After so many years of cleaning the house windows and the window screens in the spring, it finally dawned on me that this was not the best time to do that kind of thing. Invariably, soon after cleaning the screens I would see them begin to gather up pollen and seeds from the annual event of the evergreens and poplars sending out their seed pods in fluffy, airier-than-air puffs that would gather once again on the screens.

Since it was raining this morning and fairly cool it seemed as good a time as any to tackle the job. No risk of pollen and seeds going amok now. And so, after preparing a batch of creamy cole slaw to go with our dinner for tonight, and a batch of cookies to give my husband something to nibble on after he has his watermelon dessert this evening, I set about gathering all the cleaning materials I would need and proceeded to tackle the job.

There was enough of a clearing in the rain for us to decide to go out for our usual daily ravine ramble, taking with us a rainjacket for Riley and cool enough for us to wear our own into the ravine. Just as well we were nicely covered, for the mosquitoes coveted our tender flesh. On our way to the ravine, an assemblage of crows that had been roosting on the street-light standards cawed their triumph over patience and followed us as we dispensed peanuts -- for the squirrels who, when so many crows are about hustle a bit to get their fair share.

I'd left the window-and-screen-cleaning half done in choosing to take the advantage of a lull in the rain. So when we returned, there was the other half of the job awaiting my notice. I noticed. Took pleasure in noting how much cleaner it looked glancing out the window. And lingered to enjoy the view from the library over the garden and seating arrangement below it, along with the different perspective from the dining room windows.

And gathered whatever enthusiasm had waned, and completed the job. Confusing Riley no end, since he fully anticipated that I would be sitting down with him on the sofa, to read the newspapers.

It becomes increasingly difficult to find ease and peace of thought, of late. The world seems to be turning itself inside-out and upside down with greater regularity. Ethnic conflicts, religious strife, refugee populations on the rise, influxes of desperate migrants attempting to escape the threats to human survival, all take the attention of the global news-watch.

Children, urged by their parents to leave the violent, drug-gang-ridden slums of poverty-stricken Central America, driven by the 'war on drugs', converging on the U.S. hoping to find a future for themselves there. Fearful people fleeing the conflicts in Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria, becoming fodder for people smugglers in dangerous journeys on the high seas, inundating Italy with their desperation.

The world's second-largest religious group breeding vicious jihadists, prey on countries from North Africa to the Middle East, Europe to North America, south-east Asia and beyond. The peace-and-mutual-respect-abiding sects of the Amadiyya and Ismaili Muslims are held by mainstream Islam to be heretics, abominations to Allah and the Prophet Mohammed, and destined for oblivion living where they are vulnerable, among the two largest sects, Sunni and Shiite, themselves in deadly conflict with each other in an attrition-war of conquest.

Significant parts of the international community grapple with the sinister threats brought to them by the Salafist, Wahhabist, Islamist strains of an Islam that has reverted to its roots, focusing on its conquest-martyrdom complex, seeking to avail itself in dominant control over all other religions scorned as inferior, an insult to Islam.

Western-type democracies have generously opened their doors to Muslims fleeing oppression in their countries of origin, others seeking economic advancement in their future aspirations, and in the process unleashing the passions of violent jihad from within their very own enclaves.

So, it is difficult to sleep well at night. A minor inconvenience, perhaps, in view of the ongoing merciless assaults elsewhere, against civilians innocent of any ambition but to live decent lives in security for their families and their societies.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators wave Palestinian flags and chant anti Israeli slogans in Paris. Gone, now, the trifecta par excellence of 'liberty, equality, fraternity'.

We enjoyed a sunny, hot and muggy day yesterday. And today, heavy rain awaited us when we awoke, and continued on into the morning. When it lifted to a light drizzle we ventured out to the gardens to take in the intense colour shadings that inevitably result during a rain event.

We wandered about, light rain falling gently, Riley protected by a little raincoat, and ventured back and forth to assess the day's events in the garden. Much happens in any garden even within the space of a day and there is always a discovery or two to delight the gardener.

Delight this morning was represented by snapping a colourful array of photographs.

The Karluk drifted strongly to the northwest, and they were now only 140 miles from Wrangel Island's longitude. They had been carried hundreds of miles off course, far to the west of Alaska and Herschel Island, and they were still faithfully following the route of De Long's Jeannette.

Karluk in the Ice -- Bartlett.

The ship was leaking alarmingly and it took them at least an hour and a half each day to pump her dry. The men pumped with their own physical power because the steam was still shut off while engine repairs continued.

The Karluk vibrated and shuddered continuously from the force of the winds and the movement of the ice. Outside, it was dark as pitch, and the only solace they found was sitting before the dim glow of the saloon stove. They piled as much fuel into the stove as they could.

****

Stefansson was also in no hurry to reach Collinson Point, Alaska, where the Southern Party of his Canadian Arctic Expedition was camped. When he finally did arrive on December 15 [1913], he found the Alaska with a hole in her side and the Mary Sachs frozen in the gravel of the beach. No one knew anything of the missing Karluk. No one even knew that she was lost or that Stefansson had broken away from the Northern Party [abandoning the Karluk as expedition leader].

****

There was a beautiful aurora that night. It began in the northwest and stretched across the sky in a broad S-shaped curtain, patterned like a kaleidoscope with patches of brightly changing lights that grew and moved with the blink of an eye. ... The sky was brilliant, colorswept, and alive. Refraction caused the moon to look three times its normal size, and as it shone down ... its light transformed the nearby ice floes and blocks into "the weirdest possible figures which boggled the imagination".

****

The cracking of the ice was like a gunshot, blasting through the silent blackness of their frozen world. They heard the report at 10:00 a.m. on December 16. It was the unmistakable rupturing of the ice. The sound was ominous and everyone rushed above deck to investigate.

The ice was pressing in so tightly around the sides of the ship -- even breaking through the gangway -- that the men were afraid she would be crushed that very moment. 

Early in the morning of January 2, somewhere in the distance, there was a strumming sound, like a banjo, faint, yet very distinct. It was a thrum-thrum-thrum, at times quite musical, and then there was a loud noise followed by silence.

****

On January 11, 1914, at 4:00 p.m., the Karluk went under into thirty-eight fathoms of water. The only remaining signs of her existence were the two umiaks, a whaleboat, and other gear from the deck floating in the water above her grave. 

She sank foot by foot, a slight puff of steam showing that the water had risen over the galley fire. Soon they saw the barrel on the foremast, and then the stern rose The Karluk seemed to straighten with great dignity as the stern sank lower. She disappeared rapidly and gracefully after that, her flag fluttering to the last.

****

The ice between Wrangel Island and Siberia was always shifting and breaking up beneath their feet. Great leads of water surrounded them on all sides, and each step required thought and caution. It was the most treacherous kind of Arctic travel, and [Captain] Bartlett and Kataktovik [Inuit shipboard hunter/companion] quickly developed a routine to get through it. 

It was lane after lane of open water and uncooperative ice, and it slowed down their journey immensely. So many times, the sled plunged through the young ice, soaking various provisions, including their sleeping gear. Whenever this happened, the dogs would huddle, terrified, in a pack, which was too much weight for the fragile ice beneath them. Bartlett was taxed, calling on all the experience he had ever gleaned as a Newfoundland sealer and an Arctic explorer.

****

They held [seaman] Clam down, a man on either side to grip his arms, and one to hold his head turned away so that he couldn't watch. The shears were sharp, but not meant for cutting bone, and McKinlay could tell Williamson was struggling with them. He leaned into them more and finally had to kneel against the shears to cut his way through. It was a gruesome sight. 

They were a party of cripples, Munro observed, and it was true. Those who weren't frostbitten or maimed were still bedridden and swollen from the mystery illness. McKinlay, recovering from the sickness, was also suffering from frostbite, his nose and hand inflamed and beginning to peel. 

Hunger became a hard fact of daily life. They still had no game, except for a couple of bears shot by Hadley and Kuraluk at the beginning of the month.

From: The Ice Master, The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk by Jennifer Niven

These are exerpts from the story of the Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913 - 1918, a scientific expedition in the Arctic funded by the Government of Canada, initially led by the intrepid, self-promoting, Vilhjalmur Stefansson.  Who abandoned the lead ship -- caught in the sea ice with early onset of an Arctic winter -- of the expedition he led, unwilling to share the travails of those whom he was responsible for. In his stead, Captain Bob Bartlett took command of both crew and scientific community on board the ship to attempt to lead them to safety.

William McKinlay who had signed aboard as a magnetician and meteorologist, was one of the survivors of the doomed expedition. He wrote afterward single-mindedly, obsessively, about the expedition, the ship, and its initial leader who never took responsibility, and the man who did, Captain Robert A. Bartlett, whom he believed by his heroic leadership and action had saved as many lives as he  possibly could.

The author of The Ice Master, Jennifer Niven, has written a movingly detailed, extremely well researched description of the dreadful and heart-breaking events that took place as natural elements gathered to threaten the lives of the entire crew and scientific contingent. A story of courage and selflessness, tremendous feats of human endurance, and as well competitive envy, selfishness and dreadful tribulations that ensued.

All in the theatre of enveloping Arctic daytime darkness, horrendous storms, frigid conditions not meant for survival, and the determination of men to survive against all odds.

Whether glancing at the gardens through a window of our house; from an upstairs window looking down, or through a first-floor window looking across, or through the front door when passing in the foyer, my eye is invariably caught by the cluster of colours, shapes; the bright, alive, welcoming vision of a garden in a state of comfort with itself.

This year, everything appears to have thriven under the life-sustaining influence of rain and sun, falling on the landscape in proportions geared by nature to incite her growing things to full throttle. Cutting back unruly plants and shrubs has become routine; staking up fallen flower stalks is also routine; just the simple act of wandering about taking note of the progress of newly planted perennials represents an incomparable pleasure.

Yesterday my husband enamel-painted the wrought-iron loveseat that we placed 23 years ago on the porch of our house. That love seat had its place formerly on another house we owned for 20 years and before that, a house we had while living in Toronto.

Butterflies and bees are there on occasion to demonstrate just how much they share in the pleasure of being around and about green foliage and bold-petalled blossoms. Birds serenade their pleasure from morning to dusk fall.

Blooms come and go. Now it's the turn of day lilies and the occasional Asiatic lily, bergamot and Shasta daisies, coral bells and tickseed, astilbe and the remaining roses yet in bloom.

Viewing the garden from the interior of the house during a thunderstorm brings a vision of intensified colour as the rain coats foliage and blossoms, brightening shades of purple, red, pink, white and gold, orange and green. At those times pleasure is transported toward a realm beyond.

We felt suddenly nostalgic. The weather was certainly conducive to lengthening our usual circuit. When we first moved into our new house 23 years ago, crossing over to the 'other side' of the ravine to navigate its limited trails on that side used to part of our daily after-work routine. We were younger then, of course, and we sped at that time through the trails. There was one in particular that was always a little footing-tricky; narrow, above a bit of a gorge that required special attention, but we enjoyed it.

And another trail, accessed through some bit of manoeuvring, that went on for quite awhile, though we never did manage to reach its end-point, mostly because we were actually making the trail; no one appeared to have pioneered it before we did. In the winter months part of it became a glassy enterprise in ice-skidding, but all those challenges motivated us to go on, and we did. That wasn't the only 'trail' we carved out on our own and through frequent use saw it really become a trail.

Yesterday the weather had turned from hot and muggy to extremely cool, overcast and windy. Perfect for a little exploration. Not exactly exploring, but re-visiting that complex of trails we hadn't been by in years as our chronological age and less physical stamina persuaded us to take shorter circuits as time went on.

When we deviated from our usual trail routine, little Riley picked up speed and enthusiasm as he usually does when we venture somewhere he doesn't recognize; he does tend to become bored with the same old routine, unlike most other dogs, although he isn't a particularly adventuresome little fellow.

Once we ventured on our deviated trek, made our way down a hillside and over to a bridge to take us up and over to clamber up another hill and access the first of the areas that had been so familiar to us long ago, we discovered it to have become a groomed, wide footpath.  Obviously to service the residents of houses that had been built nearby long after we had first frequented that area, when we used to daily backpack our granddaughter there, to access a nearby playing field adjacent a school.

When we attempted to access our old difficult-to-reach, let alone know-where-to-look trails, they were overgrown and it was clear no one had been using them. At one juncture we understood why that would be; part of the hillside had caved in and fallen into the ravine below, so we backtracked. Another trail we used to access also had been blocked in and overgrown; another, and yet another.

When we did make our way down one long slope to venture further where we would access another old trail, we found the same thing had occurred; we were able to go along the traces of the old trail and then encountered another collapse. Back up the long slope we went, followed by merciless mosquitoes and blackflies because the ground underfoot was sodden with yesterday's torrential rain which couldn't be absorbed because the ground had already been over-soaked with previous rain events.

We did come across ample areas up on the flat meadow-like places where fleabane, daisies, cowvetch, chicory and yarrow grew in colourful abundance. And we took photographs of one venerable old pine standing just where it should be, its elderly companions long gone, without a puzzling trace. It was, by and large, a rather dismal look back at what had been held so fondly in our memory. Leaving us with an emotion that was difficult to describe; pensive, sad, forlorn.

A day of immoderate contrasts was yesterday. Cool and sunny in the morning, with ample wind to blow in a heavy cloud cover and with its arrival humid heat settled in and companioned us for the remainder of the day. Despite the discomfort of the humidity and heat, however, the constant wind made it most pleasant for us to sit out on the deck in the mid-to-late afternoon, reading the newspapers, discussing world issues, listening to the news, to the robins, appreciating such incredible comfort.

Even when it began to rain as we knew it would, there was no need for us to remove ourselves to the interior of the house, because the canopy that my husband installs in the early spring keeps us dry. So there we sat, listening to the rain splotch onto the canopy and fall beyond its reach, drenching the gardens, and making those robins ecstatic beyond mere song.

Earlier in the day, among other things, we'd gone for our daily ravine walk and there found relief from the heat. In many areas, despite being closely surrounded by forest the wind managed to penetrate, and helped to keep the mosquitoes in order.

The ravine hasn't really dried out yet this summer. There have been so many rain events and of a type that soaks completely in their ferocious downpour. The water striders keep being washed downstream, but the Damselflies flit lazily about above the water.

New wildflowers are evidencing themselves amongst the fleabane and daisies, buttercups and clover, conquefoil and St. John's wort.

The bedding grasses have almost completed their flower, but their fragrance still lingers on the air. Now we see the sunflowers reaching tall toward where they imagine the sun to be on these overcast days; their reward comes when the sun reappears as it thankfully always does.

Yellow loosestrife is in full flower, and should Monarch butterflies come this way as they occasionally do, they'll find milkweed in abundance. Yarrow is beginning its bloom, and the hazelnut bushes have had a good start on forming their net cases.

Speaking of nut cases, we came across a case of outright in frangrante delicto in our walk this day. There exists among us rank exhibitionists who haven't a care about restraining themselves in public, proceeding to submit to their base sexual desires arguing that nature has programmed them to reproduce so there cannot possibly be anything objectionable in the act itself, requiring intimate privacy....