Don's Blog The Smoking Hills IV

 But lets get back to the Smoking Hills from the Franklin Bay side this summer. The weather that day precluded our going ashore. Initially we could hardly see the shore.

The weather cleared and we could see the spectacle.

The wonders went on for miles.

Don's Blog The Smoking Hills III 11-9-17

On our canoe expedition on the Horton as the river came close to Franklin Bay just northof the Smoking Hills we were able to climb up and see the bay.

Around 1800 the Horton River meander broke through the shoreline to Franklin Bay. This rare natural phenomenon created a new delta about 60 miles south of the previous one. The Old Horton riverbed 

can be seen on the map.

This image shows an area of the river with the bay behind. It appears that the waves from the bay were 

the most probable cause of the breakthrough.

Don's Blog The Smoking Hills II 11-8-17

The water behind the Smoking Hills is the Horton River which I canoed in 1993. The river starts in a small lake and runs north through a wild canyon and then through tundra to Franklin Bay.

After the canyon the river settles down to a mostly gentle flow with broad expanses of tundra with squirrels, caribou, wolves, and musk ox.

The river parallels the Smoking Hills in several places allowing for lose inspection.

We were able to climb up to these areas which had a strong odor of sulfur.

Don's Blog The Smoking Hills I 11-7-17

Going west from Desalis Bay on the southeast corner of Banks Island we crossed Amundsen Gulf just south of the Beaufort Sea heading for the Smoking Hills in the Northwest Territories.  This amazing natural phenomenon is on the western side of Franklin Bay between Cape Bathurst and Cape Parry.

The Smoking Hills are smoking cliffs to the east of the Mackenzie River delta (below) and near the delta of the Horton River. They are about 37 miles in length.

The Smoking Hills were named by Robert McClure in 1850. McClure, on the ship Investigator, was searching for the  Franklin Expedition sailing  from the west approach to the presumed Northwest Passage. Seeing smoke arising from crevices in the cliffs McClure sent his men to check. He departed believing that the smoke was volcanic in origin )below).

Some sources have indicated that John Franklin named the Smoking Hills during his land expedition

of 1825 and 1826. This would not have been possible. During Franklin's third overland expedition to the "polar sea" Franklin and John Richardson descended the Mackenzie River to the sea from Great Bear Lake.The parties separated on July 4, 1826. Franklin's group with officer-artist George Back in the Lion and Reliance

went west to map the shoreline. Richardson's group, in the Dolphin and Union went east to survey the coast between the MacKenzie and Coppermine Rivers. Only Richardson would have seen the Smoking Hills since they are east of the Mackenzie River.

On the day of our visit the waters of Franklin Bay were too rough for us to go ashore.

We were able to see the smoke coming from the cliffs.

The smoke comes from the spontaneous combustion of mud stones which creates boccanes or fire baked rock. The mud stones originated in the Cretaceous period,the age of the dinosaurs (Mesozoic), about 145 million years ago.They contain pirite and lignite. Pirite is iron sulfate (FeS2) also known as fools gold. Lignite or brown coal, is a soft combustible sedimentary rock

formed from naturally compressed peat. The landslide strata of these mud stones are exposed to atmospheric oxygen with resultant oxidation that results in the high temperature required for the autoignition and spontaneous combustion of the coal. This is facilitated by the fine particle size and large surface area  of the pirite. As specific areas burn out new areas begin burning. This has been going on for hundreds of years. It results in bleaching and reddening of the stone.

Don's Blog The Need To Be Outside: Camping As Life And Life As Camping - A Memoir II

After our stint in Alaska was over we settled in St. Louis. Much of our "free time"  during this period

was spent out of doors. This is not easy to do when you have a busy academic career  and a young family.  We hiked weekly often at our favorite local park - West Tyson. We camped in state campgrounds and started doing canoe float trips on the cold clear waters of Ozark rivers such as the Mermec, the Courtois, the Huzzah, and the Current. Our favorites were the Eleven Point and the Buffalo rivers further south.We took family vacations to the quartz sand beaches of Florida's Santa Rosa Beach on the gulf coast for thirty years. The magic of going to the gulf was that every year it was different and somewhat the same. We identified fish and crabs and sharks (sand and hammerhead). We snorkeled for sand dollars. We sailed our little Sailfish. One year we were fortunate to see a mother sea turtle lay her eggs in the dunes. A year or two later on another visit we experienced the miracle of a turtle hatch during the full moon.

As an academic physician I was able to travel the world with Jan giving research "slide talks" at medical meetings.. Wherever we went either in the US or abroad Jan and I would hike. We found spectacular hiking in the mountains outside Las Vegas, on the Napali trail on the backside of Kaui, as well as the board walk trails near Crater Lake in Tasmania. We climbed Diamond Head in Honolulu and walk on the shore in Alexandria,

Egypt. Wherever we went we headed outside.

Toward the end of my professional life my son Lee invited me to go on a canoe expedition to the Caribou River 

in northern Manitoba, Canada. The trip boggled my body and what was left of my mind. It was the first of eight canoe expeditions to the Far North to such rivers as the Thelon, Nahanni, Horton, Coppermine, and Kunwak.

There is nothing like lying in your tent on an air mattress in a rolling thunderstorm with the water rising and with the ground vibrating from nearby lightning strikes. Unless it is going through Escape Rapids on the Coppermine River in the bow of an OldTown Discovery canoe plowing down into the standing wave with cold water cascading into your face while you are screaming like a kid. Walking the tundra creates the same  experience as hiking above timberline on the peneplain in the rockies. These areas in the arctic are still magically remote.

On a 3 week trip we might see only one or two other parties. It was these journeys to the arctic that awakened

a long forgotten call to the Northwest Passage and its history.

For almost 10 years we went to Sanibel Island in February. Our favorite areas were the Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge between Sanibel and Captiva Islands and the Corkscrew Swamp Refuge west of Naples. 

Two years ago I went to Greenland with a friend and re-lived the Bertram story. I gave several presentations 

about "Going To Greenland" and I started  reading about the Post-Napoleonic explorations of the Brits and Sir

John Franklin. Jan has pointed out to me that taking the Northwest Passage trip on Le Boreal this summer was just like going to camp. An expedition cruise is geared to seasoned travelers who are healthy and fit. Can you imagine a three week period of your life where nobody wants to talk about their ailments? Our cabin on Le Boreal was much more comfortable than my backpacking or canoeing tents. The cook at this camp prepared great tasting healthy food and I don't think two desserts a night was too much. I lost 6 pounds on the trip. The staff almost outnumbered us and was friendly and knowledgeable. Our fellow travelers  were energetic  and excited to adventure into the Zodiacs for our daily tundra walks. The arctic tundra is expansive and royal and bleak, and desolate. We all loved

"being outside". On our treks  we had plenty of opportunity walk alone and experience the peace that passes all understanding or in a group to learn about the " Land" from Mike or Brent in a group. And one day as I was walking alone an arctic fox walked up to me just out of curiosity and that experience was worth a lifetime. Now as I enjoy memories of the passage I am wondering what new outdoor adventure awaits me.

Don's Blog The Need To Be Outside: Camping As Life And Life As Camping -A Memoir I

Part I

I have shared for years my love of being outdoors. This started early in my life. Our home was on a small block that had once been a city park.We were surrounded by the woods of the Cook County

Forest Preserve District. I learned to fish in the Salt Creek Woods at the end of our street   Just down Ogden Avenue  was Bemis Woods  where we would toboggan in the winter.  It was rumored that  German  prisoners of war (WWII) were secretly kept near the Bemis Woods. We  gave those woods a wide birth. Another favorite  was Belly Deep Slough which was on LaGrange Road south of our village. We lived on wide streets and had  vacant lots where we grew fresh vegetables in Victory Gardens, my first experience of growing things. During this time in the early 1940's we were all out of the house from sun up to dinner time feeling completely free in our choices of  outdoor activities and spending much of our time in the neighborhood. We often went down the street to Gilbert Park where we could play tennis or ice skate. We loved our neighborhood games especially kick the can and spinning tops (my brother David was unmatched in tops maneuvers),shooting marbles,and a knife game called mumbeldy peg.

As a young child our family spent summers in Lakeside, Michigan where we learned of the dread under tow. We had to wait for more than an hour after meals before we could go into the water safely. Every year we would go  to  Starved Rock State Park on the Illinois River and imagine ourselves going off Lovers Leap  My mother had gone to summer camp as a child and she firmly believed that all her children should have that experience. This ultimately resulted in outdoor experiences that were so powerful that I actually developed a need to be outside in nature to maintain my equilibrium. Initially there was Camp Greenwood in Ellison Bay Wisconsin. We hiked secluded trails through primeval deep woods and I learned to swim in cold clear water. Using pine boughs for a mattress we slept on smooth white pebbled beaches on Washington Island and marveled at the milky way and its multiple shooting stars. We started new friendships and learned camp songs. We learned ArpArp Larpanguarpage and we even spied on the girls as they were taking their baths in Green Bay.

During our teen-age years we started going to Cheley Camp in Estes Park, Colorado. My grandfather

had taken my mother and the family to Colorado in 1921 so she had always been a fan of the Rocky Mountains. This broadened my travel experience. Whereas we had driven to Camp Greenwood, to get to Estes Park we took the Burlington Railroad's Denver Zephyr from Chicago west through La Grange (one block from our home) and on to Denver. We ate dinner and breakfast in the dining car and spent the night in a sleeper car full of other campers. It was wild. Cheley Camp was an adventure 

camp with horses and hiking and backpacking. I spent the next three years hiking and camping in and around Rocky Mountain National Park. I learned to love the experience of total exhaustion and the feeling of quiet elation while hiking and climbing mountains called Longs Peak, Flattop, Notchtop and Little Matterhorn. A porcupine ate the tops off my hiking boots. I earned the honored and coveted Fourth Degree Mountaineering Award. One of the requirements was to be able to identify alpine flowers. This was one of the reasons that I became The Flower Guy after I retired  and why I spent several months identifying images of arctic flowers after a recent trip to Greenland. We sang different camp songs and discovered the illicit limerick. We made friendships that have lasted to today. Going to camp was a life changing experience.

During college one of the areas in which I excelled was singing camp songs (now more like drinking songs) and taking limericks learned at camp to a new level. In med school my limericks were likened to an art form. For example:

   Dr Schoepfle of Washington U.

   Kept Snakes in his own  private zoo.

   He found the deflection of reptilian erection,

   Exceeded his own by point two.

But I digress. We have been talking about the relationship between camp and life. Near the end of Med school I married a beautiful art student who also shared a love of the outdoors. After residency training our young  family moved to an outdoor paradise. I had signed up for the Air Force and had requested the north west. We were sent as far north and west as possible. We served at the USAF Hospital Elmendorf in Anchorage, Alaska for two years. For me it was another dream come true. I traveled extensively around the state. I was able to hunt for caribou near Palmer and moose at the base of Mount McKinley and black bear on the Kenai Peninsula.  I fished for dolly varden on the Kenai and salmon at Nak Nak. We dug out razor clams; and while netting " hooligan" I got stuck in some boot sucking mud on flats with an incoming tide. I had to squirm out of my boot to crawl to safety on top of the net pole. Along with its serenity nature can always provide danger. 

Ear disease in native children was endemic and each Tuesday I was 'loaned" by the Air Force to the Alaska Native Medical Center, a Public Health Hospital to do ear surgery on children. This provided a chance to be  flown out to case finding clinics in the Alaska Bush. There is no bigger thrill than flying in the winter into a native village on a small plane on skis and being taken by snow mobile to the health clinic where the children of the hamlet await. About that time I received a small inheritance from my grandmother. I blew it all on a red and black Scorpion snow mobile for the family (mainly me). We could ride directly up into the Chugach Mountains from our home. I used it to homestead an acre of Open to Entry  land on the Deshka River.  I learned to enjoy the Alaskan winters and their dry cold.  During the winter nights we had a neighborhood watch for the Northern Lights. It would not be surprising to see  all the neighbors out in the middle of the night in our night clothes and parkas enjoying the Aurora Borealis.  What an opportunity.

Don's Blog The Adventures of Burton Holmes 11-1-17

About the same time that I was reading the Bertram  books with my folks we started

a new family experience. It was at my age seven or eight that  we began to attend the Sunday Evening Club which was held in our local high school auditorium. This was a significant move for my parents because

Sunday was sacred and mostly for church activities. We were not allowed to go to the movies 

on Sunday. The Sunday Evening Club sponsored a series of presentations during the winter.

My most memorable speaker was Burton Holmes who invented the travelogue. Holmes didn't invent

travel stories. Those were old when Odysseus recited his trip report to Homer. He didn't invent slide 

shows. Magic lantern slide shows were being given in the 1850's. He didn't invent moving pictures, but

he was the first to show them as part of a public lecture series. He didn't invent the travel lecture series.

John L. Stoddard had been doing that for 15 years when Holmes began. But Burton Holmes took all of these facets of travel lecturing and turned them into an art  form.

What I remember about going to the several Burton Holmes programs was the energy and the wonder 

produced by this wonderful entertainer. He often showed images of himself in exotic places.

But mostly I remember sitting in the auditorium listening to this powerful man express that my dreams could be a reality. "I could do that", resulted from these talks. By the time he made it regularly to La Grange, Illinois, a small suburb of Chicago, he had been giving these talks for over 50 years. I remember that he was older but absolutely magnetic. By the time he retired he had given more than 8,000 talks.

Burton Holme's work lives on in his images and his films, and his books.  But the greatest aspect of his work lives in those who listened to him and went out and made their travel dreams come true.

There was another presentation at the Sunday Evening Club that caught my fancy. It was a slide show

presented by two young paddlers who talked of their adventures on a wild river in arctic Canada. I remember

one image particularly which showed them in their canoes going through white water with the sun shining down on the water producing the shimmer glimmer. I clearly remember thinking that I would like to do that  - and I did.