Jill Browne, from home and away

Tuesday, January 11, 2010

Home: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

So cold the emergency brake froze in the on position.

Put outside briefly, the dog stood on three legs even when not peeing.

I watched from the comfort of a warm room.

And it wasn’t even that cold. Only minus 17 C or so. But it’s a dry cold.

Canola field under blue sky. Photo: Doug Bowman, CC License on Flickr.com

Monday, January 10, 2011.

Home: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

It’s still winter.  In fact I think winter is only beginning.  It has its good side, winter does, but today I’m thinking of warmer things.

The cloud ceiling is still over us, and the temperature is down around -17 C.

Frost feathers starting to decorate our windows.

Makes me think back to the brilliant sunshine and the glow of the yellow canola fields.

I wrote Canola has a Glow of its Own back in those glory days of July.

Link to Doug Bowman’s photo

The weather is only scary if you have to drive. The highway east of Calgary was shut down when I woke up this morning, and it sounds like people were stranded, cars in the ditch, people being put up in the little town of Bassano wherever they could find space. The RCMP said they would be getting out there to help people “at first light”, which I love the sound of.

Last night the wind was dramatic.

It’s grey and cloudy yet again today.

It’s actually not that bad outside now, but I’m glad I’m not going anywhere.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Home: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

One of my good friends is Ranger Julie, who is a real park ranger.  She got the nickname when stationed up high on a mountain in a hut, watching for avalanches and helping hikers along their way. She’s seen everything to do with hiking, I’m sure.  The one story I remember is of a young Italian guy hiking in the Rockies with no food and no equipment, no tent, no sleeping bag, nothing.  He didn’t realize that Canadian hiking is a little more rugged than going from hut to hut in the Alps. By the time he reached Julie’s hut he was pretty hungry!

Imagine having a job that sends you out alone on horseback with a pack horse or two, for the summer, to live alone with the hikers and the mountains.  Sounds idyllic.  Julie doesn’t do that now but in the past she has.

It’s bloody hard work.

She got to be a ranger by paying her dues.  I think her first official parks job may have been on trail crew.

You know those trails and bridges you hike across?  Trail crews go out and fix those. Sometimes when I’m crossing a bridge or walking up some impossible slope holding on to a cable, I think of the poor fearless workers who built it. Ranger Julie and her pals.

A notice from the Whyte Museum in Banff came today by email.

Among the several programs and exhibits coming up, was a mention that William Waterworth’s prisoner of war logbook would be on display, along with additional material.  I’ve just emailed the museum to ask about the dates.

UPDATE:  The display is up already and will continue until mid-March 2011.  It’s in the Archives, not the Museum galleries.  The Archives’ hours are 10 to 12 and 1 to 5, Monday to Friday, but I would double check before going on a statutory holiday Monday.

I had the great privilege of meeting Mr. Waterworth at his home in Banff a couple of years ago.  Sadly, he died recently.  This came as a surprise to me. When I met him, he was in great shape, despite having just had foot surgery.  My belated condolences to the Waterworth family and friends, should any of them happen to read this.

My meeting happened because I was a volunteer researcher for a museum exhibit called “For You, The War is Over“, which showed something of the prisoner of war experience for two groups of men: Alberta men captured as prisoners of war in Germany, and German men held as prisoners of war in Alberta.  Through that project, I met a few of the dwindling number of surviving prisoners living in the Calgary area, and some of their families.

Mr. Waterworth’s log book, which I was very honoured to have been shown, is relatively rare.  When the Allied prisoners were released, they faced a long, hard march back to friendly territory.  Men died on the trail, with their friends unable to save them.  They typically didn’t carry anything that wasn’t useful, so many log books and other personal items were left behind.

Another Calgary flyer, Barry Davidson, brought his PoW log book home.  Through the generosity of his family and the Bomber Command Museum of Canada in Nanton, Alberta, you can see Mr. Davidson’s log book online.  The books have some similarities, and some distinctly personal touches.

Mr. Waterworth’s log book is a family heirloom.  Thank you to the Waterworth family for allowing others to see it.

Those who fought in the Second World War, and in wars before and since, regardless of where and how they served, literally put their lives on the line for the rest of us.  They are all heroes.

Whyte Museum website

Excerpt on the Whyte’s website about the logbook: “Bill Waterworth’s Wartime Log”

Barry Davidson Prisoner of War logbook on the Bomber Command Museum of Canada website

Monday, January 3, 2011

Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Home

It just occurred to me (doh) that in most postcards people talk about the weather.

I’ll start mentioning it daily if I remember.

Since the New Year started, we have definitely felt wintery, but not all that cold.  What does that mean? At the warmest part of the day it’s been around -5 degrees C, just enough below freezing to be convincing and for the snow not to melt.

We have had a fair bit of snow so far this winter, but not like the storms elsewhere, like in eastern Canada and the US, or in Europe.

There’s a layer about 8 inches deep (let’s call that 20 cm) most places, though the depth varies with the wind, the tracking down by people’s feet and cars, and the shovelling from one spot to pile it in another.

Today was pretty bright and sunny.

Sunrise: 8:40 a.m.

Sunset:  4:42 p.m.

The new Bow Building dwarfs Calgary's downtown landmarks (Photo: Jill Browne)

January 3, 2011

Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Home

The new Bow Building isn’t finished yet but it already dominates Calgary’s downtown skyline.

Designed by the firm of Sir Norman Foster, the building was commissioned by energy company EnCana.  It’s 58 stories high and larger in scale than Calgary’s other office buildings.

On the plus side, the building is said to have some environmentally-friendly design features.

The big negative, as far as I’m concerned, is that the opportunity to take hundreds of  jobs out of the downtown core has been lost.  Calgary is a flat, sprawling city.  Most people depend on their cars to get almost anywhere.  Now even more people are going to be going downtown, further taxing our public transit and limited downtown parking and roads infrastructure.

I don’t see how this can possibly be considered environmentally friendly.

In spite of my vinegary attitude, I do love the surprising picture, linked to below.  If you know who the photographer is, please tell me so I can credit them properly.

Link to picture:

Workers at the Bow Building, Calgary

January 2, 2011

Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Home

The newspaper headline today stunned me: fatal shooting at 1 a.m. last night.

It happened downtown, 3rd and 3rd, which is near the Old Spaghetti Factory and the Westin.

I used to work in one of the buildings near there.  Got my hair cut in another, went for lunch about once a week in a third, and dinner twice a week when working overtime, in a fourth.  Not at 1 a.m., granted, but I don’t want to rely on just a gap of six hours or so as my protection against the next senseless shooting.

We cannot ever get complacent about violence in our city.  Whether it’s criminals shooting each other or not, violence and especially violence involving guns, is something we must be outraged about.

Canada is still a safe place.  Calgary is still a safe place.  But we have to make a big deal out of every gun murder, every act of violence involving a gun, and every criminal act involving a gun.  These cannot become mere statistics.  One is too many.

Guns and gun crime are not new but they are still relatively rare.  It must stay that way.

Some people like to draw a straight line between a gun crime and whether or not the gun registry was a good idea or not.  That is a fruitless debate.  It deflects attention from what we all need to be focusing on: how to stop this madness before someone else gets hurt.

It sickens me to think that even one person a year is shot to death in Calgary.  I want my fellow Calgarians to feel this same outrage and to never ever become numb to it.  Gun violence is not part of our way of life.

And to think, when I woke up this morning I was planning a pleasant little blog entry about Love, Actually.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Calgary, Alberta, Canada: Home

Just realized I haven’t left the house today.  Winter can do that.  We had a brilliant day, but the sun comes up at 8:40 a.m. and goes down at 4:40 p.m.

You snooze, you lose.

But some people in the family got out for a skate on our local lake.  It’s an urban, man-made lake, but out there on the ice, it feels as natural as any other lake.

In years when the ice is very clear, I feel my toes tingling and my knees getting a bit rubbery skating  just a few feet above the cold black water.  And when the ice cracks, or moans, or hisses, or does any of those active ice things, I want to run for shore.

It’s silly really.  They only let us skate on the ice when it’s strong enough to hold the Zamboni!

Happy New Year,

Jill