Wednesday Filler: Crossing the Great Divide at El Malpais

Central New Mexico is the first place south of Wyoming where the Rockies abate enough to allow for easier passage between plains and inter-mountain lands.  Easier, of course, is a relative term, as the lowest portions of the Great Divide are still well over 7,000 feet above sea level.

The landscape, while bearing less relief than the most dramatic portions of the spine of the continent, is still rugged and thickly vegetated enough to slow down most non-road travel.  In the area around El Malpais, forests of Ponderosa and Pinyon pines are surrounded by a great deal of black rock.  Out in the open, at lower elevations on valley floors, the rock can be seen covering a wide area, as if it spread out in a flow.

Well, its actually hardened lava, and it makes for quite the interesting landscape.  El Malpais is full of lava fields, lava caves, and small volcanoes.  Consequently, El Malpais is Spanish for "The bad land", so named by Spanish explorers who passed through the area and had an impression that the vast lava fields were barren and somewhat reminiscent of popular concepts of Hell (talk about being under and over-impressed at the same time).  Of course, they also found the area passable and a good way to move between the Rio Grand valley and the lands beyond, and some particularly enjoyed a cool permanent spring at the base of a nearby rock formation.  Eastern side lava fields give way to western side points of rest and tranquility, at least at this divide crossing.

This is known today as El Morro National Monument, and many signatures of passing travelers have been etched into the base of the cliffs, leaving us with centuries of written and pictorial records of various peoples.  I was not able to see them at the time.  As you can see, this particular passage was quite rainy on those otherwise hot and dry July days of the past summer.  The funny part is, after I had left the lava fields on the eastern side of the divide, things got quite sunny, and then quite sandy.  Even a relatively level region on the Great Divide, it seems, can really knock the weather for a loop, and truly divide the waters in two.

Crossing the Great Divide at Milner Pass

North America is broken up into three major drainage areas, wherein water flows to either the Atlantic, Pacific, or Arctic Oceans.  Mexico and the vast majority of the United States drains either to the Atlantic or Pacific bodies, whereas a very small part of the northern continental United States (Alaska is a different story) and much of Canada contains areas that flow to all three vast expanses of sea.  In Montana, one can actually stand on Triple Divide Peak and set one foot on ground that will have precipitation run down to all three oceans, which, if you ask me, is way more impressive than standing on four states at once.  Now, in some places, the divide is very apparent, and grand crests stand up that daunted travelers trying to make passage across the breadth of the continent.  Without the convenience of a vehicle, and even with one, the passage over the divide is pretty rough.  This picture was taken in May, close to the divide on I-70 in Colorado.

In other areas, the crest is shockingly low, even nearby where it might have been ridiculously high and seemingly impassable.  Passes certainly do exist in mountain ranges; North America would otherwise be very difficult to venture through, as the great north-south mountain ranges have long served as a boundary between both cultures and eco-regions, and even weather patterns.  South pass in Wyoming, for example, is a fairly level venture devoid of rugged mountain scenery that nearly every migrant took getting to destinations beyond the Rockies.  In some areas, though, the Great Divide and its pass comes as a surprise, and might be far lower than surrounding peaks, as it is here in Colorado:

This is Milner Pass, which is nearly three thousand feet lower than nearby peaks, and it runs northeast-southwest rather than the east-west one would expect from the divide being in the Rockies.  The second picture is of the eastern side of the pass, a little rocky maybe, but something that would not look too out of place in the Canadian Shield.  The western side, in the third picture, is a gentle slope with loads of pine, spruce, and fir on it, and only slopes up a mere 100 feet within the visual horizon.  So what, you might ask?  Well, this is how it looks in the surrounding area, not a mile away:

Milner Pass is very, very deceptive.  The pass lies within one of the most dramatic sections of mountain in the United States, and yet is fairly level, and nestled between ridges so neatly that it gives off the appearance of being from somewhere in north-eastern boreal Canada.  The actual rise between the watersheds was covered with ten feet of snow at the time I was there, but there was no mistaking how relatively demure it felt in the presence of otherwise dramatic scenery.  A simple rise of a few inches is all that separates water from flowing to oceans thousand of miles apart.  Take a look at this shot, viewing the pass a half mile away on the "Atlantic" side.  If it were not for the peaks in the distant background, one would hardly figure they were on the great spine of a continent.

Furthermore, Milner Pass lies within one of the source tributaries of the Colorado River, which not even 20 miles from its source is already carving out grandiose canyons and valleys.  Here, however, are some of the humble beginnings of the powerful torrent.  Passes are also known as gaps and saddles, but here we have a pass that would be better termed cradle.

Inspiration Went Downstream

Sometimes a single picture can say so much more than a long post.  

Here we have the Fall river, making a lovely meander through otherwise rugged territory in Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park.  This view looks down 2,000 feet into the valley, and one can also see the Great Plains, 30 miles away, in between the peaks to the east.

Sunday Afternoon Post: Munising Falls

I was going to complain about the quality of, heh, "beaches" along Lake Huron's Michigan shoreline, but that would be somewhat cruel and unusual.  Instead, here is one of the many waterfalls found in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Munising Falls.

While the western and central parts of the Upper Peninsula do not sit on the Canadian Shield, at least not where it lies exposed, the waters have a different potency and taste to them than would expect from a stream like this.  The flora and ever present sand are pretty much the same as what one can find in Ontario, though, and the water still gets stained by tannin enough to be golden.

It is a nice waterfall, typical of what one would expect in the best part of Michigan.  Eastern and northern falls might not be as tall and dramatic as those out west, but the smaller scale certainly adds to the tranquil intimacy of the settings in which they are commonly found.

The 10 Most Important Events in North American History, part three.

Part one of this series can be found here.

Part two of this series can be found here.


Before we go on, I will come clean and state that the American Revolution is not on this list.  Instead, the next two events are presented as the forth and third most important events in our shared North American history, as they were far more influential in making sure the United States would even go after, much less maintain, independence.  Even if the list were just about the United States and not also Canada and Mexico, these two events would remain in place of the events that took place between 1775 and 1781.

4. The Treaty of Ghent.



Without engaging in another diatribe about how the War of 1812 gets very much ignored by most Americans, I would have to say that I maintain, and likely always will maintain, that the War of 1812 was the most important exercise in the declaration of nationhood for both the United States and Canada.  What's more, the fact that the United States got so thoroughly trounced and yet managed to tell Britain, or any nation for that matter, to mind its own business, was a message to the rest of the world that the fragile existence of a democratic state was perhaps a bit more strong that anyone had thought.  Yes, democracies had existed before, but they were not like this.  The only other large scale experiment in this kind of revolution happened in France, and, well, it really did not work out so well.  Here, not only the sovereignty of a nation  was held intact, but also its pride.  On the other side of the table, though not immediately apparent, Canada did the same thing.  As was the case in 1763, Britain did have an attractive choice in forgoing a Canadian retention, but chose not to take such an option.

Beyond these obvious considerations and players, however, lies a third party.  Two years before the war even began, Mexico had begun its war of independence under the leadership of Miguel Hidalgo.  Things got off to quite the rocky start, and by 1815 Hidalgo was executed and the Mexican forces had accomplished seemingly little in their fight to take the country.  Hope was needed if the enterprise was to succeed, and most historians will be quick to point out that things really got underway when Augustin de Iturbide switched sides from Spain and brought a good portion of the royalist army with him.  However, Iturbide also had himself crowned emperor and was more interested in destroying liberalism than in freeing Mexico.  In 1821, only a year into his reign, Iturbide was overthrown by Santa Anna, and Mexico became a republic.  Clearly there was some other inspiration out there that kept the fires burning down in Mexico.  Things were not looking good for anyone over in Europe, and the Congress of Vienna made sure that the concept of revolution would be put to rest until 1848, for the most part.  But Mexico was not part of Europe.  Call it conjecture, but maybe, just maybe, Mexicans looked north and saw that the United States was not only still standing at the end of their second war with a distant would-be ruler, but the United States made out pretty well in the deal.  For that matter, Canada survived intact.

So how did this happen, exactly?  Sure, Fort McHenry got blasted to smithereens but stood its ground for two whole days, protecting Baltimore.  Yes, Tecumseh had been killed at the Battle of the Thames, York (Toronto) had been burned to a crisp, and Britain was unwilling to devote more force to protecting Canada. However, Detroit was captured, the American forces were repulsed back across the Niagara, and Washington was taken, with the White House in need of a substantial re-construction and now famous paint job.  Most importantly, this was the first time that Canadians themselves actually fought to protect their homeland.  Yes, British regulars were responsible for many of the great victories of "Canada" during this war, but it was Canadians, English, French, and First Nations alike who shed their blood at River Raisin, Thames, Lundy's Lane, and most sacred in memory of all, Chateauguay.  Both sides were not fighting for some distant government or a handful of rich men who wanted to tell them what to do.  They were fighting for their homes, for their families, for their land.  The ideals of freedom might have been philosophized elsewhere in books and speeches and formalized into governments closer to home, but here, democracy did not mean the prosperity of "the people" so much as it meant something far more tangible when blood was spilled over beloved soil.  All of a sudden, "nation" became as important a concept as "liberty".  "Nation" existed before, but now it meant something more than just a crown.  "Nation" became "My Mexico, My America, My Canada".

In Ghent, Belgium, in August of 1814, after some very passionate fighting on the part of North Americans both north and south of the Great Lakes, Britain and the United States started talking.  The Americans did not have much to bring to the table outside of victories won at Plattsburgh and Baltimore.  Their capital had been destroyed, their army somewhat demoralized, and Canada had not been taken, to say nothing of how it had not been taken as easily as many believed it would be.  Napoleon had been defeated, and Britain was certainly capable to taking its full force over to the United States and dictating very brutal terms to the young nation if it wanted to.  Some historians claim that Britain was weary and just wanted to be done with the business of war for a while.  Rather, I think that Britain looked over at Canada and saw something different than an imperial territory, for once.  There in cold and snowy Canada were people who fought to defend their homes from invaders.  They might not have all locked arms and looked at one another lovingly while proclaiming how wonderfully Canadian they felt (and you know what, some things have not changed), but like those Yankees to the south of them, they did not have the luxury of parochial snobbery in the face of annihilation of what it meant to be what they were.  There were people there who put their lives on the line for their homes, just as Britain had done herself against Napoleon in the preceding decades.  Still, there were choices to be made.

Britain was undergoing a transformation into a world empire.  Old rival France had been soundly divested of that concept, and the concept of Spanish empire was in its death throes as well.  India, the Caribbean, Australia, Africa... new opportunities were everywhere.  Canada, seemingly good for only timber and beaver pelts, looked like a bizarre waste of resources to maintain.  The United States was clearly not part of the British world anymore, and they had far more to do with North America than Britain did, at least in terms of logical direction of commerce.  Maybe the Americans would be better off buying Canada and coming to an amicable relationship with Britain again thereafter.  Trans-Atlantic commerce could be renewed, while both sides could maintain their own business at their leisure, and not at competing interests.  Then again, those Canadians, well, they fought against that sort of thing, much to the shock of everyone.  While the Americans had been much more pro-active in telling others to get off the lawn, they were not the only ones interested in not being pushed around by a foreign power.  Instead of giving up or resuming aggression, then, Britain offered the United States a return to the ways things were before the war, a status quo antebellum.  Many Americans became convinced that they had won, and the funny thing is, they did.  They lost a war, achieving no objectives in it, but won a conference.  Granted, impressment of sailors stopped (because they were no longer needed), the British did not gain control of the northwest territories, and American independence was now very real and uncontested.

What had begun in 1776 was truly realized, and a surge of patriotism washed over the states, which were now 18 in number, and no longer the disparate colonies they started out as.  Western expansion could go on without too much worry.  Native peoples would be forced out of their lands by expansionists and pioneers.  What remained of North American French culture outside of Quebec and Louisiana went into remission.  Canada survived.  The American Revolution now truly succeeded in changing the face of the continent, but not as some people had envisioned, and "freedom" became synonymous with more than just "America", if the two neighbors were given a chance to say anything about it.


3. The Fall of Quebec.


Montcalm and Wolfe probably did not know what was happening as they were both dying that powerful day of September 13, 1759.  They knew that the war in which they were fighting was going to take a corner from here on out, and they knew that the British would take the city.  As Wolfe bled out onto the field, he initially had no idea that the French were even in retreat, and even as he was about to breathe his last, he simply gave out orders to consolidate the British position by ordering a march on the bridge over the St. Charles river to cut off retreat.  He was a solider though and through, only concerned with the actions of the battlefield, and unable or unwilling, even in his final moments, to focus any attention on the impact on the history of North America his bold strategy to take Quebec would have.  No doubt that there were many there that saw the world change that day, and knew it all too well.  The French-Canadians knew it, and they feared what would happen to their world; they had seen what had become of the Acadians.  When the Americans far to the south would learn of it, they would certainly know it; finally they would not have to worry about the French, and they could have access to the riches of the interior.  No one, however, knew that the blood spilled this day would be the seed of a revolution fought a mere 16 years later, and the birth of not only that nation, but that of Canada as well.  Likewise, no one could have imagined that the fall of Quebec would not result in the destruction of French Canada.  French rule was disputed here to the point of extinction, while French-Canadian rule silently began.

 English rule was strengthened, only to grow so strong and looming that the Americans would unite together to challenge what had become the ironic block to their growth and unrivaled prosperity.  Forget taxation, forget a lack of representation in Parliament, what the American Revolution really came down to was a monopolistic opposition, a being surrounded on all sides by one power, one very real, yet very imagined, enemy.  Don't get me wrong, the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, and yes, taxes are very annoying.  But those things, the wet ink on a declaration signed rather flamboyantly by a certain Mr. Hancock, and the courage shown by patriots risking life and land, that was all very potent fuel added to a fire that was lit the moment French control over the Ohio valley was relinquished.  The conditions to allow the spark to even ignite, of course, had been forming ever since the first colonists stepped off their ship and planned to make a new life for themselves.  Now, self-determination seemed like it could be more of a reality.  It took a war and a battle involving every party on the northern part of the continent to make it happen.

Meanwhile, Canada sat on the edge of the American world, cold, vast, Indian, and French.  Now it was all of those things, but worse still, part of the supposed tyranny of King George.  The truth was, Canada was simply too far away from the colonies, geographically, spiritually, culturally, and mentally.  Both Canadians and Americans settled their new land for a self-determined life away from the conditions and economics of distant mother countries.  Both Canadians and Americans would explore their continent and seek out its resources as their own.  For all they held, and hold, in common, they also were worlds apart in many ways.  Canadians were stewards of inherited traditions and pioneers of a far slower pace of converting their land into "civilization".  Americans were breakers of tradition, innovators, desperate to expand as a way of maintaining their individualist mindset.  This is not to say that everyone followed these character patterns precisely, but such patterns were, and in many ways still are illustrative of what differences lie between the peoples who otherwise seem so outwardly similar.

Then there were the choices made as a result of the Fall of Quebec.  Britain had a choice to leave Canada to the French, and instead take Guadeloupe, a very profitable sugar island in the Caribbean.  Guadeloupe was worth more than the entirety of Canada, and furthermore, there were some on parliament who wanted the French to stick around on the colonists' backdoor so that loyalty in both heart and arms would remain focused back with the crown.  Instead, the choice was made to control Canada, and later, the Quebec act would allow it to remain French in soul if not in duty.  Loyalty, needless to say, ran away from London regardless.  In that same year of 1774, the Fall of Quebec turned from a happy memory into a sign of betrayal by the British.  To this day, the Fall of Quebec is remembered by many French-Canadian separatists as the second worst event in human history after the Fall from Grace.  To Anglo-centric Canadians, it is remembered as a triumph.  Historical memory, obviously, often gets whitewashed or darkened beyond recognition.  Instead, I prefer to think the Fall as the point of conception for our nations, and the birth of a true French-Canadian independence.

And what of the peoples who had been in Canada and America long before such words even existed?  They were used as scouts, as shock troops, and as bargaining chips.  For the original people of North America, the Fall of Quebec was largely another turning point in which they would find themselves facing new political difficulties, if they would face any attention at all.  With the French gone, and the British an obstacle, but not immediately a dangerous one, the Indians were now a primary threat to the spread of American civilization and security.  History tells us plainly what has happened since this attitude gained popularity.  Savage retaliation was produced by savage assault, with little to show for it in reward, and only cultural annihilation and a loss of moral superiority the penalty inflicted on the respective sides of the ongoing war between peoples.

In the meantime, far to the south, Mexico slowly awakened from a slumber under Spanish monopoly as Jesuits improved educational access within the country, and some people began to find out about what was happening up north.  Their concept of nation, of course, had already been forming for centuries prior, and was the impetus for settlement in those lands to begin with.  Come by next Saturday to see what I mean as I conclude this series.

To Those in the Path of Destruction

Words cannot provide comfort when homes, loved ones, and entire towns and ways of life are destroyed.  This is the second year in a row that extra-seasonal violent storms have impacted the central and southeastern states.  To those who do not live in temperate/tropical convergence zones, do not let that stop you from giving to charitable organizations such as the Red Cross.  Weather can affect anyone in life altering ways, especially as our climate continues to undergo rapid and violent change.  Even well after "problems" have subsided, communities are still in need of assistance.  Joplin, Missouri, has still not completely recovered from their tornado run in last year, but has been largely ignored by the media.  Even in this time of economic distress, we simply cannot afford to ignore the needs of our neighbors.  There may indeed come a time when we will need help ourselves.  At the very least, give blood if you are able to, as it is in short supply even in relatively tranquil areas.  I passed through Joplin myself back in July, and I can assure anyone who asks that the devastation was brutal.

The Red Cross is a particularly helpful organization to donate to.  They do incredible work and even help to provide non-disaster related, basic medical care to people in many countries, but they are mainly well known for being beacons of assistance and stability in otherwise chaotic conditions.  The founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton, actually braved raging battlefields during the American Civil War.  She and her people would find themselves in the line of fire time and again to assist those in agony and panic, work that the organization continues unceasingly to this day.

Oh, and she also had a house in Maryland not far from Washington.

Of course, she never asked for it, and she turned it into an office so she could keep on doing what she did best.  It is one of the under-visited sites in the National Capital region of the National Park Service.  Hopefully, while the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is being commemorated, the contributions made by this woman and the people like her will not go unnoticed.  Hopefully our friends and neighbors in the path of destruction will be able to see that sort of help around the corner.

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.