Adam Shaw and his dog Rocky, an eight-year-old Labrador retriever-husky cross, both rescued two girls from the icy waters of the North Saskatchewan River Sunday.    Photograph by: Ed Kaiser, Postmedia News , Postmedia News

There is a photograph of a noble animal and a man who appreciates the enterprise, fortitude and obedient courage his own attitude and his cross-species bonding is capable of producing. This man walking along a bridge over the North Saskatchewan River with his family on Easter Sunday saw the peace of the day transformed to a sudden emergency when they heard screams and looked over the bridge to see a little girl being propelled along the icy waters of the river, her slightly older sister attempting to reach and rescue her.

"I was just really scared", he said afterward. "I just really didn't want to fail. I really wanted to save them." And, giving credit where it was due, he also said "He's a terrific dog and he's very adventurous. He's always in and out of the water, he's always shocking us with jumping off the ice and stuff like that. I knew that he could jump in the water and swim back no problem."

The bond between the 27-year-old oil worker and his eight-year-old Husky-Labrador mix was strong enough, their level of communication sufficiently well established that Rocky was capable of following his human companion's desperate actions to save two children. The ten-year-old girl had finally fallen herself into the speedy, icy river swollen with spring run-off. Her rescue was far less complex than her sister's as the young man was able to stand on the edge of the ice and pull her to safety.

The rescue of her nine-year-old sister was another matter. She was floating and bobbing a metre or two from the edge of the melting ice, having been carried 50 metres downstream. Her arms and legs had been immobilized by the freezing water. As the man tentatively stepped toward her the ice crumbled, plunging both him and Rocky into the river. Rocky scrambled out of the water after prodigious effort, helped by the man who then grabbed the dog's leash to pull himself with the dog straining to aid, back onto shore.

He called out to the child that Rocky would be prepared to return back into the water, asking her to grab the leash as the dog swam close to her. When Rocky leaped back in the girl managed with obvious effort to take  hold of the leash, and it was then that the man instructed his dog to return to shore. Rocky was able to gain some traction, aided by the man, and  managed is way back onto the ice. At which point both Rocky and his human companion were able to pull the little girl to safety.

Riley enjoys his comfort. Where once he never lagged behind on our clambers and treks now he does just that. In the winter particularly this concerns us because we're aware that coyotes have been sighted at dusk and dawn in there, though we've never seen one ourselves, no longer entering the ravine as we once did, at those hours. Before he was born, and when Button was a young puppy we would often go into the ravine at night, and in the winter when the skies were overcast and the moon hidden, a magical pinkish glow would light up the ravine, often making it as light as day. At that time there were still foxes to be seen often in there, signs of porcupine and skunk, and frequent daytime sightings of raccoons, of grouse and quail. But no coyotes. Even the occasional deer came into the ravine through the corridor along the Ottawa River, reaching down toward the ravine.

The presence of owls has become more common now, and hawks arriving with spring weather. Riley trundles along behind us on the trails. But given his unfriendliness to dogs that he doesn't know, we take the precaution of one of us walking before him, the other behind, and our progression is, as a result, very slow. For me that works fairly well, since I too have become much slower in my physical progress and energy levels over the years, but even I become irritated at the slow pace from time to time. Once we're halfway through our usual circuit, oddly enough, he suddenly picks up his gait, just as Button used to do.

He doesn't have Button's curiosity and adventure of spirit. Although to his credit, he may be bored with being exposed to the same old routine every day. It's true that when we deviate, when we take a different, shorter trail, he becomes instantly interested and forges ahead. But then the familiar landmarks evince themselves and he falls back again, trudging along.

He seems to prefer the comfort of home, just being home, relaxing and enjoying the feeling that he can do whatever he likes there, within reasonable constraints. Mostly, now that he's approaching his 13th year, dozing.

Saturday's shopping experience was different than our usual Friday-designated day for picking up the groceries we require to see us through the week. The supermarket where I generally shop was packed with shoppers, a situation I'd never before witnessed, not to the extent that it presented itself, with even shopping carts being in short supply, let alone parking spaces.

My husband, as usual, waited for me in the car, since our little dog pines when he's left on his own at home, and we will not leave him alone in the car. That occasion of quiet rest gives my husband the opportunity to look through the daily newspapers.

I usually become so engrossed in the shopping process that I barely look about me, to notice other shoppers. Three-quarters of the way through the aisles this Saturday, I happened to glance up and saw a young girl struggling to place her younger sister in the seat of one of those shopping carts equipped with more robust seats meant to properly seat and secure young children. I swiftly assessed the situation, and left my cart to offer to help.

There were four little girls of East Indian extraction. Typical long black glossy braids, bright inquisitively intelligent eyes, and beautiful beyond belief in their freshness and innocent sweetness. The oldest appeared to be around ten or eleven, the second-oldest around eight, the third I judged to be about 6. All the little girls were slender and appeared tall for their age. The mother, in contrast was neither slender nor tall. I had the impression she was slightly shorter than me, at five feet. She wore a Muslim scarf, the little girls wore frilly dresses.

The mother of these children looked young enough to be their (much) older sister, not their mother. And she obviously had her hands full, holding in her arms the very youngest who looked about a year-and-a-half old, the image of her older sisters. "She's heavy", the mother protested, as I bent slightly to pick up her 6-year-old whom the 12-year-old was unable to adequately lift. But she wasn't, not the least bit, and I lifted her easily and placed her in the car seat, while her two older sisters observed me quizzically.

The young mother thanked me profusely, I smiled and moved on with my food shopping. And was surprised at the sheer level of gratitude expressed yet again when the mother of the little girls approached me while I was looking through the dairy products. It was my pleasure, I told the mother, and commented appreciatively on the beauty of her children.

It had been pleasurable, the sight of those little girls and the lively family scene was touching and beautiful. And it presented no problem for me, aiding them in such a small way. I suppose it was my grey hair that had given the mother pause.

And then I paused later when, approaching the cash-out registers, one of the cashiers leaned over to speak to me as I lined my shopping cart up behind another shopper. I was unable to make out what she was saying, asked "pardon?" twice, before I could finally make out her reminder to me that I was waiting in an "express" line-up, with far too many purchases in my shopping cart.

Shopping in our immediate area has expanded exponentially, there is absolutely no category of goods or foodstuffs that is not available to us within an extremely close circuit surrounding this residential area. My husband had cautioned me yesterday morning based on his having ventured out earlier to pick up more grout to finish the tile wall he has just laid on our family room fireplace wall that the roads are packed with cars.

Still nothing prepared me for the shock of the reality when I entered the supermarket I've shopped at for the past fifteen years and more to see that the area of the large vestibule usually tight-packed with shopping carts was almost devoid of them. When I entered the store itself it was to discover that the usually-quiet shopping I indulged in there was not going to happen this time around. The densely-packed shopping crowd presented a picture of noisy pandemonium.

The store, like all other retail establishments, had been closed on Good Friday. People were obviously making up for that one day when they weren't able to shop.Which still didn't logically explain the numbers crowding the spacious aisles of this store.

There was a sign up where bananas are usually kept, to advise shoppers there were none. They had run out of their regular delivery because they had advertised them on special for Thursday at half-price, hoping no doubt to entice shoppers to attend to their food shopping a day earlier rather than a day later than they usually do. It hadn't enticed me. But it had obviously brought to the attention of those many people who have a habit of drifting from store to store to pick up advertised specials, to respond, and they obviously had.

I was thankful that this was the only product unavailable, but still felt resentful since bananas represent an important staple in our diet; we each consume one daily and it's my habit to pick up two to three large bunches once a week to see us through. There evidently were a few small bunches available prior to my arrival, for I saw in several peoples' carts mean little bunches of no more than three or four stunted bananas. At one point I saw a plastic shopping bin that appeared to have been abandoned, with a few items including four little bananas. I had to convince myself not to avail myself of them, for perhaps the bin hadn't been abandoned, simply left there while the shopper went elsewhere for a moment?

As it happened, my husband after delivering me back home to get busy unpacking the volume of food that I'd bought, ventured out briefly to another store, this one a newly opened oriental specialty store nearby where he was able to buy bananas and pick up a few other items not normally available where I shop; like snow peas from Latin America, rather than from China, which we refuse to buy.

What a refreshing breeze wafting out of one of the smallest yet most high profile states of this world. Vatican City and the Roman Catholic faithful are witnessing the transformation of the highest office of their religion. The new Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, has named himself after a humble messenger of the faith, and is himself, humble, inclusive and conciliatory.

This is a man who does not seek to portray himself as other than a servant of God. His official title may be Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Jesus Christ but he does not present himself behind a veneer of holiness. In that way resembling in some manner the populist and beloved Pope John-Paul, far less his successor the Emeritus Pope Benedict.

He appears to be busily involved with, without being unduly concerned about upsetting tradition and church convention, moving his Church closer to what the values famously attributed to a young Jewish figure of ancient times himself valued and demonstrated in his daily life. A life celebrated for thousands of years, which his worshippers have always been exhorted to emulate, but few manage.

This pope's robust humanity stands as a testament to those values.

Pope Francis waves to members of the media upon his arrival for a private audience Saturday at the Vatican

This is a man quite like most others who has no doubt battled thoughts and impulses and emotional yearnings that mystify and perhaps even dismay him as he struggles against the same base instincts that afflict all of humanity's creatures.  He chooses, it seems, not to hide behind artifice, and the protection of his office from public scrutiny.



It appears, from all the evidence presented at this early date in his investiture that he intends to serve the ordinary folk, not only within his religion but globally. To further interaction and understanding and patience within his own faith, and between other religions of the world. His outreach began the moment he took on the mantle of pope - without actually adorning himself with the traditional pomp and ceremony of the ermine-rimmed red velvet mozzetta - preferring his simple white cassock.

Only good, we hope and pray - even those not vested in belief of a divine - can come of this impending transformation.

Te Deum Ecuménico 2009 in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, Chile

Even in winter nothing seems to dampen the enthusiasm of the area's social deviants, young people who having nothing better to do with their time, wreak nasty mischief in the ravine. One mightn't imagine that these young miscreants would be enthusiastic about setting fires in the depth of winter, but obviously some view it as a challenge several seasons removed from the tinder-dry conditions of deep summer.

There was one giant pine in particular that seemed to attract their malice. There were two venerable pines side by side that intersected one of the trails at a point where it dips toward the ravine, and a bridge handily takes the trekker over to the other side. The two pines leaned outward rather than toward one another, and there was a narrow little space between them where the trail continued onward. One of the pines had suffered some natural damage at some point in its life, and it was within this barkless portion penetrating roughly several inches into the tree that area youth kept trying to light fires. Many years ago they succeeded in burning the tree at that point about a third through to its heartwood. The fire service had responded, putting out the blaze. But it wasn't the only occasion. Eventually the tree had suffered so much damage it presented as a threat to public safety, and the municipality cut the giant down. In their wisdom they also destroyed the pine beside it, and their corpses now litter an offshoot rivulet of the main ravine creek.

What remains now are the stumps of both trees, silent witness to a casual juvenile atrocity. And the young thugs haven't let that stop them. Though they continue to light fires elsewhere in our beautiful natural wooded ravine, they have returned time and again to those great stump remnants, lighting fires on them. The snow has not yet melted, there is a huge snowpack from this year's almost-record-breaking snowfall. There, the still pristine snow environment has been insulted by the presence of charred remnants of the latest fire, blackening the snow.

Ugly reminders to constant ravine users who deeply appreciate nature's gifts to us, that within any population there exists scum who see no value in anything but their disgusting idea of what constitutes pleasurable challenges.

Canada got there first, its next-door neighbour, an initial source of anxious same-sex partners aspiring to marriage-status travelling temporarily to take advantage of an opportunity to marry, is now itself grappling with the legal ramifications through the U.S. Supreme Court of extending the institution of marriage to gays.

While pondering the issue a majority of justices are now questioning the constitutionality of the Defence of Marriage Act of 1996, with a swing-vote justice, making common cause with the four liberals, questioning the definition of marriage as the union of opposite genders reflected in over one thousand American federal laws and programs.

Currently, in 2013, eleven countries -- Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, South Africa, Sweden -- and a few jurisdictions in Brazil, Mexico and the United States permit same-sex couples to marry. In other countries of the world, as diverse as Colombia, Germany, Nepal, New Zealand and Taiwan, bills are pending allowing legal recognition.

France's socialist government has gone through the first phase of passing a "marriage for everyone" bill, but it has come hard up against a roadblock of a public enraged by the move, unwilling to see that legislation passed. That loud and vociferous masses of objectors prefer to maintain current laws recognizing the covenant of marriage between heterosexuals.  And the United States seems to be facing a similar polarity of views.

Progressives in Canada appear to have somehow managed, under the previous Liberal Government of Prime Minister Paul Martin, with the full support of the NDP, the news media, unions, academia and the Supreme Court of Canada, to pass legislation enshrining same-sex marriage as a right in Canada. Canadians, wedded to social fairness and urged under the concept of equality, to accept the change in status of the marriage vows between genders simply shrugged.

It appears that gays and lesbians within Canada also shrugged for the most part. They may have celebrated a victory for equality as they recognize it, but most of them seem disinterested in taking personal advantage of the same-sex marriage law. A scant 16% of Canadian couples who are gay have chosen to avail themselves of this enfranchisement, this legal change in fortune for the gay community.

Symbolic of popular culture, norms have been turned on their heads in the instance of gay marriage recognition. Civil unions which legally entitled gay couples to claim all the benefits accruing to married couples just didn't seem to satisfy the demands of newly societally and legally empowered gays.

Their victimhood status within societies which had so long oppressed them seems to have spurred them to a kind of juvenile pay-back. Society has meekly accepted the accusation of its shame in the past treatment of homosexuals. Which, needless to say, represented a legitimate issue of shameful acknowledgement, while the surrender of an entirely different social more was completely unnecessary.

If the institution of marriage was withheld from them, and maintained solely for the beatification of heterosexual couples, excluding homosexual couples, it was a manifest instance of blatant discrimination and as such intolerable. An ancient custom and tradition of formalizing the institution of marriage for the sake of stability in families benefiting offspring suddenly sprang a huge, unstoppable leak.

Adoptions within gay marriage followed a similar trajectory, with gays making the claim that children raised and nurtured by two loving same-sex partners, whether they termed themselves husband and wife, wife and wife or husband and husband, were far better off than within traditional, dysfunctional families. A rather broad smear, but one that worked to their advantage.

Human intimacy and emotions, human interaction between people are unpredictable and forever hopeful. There are some cultural-social issues that have stood the test of time and proven themselves sufficiently reliable as to be inviolable to change, despite social activism and progressive thought.

The issues of "marriage", "identity", "rights", "equality" and the opportunity to twist and manipulate public guilt to accede to unreasonable demands leaves much to be desired in the sphere of social justice and equality rights.