outdoors hope/title> </head> <body> <table width="680" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td><strong><em><font size="5" color="#009966" face="Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Infinite Outdoors</font></em></strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left"><strong><em><font size="5" color="#990000" face="Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Promise, hope for 2010 outdoors</font></em></strong></td> </tr> </table> <table width="500" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <p><em>Jan. 2, 2010</em></p> <p>New years usually start full of promise and hope, regardless of whether the year just ended met or exceeded expectations or fell flat. We can resolve that good years will be repeated and simply avoid disappointments, or accept things can only get better.</p> <p>But it’s less about making resolutions than hitching your wagon to the horse that will get you there. For me, the wagon is an infinite and growing fascination with Southern Alberta. The horse is actually a 142-horsepower 2000 4-cylinder Toyota Tacoma that in 2009 got me to places like the South Drywood Creek trailhead for a memorable two-day hike to the top of the Front Range, Waterton on a beautiful, still early October day and regular trips to the Picture Butte Golf Course to hone the hack. Last year, it saw all 382 km of Highway 3 from Crowsnest Lake to Dunmore.</p> <p>Other vehicles found Writing on Stone for a magical February day through DSLR viewfinders and later Red Rock Coulee and Bullshead Reservoir far to the southeast, with a stop at Seven Persons for beef jerky.</p> <p>While researching a column on the annual Christmas bird count, I came across more information on the southeastern part of the province. An article on the Alberta Wilderness Association’s website describes the Milk River-Sage Creek area as “one of the least fragmented, most extensive and most diverse prairie upland, wetland and valley landscapes on the glaciated plains of North America. This 5000 sq. km area is hard to describe in anything less than superlatives. Its size, unique geology and diverse ecosystems make it a national treasure.”</p> <p>Resolution 1: Point the Tacoma toward Milk River-Sage Creek.</p> <p>Even though I’ve been travelling around the south one way or another for close to 60 years, it’s like I’ve only just begun. The area from the B.C. border to the Saskatchewan-Alberta boundary and from Nanton south to the Canada-U.S. border covers about 86,000 square km, roughly the size of Ireland, north and south. Ireland works well as a comparison, since in 2009 I learned of ancestral connections to County Leitrim in the south and County Fermanaugh in the North.</p> <p>The day after the family reunion where that information was shared, Marlene and I drove south from Bragg Creek on Highway 22, framed by the Rockies like a mural to our right and the Porcupine Hills which would probably be called mountains elsewhere, to the left. As the Secondary Road 520 turn approached, the Tacoma seemed to sense my urge to take the road less travelled. It took us past an old sign I had heard was there – the Burke Creek Ranch where my great-grandfather Edward homesteaded in the late 1890s.</p> <p>Resolution 2: Get lost in the Porcupine Hills.</p> <p>Other hopes for the 2010 outdoors may get me on snowshoes in the West Castle, dropping a water boatman imitation on Police Lake, planting a honey locust tree in the side yard and shooting American White Pelicans through a Pentax telephoto lens at Hays Reservoir.</p> <p>Oh yes, and talking to people who also can’t get enough of Southern Alberta.</p> <p> </p> </td> </tr> </table> <p><a href="../index.html"><font size="3">Crows</font></a><a href="../index.html"><font size="3">nest River Flyfishing Home Page|</font></a><font size="3"><a href="../oldmanTU.html">Oldman TU page</a></font></p> </body> </html>