Grandmother Mountain

I think it’s impossible to live in Calgary and not love the Rocky Mountains. I see them, blue in the distance, whenever I look west. I’ve camped and hiked and cycled in them all my life. There is awe in the size and strength of rocky peaks, wonder in glimpses of wildlife on the meadows, comfort in the gurgling of mountain streams.

In late August, one of my kids and I took an easy hike to Troll Falls in the Kananaskis. It was the first time I’d been out west this year, and I was reminded what great psychotherapy nature provides - and what a fantastic opportunity to connect with a child I don’t get to see very often. I got a good shot of them walking behind the waterfall:

It reminded me of a poem I wrote almost two decades ago, after gazing at a mountain from a distance and thinking that the long, silver track of a stream tumbling down the mountainside looked like the thin braid of an indigenous elder.