Me + computer = thesis??

Valley of the 7 peaks....? (behind Moraine Lake)

Well, to say that this post has been a long time coming would be an understatement....I have been "planning" to post something since, well, the last time I have posted!  Anyways...a lot to say, so I think I will break things down a bit - first a bit about my summer.

Hwy 2 and summer storms (most exciting drive ever!!)

Sunset,  city and refineries...the Edmonton skyline

I spent most of this summer sitting in front of a computer feeling guilty about not working on my thesis with actual time working on my thesis falling second behind this.  Also, planning a (my) wedding and trying to figure out a life plan (no plan so far) But, I also got out to do one or two adventures with friends and family in the Rockies, but it seems like I can hardly remember what happened now... it all seems like a blur of hot days, thunderstorms, quiet offices, and eating waaay too many fudgesicles!

Nope...not in the office anymore! Up Cirque Peak

Nukka - Our faithful companion (Karina's crazy creature)

Nukka's friends.  He was very disappointed that we didn't let him
get any closer to get to know his friends a little better...

Headed toward cirque peak. The classic alpine "hippies on a stick" (Anemone occidentalis seed heads)

 At some point in the summer (July??) I took my first adventure down to the Southern Rockies. I met Karina in Calgary and from there we drove to Field, BC where Mom, Dad and Stine were staying.  We did a hike just down the Icefields Parkway (Cirque Peak).  The morning was cool and there was clearly ice on some of the small lakes and streams, but the alpine meadows were still fantastic, despite some frost damage.  It was a good summit on a clear day and we all made it back to the parking lot (the true destination of any adventure).  The second day we did a hike behind Moraine Lake up to the BC-Alberta border along a valley.  We enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the alpine valley while watching the long train of hikers in the pass above us get chased down a snow patch by a grizzly bear - seriously.  They were not impressed, but it was really entertaining for us because we had never seen such a large group of people descend a mountain that quickly!

My family at their best!

...and now it's time for the next important
activity: eating

smallflowered anemone (Anemone parviflora)

single-flowered delight (Moneses uniflora)

Mountain campion (Silene uralensis). The last of the dwarf
herbs trying to survive in the mountain-top scree (loose rock)

Our next adventure didn't take place until early September...or was it August?  Mom and Dad drove through Edmonton and down to Calgary.  From Calgary, we did a quick trip down to Kanaskis and did a beautiful ridgewalk above Spray Lakes, right beside a peak named "The Fist." It does look sort of like a clenched hand from some angles, but I think it was just a group of climbers that wanted to come up with a comedic name and it stuck!

Spray lakes

Looking out towards "The Fist"

My final trip to the Rockies before leaving Canada was my mid-September bachelorette party!  A group of friends and I got together and rented a cabin in Jasper for a weekend of drinking and debauchery!! ....actually, we just went hiking and relaxed...and almost burned our cabin down (campstove fail on my behalf - I turned the gas on more, instead of turing it off...fuel went everywhere and ignited...but we were outside on a cement surface so it was just embarrassing!!)  Karina, Marley and I went for a little hike behind Miette Hotsprings, followed by a soak in the thermal pools - nice! The next day we wandered around Maligne Canyon (very epic and highly recommended), went swimming, had a picnic lunch and enjoyed a fantastic rooftop pizza dinner at sunset!  We took the long way home down to Saskatchewan crossing and had some small off-roading adventures along the way. It was a really great weekend with friends - I am SO glad that so many people could make it out!

Bachelorette debauchery (das ist verboten!)

Maligne Canyon :)

Other than those 3 adventures, I did a little summer biathlon training - I learned a lot and shot a few things along the way! I really did try to finish writing my thesis. Some things are really close...other things are just confusing and messy!  Butbut...I am really hoping that the next few weeks will see some major progress on that now that I have some other major things out of the way...such as a wedding...and moving to a new continent; which brings me to my next blog post...the wedding and my return to the North (no...Edmonton really isn't that far north)

Biathlon fun! (Jello-filled christmas tree ornaments)

Hopefully I can keep things updated as my time here progresses...here are some photos of my Alberta summer for the meantime!!

Lousewort (Pedicularis sp...?) being pollinated in the sunshine

Springbeauty (Claytonia lanceolata) on stones

"Name that peak!" best mountain game ever - in the valley of the 7 peaks...although I tend to do better at "name that flower"

Above Moraine lake

Glowing in the sunlight - purple mountain saxifrage (Saxifraga oppositifolia)

Winter turned to Summer

Since I have done a such good job of regularly maintaining blog posts recently...ahem...

Spring/summer has made it here!

Or perhaps i haven't been.  Anyways, I'm feeling super burnt-out from my thesis work at the moment, so perhaps a little blogging will help reduce my current aversion to computer work! I mostly just want to post photos, but I realize that it has been sooo looong (again) since the world of this blog has heard from me that I will add a bit more.

digging the cabin out - there was
almost 4 meters of snow!

alpine sunset

Well, I haven't done *much* since March...actually that's not entirely truthful looking back at it. There's the regular stuff: biathlon, classes, exams, data analyses, thesis writing...but I've made some time for a few little adventures too!

Group lunch along the tour.  The weather was superb!

I went on a family ski trip over an extended weekend in late March. In my family (as some of you may know), ski trips DO NOT involve chairlifts, hottubs, beds or restaurants.  Instead we had the luxury of a remote cabin (drier than snow caves), foamies on the floor, a drafty sauna and some good home-cookin'!!  Oh...and a helicopter to get us there! The lack of ski lifts does not mean that we avoid the hills...au contraire!!  It involves several hours of uphill trudging with skis and a backpack - some fool romantically named it "alpine touring."  Anyways, it's a very honest way to get some serious exercise and have some serious fun!

Glad to go home!

We toured for 4 days with fresh tracks, excellent powder, steep and fun trees, great food and a little bit of cliff-hopping.   It certainly was an experience.  On the final day, most of us got a heli ride out, but Mom decided to ski up and out.  The guide suggested this would take around 6 hours; the fastest he had ever seen it done was 4.5hrs by some very competitive triathletes...so...mom did it in 3.5hrs. The ride out was great, but it was a little strange to effortlessly lift over the peaks and glaciers that had taken soo many hours of blood, sweat and blisters the over the previous days.  My sister's boyfriend made a video of it - check it out!!

....continued below...

A little sloughing off the cliff...nothing to be concerned
about!

Boot-packing beside the cornice...nope she's not on her
hand and knees - that's vertical!

And appearing on the other side of the cornice!!

We made it to the WEsT Coast! Douglas-fir that made the Finn awe-struck!

 A couple weeks after the ski trip, Aku arrived from Finland to visit for 6 weeks - right at the end of semester! So for the first little while I tried to stay focussed and finish up assignments, exams and "work on my thesis" (that didn't happen!).  We did a weekend camping trip to Jasper and froze in -10 and snow the entire time! It was really neat though because he got to see it totally differently than when he was in Canada the last time on the July long weekend. I think there were at least 100,000 fewer people in Jasper than on a holiday! 

Some of the spectacular scenery on the way down to Montana through the prairie...not my favourite part of the world, but the weather could've been better too! Oil and grain drives everyone and everything here!

Butte's headframes (tops of the elevators down into the mine shafts)
that dominate the skyline and the history of the town

Mmm...Finnish baking!! karjalan piirakka!!

A Ft. McMurray viewpoint

After our road trip to Butte, we headed back through the rockies to Vancouver to visit my parents and friends around UBC, which was amazing.  We had dinner in the dark (TOTAL darkness) for a birthday party and it was ...interesting.  Then we drove to Vancouver Island to visit friends and Campbell River and tour the forests of the West Coast of Canada a little.  Then we drove back to Langley, then up to Prince George (stopping very briefly in Williams Lake).


A little time with friends in Prince George, then back to Edmonton the next day.  Then Aku flew home to Finland. A whirlwind tour!! We probably covered 6000kms!










Right after Aku left I helped to teach at the Spring Field School for 2 weeks in Lac La Biche in Northern Alberta.  I got to see the northern lights over a May sunset, tour the oil sands, whitewater canoe through flocks of pelicans (that were puking up monstrous fish), and get a taste of forest management in Northern Alberta - good times!

Mid-may northern lights over a Lac La Biche sunset...BEAUTIFUL!!

However, since field school, I haven't done much outside of a computer room.  Spring started out late and warm, but recently it has been cold (below 10) and rainy.  I did make it to a local nature reserve and found some elusive yellow lady's slipper (Cyprepedium parviflorum) in bloom! That was the highlight of my day!  Other than that, time is absolutely flying by as the countdown to the end of summer (thesis due!) is already happening and I have way to much to accomplish before then! I'll let you know if I make it out the other side!! Until then...enjoy summer, however it is progressing in your corner of the world!
 

Yellow Lady's slipper near Edmonton

star-flowered false soloman's-seal invading a pasture - it was lovely!

Shooting star on the edge of a fen. I love the little red lace around the tip!

What happens in Edmonton....

....stays in Edmonton?  Apparently as I have shared nothing from the past 6 months! The great blogging schedule that I had going while I lived in Joensuu has been abandoned.  Partly because I'm busy and partly because life in Canada just seems...not that interesting. But I guess that not everyone who was reading this lives in Canada, let alone Edmonton...so here a few highlights!

The beautiful countryside in the wintertime.  I was pleased to find that unlike in Finland, the sun gets above the treeline...wait...what treeline?

It's cold...and flat...and windy. really.  and dry. But, here are a few basic facts:
 - Edmonton, not Calgary, is the capital of Alberta
 - Alberta has the lowest tax rate in Canada and the cheapest gas
 - home of the Athabasca oil sands (hooray?)
 - Alberta does NOT have the most guns per capita in Canada, that honour goes to the Newfies and the Northerners
 - has the Albertosaurus named after it
  - provincial symbols: wild rose (flower), great horned owl (bird), big horned sheep (animal), lodgepole pine (tree) and petrified wood (mineral)
 - Politically I live in the only area in the whole province with a center-left representative...everywhere is is right-winged conservatives
 - The western border is a fringe of the Rocky mountains, mostly in National parks.  The north has boreal forestry and the south has flatland farmers.
...that should just about cover it!  If anyone is looking for a model of how NOT to spend oil revenues, look into the provincial budget.

oil refineries and a full moon...sorry it's terribly blurry and noisy! but you get the idea

I don't actually know much about the city of Edmonton itself. The city is divided in half by the North Saskatchewan river; the North has the government and downtown while the South has the university and strip malls.  I don't really venture North of the river except to deal with city parking permits occasionally. The South also has some really cute neighbourhoods, namely Old Strathcona, and houses some very fine establishments that offer refreshments and music.  I have been known to enjoy these on occasion ;-)  My daily life usually does not stray beyond the 20-minute walk to and from school...a bit sad really.

The beautifully scenic drive from Edmonton to Calgary

homemade pulla!! olivat niin herkullisia :-P I do miss Finnish coffee time!

However, I do manage to sneak in some adventures!!  I went downhill skiing at Mt. Revelstoke in the mountains of BC almost 4 weeks ago...and I'm still sore!!  The powder was somewhat lacking, but a handful of us pitched in and rented a small cabin, which was absolutely fantastic! Combine that with some local friends, a hottub and a few beers and we had an excellent time...so much for reading during "reading week" :-)  I do spend a bit of time every week on cross-country skis and giving rifles to small children....

we skied off a little cliff. Once by accident (ooops!) and once on purpose (wheee!)

biathlon in Edmonton

...don't be rediculous...I coach biathlon!  It's all safe and fun and it is an excellent opportunity for me to get out of the academic world and interact with a totally different group of people.  I have managed to travel to Canmore, Camrose and Hinton for races as well as one in Edmonton.  I have not competed...but my kids do well!  and have lots of fun too!  Unfortunately the biathlon season is over on Saturday. I will miss coaching, but I certainly won't miss trying to fix rifles with bare hands in the freezing cold!!  9/10 times I wish I had more clothing layers on! Upcoming ski adventures include a cabin in Wells Gray Provincial PArk (BC) for a few days next week in the backcountry with lots of family!  Looking forward to getting away from my data analyses!!

Biathlon in Canmore

Speaking of which...school is a bit of a drag in Canada compared to the lovely Finnish system that I got used to sooo easily!  Soo much pressure, soo much work, and for what....?  My educational experience is not improved.  Anyways, I'm still learning and still working.  I never would've dreamed in my entire life that I would take this many courses in statistics and still be getting nowhere!!

Camrose sunrise with a group of pathetic prairie aspen...they're never very big!

Well...I'm sure you would rather be looking at some pictures, so I had better find a few to put in. sorry about the quality...I haven't had my proper camera out in ages, so it's just what comes off my phone! Perhaps I will start doing this blogging thing a bit more regularly as spring gets going and my thesis projects (yes...2!!) draw to a close. Until next time!! 

skating in the river valley

Hanging out on the ice sofa during the Silver Skate festival at the local park!

You can always find a little Finland no matter where you look B-)

The biggest snowmobile I have ever seen...why don't they just buy a groomer??

a very Albertan snow sculpture! 

They got a little snow in Rogers Pass...1 or 2 metres!  but my trusty Subaru keeps on going!

Ice sculptures on Lake Louise in the Rockies...looking fantastically Canadian! I was soo glad to be back in the mountains. I think it feels cozier, the prairies are just soo exposed!