Booze Run and Tree Shadows
After a day of working from home, we set out for a late afternoon walk to Andrew Hilton wine store. Some downtown meandering took us to Nakagama's Japanese food store and the Trianon Gallery too. The sun slid in sideways, until it finally went down well past five o'clock.  Appreciating the longer days, although we still got home in the dark.

Coulee Loop, Lethbridge
The wind has not relented yet this year, so I keep walking in the wind.  Some people say it's purifying, this wind, but for me it's irritating and it gives me headaches.  The wind is what Lethbridge and this corner of Alberta are famous for. With the wind comes warmer temperatures, so the trails are a mix of ice and mud today, as I head down to the river, along the valley to Fort Whoop-up, back up the hill at the Galt Museum, and downtown where I have a few errands to do.  Thinking about the joints that hold my legs together, the ways they are changing as I age.  Working on course planning as I walk because I have to teach next week.  Hoping that this walk is long enough to make me sleep well tonight.  Wondering if one day I will be nostalgic for this town and my life here.

Crandell Lake, Waterton
Snow and wind and blackened trees. The wind is fierce again today, making it cold to stand still. Kenow Wildfire burned through these mountains three years ago, and it is still a shock to see the slopes covered in dead trees.  But they are also beautiful, the tree skeletons - rich variations in colour and texture, with their twists and shadows and distinctive profiles. There's nothing much better than a walk on a trail with friends, even in the windy, wintery, firey mountains.

Waterton Town Site, Alberta
The wind tosses us from one year to the next, and it's not giving up now.  First walk of 2021, first Friday walk*, first time I've been in Waterton in 120 km/h gusts.  Upper Waterton Lake looks like the ocean today.  The relentless sound of it all, wind-battered faces, air blown out of our lungs, and tears out of our eyes. 

Location: Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta
Length: 3 km
Companions: Tom
Date: 1 January, 2021

*This first Walking the Land First Friday Walk of the year in response to Thomas Clark's poem In Praise of Walking, these lines in particular: "Wrong turnings, doubling back, pauses and digressions, all contribute to the dislocation of a persistent self-interest. / Everything we meet is equally important or unimportant."  With thanks to Kel, Richard, Tom, and all the First Friday walkers.

Coulee to downtown loop
A good, long, balanced walk. Through the valley and through town, on trails and streets, downhill and uphill, sun setting and full moon rising.  Solstice behind us, new year ahead.

Popson Park
Sunny warm winter walk by the Oldman River, with other people's dogs.

River Walk, Redcliff, Alberta
It is good to be below the horizon line, where it's warmer and out of the wind, and where there is some geography to look up at. Walking on the flat prairie above the coulees there is rarely a hill to interrupt the horizon line, unless you are in sight of the Sweet Grass Hills to the south, the Rocky Mountains to the west, or the Cypress Hills to the east of the province. The trail is a mix of mud and ice today.

Dog Run, South Lethbridge
I heard about a porcupine somewhere off the trail, while walking with the happy neighbourhood dogs.  Big feeling of relief at being outside and moving in the brief sunshine during a six-Zoom-meeting day.

Boundary Walk*
Walking the fence line in southern Alberta, following the lines of barbed wire that separate a cultivated field from the uncultivated valley below. The border where an orderly barley crop meets disorderly prairie grasses.  The land where I'm walking is affected by other nearby boundaries, both natural and unnatural, both imaginary and real.
There is a river nearby, and a continental divide - just two of the ways the terrain naturally expresses itself with water and land forms that create boundaries recognized by human and other life forms. The USA border is not far away, as is an international highway that divides the landscape. There are many fences, many roads, many visible and invisible boundary lines marking private property from other private property, bounding private property from the scant public land that is still acknowledged in this region. 
We can relate to boundaries in the parallel or in the perpendicular.  We can follow, cross, or transgress them.  Locally, we have just crossed the seasonal boundary into winter, and our neighbours south of the border are teetering on the edge of a line in the political landscape, which will be crossed within hours.  A boundary implies dichotomy, which leads us easily to a sense of division and of conflict, but it isn't necessarily so.

Twin River Reserve, Southern Alberta
Wide open prairie interrupted by barbed wire, we walked among herds of cattle and pronghorn antelope. Down to the shrinking Milk River to sit on its bank and talk about emptiness while the cows all stared at us.  So far south that our phones thought we were in Montana.