Sports? I don’t do sports! I don’t attend sporting events so how can I photograph them? Oh wait, I guess I do. Sometimes.
Sky-diving:
My husband used to throw himself out of planes. He called it fun. I called it suicidal. I asked, “Why do you throw yourself out of perfectly good airplanes?” He said, “Because they’re not perfectly good airplanes.”
Every summer (COVID years excepted), we join our Montana friends for their annual skydive weekend. After hanging out with them (pun intended) for several years and hearing them rave about the thrills of sky-diving, I decided I had to try it.
Yep! I harnessed myself to a tandem master and threw myself out (actually, he threw US out) of a not-so-perfectly-good Twin Otter at 13,000 feet. Fifty-five seconds of free fall, plummeting earthward at 200 miles per hour. Five minutes under canopy, floating feather-like before touching terra firma. My conclusion: Been there, done that, don’t need to do it again. But it certainly got the adrenaline pumping.
Winter Olympics 2010, Vancouver BC:
We hadn’t planned on going to the Olympics. We were perfectly content to stay home and watch everything on TV. After watching the first night, we said, “That looks like fun! Let’s go!” We called a friend, “Dust off the hide-a-bed.” The next day we drove to Vancouver. Absolutely no regrets. Everyone was there to have fun. Except for the athletes, they were there to win.
The two events we saw: Curling (Team Canada vs Team Scotland — we won that draw but lost gold in the final); Ice Dance (Canada’s Virtue and Moir in their gold-winning performance)
Lots of other things to do at the Olympics, like see the exhibits of ancient sports equipment (try using these!):
Clockwise from bottom right: Ancient curling rock, ca. 16th century (Scotland, surprised?); speed skate blades, ca. 1780 (Holland); speed skate blades, an 1852 copy of 1452 original; bone skate blades, reputed to be 2000 years old (found in London, England); iron skate blades, 1780 (Holland)
Dragon boat races in the middle of the prairies? Not the first sport that springs to mind when you think of the prairies. However, each year, COVID years excepted, the City of Regina hosts its annual Dragon Boat Festival.
Dragon Our Cookies, 2006. Yours truly, second row, 3rd from left.
I was a member of a team for seven years, three years with a mixed team (Algae Envy) and four with a women’s team (Dragon Our Cookies, most of whom were Girl Guides who those delicious GG cookies – get it?). We were definitely in the non-competitive category, which suited us just fine. We were there to do our best but mostly we were there to have fun.
Paddling a Dragon Boat is entirely different from paddling a canoe. The paddle is different – the handle is shorter and the blade is longer and squared off. With one hand, you grab the paddle just above the blade and with the other you grab the top of the knob at the end of the handle. The stroke is different – the paddle must stay vertical which means you have to lean over the side of the boat; furthermore, you use your entire upper body, not just your arms and shoulders, to pull the paddle. You reach forward as far as possible, drive the paddle into the water, and pull back with all your might. Repeat. Reach, pull. Reach, pull.
Halfway through the first practice, I’d ask myself, “Why am I doing this?” I was older by decades than most of my team mates. My body was screaming. Muscles were cramping. I wasn’t even a Girl Guide! Good thing I had pre-booked massage sessions immediately following the first few practices. Call me a sucker for punishment — I kept coming back for more.
The night before Race Day, the Shinto priests arrive from Vancouver to perform the ceremony known as Awakening the Dragon. Although we look on the race as sport, for the Shinto, the Dragon Race has historical, cultural and spiritual significance. They awaken the dragon from its long slumber by dotting paint on its eyes. They pray for the safety of all the participants. One team is chosen to take the oath to harmony, friendship and peace.
Race day, and Wascana Park is packed with people, performers, martial arts demonstrators, face painters, and vendors. While everyone else parties, the teams assemble at the marshaling ground and the races are on. Four teams at a time, we line up at the starting line, jockeying our boat into position, trying to hold position, and waiting for the klaxon horn to start us off down the 500 meters to the other end of the lake.
A dragon boat with a team of 20+ people weighs about 2500 – 3000 pounds. We have about five seconds to get that 2500 pounds moving from “dead in the water” to cruising speed.
The first 10 or so strokes are long, slow and hard. We feel the boat shudder, groan, slowly lift up and begin to move forward. The next 10 or so strokes are fast, hard, deep, to build up speed. Then we settle into “race speed.” At that point, we have only one thing in mind – to keep in sync with the paddle in front of us and with our partner’s paddle. When we are in unison, the boat surges forward with each stroke. If not, we “caterpillar” and lose speed. We hear our drummer keeping the beat. We watch the paddle in front of us. Reach, pull. Reach, pull. Reach, pull.
“Power up!” We’re mid-way through the course, time to increase speed. We reach farther, pull harder for 20 strokes, then fall back to “Race Speed.”
By now, our muscles are screaming, “We’re tired! Give it up!” so we start to yell, primal screams and cries from deep inside us that dredge up energy from reserves we didn’t know we had. Reach, pull. Reach, pull. Reach, pull.
“FIN-I-I-I-SH!” And now we really paddle, reaching farther, pulling harder than we thought possible. We know the finish line is near, we don’t know how near, but that’s not the point. The point is to give it all and then some. REACH, PULL! REACH, PULL! REACH, PULL!
“Paddles DOWN!” We’re there! We’ve done it! We’ve survived! We collapse over our paddles. We’re gasping. We’re hoarse from yelling. Our hearts are pounding a million miles a minutes. There’s more adrenaline than blood coursing through our bodies.
L: Beginning the long, slow paddle back; R: a team of breast cancer survivors throwing roses into Lake Wascana in honour of those who have passed away from breast cancer.
Then we hear the crowd cheering. We revive, raise our paddles in acknowledgment of the crowd, and begin a much more leisurely paddle back to the dock. We hear our unofficial time announced over the loudspeaker. Not bad, we think.
Two hours later, we do it all over again. If our combined times are good enough, we get to do it once more, in the finals.
In 2006, the last year I participated, Dragon Our Cookies made it to the finals and came in third. It was a good way to go out.
If I were 40 years younger, I’d still be doing it.
I don’t normally photograph bridges because usually we’re driving somewhere and suddenly we’re onto and over the bridge before I even have a chance to pull out the camera. But occasionally, we’re walking, looking, just “being there,” and if a bridge happens to be part of the landscape, if there’s something about it that catches my eye, if it is different from the hundreds of other bridges we’ve driven over, well, then I get the camera going.
The bridge over Crooked River Canyon, north of Terrebonne, OR
Some are incredible feats of engineering:
L: The bridge over the Colorado River, just downstream from the Hoover Dam (the original bridge over the river); R; The Kicking Horse Park Bridge on the Trans-Canada Highway (between Lake Louise and Field); to give you some sense of scale, the arrows point to semi-trailers on the bridge (trust me!)
And some are just, well . . . different:
L: A classic covered bridge near Wakefield, QC. R: possibly not the first type of bridge that comes to mind but you have to get the cars off the ferry somehow.
When you live where there are no skyscrapers, no dense forests, no smog, no mountains to block your view; where the horizon is down around your ankles and always a day’s journey away; where, as the joke goes, you can see your dog running away for three days, THEN you notice the sky.
More accurately, you notice the clouds. A prairie sky is never naked. Cumulus clouds, giant galleons lumbering across the sky. Wispy mares’ tails signalling wind. A mackerel sky predicting a change in the weather.
Looming anvil-shaped thunderheads, growing ever larger and closer till they unleash a light and sound show that rattles the teeth in your head. Low black clouds scudding in, bringing nothing good.
After the storm, a rainbow, or a fiery sunset that bathes the entire world in a golden glow.
Question: Why does the shortest month of the year seem the longest?
Answer: Because . . .
We’ve already endured three months of winter.
We’re tired of cold and snow and short days and long nights, and guess what? We have at least two more months of cold and snow and short days and long nights to go.
We know March will come in like a lion. Just what we need — another blizzard and more snow to shovel.
Our snow shovel is wearing out and the snowbanks are shoulder-high.
We’re feeling guilty because we’ve strayed from our well-intention New Year’s resolutions.
We’re sick of living in a monochromatic world of grey and brown and white.
We’re tired of putting on hatscoatsscarvesglovesboots every time we go out, even if it’s just to take out the garbage.
But take heart, dear reader. All is not lost. February also brings us:
February 12, Lunar New Year: Wear something outrageously red (an auspicious colour).
February 14, Valentine’s Day: give someone you love a hug and a big smooch. You both will feel a lot better.
February 16, Mardi Gras: Dress up in a crazy costume and dance through the house like no one is looking.
February 18, National Drink Wine Day: Red wine is good for you (hic!).
February 22, National Margarita Day: Put on some mariachi music, turn up the thermostat and go for it.
February 28, National Chocolate Souffle Day: Dark chocolate is good for you, too, especially when served with red wine (see February 18).
Hang in there, dear reader. February, too, will pass. Spring will come. And soon we’ll be complaining about having to mow the lawn. Again!
Three of the nine staircases that contestants must run up in the annual 4.5 mile-long “Bisbee 1000 — the Great Stair Climb”
Whatever you walk down (or up), eventually you have to walk back up (or down). L: Looking up the staircase that leads down to Five Finger Rapids, Yukon River; R: Looking down the makeshift steps into the heart of the pyramid at Maidum, EgyptSometimes the steps are “Walk at your own risk” (Coronado Cave, Coronado National Monument, AZ)
February 2 was Groundhog Day. Each year on that day, several sleepy rodents poke their heads out of their holes and take a look around. These special rodents – Balzac Billy, Wiarton Willy, Punxsutawney Phil, Shubenacadie Sam and Fred La Marmotte, among others – are charged with the onerous duty of foretelling when winter will end. If they see no shadow, spring is on its way. If they do see their shadow – Yikes! – they dive back into their burrows and winter lasts another six weeks.
Six weeks! Are you kidding? Try 10 weeks. At a minimum. These are the Canadian prairies, after all.
I’ve seen more Snow-maggedons in May and September than I care to remember, and even the occasional one in June. I’ve seen killing frosts in July and August.
And just to prove how unpredictable prairie weather is: in 1965, my father finished combining in early December. In his shirt sleeves!
Here’s what the rodents predicted this Groundhog Day:
Shubenacadie Sam thought better of his “early spring” prediction and hustled back into his barn – it was snowing.
Fred La Marmotte had to be dragged out of his burrow (what does that tell you?).
Wiarton Willy refused to come out so the townsfolk had to fall back onto Plan B – throwing a fur hat in the air (I don’t know how that works).
Punxsutawney Phil saw the light when he saw the piles of snow and said, “I’m going back to bed. Call me when it’s spring.”
Balzac Billy (spoiler alert) isn’t even a real groundhog. He’s a mascot, albeit a prairie one. He took one look at the falling snow and said, “Winter ain’t leavin’ just yet, folks.”
Perhaps these rodents have finally come to realize what we prairie people have known all along – winter will leave when it’s darn ready.
A Prairie Perspective 