the cassandra pages

Thinking of Thingvellir

Thingvellir, Iceland. In the far distance you can see Skjaldbreiður, ("Broad Shield"), the prototype for all shield volcanos worldwide.

 

Standing in the main rift, Almannagja, which marks the eastern edge of the North American tectonic plate.

Three years ago, this past weekend, I was at Thingvellir, the great rift valley of Iceland. It was my 59th birthday, so I'll always remember the date. A lot happened that day that changed me. Even though we didn't witness an active volcanic eruption, we were surrounded by raw evidence of the earth being born in the not-too-distant geological past, and by a kind of beauty I had never before seen. Something happened that shook up my sense of time and solidity, and of my own identity within it. It took me a long time to understand why I felt so captivated by the strange forcefield that is Iceland, but one result was the reawakening of my own artistic creativity: not just because of wanting to express what I had seen and felt, but because I had a renewed sense of myself as an intrinsic part of the creation that is always happening, a link in the human chain of becoming, creating, and passing away that mirrors events in nature.

Three years later, I've got an unfinished but fairly extensive book manuscript, a lot of directly-related artwork, and seem to be back on a track of sustained drawing and painting. I'd hoped to go back to Iceland again by now (and we will, eventually, who knew we'd go twice to Mexico instead?) but, more importantly, it has become for me a kind of spiritual island, an Avalon in the middle of the far northern ocean, both real and mythic. I visit it in my thoughts, and feel sustained and encouraged by what I discovered there.

Lake Þingvallavatn. Charcoal on prepared paper, 30" x 22".

 

A Hike up Mt. St-Hilaire

Last Friday we went for a hike on Mt. St-Hilaire, not far outside the city of Montreal. St-Hilaire, at 411 metres/1348 ft in height, is one of a series of mountains in the region between Montreal and Vermont, called the Monteregie. All of them are isolated, standing above the flat floodplain of the St. Lawrence; once this was the Champlain Sea. These mountains include Mont Royal, Mt St-Bruno, Mt. Gregoire, Mt. Rougemont, Mt. St-Hilaire, Mt Yamaska and some others. Geologically, they're part of the "Great Meteor Hotspot Track." About 125 million years ago, a volcanic hotspot called the New England Hotspot led to upflows of mountain-forming magma when the North American plate moved westward over it. At that time, the hotspot was here, and the Alantic Ocean was just beginning to open up. The Monteregian Hills are made of very hard volcanic rock that did not fully erode under the pressure of the glaciers, and now they're all very distinctive landmarks in an otherwise extremely flat landscape. About 25 million years later, the White Mountains of New Hampshire were formed in much the same way; by then the hotspot was located further to the east. Today it's inactive, in the center of the Atlantic Ocean, where it's been overridden by the Mid-Alantic Ridge, but the age of the associated mountains and seamounts created by the New England hotspot has been used to track the movement of the North American and African tectonic plates.

Friday was my birthday, and the weather was beautiful -- so I suggested a hike and a picnic to this place we'd never visited close-up.

We ate our lunch on the shore of this lake, which is a short way up the mountain (see aerial view below.) McGill University owns Mt. St-Hilaire and uses it as a teaching site. The whole mountain is a nature preserve. Half is open to the public year-round, with well-maintained trails for hiking, cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. The other half, which contains primeval forest, remains an untouched reserve. This lake is a backup reservoir and no swimming, fishing or boating are allowed -- but it held a big flock of migrating Canada geese. Mt St-Hilaire also contains a great number of rare minerals -- over 300 -- as a result of alkali-rich agpaitic pegmatite igneous intrusions that only occur in a few other locations, most notably Agpat,Greenland; and sites in northwest Russia and Norway. (Forgive the geo-babble, but I find rocks fascinating!) On to the hike:

The beech-maple climax forest at the lower elevations. I don't think I've ever seen so many beech trees as the dominant species!

It felt good to be out of the city, surrounded by trees and silence. Even though there were a lot of cars in the parking lot, the trails were pretty empty, and the further we climbed, the quieter it got. No airplanes, no traffic, and only the occasional human voice.

Moss-fur.

The terrain got steeper near the top.

And from the summit, a view of the flat, rich farmland stretching in every direction, a quarry just below, and the widely-separated little towns of the Monteregie. Around the base of this mountain and several others are vineyards and apple orchards: something to explore another time. Here's an aerial view from the McGill site: (copyright 2013 McGill University; I'll take this down shortly.) The non-public reserve is the side of the mountain closest to us; we hiked from the lake up to the larger peak behind it, the same one shown in my top photo.

Those are the kinds of fields we used to drive along, on our frequent trips back to Vermont, laid out in the long narrow rectangles characteristic of the early French settlements. A house usually stood at one end, along the road, or rang, with the land stretching back toward a mountain or a river, thus affording each farmer different types of terrain for his use instead of granting all the best land to the wealthiest.

I've become fascinated by -- and fond of -- the distinctive shapes of these mountains and the landscape, so different from New England, and am working now at my first painting of it. More to come...

Au Sable

The Ausable River, looking upstream

We were in the Adirondacks on Friday, near Whiteface Mountain and Lake Placid, where we met up with three dear people, two of whom are longtime blogger friends.

Many glorious leaves were peeped at.

Many wooly fibers were petted at the local yarn shop.

Many bottles of excellent Montreal-made and home-brewed stout were drunk.

We had a very good time. Many photos were also taken, but by my husband -- somehow, I actually forgot my camera! So these camera-phone photos of the Ausable River will have to suffice for the moment. French-speaking friends, would you translate that as River of Sand? Is the river on the sand, or of the sand, or just sandy? There are, I think, old dunes in the area, but all the sections of river I've ever seen are full of boulders!

Looking downstream

When I was growing up in New York State, we pronounced the word Aw-SAY-bull, rather than au-SAHBl, and Ausable Chasm was more famous than the river itself. I've never seen it. The Wikipedia says that this gorge "has a continuous exposure of a section of the Potsdam Sandstone more than 160 metres (520 ft) thick, which includes, in an unpublished location, a rare, mid-cambrian jellyfish fossil."

Now that is something I'd dearly love to see, and to search for on a subsequent trip...maybe with these same intrepid friends!

Charlevoix 2

The rugosa roses were in full bloom, even in the sandy soils near the river beaches. On Saturday our friend took us to Port-au-Persil, literally "Parsley Port," so named by Samuel Champlain because he thought he saw Scottish parsley growing there. Oddly enough, eventually Port-au-Persil was settled by Scottish families. Now, the little settlement is a mixture of French year-round dwellers and Anglo "summer people."

We had a picnic on the beach, where our friend used to come as a child with her grandmother and great-aunts. There were dry salami, Quebec cheeses, smoked mackerel, French bread, a bit of paté, and hard-boiled eggs, which we cracked and ate dipped in salt poured into a crevice in the rocks. "My grandmother liked to come here and have what she called a 'tea picnic,' our friend told us. "We'd make a fire in the rocks, and boil the kettle right there, and have tea with little sandwiches and often hard-boiled eggs." She looked out at the water and smiled. "I've eaten a lot of hard-boiled eggs on this beach!"

After lunch we explored the tide pools, being careful not to slip on the wet mats of seaweed. The pools were teeming with all sizes of a small, green, shrimp-like crustacean, and many many snails.

Then we went clamberng over the rocks, many of which had amazing, almost perfectly straight grey stripes in the pink granite.

This is Labrador tea, growing lushly at the edge of the rocks.

And this is the interior of the tiny seaside chapel shown in the second photo. Services were held here once a month in the summer until recently, when the house nearby changed hands; the present owners allow the chapel to remain open but don't permit public worship there, which is a shame - no one seems to know why. Though probably there were memories of tragedies held between those white walls, the chapel had a lovely, peaceful feeling inside, looking out at the water.

Charlevoix 1

This is Baie-St-Paul, looking back upriver to the west, toward Quebec City. From here we drove north along the coast, up and down the steep cliffs, through the picturesque little villages of Les Eboulaments and St-Irénée, to La Malbaie/Point-au-Pic and our destination, Cap a l"Aigle (Eagle Cape.) Les Eboulements has an interesting geological history which I didn't know about until we got back (quotes below are from various sections of the Wikipedia:)

Les Éboulements is located in the centre of the Charlevoix crater. Mount Éboulements (Mont des Éboulements), in the eastern part of the municipality, is considered the central rebound of the earth's crust following moments after the meteor impact some 350 million years ago.

(In the photo at left, Baie-St-Paul is the bay at the righthand bottom of the semicircle; La Malbaie is the bay at the top. Les Eboulements is at the right center, just next to the river and this paragraph.)

The impact origin of Charlevoix crater was first realized in 1965 after the discovery of many shatter cones in the area...90% of the inhabitants of the Charlevoix now live within the crater.

In February 1663, a strong earthquake shook the Charlevoix region and triggered a large landslide down the slopes that characterize the hills of the area along the Saint Lawrence coast. Among the many eyewitnesses that testified to the significance of the event, priest Lalement wrote: "near the Bay called St. Paul, there was a small mountain alongside the river, a quarter of a league in circumference, which was abyssed, and as if it had not done that dive, it came out of the bottom to change into an islet." Thereafter the area was known as les Éboulements (French for "the landslides")

This region is about two hours northeast of Quebec City, five hours from Montreal. The tide reaches Quebec City- weakly, I think - but by the time you are at La Malbaie the river really feels like ocean. It's a saltwater estuary, full of a fascinating mixture of freshwater and marine life, and very beautiful. Ironically perhaps, considering its dramatic formation, the whole Charlevoix region has a reputation for peaceful charm, freshness and beauty, and for the excellence of its fish, farm products, cheeses, and even wine. It's very sparsely populated, and when you look north toward the mountains, all you see are trees: the boreal forest.

This was the view from the porch of our friend's house:

And here are the little fresh trout we had for dinner, brought to her by another friend that morning. I did the beheading and cooking honors, and it reminded me so much of my own childhood, when we used to go out and catch fish and clean and eat them for dinner.

Yes - those are the same as my own plates - an odd coincidence. Unfortunately, we were also someone's dinner: in spite of insect repellant, hats, turtlenecks, and citronella candles, the vicious black flies drove us inside after we finished our main course, and we spent a good while that evening dousing our painful, itchy bites with Benadryl and calamine lotion.

The house was an un-winterized cottage, quaint and rustic. Here's the view out our bedroom window toward the garden wall and street:

And the dining room, with a bowl of fresh peaches, the first we've had this season (these are from Ontario):

I loved this poster on the dining room wall, appropriate because there were birds everywhere. The house had a very warm feeling; we liked it.

Tomorrow, a trip to the beach at Port-au-Persil.

In the Country - 3

 

Wheatfield.

We went up on a nearby ridge on a gorgeous day last weekend, and drove through the central New York farmland. This area, in general, is quite depressed economically, and every time I've gone recently I've been able to see the deterioration, which seems most apparent to me in the towns, where more and more shops are empty or boarded up, and increasing numbers of individual properties seem to be in disrepair. Unemployment is high, and several factories have closed or moved. Yet, in the grocery stores, where a lot of people looked pretty down-and-out, prices were higher than in Montreal.

Beans in the foreground; cabbages (blue-ish) in the middle distance beyond the trees and grass.

Corn. Everywhere.

Family farms have been hard hit here, as they have been all across the country. But recently things have seemed a bit better. One development in recent years has been an influx of Amish and Mennonite families from further south. They, and some other enterprising local farmers, are leading a revival of community supported agriculture, through CSA food-basket shares, and the sale of cash crops, eggs, crafts, and baked goods at the farmers' markets which are becoming a feature of small town life. Milk prices have been more stable, too, since the remarkable growth of a yogurt company, started in 2005 in a closed Kraft plant, which now makes a new brand of Greek yogurt, Ciobani; the factory buys most of the milk produced in this part of central New York, and it's all hormone-free.

The region seems divided, however, about a much more contentious issue: energy. I already mentioned the windfarms which have gone up in Madison County, but I haven't spoken here about the natural gas wells. During our drive we were astounded at the number of wells in the area. The gas companies enter into long-term leases with the farmers and landowners, many of whom have been so impoverished that they don't want to refuse; we heard of some who later wanted to get out of their contracts, only to find out that this was impossible. The area sits on the Marcellus shale, which is rich in natural gas and desireable for fracking. (As I understand it, the type of well shown above is a straight gas well, not the result of fracking, but perhaps a reader of this post who knows more can explain better.) New York State has put a moratorium on fracking while the longterm effects on groundwater are studied. I can hardly blame local people, who already feel forgotten and hopeless, for signing up for a chance for guaranteed income, but I'm very sad about what may happen in the future.

Meanwhile, the land continues to bowl me over me with its beauty.

Fire and Brimstone

There is something quite abnormal about approaching a pool of water in the earth, and seeing that it is boiling.

In this valley of hot springs a few hours from Reykjavik is the original "Geysir," which gave its name to the geothermal phenomenon of water erupting in a huge plume from a subterranean shaft and reservoir. Geysir was famous, attaining heights of as much as 170 metres -- even Napoleon came to see it -- but it now erupts infrequently. Geological research indicates that Geysir has been active for more than 10,000 years; the activity of all the geysers in this region seems to vary depending on earthquake activity.

A neighboring geyser, Strokkur, first mentioned in 1789, erupts less spectacularly, but is very reliable. While we were in this valley, it erupted four times, about every ten minutes. Even more amazing than the eruption itself is the way the pool seems to "breathe" and finally gather strength, rising in a great bubble-like curve of water, and then exploding upward in a tall plume of sulfurous steam and water. (The Wikipedia link for Strokkur, above, shows a sequence of eruption photos.)

Elsa and I watch Strokkur erupt. In the photograph below, you can see how close the path (and the people) are to the geyser.

The valley also contains pools of extraordinary color, apparently from living algae and dissolved minerals, in water that is far too hot to touch, and the gravelly soil is also colored with hues of red, ochre, and yellow; on the flanks of the pools that eject streams of water there is a slippery, hard deposit of minerals. The smell is difficult. We didn't stay very long, in this valley that reminds one of Dante's vision of hell, but is actually closer to the birthing of worlds. Iceland, one of the geologically youngest places on earth, shows us something of what the earth was like in its infancy.

I found that fact both fascinating and sobering. The landscape is extraordinary, and - to me - extremely beautiful. It can be dangerous. But most of all, it moved me profoundly.

We spend so much of our life in populated places, looking at what human beings have created, and even when we manage to find some wildness, it's often in the company of others. Most of Iceland is unpopulated, or very sparsely settled. In the astounding places we visited, we were often the only people there. There are almost no warning signs -- here a small sign mentioning not to touch the water, which was 80-100 degrees C -- a flimsy rope, no disclaimers; you and your common sense are on their own.

Cultural differences can be huge about the assumptions surrounding perceived danger. After my friend G. read my initial account of this place, he wrote me a letter about his experience visiting geysers and hot springs in Yellowstone National Park in the western United States, under the apt subject heading: "Tiptoe to the Portals of Geothermal Hell:"

"On our road trip west, August 2010, we drove through and walked around parts of Yellowstone Park, which makes an interesting contrast with your geothermal adventures in Iceland.  It is a huge park with dense clusters of visitors in a handful of accessible places, and lots of remote but regulated wilderness that we, like most visitors, never approached. The thermal areas are just unlike anything we are used to.  Approaching a wooded area with steam rising all around might lead you to think of the first or last stages of forest fire -- until the sulfur fumes hit you.  The carefully curated thermal areas around Old Faithful are polar opposite of the "visitor beware" ethos you describe in Iceland.  Boardwalks, rangers, warning signs, and wheelchair accessible ramps with numbered and annotated viewpoints give you no chance to do (or feel proud for refraining from doing) the stupid things you might otherwise be tempted to do in the vicinity of weird and smelly gurgling springs of boiling water, mud or extremophile bacterial colonies. I had thoughts, not of birthing planets, but of native Americans or early explorers coming upon such a place without the commercial buildup or grade school science projects that almost make these things trite.  The ground between these steaming springs can be a shallow and fragile layer over subterranean hot and wet: fatal attractions, with a danger obvious  to thinking folks. The bison like it here in the summer because the sulfur fumes keep the bugs away, and in the winter because the shallower snowpack gives better access to grazing.  Once in a while, one falls into a steaming pool and can't get out."

Iceland is wilderness, but not merely a national preserve or an unspoiled stretch of beach -- it is wilderness that, in and of itself, is changing, mutating, moving, growing. There are old volcanoes, rifts, and relics of lava flows that happened long ago, but there is the constant possibility -- probability -- of new events, and the measurable drift of the tectonic plates away from each other, as the mid-Atlantic ridge rises from the sea in this northern land-that-is-still-becoming.

Who am I, I wondered, in this landscape? Not the same person, surely, as I naively was in the streets of Montreal.

-- This post is my submission to the anniversary edition of the Language/Place blog carnival, hosted this month by Dorothee Lang, on the theme of "Streets, Signs, Directions." I'll post the link as soon as it become active.