Mary Soderstrom's Blog, page 19

Saturday Photo: Happy Thanksgiving, Despite Everything

 This Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.  The statutory holiday is Monday but we've always celebrated whenever it's convenient for friends and family to get together.  At times we have had big potluck parties (we did the turkeys and several sides, while everyone else brought something to share), but I'm afraid that is behind us, what with Covid 19 and all.

Nevertheless, while I'm far from a believer, I think it's a very good thing to stop now and then to realize just how many good things have come my way.  I invite you to do that this weekend, even if I can't invite you to supper.  Doing so puts everything in perspective....

Saturday Photo: The Streams That Flow to the Fleuve

 I've always wondered at the distinction made in modern French between fleuve and rivière. For a long time I thought that one was big and the other little, but that's not it.

What makes the difference is whether the watercourse flows into the sea. If it doesn't, it's a rivière no matter how bit it is. 

A fleuve, on the other hand, goes directly into the sea.  The St. Lawrence is a fleuve  but all its tributaries are rivières.

 The photo is of a small stream that drains one of the fields along the St. Lawrence.  In this summer of drought, it was very small indeed.

Saturday Photo: Summer's End But the Weather Continues Warm, Maybe Too Warm

 Like kids in a class portrait at the end of the school year, these sunflowers stood tall a week ago when I walked by them, enjoying the amazing summer-like weather.  This is the first weekend in fall, offiically, but it continues unusually warm. The temptation is to enjoy it, which I am, but also I worry just what this very slow end to summer means. We haven't had the crazy weather that the western part of North America suffered, but who know what climate change has in store for us next...

Saturday Photo: The Salish Sea from Space...

The Salish Sea--the Puget Sound, Strait of Juan da Fuca, Georgia Strait area-- is one of the regions I look at carefully in my new book Against the Seas: Saving Civilizations from Rising Oceans.  

Getting closer to a contract, writing hard...

Saturday Photo: Mangroves, Another Tool in the Fight against Rising Seas

 Glad to report that it looks like I'll be signing a contract very soon for my next book Against the Seas: Saving Civilizations from Rising Seas .  Details will follow, but in the meantime here is a photo of mangroves near Jakarta, Indonesia.  The tree is one of the natural tools that should be used more and more as we learn to live with climate change.

Saturday Photo: Salt Marsh: the Answer to Our Problems?

 It looks like I'll be getting a contract for Against the Seas: Saving Civilizatins from Rising Oceans rather soon, so I thought I'd share another photo from our trip to the Bas St-Laurent.  This is the "sea" side of the batture at St. Alexandre de Kamouraska: at high tide it is flooded with salt water from the St. Lawrence estuary.

Although storm surges can cause damage along this stretch, the gradual slope of the flats and teh plentiful vegetation mean that much of the waves' energy is harmlessly expended.

Turning other seaside landscapes into tide flats may well be a key technique in cutting down damage caused be rising sea levels.

Saturday Photo: School Starts, Summer Was Too Hot and Dry

This is not this year's batch of kids going to school: you can see that there's not a mask in the lot.  But school started in Montreal this week, and will start in the rest of the province next week.  

Summer was unusually hot and sunny here--not as dry or as hot as other places, but nevertheless the weather is enough to worry about.

At the moment though it is coolish and I have decided that sometimes the better path is live for the moment...
 

Saturday Photo: The Batture at Saint-André de Kamouraska

Note: this was such a good trip I'm posting it twice!

 

 Down in the Bas St-Laurent recently to see how people there cope with rising sea levels.  This is the walkway on the top of a dike built to protect some very fertile fields--in other words, an aboiteau.

Had a great walk, and was much impressed by the way it was built.  Much to think about here.

Saturday Photo: Batture or a Walk on the Tamed Side

Spent a great few days in the Lower St. Laurent, including walks on the batture,  the dikes constructed to keep back the tides and make the Kamouraska lowlands ready for planting.

It was very hot, but that meant there were few people, and we had this great landscape mostly to ourselves.  It is indeed a tamed landscaped, but very thought-provoking as the techniques used here might be used elsewhere against the rising seas the climate change will bring us.

Saturday Photo: Middens on Vancouver Island

The New Yorker had an interesting read this week about  ways to save us from rising sea levels.  The basic idea is the encouragement of artificial reefs that would be home to many sea creatures and also take the brunt of pounding waves.  Oysters will grow on them, so it's said, and I was reminded of the middens we saw on Vancouver Islands a few years ago.  The bounty from the sea can be considerable.  We just have to be better stewards.