Glenn Kubish

The highway sign announcing "Banff 6 km" was not where I expected to come across Mr. William Wordsworth. But there he was, there, that is, his words were, or some kind of idea of his words from Book Sixth of The Prelude, where the young traveller realizes in some anguish that he had, while briefly lost, unknowingly succeeded in his quest to hike across the Alps. The painful news comes from a local peasant: Loth to believe what we so grieved to hear, For still we had hopes that pointed to the clouds, We questioned him again, and yet again; But every word that from the peasant's lips Came in reply, translated by our feelings, Ended in this,--'that we had crossed the Alps'. The picture conjured up by those words has for decades lingered in my memory, even though I have never been to the Alps, so I cannot really be seeing anything that I have actually seen. And it's not a televi...

There is a terrifyingly beautiful feeling waiting for me in the Rockies. Quite what it is I have never been able to make stand still. It sometimes feels like merciful obliteration. I mean, the Rocky Mountains take no notice of those passing through, need nothing from those passing through. They are a quiet, powerful other. * By contrast, the urban landscape makes demands of me. It orders me to read this sign, read that billboard, read this digital screen. Read, read, read. And that reading makes noise in my head. And being the reader, I am tricked into believing the messages need me. In the mountains, there is no such fraud in the quiet trees.                                                                  ********                             ...

The hike isn't quite over until the following morning when the hips and quads and knees give their assessment of the work the day before. So far. So good. Yesterday we drove up from Banff to Lake Louise, cutting off the main highway and taking the road less travelled by tractor trailers and RVs, the Bow Valley Parkway. Years ago, 25 or so, I think, I pedalled that route with Jaime and Mag on the way to their wedding in Jasper. It's a gorgeous route. The road makes you think. I don't know if I'm the person now I was then, but there are some things that haven't changed. I have never driven a motorhome in the Rockies. Okay, I've traded modes of transportation, and don't even have that Miyata 1000 anymore, but I still take pictures of the road ahead. We tooled around the lake and the hotel for a while. We took some pictures. And more than once heard  ourselves saying that this was as beautiful as a postcard. Or this looks like a scene from a movie. It...