Recently in Canada Category

"You's guys needing something, eh?"

The customs agent looked us over with that characteristically Canadian attitude of friendly suspicion.

Or maybe it was guarded alertness. Bordering on vigilant complacency?  Hard to pinpoint precisely.

Anyhow, our behavior was positively suspect. So we'd gotten past the security clearance checkpoint, that proved nothing. No one else was out of their vehicles. No one else felt moved to pause for peace. Or dwell on the overarching commonality of our countries' half-sibling status. Or overtly take a shot at it.

We answered quite matter of factly, "No, thanks, just wanted to snap a photo here."

Well, that certainly raised a red flag! With a red maple leaf emblazoned upon it? Not to mention bumping the international threat level up to high alert.

But was it our fault that the immaculately manicured lawn stretching out so invitingly compelled such reckless abandon?  Unencumbered by rules of diplomatic protocol or any obstacle that dared restrain us (in this case, it was a border of bloomin' petunias), we barely felt the chill of early morning dew drops soaking through our sneakers so intent were we on picking out a path which avoided stepping on muddy, aerating sod plugs laying in wait deceptively on the ground. We must have looked like clods. But if ever there was a grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side moment, this was ours!

We explained to him that every year we take a 1st day of school picture, complete with signature flag waving. Simply to prove that, although we are homeschoolers, we can wave flags & pledge our allegiance right along with the best of 'em. Yet we'd arrived unprepared for this symbolic monument to sibling arch rivalry. So M&K improvised & grabbed the homemade flags we just happened to have on display in our car's rear view window, even though they'd - the flags, I mean - become faded after months of spreading subversive messages & infiltrating the minds of gullible people throughout the west coast. (Irrefutably influencing the outcome of the 2008 presidential election, plus exerting enormous pressure on China's Tibet policy. Golly, and in such callous disregard of how it might hurt China's feelings?)

Dutifully satisfied with his inspection of our dubious intent, the shrewd investigator shook his head at such a pathetically fabricated borderlie & then methodically retraced his steps to the command control center (immigration booth), glancing back occasionally lest we make any sudden moves. Like, say, hopping back and forth across the imaginary borderline dividing our two superpower nations? Well, how else are we globeschoolers gonna claim to have visited Canada over 40 times, huh?

It must have been a slow day there on the border. But, then again, ya can't really blame him for wanting in on a peace of the action, can ya?   

In anticipation of this 2008 venture to British Columbia, Mikaela & I studied Margaret Craven's novel I Heard the Owl Call My Name. But once there, as much as we'd hoped to see Keetah & Mark's hangouts in the remote setting of Vancouver Island, we decided to skip the pricey ferry fare + an expensive three day stay in the touristy capital city of Victoria, where visiting artist Emily Carr's house was the only nerdily worthwhile attraction. Ok, ok, so it's also because we're cheapskates -- but that fits with the winter sports theme, does it not? (Actually, and here I go bragging again, I'm a world-class short track cheapskating champ.)

Instead, we wanted to spend the time exploring the gold rush era "Wild Horse Trail" on the touted International Selkirk Loop, which runs through Washington state & Idaho before winding along Canada's Kootenay Bay. And then camp in the more pristine Pacific Northwest rainforest of British Columbia's interior. (Hey, Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park is a good 40 miles north of the border. That counts!) Indeed, we found the wilds there, but in the form of very large groups of twenty-something campers sharing one tent (& several bottles), blaring American rock music & setting off fireworks over the bay until 4 in the morning.


So the majority of our time was spent skimming skimping the surface in the mainland city of Vancouver. Instead of Victoria's famed Butchart Gardens with its $61.90 entry fee or Vancouver's own VanDusen Botanical Garden's family of four $22.75 deal, we romped through Queen Elizabeth Park, which, after an exhaustive in-quarry, we found to be delightful and absolutely free. (Got that sunken feeling at no charge!) And, instead of Capilano Suspension Bridge's $26.95 per adult & $15.65 per child admission bargain where you get to jostle hundreds of other tourists for the privilege of walking once across "Vancouver's Most Popular Attraction," we took a pass & opted for Lynn Canyon's free bridge in North Vancouver. Not only is it a full 10 meters higher than Capilano, but when the 256 feet of suspension got too intense, there was no pressure. Having it completely to ourselves allowed as much time as needed to chicken out repeatedly before finally closing our eyes & traversing "Clubbuddy Crossing," so dubbed by our hand-clasping gripping wrenching daughters after their 15th successful attempt.
On the other side, a short hike to Twin Falls awaited, though the Canadians' love of chain link fences -- which we discovered well before all those 2010 Olympic cauldron viewers -- obscured much of its scenic appeal. (Ya know, the Olympic torch elected to do the very same thing a couple of years after us & made a pass above troubled budgeting waters by routing through Lynn Canyon, and not Capilano. Miserly flame!)    

Stanley Park was also fun, with hiking trails throughout its 1,000 acres of firs, cedars & spruces, plus great cityscape views from the Pacific seawall path. We watched float planes taking off & landing at Canada Place and proudly boasted that Houston's "Little India" trumps Vancouver's, at least in terms of that all-important veggie samosa test. (Though the vegan cooks at Richmond's Buddhist Temple all-you-can-eat lunch buffet might silently disagree.)


However, at the edge of UBC, our college campus touring streak was sadly broken. Due to the girls' fears of inadvertently spying a streaker, fresh off the university's own nude beach, flashing past. And Chinatown wasn't exactly the enriching experience we'd hoped for either, although the kiddos did get to gawk out the car windows and get quite a good look at an authentic Chinese apothecary shop as we circled the block 3 times. It was more like drive-by cultural immersion. We wanted to stop, but - despite some exposure to Seattle and downtown Portland's homeless problems - Gastown's overflowing & vocal presence filled all available parking spaces caddy corner to Chinatown and caused that proverbial putting of pedal to the metal.

Which led to our favorite trip in all of British Columbia -- a drive along the Sea to Sky Highway. As Katrianna noted in her travel log, there were "Lovely views of the Coast range meeting the sea. It has waterfalls, lakes & hills meeting the ocean all together in one." Due to the ongoing road construction in preparation for Olympian traffic jams, stopping at the overlooks wasn't allowed but its views of Howe Sound's fjord were as pretty as the travel reviewers promised.
 
So we arrived at our final Sea to Sky destination whistlering a happy tune. Whistler, site of the 2010 Olympic skiing events, was at that time a sleepy little village. Really sleepy. Apparently it was nap time for all the frustrated snowboarding teenagers who lounged on bus stop benches or atop decorative flagstone walls while anxiously awaiting the season's first snowfall. Occasionally, they'd rouse themselves to perform skateboarding tricks across stairway railings & attempt death-defying jumps over strategically placed Adirondack chairs borrowed from hotel cafes. All before settling back down under a tastefully trimmed hedgerow to catch some z's. Well, truthfully, that's when demonstrations of their even more elaborate smokin' skills began. And, dude, before we realized it, it was 4:20 - imagine that - and certainly high time for us to cut out.

As soon as we walked into Whistler's 2010 Olympic visitor center, we could tell that their welcome committee, in the form of a solitary greeter, was indeed prepped in the spirit of the winter games. Normally it's sorta part of the job-volunteer description that these folks are extra friendly. But this fellow was, appropriately, the polar opposite: he was an arctic blast of icy cold Freezie. We could have wisely let it go. But it was either find my entertainment with him or go back out to the snowboarders, so he got another try. Giving him the benefit of the doubt that he'd simply mistaken us for naïve skiing novices (when the truth of it is that we're actually freestyling know-nothing moguls), I faked it. I mentioned some pertinent Whistler Mountain trivia that I'd read just the night before and then merely alluged to the fact that we might like to visit the nearby Sliding Centre venue to see the progress they were making on the sledding track. Ha, lured him in alright! And then spent the next 25 minutes nodding, concurring and listening intently to the intricacies of bobsled strategy & track construction. It was all downhill after that. But at least I showed him not to judge American tourists quite so hastily, didn't I? 

Not that we globeschoolers weren't glad for these experiences. Whenever a Whistler-related news story appeared afterwards, we got to reflect and think 'Skookum, and we were there!" But, luckily, not on the very day that gondola tower fell smack-dab in the middle of the Village. Thank goodness, nothing was smashed. Well, except maybe for some potted plants...

But I blame the US. And the American invasion of British Columbia during the Vietnam War. When all of their tiny towns' populations swelled with our very own homegrown conscientious objectors. Of course, that was a long time ago, during the throes of the peace movement and amidst a recognized moral quagmire, so we really can't judge them for their (in)actions then... But is it really okay that they're still there conscientiously objecting to this day? For, in this, the new millennium, it seems their primary objection is to moving beyond 1968. And that goes for their cars, too.
Or at least conscientiously removing their rusted out automobile frames from the driveways. Or front yards. Or streets. Or green public open spaces. It's kinda like Woodstock meets Carhenge, only with ancient school buses, VW campers & a stray Pontiac Bonneville or two.

Yet this gross generalization is perhaps unfair. And overlooks many of their second & third generation blond-dreadlocked progeny boldly practicing civil disobedient defiance at the local Walmart. No, these youngsters, as they roam barefooted down the aisles munching on Cheezies & looking to replenish their tie-dye supplies, are not protesting against a corporation's renowned socially unconscious stance. It strikes much further than that, to the very core of liberty & freedom of individual expression: they rage against The Man's "No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service" dictate. Yep, the fight the power vibe in Squamish is not for the squeamish.

Lastly, to provide a completely unbiased view of our journey, we prepared a little audiovisual montage. What follows is an exacting duplication, a verifiably authentic recreation of the sounds & sights one encounters when traveling into the depths of British Columbia. So please imagine, if you will, that you've just crossed the US-Canadian border. And there you are, at first hearing the familiar crackle of radio static & then desperately rotating that dial to discover:

OK, to be fair, that video is not really representative of Canadian radio.* Cuz not once did we hear their native singers Paul Anka, Neil Young or kd lang... in fact, there was one dire point when Bryan Adams might even have been welcome. Instead, suffice it to say that something downright magical happens as soon as you reach within 100 yards of the Canuck border -- all AM/FM frequencies disappear. And you're left with 3 options: Depression period folk fiddling, counting down the top 40 evangelical sermons of 1957 with Casey 'Billy Graham' Kasem, or Hindi music.

Of course, the choice is obvious. An unexpected opportunity to practice my jammin' Bollywood dance moves with side-shaking head bobs & open-palmed quarter turns?! That's right, a highly recommended way to pass the time while waiting in endless border customs queues, we had our own lil' Holi right there in the car. Frankly, I don't think anyone would've blamed them if they had waved us straight on through, but they didn't. (Bet they felt sari afterwards, eh?) Eventually, it got to the point we looked forward to forays into Canada solely for its superb stereophonic selection of big Indian musical numbers.

*Yeah, yeah, it's not nice to insult our Canadian neighbors' music. Or totally ignore that Los Angeles' 1984 Closing Ceremonies headlined Lionel Richie singing All Night Long in a sequin & polyester pant ensemble. Which then led to his infamous Dancing on the Ceiling debacle in '86 -- where he disregarded the gravity of a consequent fall from R&B soulful grace. Now, as far as I'm concerned, The Commodores & their horn section could do no wrong, but what was Lionel thinking going solow like that? Sure, Peter Ueberroth, you were the first commissioner in modern times to turn a profit on the Olympic Games, but, honestly, at what cost?  

As usual, we were in the middle of an ongoing family feud. This time it was about one of those volatile subjects known to take all of the heat out of a marriage, inevitably leaving an otherwise warm person feeling cold. Yep, you guessed it: Glaciers.

I know, what's new about that?

In our case, it was the specifics of how glaciers are formed. The kids and I were studying subalpine, alpine & tundra biomes for school. First, I gave them my standard preface to all scientific explanations: "I don't know exactly - we'll have to learn more about it together." (Sometimes I do know, but I want to encourage a spirit of inquisitiveness & their enthusiasm for finding their own answers. Other times, I hesitate in order to avoid giving them erroneous or incomplete information. And, perhaps most often, I really don't know.) But, this time I went a little further because the answer seemed snow-crystal clear.

Drawing on my extensive knowledge of such things (based on a lifetime spent as a sea-level Texan), I surmised that glaciers are made of ice & that the ice had once been snow. Basically, the snowflakes continue to pile up until their cumulative weight, plus a process of melting and refreezing, makes them fuse together. This occurs over such long periods of time that the effect produces a permanent, slow-moving, gigantic ice cube.

With a great guffaw, Chris stopped me cold. He informed us that not only was my explanation incorrect, it was woefully simplistic. The girls turned expectantly for his mind-bogglingly complex, extremely technical truth-telling. Suddenly, a paramount work request demanded his immediate attention. But, he assured them, he'd set us straight later. For now, they'd simply have to make due with the cold shoulder. In the weeks that followed, Dad's sense of urgency to break the ice-lock & provide us with a definitive answer had all of the expediency of glacial drift.

But, all of that was soon forgotten -- when we finally arrived at Glacier National Park & got distracted by the purple mountains' majesty we'd always sung so much about. We started at the Apgar Visitor Center where M&K had a lengthy chat with ranger volunteers, riddling them with questions about 1) What were they personally doing to stop the spread of pine beetles? 2) Was the Junior Rangers program really just a front for George Bush's Iraq "additional troops" draft strategy? and 3) In which campgrounds could they guarantee that we'd be able to hang out with grizzlies after hours?





That done, we took a hike (just as those nice folks suggested). We had the stony shores of Lake McDonald all to ourselves and we skipped worn-smooth river rocks atop its fantastically clear, true-blue turquoise waters.








We then began the 52 mile drive along Going-to-the-Sun Road, stopping every few feet (ok, that's an exaggeration - make that, every few yards) for the next even-more-amazing turnout view, thunderous waterfall or gorge-ous hike.
 
By midday, we tramped to the Trail of the Cedars boardwalk and continued on to Avalanche Lake, where four waterfalls tumble into its spectacular basin. It was both our favorite & our most depressing hike in all of Glacier. Near the trailhead, the towering cedars and hemlocks are imposing & impressive, plus there are wonderful views of Avalanche Creek which keeps mossy-green, gurgling company all the way. But, as the rangers warned, the trees start to sicken. Eventually, the woods are permeated with sunlight that glares down upon blackened & splintered stands of whitebark pines and the fallen remains of several other species. A variety of factors have contributed to their demise, but the most significant is man-made global warming which has irreparably damaged ecosystems along the entire chain of the Rockies. At once, we felt how lucky we were to see GNP while much of its beauty was still intact, but we were also overwhelmed with sadness at the realization of what is to come & how very devastating it will be - not only for scenic or selfishly human concerns, but for the many animals, especially the black bears & grizzlies, Clark's nutcrackers, blue grouses and red squirrels, that depend on the gnarly whitebark's annual nut crop to make it through the winters. Surprisingly, as we climbed to the lake, the foliage seemed to recover and actually became tropical-looking, ferny & lush. We gladly took the visual and mental respite it permitted (if we didn't think too hard about why elephant ear-type plants were growing 4,000 feet up) & enjoyed allowing the view, instead of the elevation gains, take our breath away. We camped that night in a campground reduced to waist or shoulder-high shrubs with a view across Saint Mary Lake of wildfire-scorched forest. 
Glacier National Park's land was originally home to the Blackfeet Nation, the Kootenai and the Bitterroot Salish who called this sacred place "the backbone of the world." There are numerous magnificent waterfalls, such as Bird Woman Falls and Running Eagle "trick" Falls, and we learned their mystical legends. When the Going-to-the-Sun highway officially ends, you leave the park's boundary and travel a more pastoral, but equally beautiful & much less crowded, road through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation to reenter in the Many Glacier section further north. As its name suggests, it is the area with the highest concentration of glaciers. (Although, again, the effects of climate change are drastic. In 1850, GNP had an estimated 150 glaciers. A Sierra Club article reported the number had dropped to 35 by 2008. The park website's teacher education pages now list that total at 27.)

On a dawn hike to Lake Josephine, we paused for a while at Swiftcurrent Lake, relishing the early hour, the gently lapping water and the tranquilly empty trails. Our serenity was broken by a quick succession of snapping branches and rustling leaves in the surrounding trees. Then, a shrill scream, hand claps, howls: "Get! Go! Outta here! Help!"

While the woman producing the panicked, piercing yelps ran toward us, we quickly deduced what had happened, leapt right past her & headed straight for the main trail where she'd been as fast as we could go. Without making a sound, we eagerly scanned the thick undergrowth. Nothing!  

By the time she came to rewarn us and offer protection - having successfully freed her bear-repellent spray can from its handy Velcro pouch ten minutes or so later - the mother bear and her cubs were gone. The lady and her husband proceeded to tell us all of the grisly Ursus horribilis stories they could think of on such short notice (just barely 15 of them, but with plenty of admonitions and bear clauses swiped in for us to bear in mind) until there was absolutely no chance that any self-respecting mama bear would still be stateside - which explains the need for Canada's adjoining Waterton Lakes National Park and the two parks' joint designation as an International Peace Park & World Heritage Site. Just when I thought Katrianna couldn't bear it any longer, our hero happily moved on when some other hikers tried to slip past her. Stepping into their stride, she started anew on her close-call tale of terror - bearing witness, she was!

We lingered, Mikaela hoping the return of quiet & calm would lull the cubs back for some of those much-publicized hugs. A ranger appeared to confirm that there had been a bear sighting and imparted sage, safety-first, 'Be Bear Aware' advice... until his wife and two young daughters came rushing up, smiling, as anxious to grin & bear it as we were. He gave a stern look around. Instantly & silently, we all fanned out to increase our search party chances. But no luck. Besides some fresh berry-filled scat, our efforts did not bear fruit. One fine day, we vow to return with bear bells [not] on. 

On our final twilight evening, we stopped along the Sunny Road at the Jackson Glacier overlook. The peaks glowed in pinks & oranges. The canyons' deep green trees melded into distant valley-to-valley carpeting. The glinting river dawdled & then disappeared into the vanishing point of this ever-changing landscape painting. It was difficult to leave such an exquisite and transcendent place. So, Chris enjoined us to take one last photo. He directed, "A little more to the left. No, more to the right. You've gone too far! Katrianna, turn around and stop reading that sign for a second - " Mikaela went to nudge her over, but then she too stood mesmerized by the information plaque.

"Hey, Daaaaad, come see this!"

What is a Glacier? A glacier forms when more snow falls each winter than melts the next summer. The accumulation of snow above presses down on the layers below, and compacts them into ice. Depending on the amount of ice, the angle of the mountainside, and the pull of gravity, the ice may start to move downhill. Once this mass of snow and ice begins to move, it is called a glacier.

Snap! (or is that a cold Snap? I was too busy getting my cramp-ons to tell.) Chris broke out in a cold sweat, a sure indication that the long winner of our family's discontent - made glorious summer by this Going-to-the Sun Road - was finally beginning to thaw.

On August 3, Glacier National Park received the #1 ranking in Top Ten Best National Parks You Don't Know About.

We're officially on "summer vacation." That can only mean one thing: Mikaela & Katrianna are now doing more schoolwork in a week than we accomplish in an entire month all together. Over time, I figured out, if I really want the kids to get busy with the academics, I just declare a holiday.

When they were little, M&K loved to "play school." Actually, they've never stopped. Our school curriculum & tempo are already guided, in large part, by their self-motivated learning styles and interests, so there is little difference when school is "on" or "off." Every now & then, however, I feel the inexplicable urge to exclaim, "Give me a break!... Please?" That's okay, the girls happily take charge and institute some discipline around here. And, since it's merely semantics anyway, I write down all the stuff they do "for fun" on our "vacation" and count it as school without their knowledge.
 
So, what are they doing? Well, there's the usual summer stuff: all-day playdates, lots of hiking & outdoor activities, plus baking, crafting & gardening. We're also visiting museums, zoos and state parks before they get too crowded. (FYI, we generally begin 'summer vacation' around mid-April... uh huh, homeschoolers are renegades.) And they're currently publishing the fifth issue in yet another newspaper venture...

But, mostly, they are preparing for the SAT.

No, I did not manipulate them into this (not that I'm knocking that technique, don't get me wrong). All on their own, they proclaimed one day that they weren't going to college because "We're going to HOMECOLLEGE, Mom!" Believe it or not, I wasn't immediately filled with a sense of maternal pride or teacherly accomplishment. When Mikaela was born, I'd come to terms with the idea that I would have to do my best by the kids for the next 20 years or so and, in our case, that includes homeschooling them. But, after that, I want to rest (or learn to fly airplanes, not quite sure). So, with no ulterior motive except perhaps to completely discourage the idea, we eventually came to an understanding. If they got such high SAT scores that they could win academic scholarship offers to competitively ranked universities of their choice, I would then agree to let them skip college. Otherwise, no dice. (Of course, I'm also counting on the inevitable, evolutionary desire to get as far away from one's parents as possible kicking in at around 17. Ok, who am I kidding? - maybe 16? 15? Do I hear a 14? Or, if they really are so smart, certainly they'll divine the genuine lure of further education: no full time job required. So, I'm not too worried. Yet.)
 
It all started last summer. At the bookstore, Mikaela picked out the gigantic, comprehensive Barron's SAT prep book which included several practice tests, the longest & driest vocabulary list she could find (sans cartoons or cute hints to help you remember the definitions - perused but rejected as "too easy") and infinite math problems with obligatorily convoluted explanations (not the entertaining, user-friendly versions Chris was leaning toward because he might be able to understand them). She was fervently commending the (national?) merits of this particular guide when, lo and behold! a guy suddenly pops out from behind a corner display to concur, for - did we all realize? -  he himself had used that very same study guide when he was in high school, and had, in fact, made a  [dramatic pause] ...1600! What the dickens?! He was an indisputable apparition of Christmas future - vividly demonstrating to our impressionable, starry-eyed pupils the fate of those who get a perfect SAT score: You shall forevermore spend your evenings haunting test prep aisles in bookstores to pounce on unsuspecting passersby, the only ones who might still care 15 years after that momentous day when the postmaster delivered verifiable proof of your preeminence to the mailbox. But, that's not all: if you continue to strive & work hard, like this admirable chap, you might turn your laudable efforts into a full time career as a Princeton Review tutor. I guess what the College Board attests is indeed true - SAT scores are obviously the #1, infallible indicator of a person's potential for life-long success.


Despite the genius hustler in our midst, Mikaela stuck with her choice and was quite pleased with the prospect of spending her "free time" riffling through 1,000 vocabulary flashcards and even looked forward to solving for x. (Since higher arithmetic had often been an exercise in patience with poor instructors who didn't understand the problems any better than I did, Chris took over math teaching duties when we hit algebra. Hey, I figure that if the kids do well on the math portion, we'll look back on this as a wonderful father-daughters bonding experience. And, if they don't, I have someone to blame besides myself... I fail to see any negatives in this solution.)




However, Katrianna spent much of the car ride home slowly brooding & fuming until we turned around just in time to see Mt St Katrianna erupt right there in the back seat. POW! She was incensed:
 
Why is Mikaela getting a SAT book and I'm NOT?
I never get any challenges! Why can't I have any challenges?
My math's too easy! Don't we remember when Mikaela was learning her times tables, who yelled out all the answers first?
Same with spelling - admit it! So, tell me, exactly why can't I have a good vocabulary, too?!

It was a full-blown temper tantrum, the likes of which we'd never seen, all over a SAT book. It didn't appease her when, in desperation, we suggested she could use the accompanying cd whenever she liked - appealing to her computer-geek nature, usually a surefire pacifier. The fact that she was technically supposed to be a 2nd grader didn't provide any solace, either. So, since there was nothing else to do, I pulled over, donned my powdered wig & black judiciary robe (stored in the glove box - heck, they thought of everything in those government-issue emergency supply kits, didn't they, Brownie?), and delivered a Supreme Court-level presentation of the evidence, with a full recounting of the history & progression of Mikaela v. Katrianna's scholarly preparation thus far: an exhaustive, logical proof of the necessary steps to SAT readiness. Unable to refute the fact that Mikaela had long been doing long division - the bane of K's existence (she always came up short) - Katrianna acquiesced on the condition that if she practiced her multiplication & division all year, we would allow her to participate in each & every SAT verbal and mathematics lesson. Furthermore, if she could follow the math as well as (or, we had to concede, better than) Mikaela, we'd rush out at once and purchase her very own, personal Barron's. A quick swing by the notary's office to formalize the contract & peace was restored on Katrianna's earth. 
 
After months of long, divisive days (actually, they were colorful worksheets), Katrianna reached her quotient at last. In addition, she'd completed all of Dad's assignments & continued to get as many answers right as her big sister because she went more slowly, but with more accuracy... So, the steadfast tortoise met the rite angles of passage requirements & this summer ended up with a SAT 3-book set that was serendipitously on sale for $8 total (pshew, no cosineR needed). First thing, she devoured the writing book, highlighting significant tips and all the while talking nonstop about how it's improving her imperative skills moment by moment! She then started in on the practice questions and, when she "graded" them, her exclamations of "Hey, I got it right!" were just as gleeful as those of "Oh, I got it wrong!" Plus, we overheard her suggesting to Mikaela, "I wonder if anyone ever missed every single question on the whole SAT?" In other words, if you can't get a perfect score, consider that as the next best option...
 
Now M&K are envious of each other's SAT vocab lists & traipse around trying to outdo each other in erudite panache, dropping sophisticated word choice at will. They are also very possessive of their words and take great umbrage when the other kid tries to usurp their "turf," as in "Hey, you can't use that - that's my word!!" Mikaela enjoys taking the reading comprehension tests and then discussing why she missed a question and what possible mindset the test makers could so erroneously have employed when coming to such poor conclusions. And the essay prompt practice has led them, after two or three frantic paragraphs of timed writing, to that age-old discovery: "My hand hurts."
  
Still, they insist that they're having loads of fun. It adds a completely new dimension to what seems to be the standard(ized) practice of "teaching to the test"  -- only instead of cramming for the two weeks before it's administered, they're blithely serving hard time of 5 to 10 year sentences (including some with No Error). And, finally, no test-taking detail is too small: they've meticulously planned out which snacks they'll take along for the break times between sections.  
 
Irregardless, in a continued effort to promote collegiate aspirations, I make it a point to tour universities everywhere we visit. But, honestly, it's not helping. For instance, an amiable but overzealous Stanford co-ed's thrilling accounts of wild 'n crazy cafeteria tray stair sledding, unfettered splashing in fountains between classes, a finals week tradition of paper airplane combat, and the "totally hilarious" time capsule buried with a four-year-old pizza slice inside it didn't exactly light a fire - intellectual or communal - under M&K. Moreover, the absolutely mortifying idea of a nude beach on the campus of the University of British Columbia likely contributed to rejuvenating their homecolleging resolve. No, this is definitely not working. . .  at least that's what I tell my husband when I look up long enough from How to Fly Airplanes for Dummies. 

Pretty soon,  I think we'd better start the new school year - and give the kids a chance for some "down time." Next spring, I vow to seriously look into options for summer camp. You know, the fancy free kind where you get to braid those ultra useful lanyards, build up the nerve to cannonball off the floating pier, spend forty minutes peering into your shoes to check for hidden scorpions, slap mosquitoes in time to Kumbaya and eat s'mores, like 'em or not. Golly, that sounds swell!  Precisely what M&K need: no more moping around, complaining about being bored with nothing to do & asking every 15 minutes for permission to go outside and play - the girls just hate it when I do that. I wonder, should I sign myself up for two sessions or three?

For our first visit to Canada, we went to France. It was a tribute of remembrance for soldiers and civilians involved in The Great War. We drove the Circuit de Souvenir, a route that winds through WWI battle sites in the Somme Valley from Albert to Bapaume, France. Our tour concluded with a visit to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, north of Arras.

Mikaela learned about WWI in a fairly traditional way before the trip: names of leaders, important battles, weapons development & new inventions, significant dates. But Katrianna hadn't formally studied WWI yet, so (unconstrained by the rigorous course requirements self-imposed by her 9 year old sister) her flights of fancy soared to WWI aircraft. She made every model in a vintage (cardboard) airplanes kit and knew the characteristics & insignias of Allied and Central combatants. Of course, there was also what she'd gleaned from the battles of the famed WWI flying ace, Snoopy...  which led, to my surprise, to M&K memorizing every trivial detail about the real Red-headed Baron and his legendary dogfights (even those that weren't against a beagle).
 
Both girls recited "In Flanders Fields" and fashioned paper poppies. And our whole family watched "What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?" which is Charles Schultz' award winning cartoon salute with many Memorial Day facts interspersed with the Peanuts gang's car troubles (a classic, crank start automobile that repeatedly thrilled K - "Look, Snoopy's car!" - on our visit).




We began very early on a chilly morning in Albert, fog obscuring the view of Mary & Jesus who stood atop the Notre Dame de Brebières. The compact town centers around its fountain and the quiet town square across from the basilica. Many of the original buildings had been destroyed in the war and were rebuilt in the art deco style, but the church was restored faithfully and turned out to be my favorite in all of France. It is not very big or imposing and has little of the gilding or ornateness of France's famous cathedrals. But, it is airy, serene and beautiful in its simplicity and its soothingly fanciful interior design.
It is also the setting for a salient WWI story. The church and its steeple served as an important landmark and base for soldiers who could see the Virgin from miles away, took up their stations under her gaze or passed by her on their way to the front lines. She loomed above as a symbol of sanctity and refuge until 1916, when Germans shelled the basilica, knocking over the statue but not fully dislodging it. Divisions grew among the troops as to the portentous meaning of God's divine hand holding the "Leaning Virgin" so precariously over their horrific conflicts. Ultimately, however, they seemed unified in their conclusion that the war would surely end when Mary joined them on the ground. So, in a truly ironic act combining both their hope and despair, all sides proceeded to take potshots at her golden likeness for months. The Germans, after being unsuccessful in toppling her but then taking possession of the cathedral themselves, even promoted a new rumor that whoever shot her down would lose the war. Finally, in 1918, British forces came under heavy artillery fire emanating from the basilica's tower. A colonel sent immediate orders to defy a newly instituted army order to spare all buildings and "blow the place to blazes." Fearful of reprisals from his superiors, a young captain - who was left in charge in the temporary absence of a general and his brigade major -  hastily drew up plans of "imaginary trenches" that lay just beyond, but directly in the line of, the basilica and then commanded the battery officer to fire hundreds of rounds at those strategic trenches. Aided by such worthy accomplices, Mary did fall that day and, within months, so did the Central Powers.

After some time talking with Albert's welcoming greeters at the small but interesting visitor center-museum, we set off uncertain of what we'd find along the Circuit road. We're not war buffs and I'd had to do a lot of research beforehand only to find that there is not much to see in terms of intact WWI era sites. Development had occurred, the landscape had changed and we weren't going when the archetypal poppies would be in bloom. But, we drove down tiny villages' narrow streets lined by stucco houses and dilapidated barns, past farmers out plowing their fields and through the bucolic countryside that had once been overrun with soldiers and destruction - really, unable to reconcile the peaceful and colorful present images with the stark black & white war photos we'd studied. Then again, we couldn't help but wonder if that old stone farmhouse across the meadow was the very one Snoopy had crawled through enemy lines to get to so he could order a root beer. . . But, the most poignant symbol throughout the journey was the recurring cemeteries and their low walls concealing white crosses. The highway runs beside them, sometimes takes abrupt 90 degree turns right about them, and constantly  provides glimpses of distant vistas and fields planted in furrows which skirt around scattered, small plots on the horizon.

By mid afternoon, we reached the Vimy Memorial, the most well-preserved site of our WWI expedition. France gave the land to Canada in 1922 in recognition of the Canadians' war efforts and their victory in recapturing the ridge from the Germans in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, April 1917. Almost all of its 220 acres are very hilly, but they are very small hills, like successions of dozens of pitchers mounds covered in short clipped, light green grass. These bumps and lumps of earth had been made as the terrain was exploded, exhumed, shored up or piled into heaps during the war. In other areas, there were large craters, created either by bombs that fell from above or in detonations, accidental and intentional, from interred munitions. Trees had been replanted and grown tall since being leveled during combat, but Katrianna couldn't run through them like she wanted because most of the ground had not been cleared of explosives and there were signs everywhere warning visitors to really "Stay off the grass" or else. The woods and fields were very still and empty with the exception of roaming 'grounds crew' sheep who kept the grass neatly shorn and tread lightly enough to avoid tripping any land mines (ewe, I admit I felt a little sheepish just watching them. . . but, by God's graze, there was no need to pull the wool over our eyes). [Sorry, I'd been pretty restrained up to this point, but still no excuse for that - returning to somber tone now.]

Instead, M&K played hide & seek and eagerly timed their runs through the mazes of trenches, recreated for permanence with walls made from concrete-filled sandbags and brick & metal grating flooring where there once had been streams of running, muddy water. Still, the kids' "war games" stopped every time there was a break in the trench walls for gunner lookouts, where you could stand and see the trench line occupied by the Germans just yards away, or at the numerous, small cubbyholes along the walls where soldiers had kept provisions or had to sleep.
 
The only way to enter Vimy's Grange Subway, an extensive tunnel system dug by British engineers, was on a guided tour. (Usually, we avoid guided tours, which are generally crowded, sometimes costly and often circumvent all of the fun for M&K, who - in their travel preparations - always call dibs on places we plan to visit and spend the preceding weeks reading up, memorizing facts & anecdotes and jealously guarding the privilege of playing tour guide when we finally arrive.) But, this time, our experience was excellent. The guides are college grads who won fellowships to spend four months showing visitors around the memorial and take their off days to sightsee. Our docent was extremely knowledgeable and fully lived up to the Canadians' friendly reputation, causing M&K to proclaim unequivocally that Vimy's was our very best guided tour in all of Europe.     
 
After descending into the subway (and adjusting for tunnel vision), we noticed telegraph wires tacked to blackened chalk walls, damp with humidity and filled with musty odors. The tunnels were dimly lit, but were not nearly as dark as they had been during the war (pitch black for several yards at a time). We learned that, even inside the tunnels, no one was secure and the Allied soldiers, intent on expanding their own tunnel network, could often hear the digging of Central tunnelers just a few feet away. In fact, one technique was to purposely dig under the other guys' tunnels to set explosives beneath them and carry on the warfare underground. 

There were many tunnel offshoots and mysterious barred dugouts that held supplies or ammunition caches (Katrianna likened them to the gladiators' storage rooms we'd seen in Rome's Colosseum). In one area, much of the booty found when reopening the tunnels was heaped into a rusty pile of machine guns, old cans of food, pistols, mildewed uniforms, grenades, wheelbarrows, utensils and unidentifiable rubble. Two weapons-savvy Belgian boys, also in our tour group, were ecstatic to try on helmets, wield hatchets and sip from canteens while M&K watched, mouths agape, from a safe distance.

There were few rooms, all very small, sparsely furnished with wooden slat chairs, cots and a couple of rickety desks in the officers' quarters. Besides the officers, the only soldiers regularly permitted to sleep inside the subway were the runners. Those were the men, required at a moment's notice, who would deliver and receive messages between the commanders below and the officers on the front lines. They had to sprint through miles of dark and harrowing tunnels and then emerge out onto battlefields to dodge sniper fire. Often volunteers from the regular ranks, they had a life expectancy, we were told, of 1-5 days.

Although there was no mention of it in our guide's narrative or the visitor center displays (probably in order to avoid any association with or semblance of bringing him positive notoriety), what made the runners' experiences even more intriguing was that Hitler, as an infantryman, had been a runner in WWI. And, during WWII, the then führer took great pains to protect Vimy from vandalism (even showing up there for a photo op to prove it). Though accounts I read differed, one interpretation was that he had been so impressed with Vimy's authenticity, he ensured its preservation - perhaps as a personal tribute to his early war career or, some say, due to his "soft spot" for fallen WWI soldiers. Another explanation was that Hitler respected it because, unlike other WWI memorials, Vimy did not exult in weaponry paraphernalia or vilify Germany, but stood only in remembrance of the dead. For whatever reason, he stationed Waffen-SS troops to guard the memorial for the duration of WWII.
 
As it turned out, our "tour of duty" to honor the veterans of WWI made our own world a little smaller, our alliances to others a little stronger and greatly magnified our gratitude to all those who served and brought us peace. Our debt continues to the men and women who do the same for us today, on Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day and always.

How did it ever occur to us to study such a radical subject as gardening? It could not have anything to do with the fact that every single "What your child should learn" syllabus lists it as a mandatory science item for alternating years until graduate school (or the 5th grade, whichever comes first). Our approach to the subject was surely more original & organic than that...  

Katrianna was the one to push seed sprouting as part of her academic agenda this year. But, in the interest of full disclosure, please note: We do not claim to have invented the lima-bean-in-a-ziplock experiment. As far as I know, kids have been doing that one since around the time man first discovered fire. Only they used those other baggies, the old-fashioned kind, with the fold-in flaps. That's right, the kind we parents used to pack our pb&j in for summer camp, the ones made from the lining of goats' stomachs instead of the "zipper seal." But same idea. (Note to Homeschoolers: add this bit of trivia to your homemade world history timeline, charted on scrolling butcher paper, which winds its way around your dining room and down the hall.)  

Really, if you want to learn more about lima bean sprouting origins, just take the guided Lascaux cave tour in France. (Did you think they painted all the time?)

And, as much as I'd also like to claim Katrianna's gardening interest was an offshoot of my playing Audrey Hepburn and our touring around the Gardens of the World, that's just not so either. It was not the result of seeing Monet's Giverny, British Columbia's sunken gardens, Portland's famed roses, or even Stratford-Upon-Avon's very own "Shakespearean herb garden" (bet Shakespeare wished he'd thought to capitalize on that back in the 1600s - he might not have had to struggle with playwriting & instead could have turned his father's glove making business into a gardening glove making business, thereby assuring his future success).

No, none of those visits made my daughter green with envy. The real impetus for Katrianna's verdant desires was simply sibling jealousy (but I do claim quite a bit of credit for fostering that whenever possible). When looking through Mikaela's old portfolios last summer, Katrianna found her sister's original flowers & seeds section, completed when Mikaela was 5 and she was 2. Exactly what was the attraction? It wasn't the nifty construction paper seed parts with their movable flip-up features, or the labeled diagram worksheets, or the still life watercolor renditions à la Georgia O'Keefe, or even evidence of her sister's kindergarten attempts at flower-themed Wordsworthian sonnets. 

The pure motivational factor in this sudden passion for gardening was to acquire her own set of pages with seed packets & seed samples glued beside them. That's it. They were colorful, commercial, tactile, and as close as our family comes to displaying glitz & glamour.  And, most importantly to both girls, it was that subtle "I have something you don't have" quality, repeated in singsong delivery week after week, that made it a must-do school project.

Leading us back to Shakespeare, who captured the universality of this phenomenon when he penned that famous, so oft quoted line from Romeo and Juliet:

          Do you bite your green thumb at me, sir?     (Act I, scene i)

So, with that, we will Candide-ly continue to tend our own gardens...