Q and A: Southern Lush

I came across a particularly lovely picture tonight, one worthy of standing by itself in a post.  I was looking to post on another closely related topic, that of how rivers affect their surroundings in terms of soil and plant life, but that's looking like it will be a huge undertaking in terms of the sheer pictures that need to be uploaded.  Instead, since I have been active on this here blog again, and a few questions have started streaming in, tonight we feast upon a picture and try to answer a question.

Q: Since you have been to so many places and lived in quite a few, where would be an ideal place to plant some roots if you had the option?

A: That is a very unfair, difficult question.  If money were no object, I would love to have multiple small places.  One which is already there, up north in Ontario.  One on the high plains, preferably eastern Wyoming or western Nebraska.  One in highland Mexico, in the trans-volcanic belt.  One in western New York or southern Michigan, where I would probably spend most of my time.  One in the coastal South... yes, especially that one. 

If you rephrase the question as "where would you like to live to be able to garden to your heart's content", it would still be tricky, as I have a fondness for northern species of trees, shrubs, and in the flower department, for the gifts of the prairie, but wow, the South has amazing native stuff like evergreen oaks, more azaleas than you can shake a stick at, pines upon pines, moss dripping off of it all, and... magnolias.  Not the hardy, Asian hybrid kind that flower before they leaf out, but the kind that never lose their leaves and flower in full green.  Needless to say, I do have a picture, and a natural one at that, of most of these elements put together:

Oh yes, that is truly lovely.  Sure, it comes with some price tags, notably brutal summers of heat and humidity, destructive storms for a much longer period than up north (including hurricanes), and much less of a thrill regarding the onset of spring, but... I mean look at that!  The tree on the left with the brown undersides to the leaves is a Southern Magnolia (Magnolia Grandiflora), perhaps the second or third most beautiful tree on the planet.  The tree on the right with the lighter green, almost maple looking leaves is a Sweetgum (Liquidambar Styraciflua), a tree that can be found from the tropical cloud forests of Central America to the Ohio Valley and New York City, one of the few trees besides the Red Maple (Acer Rubrum of our past maple sugar posts) and Baldcypress (Taxodium Distichum) to brilliantly light up the Autumnal southern canopy.  In the center stage below is a Sabal Minor or Dwarf Palmetto, the northernmost naturally occurring species of palm in North America, and in the rear, dripping with that incredible Spanish Moss (Tillandsea Usneoides) is one of those incredible evergreen oaks, the Live Oak (Quercus Virginiana).  Its a veritable natural stand of who's who in the Southern tree world.  When I found this thicket, growing so peacefully off the shores of Albergottie Creek in Beauford, SC, I stared for a good ten minutes, as if it were a holy icon.

Then I had to wonder why these trees, clearly more in love with being nice and dry, were so close to something so decidedly wet like a tidal creek.  Except for the palm, none of these species like to get their feet soaked for a long time.  Then I remembered that even a few inches of elevation change can make all the difference in an otherwise very low landscape such as this.  That's the special thing about river habitats, really, they have a strong influence on their immediate surroundings, but life goes back to something else once you get far and high enough away, as we will see in our upcoming river post.  At the same time, rivers have far more of an effect on us humans; while we love to use them to travel and fence in for aesthetic purposes, we sometimes also learn to give them a wide berth, what with the way flooding and erosion works.  In many places such as this, the "extended river" becomes a vessel of green and wild cutting through an otherwise cultivated and transformed landscape.  So, to be more precise about that question, something in the South near, but not on, a river.  To be honest, the mosquitoes are just a bit much to handle...

Le Retour de la Neige

Apparently a year has gone by since American Voyages has come into existence, and the thought only really occurred to me because we had our first snow of the year here in southeastern Michigan, the same thing last year being the inspiration for the blog.  In this time, the focus of the blog has shifted a bit from the natural world to a bit more history and politics than I had intended to cover, but the best intellectual constructs in human culture are usually the result of organic development.  History and geography, of course, are very much interrelated.  While people have migrated, fought wars, and developed cultures over ideas, more often than not they settled, sued for peace, and changed cultures because of "background" things like geology, zoology, and botany.  Yes, the Puritans came to New England because they wanted religious freedom, but they really showed up there because the New World really was new.  Our continent contained, and contains, many unique wonders that made them consider settlement here.  I firmly believe that our shared drive as humans, despite cultural differences, is a desire for exploration and growth.  This blog is, and will remain, dedicated to this thrill of discovery regarding our new world that is still new after 500 years.

That said, I still get the odd question over e-mail, most of which get tossed my way when I say something provocative about history and politics.  Here's one:

Q: Just where do you stand politically?  I could take your ideas a bit better if I knew where they were coming from.

A: Everyone has a bias when coming to a conclusion about something.  While objective truth does indeed exist, we also have to remember that we view it through an imperfect lens of human experience.  When we debate politics and culture, it would be wise to remember this, and not just label the "other side" as stupid or responsible for bringing about the apocalypse.  In the wake of the recent American election, we are seeing this in spades from every camp out there.  In some ways, this is good.  Such camps are a sign that democracy is functioning as it should, and that free development of ideas and attempts at self and societal improvements are flowing around without the need for tyrannical oversight.  We have a free society in the United States, Canada, and even, despite what everyone might think, Mexico.  On the other hand... "If we do not hang together, we shall all hang separately. "  Benjamin Franklin said that when he noticed that the other founding fathers were being diverse to the point of polarization.

Anyway, where is my camp?

My camp is anywhere where all life, human or otherwise, is properly respected.  My camp is where individuals have the right to self-determination inasmuch as it does not negatively impact the lives of others in the same regard.  You can pretty much guess where I stand on a lot of issues from those two statements, but if I need to be more specific, I am not best labeled as either conservative or liberal.  Being a Canadian, I could not vote last week, but I would have been hard pressed to favor either presidential candidate.  Both have skewed ideas about what the above statements mean, and exist largely to curry favor with private interest groups or their own agendas.

I do find the present political climate hopeful though; now that Mr. Obama can no longer run again for president (term limits are a very, very good thing), both he and his opposition can more freely find the common ground they need to find to keep us walking in the right direction.  As a result, I am very interested and following very closely the current path of John Boehner.  He and the president, as respective men of repute and importance in their parties, have the chance to do remarkable things in American politics.  Likewise, in my home state of Michigan, I wish I could somehow merge the drives and agendas of the current governor, Rick Snyder, with those of the former, Jennifer Granholm.  The best of both of these leaders have been very good things for Michigan, in my opinion far outweighing the worst of them.  In Canada, I am finding growing respect for Mr. Harper, while I am positively giddy about the prospect of a Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, because if he is even half the man his father was, he will rank among the best world leaders we have ever had.  In Mexico, well, let's just say I hope that the PRI learns to grow up, and that no one is making deals with the cartels.  Really, I just hope we can stop buying drugs here north of the border, because brother is it ever screwing with things south of it.

In short, I am hopeful for the future.  I truly believe that we have a beautiful continent full of beautiful people, and I don't give a damn whether they say si, yes, or oui to what I think.  I prefer being able to do all three!

Bring on the new day!

By the Way...

A busy day today finds me putting the posts off until tomorrow, but in the meantime, I can respond to an e-mailed question:

Q: "I thought Algonquin was a provincial park.  How come you kept referring to it as a national park?"

A: The 1893 piece of legislation creating the park was known as the "Algonquin National Park Act" even though control and responsibilities regarding the park fell largely under Ontario's jurisdiction.  While the concept of state and provincial parks was not entirely a novel one (Yosemite had actually been under the control of the state of California since the 1860's), the conservation movement made most of its political strides in both the United States and Canada largely under a helpful federal government.  The states and provinces tended to favor economic development and wanted to protect their interests against conservationists who usually hailed from areas far away from theirs.

The Americans, for example, were largely Ivy-league educated naturalists from the east coast.   You can see how someone in Oregon or Colorado would get upset about an "interloper" from that far away.  Conservationists were usually derided as "do-gooders" and idealists who wanted to interfere with the politics of the locals.  Needless to say, this problem also existed in Canada, the land of strong provincial freedoms.  Ottawa had their role in creating Algonquin, but the province had to be the one to carry the act through.  In 1913 the name of the park was changed to Algonquin Provincial Park, pretty much because it was in all but name.  That said, many people would continue to refer to it, as well as Quetico and Rondeau provincial parks as national parks well into the twentieth century.  When you think about it, the scale and fame of Algonquin are more in line with parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone than your average state park (this is not meant to be a slam on state/provincial parks, some of which are just as world class as the national sites).

As I mentioned a week or so ago, I am heading north to Algonquin on the 31st.  I have a fully loaded and ready camera with me for the trip, intent on making up for years of not liking cameras (I know, I know, silly me).  Be sure to check back on the second week of September to see August posts enhanced with fresh pictures!  I can't let the McElroys do all the work, after all.

Q and A Session Five

Q: You seem to jump around not only the geography quite a bit, but also from nature to civilization and history, etc.  I thought all this was supposed to be seeing North America for what it really is?

A: What North America "really is" is a continent that has been dramatically transformed in only a few centuries, much of it far more rapidly than that.  American Voyages is all about showing people what they have in their backyard, because it is amazing how many people really do not know what is just around the corner from them, what has happened there, etc., to say nothing of what lies further afield, especially in one of the neighboring countries.  Part of sharing what places are like involves:

What was this like in its natural state?
What has happened here because of nature?
What has happened here because of people?
What is this place like now?


I like to focus on the first and the last question, but you really can't get from one to the other without the middle two being asked as well.  Question one holds a particularly strong interest for me, because in so many places we just have no idea what we have changed, and might never get the chance.  Understanding this, especially through the lens of history, is very important in getting to know ourselves better.  For that matter, it helps to ground the sciences, such as botany, in something not distanced from humans.  Simply put, we are a component of the environment, and a danger lies in ignoring this by either insisting on our dominance of creation or seeing us only as an invasive element within it.  Anyway, whenever studying anything, it is important never to do so entirely from within or without a fishbowl.  This, of course, leads to another question:

What is my perspective on these things?


I made this blog because I wanted to share my perspective with others so that I may be in turn enlightened by theirs and open our worlds a bit more.  I suppose I could say the idea for American Voyages came when I was in high school and shocked that some of my peers did not know much about the world beyond their county.  I became aware of the idea when I went to Mexico to learn Spanish and was exposed to a much broader viewpoint of the place than I expected.  Finally, as noted before, in my very second post in fact, I became enraptured by the sheer grandeur of the Grand Canyon and knew that I wanted to share not just impressions of my travels and research, but my wonder.  Many people could care less about the facts and would prefer to skip ahead to "what is it like?"  To answer your question, in considering all of the components of a place, meaning its ecosystem, history, and forces of change, I like to expose both the facts and "what it is like".

Q: Why so much attention on a few places?  Why all the focus on Michigan?

A: I live here, and I have taken a lot of pictures of places like here and southern California.  I like to present posts that include photographs whenever possible, and I like to make sure they were pictures I or someone I was with have taken just to keep the images pertinent and meaningful in sharing my perspective.  Anyway, what's the big deal with Michigan?  It tends to not get a lot of good press from the rest of the country, to say nothing about getting much press at all.  On that note, just wait until I get some Mexico pictures together, because then you will probably be sick of those too!  Don't worry, I have plenty of requests and plans for more variety.

Q: What is corn?

A: A grain often eaten as a vegetable that is native to Mexico and has been cultivated throughout the Americas throughout human existence here.  In English it can also refer to grains for making bread in general.

Q and A Session Four

This Q and A session is dedicated to the concept of not taking your backyard for granted.  I was lucky to get three questions that worked well this way.

Q: Why so many posts about prairies and savannas?

A: Grasslands are the most common ecosystem across the entire continent.  They can be found in nearly every state, province, and territory of our three nations, albeit in different forms.  In pre-colonial times, they were far more extensive than in the present day, engaging neighboring ecosystems in a battle royale of wildfires, rains, and herd grazing patterns.  Grasslands are extremely resilient and adaptable ecosystems that define the wild nature of our continent on the whole: a fairly warm, windy place that is full of water and yet also remarkably dry.  They can handle the worst weather we get, including extremes in temperature and precipitation, and manage to survive.  Conversely, they are among the most productive and diverse lands on the entire planet, positively exploding with life and beauty with just a little bit of rain and warmth.  They can be found at the edge of deserts, in meadows high atop mountains, far north in the tundra or far south in the leeward slopes of tropical Mexico, in sandy expanses left behind from the last glaciers melting away over the Canadian Shield, amidst the pines and palmettos of Florida, in patches of "barrens" surrounding the great cities of New York and Philadelphia, in clearings amongst great forests, and of course, in the great central plains that stretch from Alberta to Coahuila.

What's more, in addition to being emblematic of the frontier and survivalist spirit of this continent, they defy simplification, and are often the most misunderstood ecosystems out there.  North American grasslands are often thought of like so:

When in fact they are often wonderful worlds bursting with life like:

In short, they are often far more than meets the eye.  On the whole, nature has so many wonderful surprises awaiting for those willing to take the time and explore it.  Our hectic world these days is so caught up in activity for the sake of self-benefit that we often overlook the concept of self-improvement, and definitely leave wonder and exploration out of the equation.  Quite literally, we cannot see the forest for the trees!  Grasslands are wonderful places where we are forced to pay attention to what is underfoot and seemingly invisible to the glancing eye in order to fully appreciate what they have to show us.  This was certainly true for my development in observing and understand ecosystems.  After I gave the Great Plains a chance, I never looked at a forest the same way again.

Speaking of that, to respond to the question on a more personal level, I had always wondered where the forest stopped and the prairie began.  When I was a kid hungry for travel with that dog-eared and bent atlas in my hands, I always envisioned everything from Regina to Dallas to be one giant flat expanse of lawn.  I could not help but imagine what the line between this lawn and the forest to the east looked like, and I pictured a dark, lush forest somewhere in Missouri that all of a sudden petered out into the endless prairie, a wall of tree meeting a sea of grass.  The search for this grand line of division, though largely dispelled when I started to read about the places in that atlas, has always been a bit in the back of my mind even recently.  Whenever I head out west, when driving through Iowa and Missouri, I always take in the scenery with even more intensity and detailed interest than I do elsewhere ecological transitions, or ecotones, occur, expecting to find that line one day.  I wanted to know where the forest turned into the plains which gave way to the mountains which became the desert which... you get the point.  Ecotones are fascinating worlds of connections between diverse areas, both because of the contrast between life zones they display, and because of the shared features between regions they represent.  This dovetails into the next question:

Q: What are some places you have not yet been to in North America that you would put on your "bucket list"?

A: That would make for a very interesting post, and I say that because there are so many places I would want to see before I give myself back to the soil.  I suppose here I can cheat and qualify that question with a specific direction: what places would I put on my list of places I am most ecologically curious about?  I would say that have to do with transitions, and finding more of my great wall of forests.  Specifically, I would give my right eye to see (or rather have seen) where the boreal forest transitions into the central grasslands.  Picture an arc stretching from Edmonton to Winnipeg and down towards Minneapolis.  The biologist-powers that be call this "Aspen Parkland", where the great forests of spruce, fir, poplars, birches, and pines dance and meet with the prairies.  I have always wondered what an outcropping of Canadian Shield granite looks like emerging from tallgrass.  Yep, I have very simple desires and plans in life, a man who wants to find a rock sticking out of a field.  I imagine very little of this landscape survives intact in the United States, and the best bet would be to find it in Canada in some of the national parks set aside to preserve such a landscape, but the remaining ecotones in Minnesota hold a particular fascination for me because they share many species in common with the lands next door in Michigan and Ontario that I love so much.  Algonquin meets the prairie, I can only imagine it!

I would also love to see the Black Hills, as they are the easternmost extension of the great western mountain forests, one of the few places where elements of eastern, western, and northern forests come together, stuck in the middle of hundreds of miles of the Great Plains.  Again, I like putting the puzzle together as much as seeing the finished map.

On the same general note:

Q: You seem to be passionate about much of the country (I assume this is referring to the United States specifically), finding something nice about everywhere.  Is there any place you could not live?  I mean, could you actually live in a desert or on the plains?

A: Probably somewhere in the Deep South, and not out of a cultural bias that leaves me with a raised eyebrow and open mouth whenever I encounter "rednecks" (but when it comes down to it, I find all sorts of people to be far more interesting than undesirable).  The Deep South is exotically lovely, what with magnolias, live oaks (Quercus Virginiana) and balcypresses (Taxodium Distichum) dripping in Spanish Moss, and palmettos making the most of the steamy landscape.  All the same, it is, well, a steamy landscape.  I don't do heat and humidity in combination very well.  I would imagine parts of Mississippi would be my least desirable place to live, owing to the conditions and the fact that anything resembling a mountain would be at least a half day drive away.  Then again, the flora is lovely, the music is great, and the river and Gulf are never far away.  As for the desert and plains, as per my response to the first question, they are not as desolate and devoid of life as they seem to be.  They also both tend to be close to mountains, so if I wanted to, I could easily get my fill of some pine forest for a bit.  I like both snow and palm trees, so the desert or the southern plains could work nicely, sure.  St. George, Utah comes to mind, as they have both.

Well, actually, this is Washington, Utah, but that is right next door.

It also helps to have friends there.  The western migration trend never really has stopped, it seems.  Anyway, I would probably be most at home in northern Ontario or western Quebec, which would be outside of the United States, but you get the picture.  That would be the heart part of my "home is where the heart is" even if I could adapt to any place fairly well.  Even if circumstances forced me to live in Jackson, Mississippi, I would hardly consider my life shot to hell, but would get a really powerful air conditioner as soon as possible, or at least a nice ceiling fan.  I would explore every nook and cranny of my new home and get to know its flowers, trees, history, and way of naming soft drinks rather well.  The Creator left us a nice world to live in, and the least I can do is come to know and appreciate it.

Q and A Session Three

Q: What inspired you to produce this blog?

A: For the past several years, I have been traveling pretty extensively around the United States.  By traveling, I mean on the ground.  The experience has let me see how such a diverse continent fits together.  As a child, I often spent hours staring at climate and vegetation maps because I wondered how everything fit together in the place I had gone to.  I explain more of my fascination with travel and trees in the prior Q and A post, but personal geographic wonder aside, connecting maps and the real world has remained an interest of mine.  In 2008, I was able to make my first continental crossing.  Seeing the plains unfold from the forests, seeing the Rockies rise in turn from the plains, heading into mountain forests, and then down into sparse deserts, well, it was all pretty amazing.  While the main purpose of this blog is to expose our continent to my readers, I suppose the impetus to keep it going has more to do with sharing my own sense of wonder and awe over everything from Opuntia Fragilis to swimming in the Pacific Ocean for the first time.  I want to share with people how I get excited about geography, nature, history, etc.  Hopefully, some of the joy can be passed on, or at least some sort of heightened awareness of one's surroundings, no matter how seemingly mundane they might be.  Heck, right now I am half writing this, half staring at the silhouettes of some Red Pine (Pinus Resinosa) blowing in the wind outside my window.

This motivation and odd preoccupation with resinous conifers is all well and good, you say, but what about the spark that actually got you to write this glorified amateur photo-journal, you ask?  I would have to say it was because I was almost struck by lightning.  The funny thing is, I did not even flinch.  I was at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon back in June, and was simply awestruck by everything around me.  Maybe it was the cold air up around 9,000 feet up (I had been baking for weeks in lower elevations).  Maybe it was the lovely forest I was surrounded by.  Maybe it was the actual canyon.  Maybe it was seeing the storm come across the wide open space.  Whatever it was, I felt that I was in my element, and I figured that maybe I should start making a chronicle of these sojourns and experiences.

Of course, it never hurts to put more on a resume either.


Q: Why do you never write about the churches you have been to?

A: Maybe I should.  Churches and other visible religious elements are very much a part of culture, and I definitely have the academic background to write on them, having degrees in both theology and art history.  We have some wonderful religious buildings of all sorts here that can give some of the greatest ones in Europe and Asia a run for their money.  After all, this blog is about history and culture as much as trees, trees, nature, and mostly trees, and North American history can be difficult to understand purely from a secular context. Try leaving Junipero Serra out of Californian history, or Frederic Baraga out of the story of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

I am Catholic, and thus have a tendency to, you know, mostly visit Catholic churches.  For one, writing about a mosque or a Baptist church would be overstepping my bounds and field of expertise, to say nothing of how I most likely would not have the spiritual eyes to experience such places as their associated worshipers would.  That said, North American history involved more than just Catholics, and I don't think I would be struck down by lightning (knock on wood) just for stepping inside a synagogue or going to a medicine wheel.  In fact, I would not mind checking out a Synagogue or a Wheel.

As usual, send your questions my way in the comments or by e-mail at BKryda@gmail.com.

Q & A Session Two

Q: You seem to be under the impression that the Mexican-American war was a bad thing, and yet if it truly was so horrible, why do you love California and the south west so much?

A: In my post regarding the Battle of Chapultepec, I did not expressly opine that the addition of these territories to the United States is a good or a bad thing.  The fact of the matter is, we may never know how the nations of the United States and Mexico might have developed otherwise had Mexico won the battle, thus having more room for negotiation at the bargaining table, and retained control of its territories.  We can conjecture quite a bit about the way things might have turned out with a stronger Mexico, just as soon as we can conjecture that the United States would have tried to purchase and/or take the lands by force anyway.  What I did say in the post was that the war was unjust, which it was.  What I did say in the post was that the destinies of all three of our nations were forever changed by the war, and they were.  The sheer difficulty involved in taking Chapultepec and holding on to Mexico thereafter kept Mexico an independent nation, even while the treaty made afterwards removed roughly half of its territories from it.  More happened at that battle and its following peace than territorial exchanges; attitudes were forever altered on both sides.

What would have happened to the relations between the two countries if the border remained at the front crest of the Rockies, the Nueces river, and the 42nd parallel?  Again, we may never know.  In all likelihood, Mexico would have found much of the territory too distant and vast to manage, unless they experienced a similar migration northwards that many Americans engaged in going west.  New Mexico would have considered breaking away and joining the United States, to whom they were engaged in a lucrative trade relationship already.  Texas would have pushed for a border at the Rio Grande, which the treaty would have gained for them anyway.  California might have broken off relations with Mexico City as Texas did, though the resistance of Californios to annexation by the United States might have left it as a separate nation.  Now, assuming that New Mexico would have taken the entirety of the upper Rio Grande valley, this would have left Arizona, the undeclared Republic of Deseret (Utah), and the Colorado river drainage of Colorado and a little bit of Wyoming left to Mexico, a wedge in the plans of a bunch of potentially hostile neighbors.  Assuming that the United States would not try to acquire this wedge first, the country might have looked to the 54th parallel as a way to fill out a clear path to the Pacific, which would have taken a large portion of land from what would soon become Canada and... well... things might have become very messy at that point.  Instead, history happened, and the United States picked up what has turned out to be prime real estate.

Granted, the land has become prime real estate because of how it has been developed.  Mexico looked north and saw deserts, missions, and frontier.  The United States looked westward and saw resources, the Pacific Ocean, and a haven for a different way of life for the Mormons, adventurers, rogues, capitalists, etc.  Granted, the land might have developed in a close fashion had the war not destabilized the country so much. Benito Juarez would have still been there, trying to push reforms and a chance at modernization and industrialization, and would have been still backed up by the United States looking for an amiable leader next door from whom they could buy land.  Instead, we had war.  The border was changed, hearts were changed, destiny was forged.  What we have today is simply what we have today, and our role as nations now is to make the experiences of people from both Phoenix and Hermosillo a lot more human and a lot less degrading.  The truth is, as I love the people on both sides of that ever expanding fence, I would love those lands regardless of who is in charge of them!  That said, write to me.  Tell me how you feel about this, tell me what you have studied about it.  The discovery of history never stops, and I am not closed-minded.

Q: What is your favorite National Park?

A: In what region?  Due to my preference for my native land of Northern Ontario, Voyageurs, Isle Royal, and Acadia top the list in the United States.  Parks like them in Canada, such as Pukaskwa and Quetico would cover the Canadian side, though all of these pale in comparison to Algonquin, which is a "mere" provincial park.  As for everywhere else, I really don't know.  I think my most emotional experiences have come from three places out west: The Grand Canyon, Sequoia, and Saguaro national parks.  Here they are as I saw them:

 I was completely unprepared for seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time.  I was expecting an incredible vista, but nothing like the pause bringing, pseudo-mystical feeling I got when I felt so completely unimportant in the face of the power of eternity, standing there on the north rim.  Pictures cannot capture the sensation.  I was preparing myself as best I could to see the Sequoias for the first time.  The redwoods might be taller and a bit more lush, but in essence, a Sequoia resembles the Platonic ideal of a pine (a redwood is a mere spruce, I tell you, a mere spruce!).  Call me a hippy, call me a nature pagan (I most assuredly am neither), but when I walked in the mist and snow to the base of the most massive tree in the world, I felt like I was approaching the favorite personal property of God.  Then I did something I probably should not have, and gently touched the bark, and felt what I can only describe as a sensation of touching something directly consecrated by the hand of the divine.

Finally, we have the cacti.  I had already seen a bunch of chollas, prickly pears, barrels, and such in other parts of the west, but had not yet been to the lower, warmer reaches of the Sonoran desert where the giant stuff could be found.  My first trip there, heading into Tucson from New Mexico on I-10, was on a forty degree day in very foggy skies, in March no less.  I found my first saguaro in a wash east of Benson, and got really excited.  Then I went to Cactus Forest drive in the eastern unit of Saguaro National Park, and saw sights that I will never forget in my entire life.  A forest of saguaros, ocotillos, everything I had imagined... lush, green, alive, and with a smell that I wish I could have bottled and taken home with me wafting through the misty air.  This was actually an experience that made me want to study botany; this "desert" world was just so ethereal that it grabbed my attention and turned me on the path of a new passion.

As usual, leave comments here or e-mail me with questions at BKryda@gmail.com.  By all means, disagree with me and get political!  Discourse can only improve us.

Q & A Session One

Apparently, I get remarks directed towards to me now and then about this silly adventure of mine.  Some of them are questions, some of them are... I suppose we can go with comments.  Let's start with some of the bigger questions:

Q: Why are you so crazy about Mexico?

A: The purpose of this blog is to show people what they have in their own backyard.  Most people are unaware of what lies just around the corner.  Most people do not really think about the land on which they rest, its plants and animals, history, and culture.  When they do, concepts and perceptions get compartmentalized and stereotyped.  For example, if someone says "Detroit", most people think "urban wasteland, crumbling American industry, corruption".  If they are from the area, "Black people" gets added on.  For some metro residents, the mere idea of crossing into the city limits invites terror and a heavy foot on the gas pedal to correct their imagined mistake.  Now take that sort of hyperbole and misconception and inflate it and you can begin to take a look at how most people view Mexico.  If someone says "Mexico", what tends to come to mind for you?  Beach resorts, ancient pyramid ruins, poverty, tacos, drug cartels, dirty city streets, sombreros... the list could go on, but you get the idea.  Now, those things do exist, but so do many more incredible things.

Mexico, like the United States and Canada, is an incredibly diverse and storied nation.  They have tropical beaches down there, but they also have deserts with some of the most amazing plant life in existence.  There are snow-capped mountains and huge volcanoes.  There are forests of pines and firs where parrots nest between the needles and cones over sometimes snowy grounds that are roamed by jaguars and ocelots.  Likewise, there are lush jungles full of palms and flowering trees that shelter browsing White-tailed deer and even beavers.  There are countless villages and towns that could easily be confused for quaint European hamlets just as soon as there are packed cities which cling to mountain sides and in which one can sniff passing scents of taquerias.  Then there are big box stores and multi-level shopping malls with huge parking lots and cell phone advertisements everywhere.  I have seen people in their twenties making tortillas the old fashioned way for their restaurants, while nearby an old native woman one would expect to be selling beaded crafts and barely able to speak Spanish is instead on a smart phone speaking English.  I have seen heavily armed police patrolling streets who look intimidating and serve as reminders of the violence that can sometimes shake the country... until they smile back at you.

Mexico is very misunderstood.  I enjoy debunking misconceptions, and I also enjoy good food and palms and pines growing beside each other.  The answer to your question is that I am as crazy about Mexico as I am about the two countries north.

Q: Why do you spend so much time talking about trees and showing pictures of them?

A: When I was growing up, I traveled a lot.  I spent time in southern Ontario, northern Ontario, and southern Florida.  The first two places, while seemingly close together, are quite different culturally and botanically.  The last one might as well be on a different planet, as it is one of the most unique ecosystems on Earth, and the furthest removed from everything typical to it, as far as geography goes.  I was also one of those kids that did not sleep in the car all the time, or spend the waking hours playing a hand held video game that I would wrestle with my brother over.  Most of the time, I was looking outside.  When I went to some attraction somewhere, and the gift shop inevitably reared its tantalizing head, the first thing I looked for was a book explaining where I was, not a toy (even though I did end up asking for both).  When I was 8 years old, I already had Latin names of tree species memorized.  Needless to say, once I started figuring out that trees were different in different places, and having the advantage of being introduced to both Royal palm hammocks and Black spruce bogs on a regular basis, I started paying attention the to trees wherever I would go.

I would develop sensitivity for the landscape.  Part of me would die whenever I would have to leave behind the pines and granite outcrops of the Canadian Shield, and part of me would burn with an inner vitality the moment I would see my first saw palmettos growing beneath the endless pine stands of the Carolinas en route to the land of everything palm that was Fort Lauderdale.  Trees would always stand out the most, even while I would notice the differences in the soil or the smells in the air in every different place I would go.  Trees are a very visible part of what uniqueness there is to every square mile of our planet, and they have played important symbolic roles in nearly every culture there is.  Take the Bible, for instance.  A tree is present at the fall of humanity, and a tree is also used as an instrument for the redemption of humanity.  I could probably go on and wax poetically, but I think you get the idea.  What I can do, at least, is show you two of my favorite trees, complete in their natural setting.

 Courtesy of Bob and Diana McElroy.  Check them out at their website!

The taller trees in this image are Eastern White pine (Pinus Strobus).  They are my favorite tree (another question answered) and in my opinion, one of the most impressive trees in the entire world.  The tallest specimens reach over 200 feet from top to bottom, and have trunks that can be nearly twenty feet across at shoulder height.  They can reach proportions found in trees that have much easier conditions to deal with.  They can grow in almost any kind of soil in their range.  A subspecies can even be found in Mexico.  They are incredibly graceful, beautiful looking trees that are the state and provincial symbols of Michigan, Ontario, and Maine.  They grow on the lawns of both Rideau Hall and the White House.  They welcome me to the north again when I pass over the Severn River and enter the Canadian Shield and its boreal forest.  They stand as sentinels giving a farewell as I pass into the western lands and see the last cultivated specimens somewhere near York, Nebraska.

This is a natural oasis of California Fan palms (Washingtonia Filifera), the only native palm in the western United States, and the most widely planted palm in the world.  This oasis is named Mara, and is easy to get to, standing just outside of the visitor center at Joshua Tree National Park.  They can burn to a crisp and completely recover in less than a year.  They can tolerate everything from 130 degree heat to sagging under a blanket of snow.  They are unique in that they grow in the two hottest deserts of the world (Mojave and Sonoran), yet also are as dependent on and associated with water as much as any mangrove or baldcypress.    I easily could have spent days staring up at these things, probably because while I like palms, I like seeing them as they were meant to be seen in their own ecosystem even more.

What more can I say?  I will always notice trees (or grass and cacti, depending on the environment) first wherever I go.

Feel free to e-mail me, or leave comments here, with any questions.  I will probably devote Thursdays and Fridays to responses.