Man, you gotta love spam (it's either that or hate it, and who wants to hate?) I just got one with the above title - how timely and yet anachronistic.
Now, what was Jesus doing with KGB maps??
Speaking of maps, I just love this one I found of glacial Lake Agassiz, the large lake that once covered most of Manitoba and was larger than any extant lake, or even the Caspian Sea. It is thought that, near the end of it's short life (geologically speaking), most of the water may have drained out rapidly, in as short a time as a single year, and contributed to a great cooling trend in the earth's climate due to the massive influx of freshwater into the ocean. Talk about climate change! We humans have nothing on mother earth...
As I do a lot of driving throughout Manitoba, I love to notice the way this province in particular has been shaped by the forces of the water. As you drive west on the Trans-Canada or Yellowhead highways, you literally drive right out of the old lakebed. It's quite humbling to realize it, and how small us and all of our creations and inventions are.
Of course, the great lakes of this province are the remnants of Lake Agassiz. In the wikipedia entry on Lake Manitoba, the third-largest, there is a fantastic circular sentence: "The lake contains a large island with a lake in it; in that lake, there are also a few islands." Such is the world we live in.
2 comments:
love this stuff. the duck mountains, and riding mountain, i believe, form the old western shore of the lake. and as you drive east into the shield/whiteshell, etc, you climb several long gradual steps which i believe are part of the former eastern shore.
both here, and in ON/QC (though, of course, they had no such names back then) that same event of water pouring out into the sea happened at different times. in each case, a massive ice damn holding back the melted glacier water simply burst, and the water poured out, eventually joining the sea.
in the case of the ON/QC one (Lake Algonquin, i think), the water poured out into the St. Lawrence for a long, long time--many years, perhaps, and then triggered another mini ice-age.
i think (ALMOST DONE!) that here in MB, the Pembina Valley, which runs along the western side of the province, is the legacy of that outflow--the water poured out and carved its own channel into the land.
we're so small, and so temporary.
That Jesus was sure a character.
And I love MB too, land of the speaking G-d, who doesn't love it with a name like that.
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