signal a mild winter ahead. We wish. Whenever my husband sees one, he gently picks it up and deposits it in a safer area, off the trails where they can get stepped on. In the backyard, he does the same, lifting them away from the pathways.

 

We're both inveterate book lovers, and always have been. When we were in our mid-teen years we would go to the library together to look for books. That, and walking together in parks. Of course there were times when we were in the company of others our age, going to social events, dances,movies, but being out in nature together and reading books really spoke to us. We don't necessarily have the same taste in books, but we often share them.

When we were first married, one of our few indulgences was to join a mail-in book-of-the-month club. That was when books were no more than $1 each, but sixty years ago a dollar went a long way. We hadn't much of an income to split between us, but books have always assumed a large role in our lives. Sometimes we refer books to one another. Sometimes we read brief passages of what we're reading to one another. My husband does this more than I do.

A short while ago he was reading an abridged version of Hakluyt's Voyages and Discoveries: the Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. So I decided to put it on my wait list and read it myself. Now I've got around to it, and it's quite fascinating. Some of the chapters more than others, but all of interest. Last night, for example, the XII chapter was a bit of an eye-opener. The introduction read:

"Ordinances for the direction of the intended voyage for Cathay, compiled and delivered by the right worshipful Sebastian Cabot Esquire, governor of the mystery and company of the Merchant Adventures for the discovery of regions, dominions, islands and places unknown, the 9th day of May, in the year of Our Lord God 1553."

And within that 'chapter', instructions of great merit to the attention of any and all who planned to ship out for such merchant adventures. As, for example: "No blaspheming of God, or detestable swearing be used in any ship, nor communication of ribaldry, filthy tales, or ungodly talk to be suffered in the company of any ship, neither dicing, carding, tabling nor other devilish games to be frequented, whereby ensueth not only poverty to the players, but also strife, variance, brawling, fighting and oftentimes murder to the utter destruction of the parties and provoking of God's most just wrath and sword of vengeance".

So ... there. And we thought, didn't we, that sailors of that era were a really rough lot...?

Our personal occupations are somewhat more modest. And Jackie and Jillie will simply not stand for any rude expressions of intolerance or hasty judgement, (from us, to be precise; they're free to behave as they will)  so we keep a sweet tongue in our mouths. As we did this morning when we set off for the ravine with the intention of bypassing both the afternoon heat and the potential of rainbursts yet again.

A much cooler day, as it happened -- well, the morning, in any event. When we left the house it was 22C, the sun was in and the sun was out, and a cooling breeze made the atmosphere quite pleasant. Our pups indulged in their usual explorations. And when we came abreast of some dogs unfamiliar to them, as twice we did, they behaved like ill-bred sailors, swaggering and leaving the impression that they were fairly tough customers.

Some small dogs are intimidated by this behaviour, and try to distance themselves. Larger dogs react with surprise. Invariably, they are all models of good behaviour. Ours are not. A reflection, we fear on us, since dogs so often take on the characteristics of their people.

The classical Napoleon complex viewed through the lens of this breed of toy poodles. Our two little friends failed to inherit the minuscule size of the breed, since they came out the size of miniature poodles, but without the laid-back attitude of the miniatures and instead displaying all of the bravado and provocative behaviours of the standoffish toys.

Yesterday it appeared that a fair number of dogs succeeded in persuading their people that it was a perfect day to head out for a traipse on forest trails. And assuredly Sunday was just that; balmy to the point of being a tad too warm at 27C, along with high humidity. Everyone seemed glad to discard the cool weather gear we'd had to resort to in the past several weeks that marked a cooler-than-normal first half of September.

Bare arms and hot weather are natural accompaniments. 

Trust the official arrival of fall to trick us all into believing that summer had returned. It was, of course, late summer reacting to the general disappointment that the season had gone so fleetingly, commanding summer to react as though there had been applause, mandating a brief return to the stage for an encore. Muchos gracias!

Even the last of the seasonal wildflowers looked perkier than usual, going out of their way, putting on a special show for us and greatly appreciated. We came across the last we could see of the Himalayan orchids in splendid pink flower, this time with a much shorter stem than is usual with this wildflower, hosting a small bouquet of those delightful orchids.

And elsewhere, among the bracken on the forest floor, both Black-eyed Susans and asters comfortably leaning against one another, complementing each other, in an obvious conspiracy of conceit among the fading vegetation which the slighter daylight hours has caused, as the floor of the forest begins to subsume the once-green plants, now turned pale yellow and fast-fading.

And we can't overlook the fungi that so abruptly manifest their presence at this time of year. Toadstools on this occasion, establishing themselves comfortably at the base of tree trunks, the mushrooms large and appealing to the possibility of decorating a dinner plate.

We did see some people we've become acquainted with over the years, out with their companion dogs, amiably trailing after the dogs, just as we do. And we came across a mother and daughter walking their two very small dogs -- none of the quartet being familiar to us at all. Which mitigated against just walking on, demanding the courtesy of a brief conversation.

Which is to say, the four people involved began a discussion about small dogs, and the four small dogs, Jackie and Jillie and the two little dogs that were easily half the size of ours, one a Chihuahua mix, the other a Yorkie-Pomeranian mix, found common ground in a sense related to their diminutive size.

The usual canine introductions were made; intimately rude should humans ever perform such rituals, but customarily mandatory, it would seem, for dogs to introduce themselves to one another.

We're fast approaching the time of year when we look out the glassed front door to appreciate the texture, form and colour we can see beyond into the garden, our eyes seeking out details, from droplets from an overnight temperature inversion to a rainfall leaving brilliant pearls of water on the plants glinting in the morning or afternoon sun to thinking how time is shrinking the number of opportunities still remaining for us to enjoy these lingering glances before winter closes in and we exchange the exciting colour for the monochromatic tints of snow and ice.

As though we might have failed to notice that we now have fully an hour and a half less of daylight. That when the heat of the day wears off and the sun begins to sink it becomes noticeably cooler, quickly. Or that we hear more crickets in the garden now than songbirds. Or that daytime temperature highs are lower and so is the humidity and we begin to feel cool, not warm. Much less the fact that we're taken by surprise now when glancing out at the patio doors onto the deck and back garden in the early evening dusk falls so quickly and suddenly it's dark out there before we know it....

Not to mention the number of leaves we now see in the ravine fallen to the forest floor with brilliant orange and yellow and red colouring. And then there's the garden, again. It has worked so hard all summer long and it is now so very obviously worn out by the effort.  Flowering plants have either shrivelled up past their lifetime as some annuals or they've become lean and stringy, though still valiantly putting out blooms; not as abundant, fresh and luscious as before, but present and accounted for.

Cutting back spent perennials is now in order and gaps appear in the garden beds here and there as a result. The gaps are temporary, swiftly filled in by greedy, opportunistic plants that always behave like bullies anyway; Ladies Mantle, Day Lilies and most certainly Harlequin vines and perennial geraniums fit that category.

The garden spirits and sprites no doubt puzzle just as we do over where summer has gone. We can scarcely credit how swiftly the time goes when weather permits us to casually do as we will whenever we like, wherever we wish to, during these days of spontaneously responding to nature's invitation to make the most of the serendipitous connection between summer, leisure and enjoyment.

As for the pleasure the garden has given us from spring to summer and now into fall, it has been beyond splendid. That it is beginning to fade and all of that natural beauty slipping away, in response to its own seasonal longevity and the transition toward late fall and winter, is something we can find no comfort in, only regret. Never has humankind felt differently. Fearing the onset of winter and the temporary disappearance of clement days and nights.

The ancient Greek legend of Persephone, daughter of Demeter, whom Hades fell in love with, abducted and made Queen of the Underworld only to emerge in spring tells us the story of humanity puzzling over the seasons, from primitive times to ancient mythology, to the present. The consort of Zeus, Demeter's grief at her daughter's absence caused all vegetation on Earth to merge with the soil and disappear. During the six months of the year that Persephone was released from the underworld, plants re-emerged and Demeter was happy. And so are we.

We had an intimation of what the day would allow us to do and what it would not be feasible for us to plan when we walked down the steps from our second floor to the first, glanced out the glassed front door and saw snow falling. We had no idea how long it had been snowing, but the fresh snow nicely covered the season's snowpack that had begun melting, freshening it beautifully.

We had to do the usual mental shrug of acceptance of the inevitable with March even if this was the penultimate day and March had been given ample opportunity earlier in its winter reign to wreak havoc on the landscape. Never satisfied, March always has more in store, and was unleashing that 'more' yesterday. When we were having our breakfast, looking out the patio doors we could see that the snow had intensified, falling in great fluffy gobs. Beautiful to behold, especially if it had been January, but the end of March?

No matter, down it came. But by noon it was over. Instead what had fallen as snow began coming down as freezing rain. Sleet is, for our purposes, less amenable than snow. No one in their right mind with two little dogs plans to head out to a forest for a leisurely hike along the ravined trails in pouring rain in a season that resents leaving in favour of spring's entrance.

The rain continued into the afternoon. Which meant no ravine walk. By that time I had decided that it was past time to begin what I had been putting off. Similarly, when looking out of the house onto a decidedly wintry landscape, our gardens deep in snow, the urge to begin spring cleaning just isn't there. Not that the prospect of indulging in days and days of cleaning out cupboards is anyone's idea of a particularly pleasant pastime...it's just one of those things you do. And so I began.

The pantry in the kitchen was my first target. It's a must-do, to take stock as an example, and get rid of things you can dispense with. I wrapped quite a few items in newspapers to take along to the Sally Ann recycling depot; glass vases, glass juice containers that I hadn't used in ages and likely never would again; small glass dispensers, extraneous baking dishes. And in that portion of the pantry where baking supplies, canned foods, jams, are kept some order was required and assessment of what was there and what might be outdated. It's a start.

From time to time one of us would initiate a bit of play through the day with Jackie and Jillie, to throw around tennis balls or knotted mittens that they much prefer to play with, to get them going until they felt like independently playing and tussling about with one another. Jillie is more of a snoozer, while her brother enjoys standing at the front door, barking and harassing the squirrels coming by for treats laid out on the porch.

In the evening, we watched three segments of a British Masterpiece Theatre series called Indian Summers; a fascinating drama focusing on the dying days of the British Raj. No other cinematic entities can beat British cinema at depicting itself as an arrogant, entitled occupier of a foreign land under the self-appointed task of relieving developing countries of their natural resources, in the process leaving them with the inestimable riches of British jurisprudence, bureaucracy, snobbery and cricket.

Theirs was in some ways an issue of noblesse oblige; viewing themselves as altruistically dedicated to the advancement of civilization to countries whose civilization long predated Britain's, endowing those countries with the indelible stamp of British colonialist rule. They viewed themselves as benevolent in their dictation to others what they should value and how they should behave.

Coincidentally, last night I finished reading 7 Years in Tibet, a fascinating first-hand account that described another Asian nation under colonial duress by a powerful neighbour whose outreach in the interests of territorial expansion was not resistible by a much smaller, less warlike nation of Buddhists. No one could ever accuse the Chinese of being guilty of benevolence toward others.

I've been nudging my husband for years to get himself a new computer. Jackie, when he was a few months old had taken a liking to the computer and had chewed off some of its keys. My husband was more careful after that, where he left his mini laptop and just dismissed the nuisance of the missing keys; they weren't critical. Since then the computer has groaned on for three more years, cantankerous and opinionated. It obviously felt entitled to behave badly whenever the mood seemed to strike.

More latterly frequent messages of no more space popped up. So I began deleting a whole lot of stuff that had been downloaded. My husband has never been attentive to the need to clean up files from time to time; computer-housekeeping never very high in his list of to-dos.  It was good for another six months. Then those same messages reappeared and I checked the defragmentation option along with deleting files, and neither responded, so we drew the conclusion that the clapped-out old computer was corrupted beyond any hoped-for remediation on our part.

He went shopping yesterday, after scrutinizing the chain stores' advertising for their electronic devices. He does this kind of thing anyway, every week, knowing he would eventually have to relent and spring for a replacement, but now the decision had been forced upon him. So he brought back his new mini laptop. He'd done his due diligence on online sites to determine what might best serve his purposes. And price was a decided factor; he hadn't any intention of buying something pricey. To begin with he uses his computer for listening to lectures; cultural, social, political and at night, drawing on old police drama series from Britain, Germany, Norway.

With Windows 10, Cortana made the initial set up as a ]wizard instructor' really easy through voice commands. And the rest was up to me, since I'm a little better versed in computer use than my husband, (which isn't saying much), so I set him up and tutored him in the basics of that version of Window. We use our computers frequently, he and I, he mostly for information and entertainment, me for news and blogging. We don't ever watch television though we borrow films from the public library to view once a week. We are, however, avid book readers, always have been and always will be. Neither of us can imagine a life without books. Informatively, entertainingly, spurring cerebral function, building vocabulary, becoming a more well-balanced human being...all of that and more.

Our love of reading is matched by our love of the out-of-doors, and though our age now inhibits us from the kind of strenuous physical action we once took in mountain climbing, wilderness camping, canoeing and hiking, our daily ritual is never complete without a good vigorous hike in the ravine close to where our house is located. And that's where our little dogs, Jackie and Jillie, come in, as spurs to that commitment and as treasured companions in a shared occupation of touching nature.

Yesterday's hike took place under a full, blue sky, the sun glinting its golden rays through the forest canopy, on a -4C-degree day of wind that had picked up to the point where it felt like being lashed when it struck across our faces as we progressed across a criss-cross of forest trails, having decided we would take a longer-than-usual circuit for our winter walk, given more clement winter conditions then we've experienced of late this winter.

At one point we came across a miniature poodle, the size and colour of one we're more familiar with named Max, and this little fellow was just beside himself with exuberant joy to be out in the woods, romping off in all directions, stopping briefly for a tussle with Jackie before sprinting off again. His human told us how guilty he felt about not taking his little charge out more frequently this winter and his surprise at discovering the presence of the ravine though he'd lived in the neighbourhood for years. It was bringing a puppy into his home that alerted him to the necessity to find places where his little dog could be free to enjoy a natural surrounding.

We, on the other hand, knew 27 years ago before we moved to our current house, that the ravine existed since it can be seen in all its summer-green leafy glory from the street we live on. We found the trails in the forest after dipping into the ravine wonderfully inviting to the point where we no longer felt so compelled to get into the car to drive to other destinations we frequented, like Gatineau Park over in Quebec, in its vast and natural setting of lakes and forests where we introduced our children to hiking, canoeing, snowshoeing and skiing when they were young, forty years ago.

"I dig out my Canada map and scan the country to the east. A few hundred miles away, on the Mackenzie River, I spot Fort Simpson. Now I'm more than pleased that I loaded extra fuel at Tagish Air. After crossing the Mackenzie Mountains, I'll intercept Canada's "Grand Canyon" of the South Nahanni River and land at Virginia Falls, a 315-foot-high spectacle that eclipses Niagara Falls. Perhaps I'll stop at Glacier Lake, a wilderness rival of Banff's Lake Louise, or, if the weather holds, camp beside a lovely beach at Little Doctor Lake."
"The Cub climbs at full throttle toward the peaks of the Selwyn Range, where I cross the Continental Divide and return to the Northwest Territories. In dreamlike serenity, the Cub floats past 9,000-foot Mount Sir James MacBrien, soaring above sculpted snow fields as pristine as those of the Coastal Range until a glittering finger of water at Mount MacBrien's base finally slips into sight. I throttle back, letting the Cub slalom down to Glacier Lake, the crown jewel of the Ragged Range. S-turning through sweeping turns, the Cub and I descend through valley-cradled air."
"As I coast to a stop beside a placid stream at the edge of a quiet beach, a stellar jay flits toward the mountain's vertical face. My eyes follow the jay, then climb six thousand feet of glistening rock to the pinnacles far above. At the foot of the mountain, a meadow bathes in sunlight, green and soft as a fantasy."
"Spotting an odd-looking object protruding from the reeds, I remove my boots and socks, and wade through the frigid water toward what becomes a set of moose antlers. I'd love to take t hem home, but they'd never fit in the Cub, and they'd raise aerodynamic havoc if I strapped them to the floats. Still, I can't ignore such a find, so I haul the antlers back to camp and hoist them onto the Cub for a unique photograph. Backed by MacBrien's towering columns, the yellow Cub gleams at the edge of a sparkling stream, sporting a dark brown moose-antler hood ornament."
..."Immersed in mountain silence, I stand at the end of the float, trout in hand as a majestic array of snow-capped peaks spreads mirror images across the lake's opalescent green. At the head of the lake, the highest peak in the Territories guards the Cirque of the Unclimbables, an amphitheater of vertical faces that are sought by skilled climbers from around the world. Surrounded by such Macchu Picchu-like beauty, I understand why so many native Americans honoured the land and rejected the white man's heaven."
"An appallingly thin lynx walks into camp in the midst of my supper. Long-legged, with big feet and pointed Spock-like ears, the lynx strolls calmly past, not far from my hissing stove. It must be aware of me, but the scruffy animal hardly gives me a glance. Perhaps it had just passed through the depths of the endless ten-year-long boom-and-bust cycle of hare and lynx populations, and it isn't about to let pointless distractions sap its strength."

Sometimes you read a book that so entrances you with the quality of its observations, its setting descriptions and the lyrical quality of the writing, you feel you know the person intimately who is writing his account of a solo months' long trip to the Canadian Arctic. Minnesotan George Erickson, a retired dentist and amateur bush pilot who flies a refurbished period Piper Cub loves flying, loves nature, loves wilderness and decided he'd take time to make one last protracted trip.

He sees and experiences all that nature is capable of throwing at him, from forest fires to wild winds, killer whales, muskoxen, caribou and polar bears. He is calm in facing quick-witted decision making, excited about unique exposures to events that he can immediately share with no one else. Casual and practical, his mind and his appreciation of the vast area he traverses from Churchill on Hudson Bay, Chantrey Inlet on the Arctic Sea, Northwest Territories, Coppermine and Yellowknife.

He fills his book with the thoughts that pass his mind, memories of past such excursions with friends, and you are left with the sense that this man in his mature years has planned this trip as one that will cap his adventurous soul with 'complete'. But apart from his wonderfully poetic writing style, he is also a consummate story-teller and an erudite student of history, both ancient and current, taking in philosophy, astronomy, science, biology, human nature and the nature of survival.

I do read quite a lot of such books. Of personal accounts of travel to the Arctic, Antarctica, the Himalayas in period narrative form and through biographies. This American man's passion for the Canadian North and his love of the wilderness, his casual approach to his responsibility to his own security are all impressive, but it is his writing style that is utterly captivating. After reading a book of this calibre it's hard to settle down to successive books because your mind tends to compare writing skills and the capability of another writer to bring you sympathetically into the circle of their thoughts.

I had to put aside two books I started after reading George Erickson's True North, Exploring the Great Canadian Wilderness by Bush Plane published in 2000 by Thomas Allen Publishers. Eventually I picked up another: PaddleNorth, Adventure, Resilience, and Renewal in The Arctic Wild by Jennifer Kingsley, a young woman who set out with five good friends, all athletic like herself, accustomed to handling a canoe under all conditions, and determined to paddle the Arctic's Back River.

Where George Erickson battled ferocious winds, heavy rain, soot-blackened skies from wildfires, Jennifer Kingsley and her crew also faced raging winds, sea ice and wild rapids. They saw grizzlies, came across wolves frequently and saw caribou in their northern wilderness adventure of a lifetime. Her style of writing is also very personal, but with a kind of intense quality to it that speaks of tension, in contrast to Erickson's, with the good-natured quality of a relaxed mind.

And while Kingsley also throws in ample anecdotes of a very personal nature, they have a jarring effect and seem unwelcome, reflecting a kind of bemusement of someone uncertain of themselves. She too brings in historical accounts of the people and places being passed through, all of which give perspective to the time and place but somehow there is a feeling their placement is contrived rather than casual, in comparison to the erudite Erickson.

"Levi and I climbed the banks in silence until we could see unexplored ponds and steams, Lower MacDougall Lake, and the girls' abandoned camp in the distance. Turnaround time. Nothing to report."
"When I finally took my eyes away from the horizon to look down at the hillside below us, I slowly reached for Levi's arm. He looked at me, then followed my eyes. Four wolves were climbing straight toward us, padding easily over angled boulders."
"We stood still at first, mesmerized by the casual rhythm of their gait. Their legs chose each rock blindly yet never missed. Yellow-white twists of fur lifted and dropped with each step; their eyes fixed me in place. They climbed straight for us and showed no sign of stopping until two broke off to our right. Are they flanking us? Levi and I shrank back on our haunches behind a boulder, I unholstered my bear spray -- just in case -- and we waited for the wolves to crest the rise. After a few moments, Levi and I stood up again, but the wolves had vanished. I scrutinized each rock with my binoculars, picking out lichen and cotton grass, but we never saw those wolves again."

Clearly, Kingsley is no slouch in her observational skills and writing abilities. Yet to me there is something almost magical about Erickson's writing skill, his absorbing accounts of his activities, his thoughts and preoccupations. When he casts back to retrieve memories they somehow fit the narrative, whereas I found Kingsley's somewhat jarring. Perhaps a result of revealing a tad too much about her intimate thoughts; no one's concern but her own.