An 11-hour walk with 825m of uphill is not everyone’s idea of fun, me included. Don’t get me wrong. I can do it -I’ve walked up to 30km a day on long distance hikes in the UK in recent years, but the UK is a lot flatter than BC and it’s considerably more relaxing because there’s nothing big and snarly that will eat you. So, the unsettling prospect of the day’s climb was nagging away at me as we pulled into the Takakkaw Falls car park, near the town of Field, BC, at 7am on a fine August morning this summer. The lot was empty, darkly waiting for the tour buses and the instagrammers with their perfect outdoor clothes to come and gawp at the falls through their phones.
One of the first rocks I bought when I first fell down the rabbit hole of rock collecting is a genuine, 100% space rock – a lovely piece of the famed Campo Del Cielo meteorite strewn field in Argentina.
The last thing most people would put on their Xmas list is “Dear Santa, please could I have an active volcano in my back yard”. For sure there’d be advantages: A built in BBQ that could handle pretty much any size of steak, and I wouldn’t have to pick up after my dog’s back-end eruptions (the last big clean up, which thankfully my wife did, clocked in at 29 “deposits”). Aside from that and the free orange light show, it’s hard to see any real benefits to rivers of lava squashing the Hydrangeas.
Every geologist has experienced extreme isolation at some point; a moment when they realise that if anything bad happens to them right then and there, they’re screwed. They may as well be on Mars because no help is coming. For most geos, isolation is a regular Saturday night thing when our one “friend” -the one that stills listens to our no-please-not-again hilarious field stories -is unexpectedly busy taking care of their incontinent senile aunt. Would you believe it?I’d love to meet up, but I have to change Auntie Mabel’s diaper. Gosh is that the time…bye…
Yobs
Soccer fans -like my mate Neil- often experience isolation at away games when they accidentally stray into the local Ultras’ bar and come face to face with 65 drunken lunatics sporting matching death head tattoos. I’ve been there. Forty years ago (gulp) on a field trip to Dorset me and 2 fellow geology students were the target of a gang of skinheads in a pub itching for a kicking; but I digress, that’s not where I’m going with this story. I was curious about the concept of loneliness and separation so I polled some industry friends of mine for their recollections of those peculiar flashes of intense isolation. Here are a few of their stories; a big thanks to everyone who told me a tale.
Very tough geologists in Dorset looking for skinheads to chase.
Ilkley Moor is a small, windy, heather-covered hill in Yorkshire in northern England. It’s due north of the old textile city of Bradford, in the heartland of the coal-fired industrial revolution. At just over 400m high, the moor is home to grouse, sheep, bilberries and hordes of local tourists who jam the small car parks up by the Cow and Calf pub near the top. It’s been occupied for thousands of years -the hill, not the pub- and is dotted with Stone and Iron Age sites including an ancient Neolithic swastika carved into a rock on top of the moor. And don’t forget the Twelve Apostles – a dozen prehistoric standing stones arranged in a henge-like circle on the top.
The spa town of Ilkley and verdant Wharfedale, seen from t’moor. Ba ‘eck.
Can tha’ sing ‘owt?
But in Yorkshire folk lore, this inconsequential hummock carries true weight. Mention its name to a born and bred Yorkshireman and I guarantee he’ll start singing. Eyes filling with warm, nostalgic tears, the holy words “On Ilkley moor baht’at” will spring forth from his lips set to a simple, familiar tune that all Yorkshire folk learn in their mother’s womb. He’ll then explain to you with slow gravitas that the phrase means “On Ilkely Moor without a hat”. Awe inspiring stuff. While most patriotic English people can sing along to (bear with me here) Sir Edward Elgar’s orchestration of Sir Hubert Parry’s gorgeous musical setting of the mildly insane William Blake’s classic poem, Jerusalem -which ponders whether Jesus briefly created heaven in the heart of industrial England- Yorkshire folk prefer to sing about small hills and hats.
High up in the mountains of northeast Türkiye -up where the borders of Georgia, Türkiye and Armenia meet- the terrane is alpine and rugged. The spectacular scenery is underlain by highly prospective volcanic rocks; the tell-tale rusty signs of possible sulphide mineralization scattered all over.
The first time I went up there I was with 2 other geologists; a pleasant, easy going Turkish chappy who I’ll call Ahmed, and an annoying German one who I’ll call Harald. Harald had strong opinions about bloody everything and wasn’t shy to share them; a stark contrast to Ahmet who was happy to be learning the exploration ropes from a couple of relatively experienced geologists. He tagged cheerfully along, breaking rocks with his hammer and chucking the better ones into sample bags for assay.
The mountains of northeast Türkiye. Glorious spot.
Bloody Germans
But Harald -good old Harald, every team has one- well, he was a know-it-all who always had a better way of doing things and wouldn’t let an argument die even when his aggravated British colleague was about to give him a good Schlag in the Mund. He also refused to drive the field truck (with hindsight, perhaps a good thing) which added to my workload because as the most experienced off-road driver in the group, the long drives along forestry roads fell to me. Harald aside, I was happy enough. The geology was excellent, the pay was good and the scenery even better, when you could see it through the heavy clouds that often blanket the region.
Apologies for the picture quality in this piece. I can’t get the old school photos out of the old photo album -they’re stuck down firm after 40 years under a sticky plastic film, so I had to take pictures of 40 year old photos.
Reputation: Sheep are stupid, defenceless and harmless creatures that mope about on hillsides doing not very much. They are good for two things: being eaten and producing wool.
Sheep. I like them but I also think they are complete idiots. I like them because a) they’re tasty when they’re young and lamby, and b) they’ve kept me amused through many long field days, providing a welcome low-IQ distraction from having to take notes about boring grey-green rocks in a sodden note book. But they are irredeemably stupid.
Too stupid to get a proper haircut
Animal lovers and cuddly vegans would have us believe they’re sentient, caring, intelligent beasts capable of protracted abstract thought. For example, here’s a glowing report card I found on an animal rights website:
“One example of their amazing intelligence is that sheep are capable of recognizing all kinds of faces. They recognize sheep in their flock and are aware when these sheep are missing. They can recognize “bully” sheep and get distressed when they come around. These sheep can even recognize the person who cares for them and the sheepdog that herds them! If the appearance of another individual is altered, the sheep have no problem still identifying who it is, and they can keep track of over 50 different sheep faces! If you make a sheep mad, chances are they are going to remember you and that event for over two years! Talk about a grudge.”
Oooh. Convincing eh? But I have to ask, have these mutton-loving snowflakes ever met a sheep? Leaving aside my vague disquiet at the the thought of a crew of grudge-bearing inked-up sheep casing my house at night and mugging the dog in the back yard, I don’t buy a word of it. They also claim that sheep have decent enough memories to form friendships and they feel sad when one of the flock is hauled off to Sam The Butchers for its final date with sausage machine. But everywhere I’ve worked, except down a mine -no sheep there, funny enough- I’ve only ever seen sheep, and their close cousins goats, studiously eating grass which is not what I’d call a challenging intellectual pastime. Hence, building on decades of keen science-based observation (trust me, I’m a geologist) I’m now 100% certain that they’re not the brightest knives in the animal cutlery drawer. They’re dumb as planks and the field researchers who call them smart have never actually interacted with a real sheep in a real field trying to do something that isn’t stupid or involving grass.
Turkey (*now known officially as Türkiye) -a country I know fairly well and have always loved visiting- has been on my mind recently for both good and sad reasons. I’d just finished this piece when word broke about the terrible earthquake in southeast Turkey and the awful loss of life it caused.If you can, please donate to the relief effort via the Red Cross here.And thanks to my “abi” Dave C. for the photos in this piece. For the life of me I have no idea where my photos of Turkey have gone and it’s pissing me off.
Slogging up a steep forested path in northern Türkiye, I was focused on the outcrops along the side of the path, checking for signs of mineralization. It was a dry, crisp mountain morning as my Turkish colleague and I headed on up through the woods toward the tree line, crossing creeks clogged with avalanche debris. I was feeling a bit worse for wear -still on the mend after a 2-day bout of food poisoning I picked up just after I arrived in Ankara- so the walk was a welcome distraction from the aches and pains.
The high Pontide mountains of northeast Türkiye. Dreadful place not worth visiting. Really.
As the new boy in the field office, I was paired with a chain-smoking experienced local geologist. He was a small chap who bore an unsettling resemblance to Hassan Al-Assad, the murderous former president of Syria and I never quite shook the feeling that I was doing field work with a moonlighting genocidal dictator. He smoked a lot -a 40 a day habit- so we were permanently shrouded in a blue cloud of Marlborough smoke which put a bit of a nicotine-scented damper on the fresh forest air. He also ate very little during the day as the nicotine suppressed his appetite. I’d have to insist we stop for lunch: me, a can of tuna and packet of Ulker-brand chocolate biscuits washed down with cherry juice from a box, and him 5 more ciggies. I’d sit there munching on oily fish, praying that he didn’t commit an atrocity while my back was turned.
The Black Sea coast of Türkiye courtesy of the googleizer.
Two years ago, in a moment of remarkable prescience for yours truly, I had an idea. Good ideas don’t come often to me so I had to act fast. Figuring (correctly) that COVID was going to last a while, I decided I needed something to look forward to other than a) pandemic weight gain and b) the weekly Okanagan doorstep wine delivery which was becoming a little too regular and comfortable. A walking trip would be ideal I thought, but when, where and who with?
Cornwall gives England the finger.
I contacted three good friends, all geologists like me, over WhatsApp.
Chaps, I said. We need to something to look forward to other than a) our pandemic weight gain b) and the weekly doorstep wine delivery.
Agreed, they said in a WhatsApp-in-unison sort of way.
So, says I, why don’t we book a walking trip in the UK for the summer of 2022? How about a week or two hiking along the Cornwall / Devon coast? If we book now we can pick the optimum window for a good old-fashioned sunburn, like mid-July to early August.
Oh yes. We’re in if you book it! they replied somewhat cryptically.
Righty ho. I replied. Will do.
We’re leaving (hopefully) on an Air Canada jet plane
Shuffling along the winter tideline, layered in strata of sweaters and a damp anorak, I finally spotted what I was looking for; a small, rounded translucent orange pebble maybe 1cm across. It winked seductively at me from a pungent bed of rotting seaweed. I was thrilled. It was my first piece of North Sea amber.
I didn’t find amber often, just regularly enough to keep me coming back to the beach near my home in all weathers, stumbling along -eyes to the ground- oblivious to the cold and rain.
Portrait of the geologist as a young man about to get nerdy
It was one of my nerdier phases as a kid -and God knows I had some really sad ones. When my teenage buddies were leafing through torn copies of girly magazines and puffing on illicit ciggies down the alley behind Woolworths in Ramsgate, I could be found grubbing about on the beach looking for fossils and amber. (Yeah, well, mildly inaccurate. I did have a well-thumbed magazine stuffed under the mattress and I had started smoking at 14, so all is not lost.)
