InterpNEWS Jan/Feb 2020 issue

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Inuit family and dog.

1903-1915

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Volume Volum 9, #1, Jan/Feb 2020 The Intern ternational Heritage Interpretation e-Magazine.

What a way for InterpN nterpNEWS to start the New Year – with our largest issue and a most diverse issue ever! Our March/April /April issue is almost full too as is the May/June issue, ue, so if i you’d like to contribute to these two issuess let m me know. We reach over 300K in 60 countries,, for FREE, F sharing ideas about what heritages interprete erpreters are doing and what interpretation “can be”.. Please Pleas help spread the InterpNEWS wordd to ot other interpreters or heritage professional by passing ssing on your y PDF copy to others. Also I am trying ying to have articles about climate change and global obal warming wa impacts in each issue so contributee artic articles about what you or your agency is doing to o teach others about these important climate issues issues.

I’d love to hear from om you about what you’re involved with, and if you’d ’d like to be part of the IN team as an Associate Editor ditor oor Subject Expert Editor and contribute articless to each eac issue please feel free to get in touch withh me. Have a great Interpretive New Year!

Cheers, John Veverka verka – jvainterp@aol.com Director – Heritage Inte Interpretation Training Center InterpNEWS Publisher. er.

Heritage Interpretive Co Consultant and Coach.

In this issue - Interpreting Inuit Culture. WorlWorldd Ar Architecture Review Earth Issue 2010 - What are the inuksuk? Joel OpHardt - Getting your meals is not always easy – Inu Inuit Cuisine – IN Staff - Carnivorous Plants – Feed me Seymore! ore! - Seymores feeders.

- Animals that Hibernate During the winter inter – programs for kids. Kids Activities - They eat what? New Year's food traditions aditions around the world -Amanda Kludt - Ice Fishing Safety - Minnesota Departmen ment of Natural Resources -The history of “January” – what’s in a nam name? IN Staff.

- Who Was the Real St. Valentine? history.c ory.com staff.

- The spiritual and cultural meanings repre represented in Totem Poles. IN Staff - 35 Surprising Facts About Global Warmi Warming. NASA - A Call for Environmental Patriotism. Ann Anne Marie Todd - Greyfriars Bobby- Ben Johnson - Interpreting Scottish folk hero – Rob ob Roy – The Rest of the Story. IN Staff - Interpreting the Secrets of Sutton Hoo (U (UK). – Current Archaeology.

- The story of the Blue Lake Rhino fossil – The Burke Museum - Newly Discovered Fossil Footprints from G Grand Canyon National Park – NPS Press Releas lease - Researchers Unearth Largest-Ever Dinos Dinosaur, By Alexa Lardieri - Prehistoric Turtle Had a Toothless Beak bu but No Shell.- Mark Mancini - Guided Tours on the Air. Alleviate Staff - Can Rocks Grow? Of Course They Can! Ron Kley -“The Shack, the Town, and Jumpin’ss Whar Wharf on the Ocean, An Interpretation of a Fictional Setting”. M.Macdonald Encourage Action. Isabel Yun - Designing Receptive Experiences too Encourag

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InterpNEWS is published six times a year aas a FREE John Veverka & Associates publication ation and a published as a service to the interpretive profession. If you would ould llike to be added to our mailing list just send an e-ma mail to jvainterp@aol.com and we’ll add you to our growing mailing list list. Contributions of articles are welcomed. It you ou would woul like to have an article published in InterpNEWS let me know now wha what you have in mind. Cover photo: Inuit Family amily with w Dog ca. 1915. www.heritageinte ageinterp.com – jvainterp@aol.com – SKYPE: jvainterp terp

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Interpreting Inuit Culture.

World Architecture Review - Earth Issue 2010

Daily Life The Inuit live all over most of the Arctic Regions of Canada, United States, Greenland and Siberia. They had traditionally been hunters and fishers. They hunted whatever they could find from the Arctic Regions, such as whales, walrus, caribou, seals, polar bears & fishes. Hunting among the traditional Inuit was responsible and sustainable; they would only hunt for what they need and would not harm the immature young ones. To travel from one place to another on land, the Inuit used sleds, which made of animal bones and skins, to be pulled by dog team. A dog team was usually consisted of husky dog breed. To travel, hunt or transport on water, they would use kayak or umiaq, a larger boat.

Architecture Throughout a year, the Inuit built different housing to protect them from the weather. During summer they lived in tents that were made of animal skin, while in winter they built icehouses, the igloos, to protect themselves from the extreme cold weather. A tipi or a tupiq was the summer tent for the Inuit. A tipi or a tupiq was a coneshaped house, used wood, whalebone or antler as secure structure and caribou skins for outermost protection.

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InterpNEWS In winter, the Inuit built igloo as winter homes. They started off by marking an outline of a circle in the snow.

Then they carefully cut blocks of snow and placed them on the circumference. They shaved the top of the block to obtain an upward inward slanted slope. As they continued shaving after placing snow blocks, eventually the spiral formed a dome. It was very dark inside an igloo that they would light a lamp that burned fat from a seal or whale. Sometimes they would make a window out of seal intestines or a clear ice block. They would also build a platform out of snow at the back for cook, work and sleep. For better insulation, some Inuit would line the inside walls with animal skin.

Clothing Traditional Inuit clothing was made from animal skin and fur, sewn together using needles made from animal bones and threads that were made from animal tendons. Boots and thick parka coats were also made out of animal skin. The caribou’s hollow hair made its skin the best material for making parkas, but sometimes when caribou could not be found, bird’s skin with lots of feathers would be used instead. When making waterproof clothing, the Inuit would use cleansed seal intestine as the garment material.

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Diet The Inuit chose their diet based on four concepts, “ the relationship between animals and humans, the relationship between the body and soul, life & health, the relationship between seal blood and Inuit blood, and diet choice”. They believed that the combining animal and human blood in one’s bloodstream could create a healthy human body and soul. The Inuit eat all different kinds of food. They eat fish, walrus, seals, whales, polar bears, berries and fireweed. Shaped by glacial temperatures, stark landscape, and protracted winters, the traditional Inuit’s diet had little in the way of plant food, no agricultural or dairy products and was unusually low in carbohydrates and high in fat and animal protein. They consume this type of diet because a mostly meat diet is effective in keeping the body warm, making the body strong, keeping the body fit, and even making that body healthy. Inuit drink melted snow water as well as seal blood. Seal blood is seen as fortifying human blood by replacing depleted nutrients and rejuvenating the blood supply.

Education Traditional education among most Inuit was accomplished by several techniques including observation and practice, family and group socialization, oral teachings, and participation in tribal ceremonies and institutions.

With these methods children learned the values, skills and knowledge considered necessary for adult life.

People told stories for fun, to teach their children and to pass along the history of their group. Often stories showed the close bond between hunter and nature. They contained teachings for young people about the rules of behavior and manners, that it is good to be patient, truthful, calm, quiet, unselfish and not inquisitive. These were admired traits and children learned what was considered to be acceptable behavior from their elders.

Because the world around them could not be changed, and had always been the same, old customs were followed and old people's wisdom were not challenged.

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InterpNEWS Beliefs The people of the north lived according to the weather, the seasons and the movement of wild animals. All around the people were strong forces, which they could not explain-water, winds, snow and ice, the sun, moon and stars and the cycle of birth and death. The Inuit believed that all people, animals, things, and forces of nature had spirits, who lived in another world after they died. One of the most important spirits to many groups was a goddess who governed the sea named Seda. She lived at the bottom of the ocean and controlled the seals, whales and other sea animals. The Inuit followed special rules or taboos to please and respect these spirits. For example, women were forbidden to sew caribou skins in snow houses out on the sea ice during the dark months. It was also taboo to eat the meat of land and sea animals at the same meal. A knife used for cutting up whales had to be bound with sealskin, not caribou sinew. Hunters trickle melted snow into a dead seal's mouth to assuage the spirits' thirst for fresh water. The same procedure is also made to freshly killed whales. In Alaska, the Inuit saved the bladders of the seals that they killed for they believed that the spirit of the seal rested therein. In a special ceremony each year, the community returned the bladders to the sea to ensure good hunting in the year to come. Among the Inuit, there were men and women who possessed special religious powers obtained by long periods of living alone and fasting so that the secrets of the spirit world would be revealed. Troubles such as bad weather, sickness and poor hunting were blamed on the breaking of these taboos. The shaman, or angakok as referred to by the Inuit, would advise gifts to the offended spirits, movement to another place or some sort of fine or punishment. These were the taboos based on sound principles of health or conservation.

The Inuit also believed that the human spirit could live on in a new body if the old body dies. This view was made a part of their religious lifestyle. They believed that a person was made of three parts-body soul and name. They gave names of a dead relative to a newborn child so that the name and soul could continue as one.

Such a child may often be called 'grandfather' or 'aunt' by its older relatives because it has the soul of the dead loved one. The name of the person who died could never be mentioned until the newborn took the name and made it come alive again.

InterpNEWS Resources: Architecturehttp://www.saskschools.ca/~lumsdenel/firstnations/archousing.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo http://people.howstuffworks.com/igloo3.htm Clothinghttp://www.windows2universe.org/earth/polar/inuit_culture.html Diethttp://sun.menloschool.org/~dspence/biology/pdfs/inuit_diet.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_diet Daily Life – http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/polar/inuit_culture.html http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/arctic/inuit/people.htm http://www.arcticravengallery.com/inuit/inuit_art.html http://www.jeanlouisetienne.com/poleairship/EN/images/encyclo/imprimer/33.htm http://records.viu.ca/~soules/media112/zine99/vanessa/inuit.htm Educationhttp://archives.cbc.ca/society/education/topics/529/ http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/arctic/inuit/spirit.htm http://www.jeanlouisetienne.com/poleairship/EN/images/encyclo/imprimer/33.htm Religionhttp://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/arctic/inuit/spirit.htm

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What are the inuksuk?

Joel OpHardt, The Hamilton Spectator,Canada

The inuksuk may historically have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting, or to mark a food cache. The Iñupiat in northern Alaska used inuksuit to assist in the herding of caribou into contained areas for slaughter. Varying in shape and size, the inuksuit have ancient roots in Inuit culture.

Historically, the most common types of inuksuk are built with stone placed upon stone. The simplest type is a single stone positioned in an upright manner. There is some debate as to whether the appearance of human- or cross-shaped cairns developed in the Inuit culture before the arrival of European missionaries and explorers.

The size of some inuksuit suggest that the construction was often a communal effort.

The word inuksuk means "that which acts in the capacity of a human." The word comes from the morphemes inuk ("person") and -suk ("ersatz, substitute"). It is pronounced inutsuk in Nunavik and the southern part of Baffin Island (see Inuit phonology for the linguistic reasons). In many of the central Nunavut dialects, it has the etymologically related name inuksugaq (plural: inuksugait).

While the predominant English spelling is inukshuk, both the Government of Nunavut and the Government of Canada through Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada promote the Inuit-preferred spelling inuksuk.

A structure similar to an inuksuk is called an inunnguaq (ᐃᓄᙳᐊᖅ, "imitation of a person", plural inunnguat); it is meant to represent a human figure. Inunnguaq has become widely familiar to non-Inuit, and is particularly found in Greenland. However, it is not the most common type of inuksuk. It is distinguished from inuksuit in general.

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Inuksuit at the Foxe Peninsula (Baffin Island), Canada.

Inuksuit continue to serve as an Inuit cultural symbol. An inuksuk is the centrepiece of the flag and coat of arms of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, and the flag of Nunatsiavut. The Inuksuk High School in Iqaluit is named after the landmark.

Inuksuit—particularly, but not exclusively, of the inunnguaq variety—are also increasingly serving as a mainstream Canadian national symbol. In 1999, Inukshuk was the name for the International Arctic Art & Music Project of ARBOS in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Nunavik, and Nunavut; and in Greenland, Austria, Denmark and Norway.

On July 13, 2005, Canadian military personnel erected an inuksuk on Hans Island, along with a plaque and a Canadian flag, as part of Canada's longstanding dispute with Denmark over the small Arctic island.[17] The markers have been erected throughout the country, including a 9 m (30 ft) inuksuk that stands in Toronto on the shores of Lake Ontario. Located in Battery Park, it commemorates the World Youth Day 2002 festival that was held in the city in July 2002.

An inunnguaq is the basis of the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics designed by Vancouver artist Elena Rivera MacGregor. Its use in this context has been controversial among the Inuit, and the First Nations within British Columbia. Although the design has been questioned, people believe it pays tribute to Alvin Kanak's 1986 inuksuk at English Bay. Friendship and the welcoming of the world are the meanings of both the English Bay structure and the 2010 Winter Olympics emblem.

Inukshuk-building movement spreads across Hamilton Joel OpHardt, The Hamilton Spectator,Canada

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Wendy Bush and a small group of volunteers are building Inukshuks around the city to raise awareness about murdered and missing aboriginal people. Wendy builds along the Waterfront Trail. - Barry Gray,The Hamilton Spectator

Stone by stone, the memories of the missing and murdered indigenous people are being resurrected through an Inukshuk-building movement across Hamilton.

A small group of mostly aboriginal men and women have been spending countless hours building thousands of these traditional stone structures in parks and near trails.

The Inukshuk's resemblance to a human form, and its growing numbers, are intended to garner emotional reactions from passersby as well as a response from the federal government.

"We keep building until there's an inquiry," said Wendy Bush, who has constructed more than 400 of the estimated 2,000 already built.

The movement started with the first Inukshuk placed at Albion Falls at the beginning of October. The rocky legion has since spread in pockets — from the Rail Trail, to the Bruce Trail, Chedoke Trail and, more recently, the Desjardins Trail.

There have been reports of Inukshuks being toppled, especially along Chedoke Trail. But Kristen Villebrun, one of the three main drivers of the building movement, said the reaction from the public has been overwhelmingly positive, adding that she believes many have been knocked over by bad weather.

"We've seen regular people, kids out on a walk building up the Inukshuks when they've fallen down," said Villebrun. "This affects everyone, and I think people are being really supportive."

A team of as many as 10 or 12 sometimes builds for 10 hours that day. At other times it's just two people, depending on family and work responsibilities.

One stone at a time, they just keep building.

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InterpNEWS Getting your meals is not always easy – Inuit Cuisine – hunting, preparation and traditions.

IN Staff

Traditionally Inuit cuisine consisted of a diet of foods that were fished, hunted, and gathered locally. In the 20th century the Inuit diet began to change and by the 21st century the diet was closer to a southern one.

Although traditional or country foods still play an important role in the identity of Inuit, a large amount of food is purchased from the store, which has led to health problems and food insecurity.

According to Edmund Searles in his article "Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities", they consume this type of diet because a mostly meat diet is "effective in keeping the body warm, making the body strong, keeping the body fit, and even making that body healthy".

Inuit elders eating Maktaaq (Maktaaq in the photo right).

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InterpNEWS Muktuk is the traditional Inuit and Chukchi meal of frozen whale skin and blubber.

Muktuk is most often made from the skin and blubber of the bowhead whale, although the beluga and the narwhal are also used. Usually eaten raw, today it is occasionally finely diced, breaded, deep fried, and then served with soy sauce. It is also sometimes pickled. When chewed raw, the blubber becomes oily, with a nutty taste; if not diced, or at least serrated, the skin is quite rubbery.

In Greenland Muktuk (mattak) is sold commercially to fish factories, and in Canada to other communities (muktaaq).

Muktuk has been found to be a good source of vitamin C, the epidermis containing up to 38 mg per 100 grams (3.5 oz). Blubber is also a source of vitamin D.

On a winter seal hunt men frequently take the liver from the seal (as it is rich in vitamin C) and eat it while it is still warm; but their commonest form of refreshment today is the tea break -- with hard dry crackers (as fancy biscuits would freeze solid).

Food sources 

Hunted meats: o Sea mammals such as walrus, seal, and whale. Whale meat generally comes from the narwhal, beluga whale and the bowhead whale. The latter is able to feed an entire community for nearly a year from its meat, blubber, and skin. Inuit hunters most often hunt juvenile whales which, compared to adults, are safer to hunt and have tastier skin. Ringed seal and bearded seal are the most important aspect of an Inuit diet and is often the largest part of an Inuit hunter's diet.

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Land mammals such as caribou, polar bear, and muskox o Birds and their eggs o Saltwater and freshwater fish including sculpin, Arctic cod, Arctic char, capelin and lake trout.

While it is not possible to cultivate native plants for food in the Arctic, Inuit have traditionally gathered those that are naturally available, including: o Berries including crowberry and cloudberry o Herbaceous plants such as grasses and fireweed o Tubers and stems including mousefood, roots of various tundra plants which are cached by voles in underground burrows. o Roots such as tuberous spring beauty and sweet vetch o Seaweed o

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There has been a decline of hunting partially due to the fact that young people lack the skills to survive off the land. They are no longer skilled in hunting like their ancestors and are growing more accustomed to the Qallunaat ("white people") food that they receive from the south. The high costs of hunting equipment—snowmobiles, rifles, sleds, camping gear, gasoline, and oil—is also causing a decline in families who hunt for their meals.

An Inuit hunter skinning a ringed seal. 

Seal: Depending on the season, Inuit hunt for different types of seal: harp seal, harbour seal, and bearded seal. Ringed seals are hunted all year, while harp seals are only available during the summer. Because seals need to break through the ice to reach air, they form breathing holes with their teeth and claws. Through these, Inuit hunters are able to capture seals. When a hunter arrives at these holes, they set up a seal indicator that alerts the hunter when a seal is coming up for a breath of air. When the seal comes up, the hunter notices movement in the indicator and uses his harpoon to capture the seal in the water.

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InterpNEWS Walrus hunting

Atlantic walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus), hunt on ice floe in Hudson Strait near Cape Dorset (Nunavut, Canada) III 

Walrus: They are often hunted during the winter and spring since hunting them in summer is much more dangerous. A walrus is too large to be controlled by one man, so it cannot be hunted alone. In Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut, an Inuit elder describes the hunt of a walrus in these words: "When a walrus was sighted, the two hunters would run to get close to it and at a short distance it is necessary to stop when the walrus's head was submerged... the walrus would hear you approach. [They] then tried to get in front of the walrus and it was harpooned while its head was submerged. In the meantime, the other person would drive the harpoon into the ice through the harpoon loop to secure it."

Bowhead whale: Similar to walrus, they are captured by harpoon. The hunters use active pursuit to harpoon the whale and follow it during attack. At times, Inuit were known for using a more passive approach when hunting whales. According to John Bennett and Susan Rowley, a hunter would harpoon the whale and instead of pursuing it, would "wait patiently for the winds, currents, and spirits to aid him in bringing the whale to shore."

Bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), caught in an Inuit subsistence whale hunt in Igloolik, Nunavut in 2002

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InterpNEWS * Caribou: During the majority of the year, they roam the tundra in small herds, but twice a year large herds of caribou cross the inland regions. Caribou have excellent senses of smell and hearing so that the hunters must be very careful when in pursuit. Often, Inuit hunters set up camp miles away from the caribou crossing and wait until they are in full view to attack. There are many ways in which the caribou can be captured, including spearing, forcing caribou into the river, using blinders, scaring the caribou, and stalking the caribou. When spearing caribou, hunters put the string of the spear in their mouths and the other end they use to gently spear the animal.

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Fish: They are caught by jigging. The hunter cuts a square hole in the ice on the lake and fishes using a fish lure and spear. Instead of using a hook on a line, Inuit use a fake fish attached to the line. They lower it into the water and move it around as if it is real. When the live fish approach it, they spear the fish before it has a chance to eat the fake fish.

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Food sharing in the community Inuit are known for their practice of food sharing, a form of food distribution where one person catches the food and shares with the entire community. Food sharing was first documented among the Inuit in 1910 when a little girl decided to take a platter around to four neighboring families who had no food of their own.

Men haul sections of whale skin and blubber, known as muktuk, as a bowhead whale is butchered in a field near Barrow, Alaska According to Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut, "food sharing was necessary for the physical and social welfare of the entire group."[ Younger couples would give food from their hunt to the elders, most often their parents, as a sign of respect. Food sharing was not only a tradition, but also a way for families to make bonds with one another. Once you shared food with someone, you were in a "lifelong partnership" with them.

Inuit often are relentless in making known that they are not like Qallunaat in the sense that they do not eat the same food and they are communal with their food. Qallunaat believe that the person who purchases the food is the owner of the food and is free to decide what happens to the food. Searles describes the Inuit perspective on food by saying that "in the Inuit world of goods, foods as well as other objects associated with hunting, fishing, and gathering are more or less communal property, belonging not to individuals but to a larger group, which can include multiple households." Food in an Inuit household is not meant to be saved for the family who has hunted, fished, gathered, or purchased it, but instead for anyone who is in need of it. Searles and his wife were visiting a family in Iqaluit and he asked for permission to have a cup of orange juice. This small gesture of asking was taken as offensive because Inuit do not consider food belonging to one person.

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An Inuit woman tending a kudlik.

The qulliq (seal-oil, blubber or soapstone lamp, Inuktitut: ᖁᓪᓕᖅ, ‘kudlik’ IPA: [qulːiq]; Inupiaq: naniq), is the traditional oil lamp used by Arctic peoples, including the Inuit, the Chukchi[4] and the Yupik peoples.

This characteristic type of oil lamp provided warmth and light in the harsh Arctic environment where there was no wood and where the sparse inhabitants relied almost entirely on seal oil or on whale blubber. This lamp was the single most important article of furniture for the Inuit peoples in their dwellings. In former times, the lamp was a multi-purpose tool. The Arctic peoples used the lamp for illuminating and heating their tents, semisubterranean houses and igloos, as well as for melting snow, cooking, and drying their clothes.

In present times such lamps are mainly used for ceremonial purposes. Owing to its cultural significance, a qulliq lamp is featured on the coat of arms of Nunavut.

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Carnivporous Plants – Feed me Seymore!

Seymores feeders.

An upper pitcher of Nepenthes lowii, a tropical pitcher plant that supplements its carnivorous diet with tree shrew droppings.

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients (but not energy) from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants have adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs. Charles Darwin wrote Insectivorous Plants, the first well-known treatise on carnivorous plants, in 1875.

True carnivory is thought to have evolved independently nine times in five different orders of flowering plants, and is represented by more than a dozen genera. This classification includes at least 583 species that attract, trap, and kill prey, absorbing the resulting available nutrients. Additionally, over 300 protocarnivorous plant species in several genera show some but not all of these characteristics.

Five basic trapping mechanisms are found in carnivorous plants.

1. Pitfall traps (pitcher plants) trap prey in a rolled leaf that contains a pool of digestive enzymes or bacteria.

2. Flypaper traps use a sticky mucilage.

3. Snap traps utilize rapid leaf movements.

4. Bladder traps suck in prey with a bladder that generates an internal vacuum.

5. Lobster traps, also known as eel traps, force prey to move towards a digestive organ with inwardpointing hairs.

These traps may be active or passive, depending on whether movement aids the capture of prey. For example, Triphyophyllum is a passive flypaper that secretes mucilage, but whose leaves do not grow or move in response to prey capture. Meanwhile, sundews are active flypaper traps whose leaves undergo rapid acid growth, which is an expansion of individual cells as opposed to cell division. The rapid acid growth allows the sundew tentacles to bend, aiding in the retention and digestion of prey.

The sundew species Drosera glanduligera employs a unique trapping mechanism with features of both flypaper and snap traps; this has been termed a catapult-flypaper trap.

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The pitchers of Heliamphora chimantensisare an example of pitfall traps (left), Darlingtonia californica: note the small entrance to the trap underneath the swollen "balloon" and the colourless patches that confuse prey trapped inside (center), Pinguicula conzattii with prey (a sticky plant), right.

Pitfall traps Pitcher plant Characterized by an internal chamber, pitfall traps are thought to have evolved independently at least six times.[5] This particular adaptation is found within the families Sarraceniaceae (Darlingtonia, Heliamphora, Sarracenia), Nepenthaceae (Nepenthes), Cephalotaceae (Cephalotus), and Eriocaulaceae (Paepalanthus). Within the family Bromeliaceae, pitcher morphology and carnivory evolved twice (Brocchinia and Catopsis). Because these families do not share a common ancestor who also had pitfall trap morphology, carnivorous pitchers are an example of convergent evolution.

A passive trap, pitfall traps attract prey with nectar bribes secreted by the peristome and bright flowerlike anthocyanin patterning within the pitcher. The linings of most pitcher plants are covered in a loose coating of waxy flakes which are slippery for insects, causing them to fall into the pitcher. Once within the pitcher structure, digestive enzymes or mutualistic species break down the prey into an absorbable form for the plant. Water can become trapped within the pitcher, making a habitat for other flora and fauna. This type of 'water body' is called a Phytotelma.

The simplest pitcher plants are probably those of Heliamphora, the marsh pitcher plant. In this genus, the traps are clearly derived from a simple rolled leaf whose margins have sealed together. These plants live in areas of high rainfall in South America such as Mount Roraima and consequently have a problem ensuring their pitchers do not overflow. To counteract this problem, natural selection has favoured the evolution of an overflow similar to that of a bathroom sink—a small gap in the zipped-up leaf margins allows excess water to flow out of the pitcher.

Heliamphora is a member of the Sarraceniaceae, a New World family in the order Ericales (heathers and allies). Heliamphora is limited to South America, but the family contains two other genera, Sarracenia and Darlingtonia, which are endemic to the Southeastern United States (with the exception of one species) and California respectively. Sarracenia purpurea subsp. purpurea (the northern pitcher plant) can be found as far north as Canada. Sarracenia is the pitcher plant genus most commonly encountered in cultivation, because it is relatively hardy and easy to grow.

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In the genus Sarracenia, the problem of pitcher overflow is solved by an operculum, which is essentially a flared leaflet that covers the opening of the rolled-leaf tube and protects it from rain. Possibly because of this improved waterproofing, Sarracenia species secrete enzymes such as proteases and phosphatases into the digestive fluid at the bottom of the pitcher; Heliamphora relies on bacterial digestion alone. The enzymes digest the proteins and nucleic acids in the prey, releasing amino acids and phosphate ions, which the plant absorbs. In at least one species, Sarracenia flava, the nectar bribe is laced with coniine, a toxic alkaloid also found in hemlock, which probably increases the efficiency of the traps by intoxicating prey.

Darlingtonia californica, the cobra plant, possesses an adaptation also found in Sarracenia psittacina and, to a lesser extent, in Sarracenia minor: the operculum is balloon-like and almost seals the opening to the tube. This balloon-like chamber is pitted with areolae, chlorophyll-free patches through which light can penetrate. Insects, mostly ants, enter the chamber via the opening underneath the balloon. Once inside, they tire themselves trying to escape from these false exits, until they eventually fall into the tube. Prey access is increased by the "fish tails", outgrowths of the operculum that give the plant its name. Some seedling Sarracenia species also have long, overhanging opercular outgrowths; Darlingtonia may therefore represent an example of neoteny.

Brocchinia reducta: a carnivorous bromeliad The second major group of pitcher plants are the monkey cups or tropical pitcher plants of the genus Nepenthes.

In the hundred or so species of this genus, the pitcher is borne at the end of a tendril, which grows as an extension to the midrib of the leaf. Most species catch insects, although the larger ones, such as Nepenthes rajah, also occasionally take small mammals and reptiles. Nepenthes bicalcarata possesses two sharp thorns that project from the base of the operculum over the entrance to the pitcher. These likely serve to lure insects into a precarious position over the pitcher mouth, where they may lose their footing and fall into the fluid within.

The pitfall trap has evolved independently in at least two other groups. The Albany pitcher plant Cephalotus follicularis is a small pitcher plant from Western Australia, with moccasin-like pitchers. The rim of its pitcher's opening (the peristome) is particularly pronounced (both secrete nectar) and provides a thorny overhang to the opening, preventing trapped insects from climbing out.

The final carnivore with a pitfall-like trap is the bromeliad Brocchinia reducta. Like most relatives of the pineapple, the tightly packed, waxy leaf bases of the strap-like leaves of this species form an urn. In most bromeliads, water collects readily in this urn and may provide habitats for frogs, insects and, more useful for the plant, diazotrophic (nitrogen-fixing) bacteria. In Brocchinia, the urn is a specialised insect trap, with a loose, waxy lining and a population of digestive bacteria.

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Flypaper traps

The leaf of a Drosera capensis bending in response to the trapping of an insect The flypaper trap utilizes sticky mucilage or glue. The leaf of flypaper traps is studded with mucilagesecreting glands, which may be short (like those of the butterworts), or long and mobile (like those of many sundews). Flypapers have evolved independently at least five times. There is evidence that some clades of flypaper traps have evolved from morphologically more complex traps such as pitchers.[8] In the genus Pinguicula, the mucilage glands are quite short (sessile), and the leaf, while shiny (giving the genus its common name of 'butterwort'), does not appear carnivorous. However, this belies the fact that the leaf is an extremely effective trap of small flying insects (such as fungus gnats), and its surface responds to prey by relatively rapid growth. This thigmotropic growth may involve rolling of the leaf blade (to prevent rain from splashing the prey off the leaf surface) or dishing of the surface under the prey to form a shallow digestive pit.

The sundew genus (Drosera) consists of over 100 species of active flypapers whose mucilage glands are borne at the end of long tentacles, which frequently grow fast enough in response to prey (thigmotropism) to aid the trapping process. The tentacles of D. burmanii can bend 180° in a minute or so. Sundews are extremely cosmopolitan and are found on all the continents except the Antarctic mainland. They are most diverse in Australia, the home to the large subgroup of pygmy sundews such as D. pygmaea and to a number of tuberous sundews such as D. peltata, which form tubers that aestivate during the dry summer months. These species are so dependent on insect sources of nitrogen that they generally lack the enzyme nitrate reductase, which most plants require to assimilate soil-borne nitrate into organic forms.

Drosera Glandular Hair Closely related to Drosera is the Portuguese dewy pine, Drosophyllum, which differs from the sundews in being passive. Its leaves are incapable of rapid movement or growth. Unrelated, but similar in habit, are the Australian rainbow plants (Byblis). Drosophyllum is unusual in that it grows under near-desert conditions; almost all other carnivores are either bog plants or grow in moist tropical areas. Recent molecular data (particularly the production of plumbagin) indicate that the remaining flypaper, Triphyophyllum peltatum, a member of the Dioncophyllaceae, is closely related to Drosophyllum and forms part of a larger clade of carnivorous and non-carnivorous plants with the Droseraceae, Nepenthaceae, Ancistrocladaceae and Plumbaginaceae. This plant is usually encountered as a liana, but in its juvenile phase, the plant is carnivorous. This may be related to a requirement for specific nutrients for flowering.

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InterpNEWS Snap traps

The snap traps of Dionaea muscipula close rapidly when the sensitive hairs on the leaf lobes are triggered.

The only two active snap traps—the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) and the waterwheel plant (Aldrovanda vesiculosa)—had a common ancestor with the snap trap adaptation, which had evolved from an ancestral lineage that utilized flypaper traps.[15] Their trapping mechanism has also been described as a "mouse trap", "bear trap" or "man trap", based on their shape and rapid movement. However, the term snap trap is preferred as other designations are misleading, particularly with respect to the intended prey. Aldrovanda is aquatic and specialised in catching small invertebrates; Dionaea is terrestrial and catches a variety of arthropods, including spiders.

The traps are very similar, with leaves whose terminal section is divided into two lobes, hinged along the midrib. Trigger hairs (three on each lobe in Dionaea muscipula, many more in the case of Aldrovanda) inside the trap lobes are sensitive to touch. When a trigger hair is bent, stretch-gated ion channels in the membranes of cells at the base of the trigger hair open, generating an action potential that propagates to cells in the midrib.[17] These cells respond by pumping out ions, which may either cause water to follow by osmosis (collapsing the cells in the midrib) or cause rapid acid growth.[18] The mechanism is still debated, but in any case, changes in the shape of cells in the midrib allow the lobes, held under tension, to snap shut, flipping rapidly from convex to concave and interring the prey. This whole process takes less than a second. In the Venus flytrap, closure in response to raindrops and blown-in debris is prevented by the leaves having a simple memory: for the lobes to shut, two stimuli are required, 0.5 to 30 seconds apart.

The snapping of the leaves is a case of thigmonasty (undirected movement in response to touch). Further stimulation of the lobe's internal surfaces by the struggling insects causes the lobes to close even tighter (thigmotropism), sealing the lobes hermetically and forming a stomach in which digestion occurs over a period of one to two weeks. Leaves can be reused three or four times before they become unresponsive to stimulation, depending on the growing conditions.

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Bladder traps Bladder traps are exclusive to the genus Utricularia, or bladderworts. The bladders (vesiculae) pump ions out of their interiors. Water follows by osmosis, generating a partial vacuum inside the bladder. The bladder has a small opening, sealed by a hinged door. In aquatic species, the door has a pair of long trigger hairs. Aquatic invertebrates such as Daphnia touch these hairs and deform the door by lever action, releasing the vacuum. The invertebrate is sucked into the bladder, where it is digested. Many species of Utricularia (such as U. sandersonii) are terrestrial, growing in waterlogged soil, and their trapping mechanism is triggered in a slightly different manner. Bladderworts lack roots, but terrestrial species have anchoring stems that resemble roots.

Temperate aquatic bladderworts generally die back to a resting turion during the winter months, and U. macrorhiza appears to regulate the number of bladders it bears in response to the prevailing nutrient content of its habitat.

Lobster-pot traps

Genlisea violacea traps and leaves A lobster-pot trap is a chamber that is easy to enter, and whose exit is either difficult to find or obstructed by inward-pointing bristles. Lobster pots are the trapping mechanism in Genlisea, the corkscrew plants. These plants appear to specialise in aquatic protozoa. A Y-shaped modified leaf allows prey to enter but not exit.

Inward-pointing hairs force the prey to move in a particular direction. Prey entering the spiral entrance that coils around the upper two arms of the Y are forced to move inexorably towards a stomach in the lower arm of the Y, where they are digested. Prey movement is also thought to be encouraged by water movement through the trap, produced in a similar way to the vacuum in bladder traps, and probably evolutionarily related to it.

Outside of Genlisea, features reminiscent of lobster-pot traps can be seen in Sarracenia psittacina, Darlingtonia californica, and, some horticulturalists argue, Nepenthes aristolochioides.

Combination traps The trapping mechanism of the sundew Drosera glanduligera combines features of both flypaper and snap traps; it has been termed a catapult-flypaper trap.

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InterpNEWS Animals that Hibernate During the Winter – interpreting to kids.

So you want to learn about animals that hibernate? When you think of an animal hibernating you probably think about a bear, but did you know that other animals hibernate too? An animal will hibernate when the food supply runs low and the temperatures drop, causing it to be too cold to wander about. Some might go into a deep sleep while others will just slow down but remain active. Some animals, such as most birds are smart enough to run away to warmer climates during the winter months where the food supply never runs short and they can stay warm.

The following is a list of familiar animals that hibernate along with their characteristics: Chipmunks You might mistake these tiny creatures for a baby squirrel. That could be because they belong in the squirrel family. Much like the squirrel, they also love nuts, and burrowing is a common habit they have acquired. You can watch chipmunks play in the spring, summer, and fall, but in the winter, they enter their hibernation process.

Chipmunk Characteristics: Chipmunks average in size from 2 to 6-inches in length with a 3-inch tail. They usually weigh less than 1-pound. They are usually brown and yellow with grey fur sporting a black and white stripe down their back.

Where Chipmunks Hibernate: You will find the chipmunks digging a burrow as far as 3-feet under the ground usually directly under or next to a cover to stay protected from their predators. During their active daytime periods, later in the summer and early fall, you will often enjoy watching them as they nestle their nuts between their cheeks taking them to their burrows to save for their winter hibernation.

During the Hibernation Period: During the winter, the chipmunk’s body temperature will drop drastically.

They will sleep heavily waking occasionally for food, and not be seen again until springtime when they will play. During the late summer, they will work hard once again, collecting food to prepare for the next winter.

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Bears - Bear Characteristics: Although most people learn to recognize a bear at a very young age, there are different types of bears and each one has a different color. They are each known to live in different parts of the world and they can range in color from black to brown and even grey. Unlike most animals, bears walk flat footed and can climb a tree in the blink of an eye. Bears living in cold climates hibernate when the food is scarce, but the bears in warmer climates can find plenty of food all year long so they have no reason to hibernate.

Where Bears Hibernate: Bears hibernate in their dens. A den can be built in hollow trees, the crevices of rocks, hillsides, under the root system of trees, caves, and even under leaves and brush. When a bear hibernates in a cave or rock crevice, it is very rare that the same bear will hibernate there again the following winter, however, another family won’t hesitate to move right in.

During the Hibernation Period: While most animals spend all summer harvesting their winter feast, the bear will double up on their food intake toward the end of the summer and fall so they can spend the winter catching up on their sleep. Once they are in hibernation, they will sleep heavily never to wake again until the spring arrives. The mama bears will wake up in January or February to give birth to her new cubs, and the babies will be happy nestling with mama until she can take them out on their first adventure. When the bears come out of their dens once again, they will feed on the animals that didn’t survive the winter. They will also hunt other animals along with berries, insects, and nuts. Bears also enjoy the sap from trees, branches, and roots. When a bear lives near the water, they enjoy an occasional salmon treat.

Bats Bat Characteristics: When you can get close enough to look at a bat you might think of it as a rat with wings. They are black in color with wings that look like rubber. The smallest bat is 1.1 to 1.3- inches in length, weighing 0.071 to 0.92- ounces and has a wingspan of 5.9-inches. The largest bat is a bit heavier weighing 3.5- pounds and has a wingspan of 5.6-feet.

Where Bats Hibernate: Not all bats hibernate; some either already live in a warmer climate or they choose to head toward the warmer climates when the food supply starts to run low. Those bats choosing to stay behind usually find comfort sharing wall space in dark, quiet caves. Bats are not afraid of sharing space with humans during the cold months though. They often find comfort living near houses in hollowed trees, barns, and other outside buildings. Don’t be surprised though if they take up space in your attic, crawl spaces, or in your basement. They’re not picky as long as they have a warm, quiet, dark place to sleep.

During the Hibernation Period: Unlike the other animals that stock up their food supply for the winter, the bats will manage to fall into a deep sleep for more than six months. Their body temperatures drop significantly during this time and their metabolism slows down so much that their heart rate falls very shallow. They begin their hibernation process from late fall until about the middle part of March.

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Box Turtles Many people have box turtles as pets. That’s cool, but you must remember that they are still undomesticated and of a wild nature. That doesn’t mean they are in the same category as a wild bear, but they are not as domesticated as a dog or cat. Even though you might have a pet turtle, you will need to respect its time for hibernation, and you can even help during the process.

Where Turtles Hibernate: When turtles are ready for hibernation, they don’t have far to go. They just crawl inside their shell and sleep.

During the Hibernation Period: The time of the year a turtle hibernates varies depending on the kind of turtle and the climate, but you can usually expect them to disappear inside their shell sometime between midSeptember and mid-October. Once they go into hibernation you won’t expect to see them come back to full life for another 3 to 4-months. During that time, they might come out for water, but then they will go right back in.

If you have a pet turtle you will know when they are preparing to hibernate because they will stop eating as much and you should stop feedings 14-days before they disappear into their shell. You should, however, keep a constant supply of water within their reach. They need to go into hibernation with a clear gastronomical track.

Bumblebees Who knew that bumblebees hibernate in the winter?

When you think about it unless you live in a very warm climate, do you ever walk outside in the winter and encounter a bee? They must go someplace, so where do they go? They don’t fly south like birds do.

Where Bumblebees Hibernate: During the fall, all the bees die, leaving just the queen bumblebee to hibernate and get ready to begin her new colony in the spring. The queen bee will dig into the soil on the side of a north facing bank to avoid the winter sun. She will then stay there until the spring arrives.

During the Hibernation Period: There is no need for the queen to eat while she is in hibernation because she will fill up on pollen during the spring and summer months. She will be plump enough to go to sleep and stay healthy the entire period of hibernation.

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InterpNEWS Garter Snake There are several different types of snakes, some are more harmful than others; the garter snake is one of the less dangerous and is often kept as pets.

Where Garter Snakes Hibernate: Garter snakes like to make their homes in woodlands, grassy areas, and meadows, where they will also make their dens for hibernation during the winter.

During the Hibernation Period: The cold-climate garters will hibernate in their dens during the winter months.

They will travel to find just the right den with the perfect number of snakes to curl up with, the more the better.

Dens have been found with more than 8000 snakes at a time, hovered on top of each other.

Land Snail Another hibernating creature that you probably never thought of is the land snail. This one is a little different in its hibernation habits.

Land Snail Characteristics: Snails have a slimy body and they live inside a shell. They don’t crawl out into a new shell as they grow because their shell will grow with them. Like turtles, when the snail feels threatened it will go back inside the shell to hide. They are nocturnal and are not thrilled with the sun or a lot of light. If they are subject to light for a long time they will quit eating and stay in their shell.

They measure from 3-centimeters to 12-inches in length and they enjoy a buffet of plants.

Where Snails Hibernate: They are smart enough to find places where frost doesn’t exist when it comes to finding their new winter home. They will look for places under rocks, in leaves, or in corners of buildings. They might find a place to dwell together with several of their friends.

During the Hibernation Period: Just before the first sight of frost the snail will begin the hibernation process.

Once it finds a place to stay, it will go inside its shell and cover itself, including the opening to the shell, with its own slime. It will stay attached to its winter home for 4 to 6-months.

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Wood Frogs Did you know that these tiny creatures will freeze but not die? During their hibernation process they might appear to be dead, but don’t give up on them, they will be back in the spring.

Wood Frog Characteristics: These little guys and girls enjoy their life in the forest. They spend the warm months eating whatever they can find crawling beneath them on the floor of the forest.

You might find them in a nearby swamp or maybe playing on a bog or in a ravine. They are from 2.0 to 2.8inches long and the females are always larger than the males. They are usually showing off in a tan, rust, or brown color body with a dark eye mask. If you stumble across a frog that isn’t wearing a mask, it’s probably not a wood frog.

Where Wood Frogs Hibernate: This creature isn’t picky, he will just bury himself under the ground or leafy area of his dwelling and he will stay there until the hibernation period is over.

During the Hibernation Period: Once the temperatures decrease below zero, the frog will bury itself, at which time he will stop breathing completely and his heart will stop pumping. Most of the water in his body will turn to ice and he will become frozen, but he won’t die. Once spring arrives and the ice in his body begins to melt, he will start breathing and his heart will start pounding again. The frog will be just like new and ready to find a mate until next winter sets in.

Skunks Unlike the other animals on our list, the skunk doesn’t go into complete hibernation during the winter but will become less active while trying to stay warm.

Where Skunks Hibernate: In the winter they will begin to move closer to human habitat, so they can stay close to food and water while staying warm. They will huddle together under porches or other structures. Don’t be surprised to find your garden or lawn full of holes because in the winter the skunks know the grubs are hibernating underground, and they love to eat those grubs.

During the Hibernation Period: Since they don’t go into complete hibernation like other animals, they will still get very cold and stay close to sources providing heat, food, and water. They will huddle together to sleep and stay warm. During this time, it is more likely for humans to discover a family living under a porch or in the garage.

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Deer Mice

These pesky little creatures won’t go into complete hibernation during the winter months, but you will most likely encounter them nesting in your territory. Although they might look cute, they carry a virus that can be dangerous to humans. They will burrow in trees and can be found nesting under stones or logs. In the winter months, they are not shy about inviting themselves into human habitat where they are often found trying to keep warm in attics and basements. They love to eat nuts, berries, seeds, small fruits, and insects, so they will make their way into your cupboards when they get hungry.

Where Deer Mice Hibernate: During the winter months they will find a place to nest where they can find the best source of heat, food, and water. Unfortunately, that usually means they will take up residency with human life. Humans might never encounter the rodent because they are afraid of people, but they will leave a trail making it obvious they are living there. Their nests are commonly made of seed, fur, weeds, and paper, so be aware if you find pieces ripped out of your paper.

During the Hibernation Period: Although they don’t fall into a deep sleep, they do tend to slow down a bit during this time. They will hoard as much food as they can find and take it to their warm nest, so they won’t have to exercise as much when it’s cold.

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They eat what? New Year's food traditions around the world Amanda Kludt, Special to CNN •

Americans who celebrate on New Year's Eve with a bottle of champagne, party hats and a kiss at midnight have an important lesson to learn from the rest of the world and even certain regions of the USA: New Year's Day is meant for food.

As the new year arrives around the globe, special cakes and breads abound, as do long noodles (representing long life), field peas (representing coins), herring (representing abundance) and pigs (representing good luck).

The particulars vary, but the general theme is the same: Share food and drink with family and friends to usher in a year of prosperity.

Here are some of the common food New Year's food traditions in destinations around the world and a few suggestions about where to partake in them: 1. Hoppin' John, American South

Field peas or black-eyed peas are the base for Hoppin' John.

Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock A major New Year's food tradition in the American South, Hoppin' John is a dish of pork-flavored field peas or black-eyed peas (symbolizing coins) and rice, frequently served with collards or other cooked greens (as they're the color of money) and cornbread (the color of gold). The dish is said to bring good luck in the new year.

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Different folklore traces the history and the name of this meal, but the current dish has its roots in African and West Indian traditions and was most likely brought over by slaves to North America. A recipe for Hoppin' John appears as early as 1847 in Sarah Rutledge's "The Carolina Housewife" and has been reinterpreted over the centuries by home and professional chefs.

The dish reportedly got its name in Charleston, South Carolina, and it is a veritable staple of Lowcountry cooking. So this is as good a place as any to eat it.

Husk, the acclaimed restaurant of chef Sean Brock, often serves Hoppin' John, as does Charleston institution Hominy Grill.

2. Twelve grapes, Spain

In Spain, they bring in the new year with 12 grapes. The tradition has spread to many Spanish-speaking countries. JAIME REINA/AFP/Getty Images While Americans watch the ball drop in Times Square on New Year's Eve, the people of Spain watch the broadcast from Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where revelers gather in front of the square's clock tower to ring in the New Year.

Those out in the square and those watching at home partake in an unusual annual tradition: At the stroke of midnight, they eat one grape for every toll of the clock bell. Some even prep their grapes -- peeling and seeding them -- to make sure they will be as efficient as possible when midnight comes.

The custom began at the turn of the 20th century and was purportedly thought up by grape producers in the southern part of the country with a bumper crop. Since then, the tradition has spread to many Spanish-speaking nations.

Those spending New Year's Eve in Madrid should head over to the Puerta del Sol before midnight. It's a lively

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3. Tamales, Mexico

Tamales get special attention in Mexico during the holiday season.

Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock Tamales, corn dough stuffed with meat, cheese and other delicious additions and wrapped in a banana leaf or a corn husk, make appearances at pretty much every special occasion in Mexico. But the holiday season is an especially favored time for the food.

In many families, groups of women gather together to make hundreds of the little packets -- with each person in charge of one aspect of the cooking process -- to hand out to friends, family and neighbors. On New Year's, it's often served with menudo, a tripe and hominy soup that is famously good for hangovers.

Those who live in cities with large Mexican populations shouldn't have much trouble finding restaurants selling tamales to go for New Year's Eve and Day. But gourmands who want the real deal should head to Mexico City, where steamed tamales are sold from vendors on street corners day and night. They can also be found at established restaurants such as Pujol.

4. Oliebollen, Netherlands

An oliebol is a doughnut-like product, traditionally made and consumed in the Netherlands during the New Year's celebrations.

BAS CZERWINSKI/AFP/Getty Images

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In the Netherlands, fried oil balls, or olie oliebollen, are sold by street carts and are traditiona ionally consumed on New Year's Eve and at special celebratory fair fairs. They are doughnut-like dumplings, made by dropping a scoop of dough spiked with currants or raisins into a deep fryer and then dusted with powdered sugar. su In Amsterdam, be on the lookout for Olie Oliebollenkraams, little temporary shacks or trailers trailer on the street selling packets of hot fried oliebollen.

5. Marzipanschwein or GlĂźcksschwein hwein, Austria and Germany

Fresh marzipan rzipan made m in the shape of little pigge gges.

PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/Getty STO Images Austria and its neighbor Germany call N New Year's Eve Sylvesterabend, or the eve of Saint Sai Sylvester. Austrian revelers drink a red wine punch with cinna cinnamon and spices, eat suckling pig for dinner and an decorate the table with little pigs made of marzipan, called marzipanschwein.

Good luck pigs, or GlĂźcksschwein, whic which are made of all sorts of things, are also common gifts throughout both Austria and Germany.

Vienna bakeries this time of year will ill be filled with a variety of pig-shaped sweets.. Head to t Julius Meinl to find the most impressive display of pig-shape shaped Champagne truffles, marzipan and chocolate olate in i a variety of sizes.

6. Soba noodles, Japan Many Japanese slurp down bowls of delicious Soba noodles to welcome the new year.

Nishihama/Shutterstock

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InterpNEWS In Japanese households, families eat buckwheat soba noodles, or toshikoshi soba, at midnight on New Year's Eve to bid farewell to the year gone by and welcome the year to come. The tradition dates back to the 17th century, and the long noodles symbolize longevity and prosperity.

In another custom called mochitsuki, friends and family spend the day before New Year's pounding mochi rice cakes. Sweet, glutinous rice is washed, soaked, steamed and pounded into a smooth mass. Then guests take turns pinching off pieces to make into small buns that are later eaten for dessert.

If you're in Tokyo, consider soba specialist Honmura An in the Roppongi entertainment district.

7. King cake, around the globe

The French do enjoy their galette des rois. margouillat photo/Shutterstock The tradition of a New Year's cake is one that spans countless cultures. The Greeks have the Vasilopita, the French the gateau or galette des rois. Mexicans have the Rosca de Reyes and Bulgarians enjoy the banitsa.

Most of the cakes are consumed at midnight on New Year's Eve -- though some cultures cut their cake on Christmas or the Epiphany, January 6 -- and include a hidden gold coin or figure, which symbolizes a prosperous year for whomever finds it in their slice.

8. Cotechino con lenticchie, Italy

Cotechino con lenticchie is the yummy Italian pairing of sausage and lentils. barbajones/Shutterstock

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Italians celebrate New Year's Eve with La Festa di San Silvestro, often commencing with a traditional cotechino con lenticchie, a sausage and lentil stew that is said to bring good luck (the lentils represent money and good fortune) and, in certain households, zampone, a stuffed pig's trotter.

The meal ends with chiacchiere -- balls of fried dough that are rolled in honey and powdered sugar -- and prosecco. The dishes find their roots in Modena, but New Year's Eve feasts thrive across the country.

9. Pickled herring, Poland and Scandinavia

Rolled herring in vinegar, served with onions and pickles. gkrphoto/Shutterstock

Because herring is in abundance in Poland and parts of Scandinavia and because of their silver coloring, many in those nations eat pickled herring at the stroke of midnight to bring a year of prosperity and bounty. Some eat pickled herring in cream sauce while others have it with onions.

One special Polish New Year's Eve preparation of pickled herring, called Sledzie Marynowane, is made by soaking whole salt herrings in water for 24 hours and then layering them in a jar with onions, allspice, sugar and white vinegar.

Scandinavians will often include herring in a larger midnight smorgasbord with smoked and pickled fish, pate and meatballs.

10. Kransekage, Denmark and Norway

This is a traditional Norwegian marzipan ring cake.

V. Belov/Shutterstock/Shutterstock

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Kransekage, literally wreath cake, is a cake tower composed of many concentric rings of cake layered atop one another, and they are made for New Year's Eve and other special occasions in Denmark and Norway.

The cake is made using marzipan, often with a bottle of wine or Aquavit in the center and can be decorated with ornaments, flags and crackers.

Those who can't make it to Copenhagen for Danish treats should check out Larsen's Danish Bakery in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. They have a long-running mail-order business to accommodate kransekage lovers across the country and carefully pack each ring on the tower individually for easy assembly right before your New Year's Eve feast.

This article was originally published in December 2012. CNN's Forrest Brown reformatted and updated the article.

Traditional Greek dishes. Yummy.

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Ice Fishing Safety Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

Ice fishing is a fun outdoor activity, especially when done safely. Simple things can be done to have a fun, safe outing. Follow these ice fishing safety tips to enjoy a safe day on the water.

ICE FISHING SAFETY TIPS To maximize ice fishing safety when enjoying winter fishing outing, it is important to know a few things about ice.

- New ice is usually stronger than old ice. Four inches of clear, newly formed ice may support one person on foot, while a foot or more of old, partially thawed ice may not.

- Ice seldom freezes uniformly. It may be a foot thick in one location and only an inch or two just a few feet away.

- Ice formed over flowing water and currents is often dangerous. This is especially true near streams, bridges and culverts. Also, the ice outside river bends is usually weaker due to the undermining effects of the faster current.

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- The insulating effect of snow slows down the freezing process. The extra weight also reduces how much weight the ice sheet can support. Also, ice near shore can be weaker than ice that is farther out.

- Booming and cracking ice isn't necessarily dangerous. It only means that the ice is expanding and contracting as the temperature changes.

- Schools of fish or flocks of waterfowl can also adversely affect the relative safety of ice. The movement of fish can bring warm water up from the bottom of the lake. In the past, this has opened holes in the ice causing snowmobiles and cars to break through.

RECOMMENDED MINIMUM ICE THICKNESS

One of the most important ice fishing basics is that of following ice thickness guidelines. While most anglers know intuitively that thin ice can be extremely dangerous, fewer may know that white ice or "snow ice" is only about half as strong as new clear ice. Follow the ice thickness recommendations below to maximize fishing safety.

2" or less - STAY OFF 4" - Ice fishing or other activities on foot 5" - Snowmobile or ATV 8" - 12" - Car or small pickup 12" - 15" - Medium truck Note: These guidelines are for new, clear solid ice. Many factors other than thickness can cause ice to be unsafe. Double the above thickness guidelines when traveling on white ice to ensure ice safety.

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InterpNEWS ICE FISHING SAFETY WHEN TRAV RAVELING ON ICE

The following guidelines can help lp you make safe choices: Check for known thin ice areas with ith a llocal resort or bait shop. Test the thickness ess yourself yo using an ice chisel, ice auger or even a cordless ss 1/4 inch drill with a long bit.

Refrain from driving on ice whenever ever ppossible. If you must drive a vehicle, be prepared prepa to leave it in a hurry--keep windows down and have ave a simple emergency plan of action you have ave discussed di with your passengers. ges. E Even "just a couple of beers" are enough to cause cau a careless error in Stay away from alcoholic beverages. judgment that could cost you yourr life. And contrary to common belief, alcoholl makes mak you colder rather than warming you up. ile's hheadlight. At even 30 miles per hour, it can an take tak a much longer Don't "overdrive" your snowmobile's distance to stop on ice than your headli headlight shines. Many fatal snowmobile through--the-ice accidents occur because the machine was travelingg too fast for the operator to stop when the headlam eadlamp illuminated the hole in the ice.

Have the right ice fishing safety gear. W Wear a life vest under your winter gear. Or wear we one of the new flotation snowmobile suits. And it's a ggood idea to carry a pair of ice picks thatt may be homemade or purchased from most well stockedd spor sporting goods stores that cater to winter anglers. glers. It's amazing how difficult it can be to pull yourself back onto the surface of unbroken but wet and d slippery slip ice while wearing a snowmobile suit weighted ted do down with 60 pounds of water. Ice picks are vital vit ice fishing safety tools for pulling yourself back onto to sol solid ice. Caution: Do not wear a flotation device devic when traveling across the ice in an enclosed vehicle.

You should always have all of the safety gear items listed below with you at first ice. Wear W life/ice pics around your neck just in case you go through, gh, you’ you’ll have a way to pull yourself out. First ice is typically very smooth and slippery so ice cleats for your boots aare very helpful in avoiding a hard fall. Carry arry some so rope and wear a life vest. It’s always smart to have at least one other person with you. A change of clothes clothe left in the car is a good idea just in case.

InterpNEWS Safety equipment to take fishing with you.

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A Fishing Partner A Chang of Clothes Ice Cleats Spud Bar Life Vest Life PicsLife

Now go fish – safely!

Content courtesy of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

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InterpNEWS The history of “January” – what’s in a name?

IN Staff

January, painting by Leandro Bassano.

January is the first month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the first of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The first day of the month is known as New Year's Day. It is, on average, the coldest month of the year within most of the Northern Hemisphere (where it is the second month of winter) and the warmest month of the year within most of the Southern Hemisphere (where it is the second month of summer).

In the Southern hemisphere, January is the seasonal equivalent of July in the Northern hemisphere and vice versa.

Ancient Roman observances during this month include Cervula and Juvenalia, celebrated January 1, as well as one of three Agonalia, celebrated January 9, and Carmentalia, celebrated January 11. These dates do not correspond to the modern Gregorian calendar January (in Latin, Ianuarius) is named after the Latin word for door (ianua), since January is the door to the year and an opening to new beginnings. The month is conventionally thought of as being named after Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions in Roman mythology, but according to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month.

According to ancient Roman farmers' almanacs Juno was the tutelary deity of the month.

Traditionally, the original Roman calendar consisted of 10 months totaling 304 days, winter being considered a month-less period.

Around 713 BC, the semi-mythical successor of Romulus, King Numa Pompilius, is supposed to have added the months of January and February, so that the calendar covered a standard lunar year (354 days).

Although March was originally the first month in the old Roman calendar, January became the first month of the calendar year either under Numa or under the Decemvirs about 450 BC (Roman writers differ). In contrast, each specific calendar year was identified by the names of the two consuls, who entered office on May 1 or March 15 until 153 BC, from when they entered office on January 1.

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Various Christian feast dates were used for the New Year in Europe during the Middle Ages, including March 25 (Feast of the Annunciation) and December 25. However, medieval calendars were still displayed in the Roman fashion with twelve columns from January to December. Beginning in the 16th century, European countries began officially making January 1 the start of the New Year once again—sometimes called Circumcision Style because this was the date of the Feast of the Circumcision, being the seventh day after December 25.

Historical names for January include its original Roman designation, Ianuarius, the Saxon term Wulf-monath (meaning "wolf month") and Charlemagne's designation Wintarmanoth ("winter / cold month"). In Slovene, it is traditionally called prosinec. The name, associated with millet bread and the act of asking for something, was first written in 1466 in the Škofja Loka manuscript.

According to Theodor Mommsen, 1 January became the first day of the year in 600 AUC of the Roman calendar (153 BC), due to disasters in the Lusitanian War. A Lusitanian chief called Punicus invaded the Roman territory, defeated two Roman governors, and killed their troops. The Romans resolved to send a consul to Hispania, and in order to accelerate the dispatch of aid, "they even made the new consuls enter into office two months and a half before the legal time" (March 15).

Some January facts: January’s birth flower is the cottage pink Dianthus caryophyllus or galanthus.

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The Japanese floral emblem of January is the camellia (Camellia sinensis).

In Finnish, the month of tammikuu means the heart of the winter and because the name literally means "oak moon", it can be inferred that the oak tree is the heart of the grand forest with many valuable trees as opposed to the typical Arctic forests, which are typically pine and spruce. The photograph of a large tree covered with ice against a blue sky is a familiar scene during Finland's winter.

The zodiac signs for the month of January are Capricorn (until January 19) and Aquarius (January 20 onwards).

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InterpNEWS Historical Events That You Didn't Know Happened In January Of all the important historical events that have occurred, there have been some pretty cool ones that happened in the month of January! We got our first female governor, traitors and leaders were born, rulers were beheaded and a gangster passed away. If you thought those sounded interesting, be sure to check out the rest of the crazy facts on our calendar!

The First American Flag Is Raised On January 1, 1776, George Washington unveiled the Grand Union Flag during the America n Revolution .

This flag is known as America's first national flag.

The Emancipation Proclamation Is Issued President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, during the third year of a bloody war, freeing the slaves in the states rebelling against the Union.

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InterpNEWS Ellis Island Opens For Business On January 1, 1892, Ellis Island in New York Harbor opened. With more than 20 million new arrivals to America processed here, Ellis Island was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954.

Alaska Joins The U.S. Alaska was admitted as the 49th U.S. state on January 3, 1959. Though it's the largest state in the U.S. by area with a land mass almost one-fifth the size of the lower 48 states together, it's the fourth-least populous state in the nation.

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President Roosevelt Delivers His State Of The Union Address President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his State of the Union address to Congress on January 6, 1941, defining four essential freedoms worth defending. They were freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. He also asked for support for the lend-lease program aiding Allies fighting the Axis powers during WWII.

The First Typewriter Was Patented On January 7, 1714, a patent was issued for the first typewriter designed by British inventor Henry Mill, though it wouldn't be commercially sold until 1868 when three guys from Milwaukee invented a more durable model with new keyboard layout.

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Elvis Is Born On January 8, 1935, the King was born in Tupelo, Mississippi. Elvis Presley was a twinless twin, meaning he had a twin who died at birth.

So that’s just a little bit about January. If your birthday was in January as well – then you’re special too. There are lots more special events that happened in January, and will continue to happen.

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InterpNEWS

Who Was the Real St. Valentine? The Many Myths Behind the Inspiration For Valentine's Day History.com Editors

There were multiple St. Valentines (including decapitated ones), but it was a medieval poet who first established the holiday's romantic tradition.

Every February 14, across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. But who is this mysterious saint, and where did these traditions come from? Find out about the history of this centuries-old holiday, from ancient Roman rituals to the customs of Victorian England.

The Legend of St. Valentine The history of Valentine’s Day–and the story of its patron saint–is shrouded in mystery. We do know that February has long been celebrated as a month of romance, and that St. Valentine’s Day, as we know it today, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient Roman tradition. But who was Saint Valentine, and how did he become associated with this ancient rite?

The Catholic Church recognizes at least three different saints named Valentine or Valentinus, all of whom were martyred. One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.

Other stories suggest that Valentine may have been killed for attempting to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons, where they were often beaten and tortured. According to one legend, an imprisoned Valentine actually sent the first “valentine” greeting himself after he fell in love with a young girl– possibly his jailor’s daughter–who visited him during his confinement. Before his death, it is alleged that he wrote her a letter signed “From your Valentine,” an expression that is still in use today.

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Although the truth behind the Valentine legends is murky, the stories all emphasize his appeal as a sympathetic, heroic and–most importantly–romantic figure. By the Middle Ages, perhaps thanks to this reputation, Valentine would become one of the most popular saints in England and France.

Origins of Valentine’s Day: A Pagan Festival in February While some believe that Valentine’s Day is celebrated in the middle of February to commemorate the anniversary of Valentine’s death or burial–which probably occurred around A.D. 270–others claim that the Christian church may have decided to place St. Valentine’s feast day in the middle of February in an effort to “Christianize” the pagan celebration of Lupercalia. Celebrated at the ides of February, or February 15, Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at a sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. They would then strip the goat’s hide into strips, dip them into the sacrificial blood and take to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the goat hide. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides because it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city’s bachelors would each choose a name and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage.

Valentine’s Day: A Day of Romance Lupercalia survived the initial rise of Christianity but was outlawed—as it was deemed “un-Christian”–at the end of the 5th century, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine’s Day. It was not until much later, however, that the day became definitively associated with love. During the Middle Ages, it was commonly believed in France and England that February 14 was the beginning of birds’ mating season, which added to the idea that the middle of Valentine’s Day should be a day for romance.

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Valentine greetings were popular as far back as the Middle Ages, though written en Valentine’s Va didn’t begin to appear until after 1400. The oldest dest kknown valentine still in existence today was a poem written in 1415

by Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his is wif wife while he was imprisoned in the Towerr of London L following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt.. (The greeting is now part of the manuscript collection collec of the British Library in London, England.) Several veral ye years later, it is believed that King Henry V hired a writer named John Lydgate to compose a valentine tine nnote to Catherine of Valois.

In addition to the United States, Valent Valentine’s Day is celebrated in Canada, Mexico,, the th United Kingdom, France and Australia. In Great Britain, ritain, Valentine’s Day began to be popularly y celebrated celebr around the 17th century. By the middle of the 18th, h, it w was common for friends and lovers of alll social socia classes to exchange small tokens of affection or handwritte written notes, and by 1900 printed cards began n to replace re written letters due to improvements in printing techno technology. Ready-made cards were an easy way for fo people to express their emotions in a time when direct ect ex expression of one’s feelings was discouraged. ged. Cheaper C postage rates also contributed to an increase in the ppopularity of sending Valentine’s Day greeting eetings.

Americans probably began exchanging nging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. s. In the t 1840s, Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass--produced valentines in America. Howland, d, known kno as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creation reations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures ictures known as “scrap.”

Esther Howland

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In 1847, nineteen-year-old Esther Howlnd received an elaborate Valentine’s Day card from England. The recent graduate of Mount Holyoke Women’s Seminary was living with her family at the time and working with her father’s business—the largest book and stationery store in Worcester, Massachusetts. That Valentine’s Day card, sent from one of her father’s business associates, would forever change Esther’s life—transforming her into an industry innovator and pioneering businesswoman.

After receiving her European Valentine’s Day card, Esther Howland decided to try making some for herself.

With her father’s financial support and business connections, she imported the necessary supplies from overseas. She developed a dozen original design samples and gave them to her brother, a traveling salesman with the family business. Her hope was to sell a few hundred dollars worth of cards but her brother returned from his trip with over $5,000 in orders—and so a business was born.

Today, according to the Greeting Card Association, an estimated 145 million Valentine’s Day cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year (more cards are sent at Christmas). Women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.

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InterpNEWS

The spiritual and cultural meanings represented by Totem Poles.

IN Staff

From Saxman Totem Park, Ketchikan, Alaska

Totem poles (Gyáa'aang in the Haida language) are monumental carvings, a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by First Nations and indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast including northern Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian communities in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth communities in southern British Columbia, and the Coast Salish communities in Washington and British Columbia.

The word totem derives from the Algonquian word odoodem [oˈtuːtɛm] meaning "(his) kinship group".

The carvings may symbolize or commemorate ancestors, cultural beliefs that recount familiar legends, clan lineages, or notable events. The poles may also serve as functional architectural features, welcome signs for village visitors, mortuary vessels for the remains of deceased ancestors, or as a means to publicly ridicule someone. They may embody a historical narrative of significance to the people carving and installing the pole.

Given the complexity and symbolic meanings of totem pole carvings, their placement and importance lies in the observer's knowledge and connection to the meanings of the figures and the culture in which they are embedded.

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History

Totem poles and houses at 'Ksan, near Hazelton, British Columbia.

Totem poles serve as important illustrations of family lineage and the cultural heritage of the Native peoples in the islands and coastal areas of North America's Pacific Northwest, especially British Columbia, Canada, and coastal areas of Washington and southeastern Alaska in the United States. Families of traditional carvers come from the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl), Nuxalk (Bella Coola), and Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), among others. The poles are typically carved from the highly rot-resistant trunks of Thuja plicata trees (popularly known as giant cedar or western red cedar), which eventually decay in the moist, rainy climate of the coastal Pacific Northwest. Because of the region's climate and the nature of the materials used to make the poles, few examples carved before 1900 remain. Noteworthy examples, some dating as far back as 1880, include those at the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, the Museum of Anthropology at UBC in Vancouver, the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, and the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Totem poles are the largest, but not the only, objects that coastal Pacific Northwest natives use to depict spiritual reverence, family legends, sacred beings and culturally important animals, people, or historical events.

The freestanding poles seen by the region's first European explorers were likely preceded by a long history of decorative carving. Stylistic features of these poles were borrowed from earlier, smaller prototypes, or from the interior support posts of house beams.

Although 18th-century accounts of European explorers traveling along the coast indicate that decorated interior and exterior house posts existed prior to 1800, the posts were smaller and fewer in number than in subsequent decades. Prior to the 19th century, the lack of efficient carving tools, along with sufficient wealth and leisure time to devote to the craft, delayed the development of elaborately carved, freestanding poles.

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Before iron and steel arrived in the area, Natives used tools made of stone, shells, or beaver teeth for carving.

The process was slow and laborious; axes were unknown. By the late eighteenth century, the use of metal cutting tools enabled more complex carvings and increased production of totem poles.[5] The tall monumental poles appearing in front of native homes in coastal villages probably did not appear until after the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Eddie Malin has proposed that totem poles progressed from house posts, funerary containers, and memorial markers into symbols of clan and family wealth and prestige. He argues that the Haida people of the islands of Haida Gwaii originated carving of the poles, and that the practice spread outward to the Tsimshian and Tlingit, and then down the coast to the indigenous people of British Columbia and northern Washington. Malin's theory is supported by the photographic documentation of the Pacific Northwest coast's cultural history and the more sophisticated designs of the Haida poles.

Accounts from the 1700s describe and illustrate carved poles and timber homes along the coast of the Pacific Northwest. By the early nineteenth century, widespread importation of iron and steel tools from Great Britain, the United States, and elsewhere led to easier and more rapid production of carved wooden goods, including poles.

In the 19th century, American and European trade and settlement initially led to the growth of totem-pole carving, but United States and Canadian policies and practices of acculturation and assimilation caused a decline in the development of Alaska Native and First Nations cultures and their crafts, and sharply reduced totem-pole production by the end of the century. Between 1830 and 1880, the maritime fur trade, mining, and fisheries gave rise to an accumulation of wealth among the coastal peoples. Much of it was spent and distributed in lavish potlatch celebrations, frequently associated with the construction and erection of totem poles. The monumental poles commissioned by wealthy family leaders to represent their social status and the importance of their families and clans. In the 1880s and 1890s, tourists, collectors, scientists and naturalist interested in native culture collected and photographed totem poles and other artifacts, many of which were put on display at expositions such as the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the 1893 World's Columbia Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, before the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978, the practice of Native religion was outlawed, and traditional indigenous cultural practices were also strongly discouraged by Christian missionaries. This included the carving of totem poles. Missionaries urged converts to cease production and destroy existing poles. Nearly all totem-pole-making had ceased by 1901. Carving of monumental and mortuary poles continued in some, more remote Native villages as late as 1905; however, as native sites were abandoned, the poles and timber homes were left to decay and vandalism.

Beginning in the late 1930s, a combination of cultural, linguistic, and artistic revivals, along with scholarly interest and the continuing fascination and support of an educated and empathetic public, led to a renewal and extension of this artistic tradition. In 1938 the United States Forest Service began a program to reconstruct and preserve the old poles, salvaging about 200, roughly one-third of those known to be standing at the end of the 19th century.

With renewed interest in Native arts and traditions in the 1960s and 1970s, freshly carved totem poles were erected up and down the coast, while related artistic production was introduced in many new and traditional media, ranging from tourist trinkets to masterful works in wood, stone, blown and etched glass, and other traditional and non-traditional media.

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Meaning and purpose

From left to right, the One-Legged Fisherman pole, the Raven pole, and the Killer Whale pole in Wrangell, Alaska

Totem poles can symbolize the characters and events in mythology, or convey the experiences of recent ancestors and living people. Some of these characters may appear as stylistic representations of objects in nature, while others are more realistically carved. Pole carvings may include animals, fish, plants, insects, and humans, or they may represent supernatural beings such as the Thunderbird. Some symbolize beings that can transform themselves into another form, appearing as combinations of animals or part-animal/part-human forms. Consistent use of a specific character over time, with some slight variations in carving style, helped develop similarities among these shared symbols that allowed people to recognize one from another. For example, the raven is symbolized by a long, straight beak, while the eagle's beak is curved, and a beaver is depicted with two large front teeth, a piece of wood held in his front paws, and a paddle-shaped tail.

Totem pole in Vancouver, British Columbia

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Totem poles at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia The meanings of the designs on totem poles are as varied as the cultures that make them. Some poles celebrate cultural beliefs that may recount familiar legends, clan lineages, or notable events, while others are mostly artistic. Animals and other characters carved on the pole are typically used as symbols to represent characters or events in a story; however, some may reference the moiety of the pole’s owner, or simply fill up empty space on the pole. The carved figures interlock one above the other to create the overall design, which may rise to a height of 60 ft (18 m) or more. Smaller carvings may be positioned in vacant spaces, or they may be tucked inside the ears or hang out of the mouths of the pole’s larger figures.

Some of the figures on the poles constitute symbolic reminders of quarrels, murders, debts, and other unpleasant occurrences about which the Native Americans prefer to remain silent... The most widely known tales, like those of the exploits of Raven and of Kats who married the bear woman, are familiar to almost every native of the area. Carvings which symbolize these tales are sufficiently conventionalized to be readily recognizable even by persons whose lineage did not recount them as their own legendary history.

Those from cultures that do not carve totem poles often assume that the linear representation of the figures places the most importance on the highest figure, an idea that became pervasive in the dominant culture after it entered into mainstream parlance by the 1930s with the phrase "low man on the totem pole" (and as the title of a bestselling 1941 humor book by H. Allen Smith). However, Native sources either reject the linear component altogether, or reverse the hierarchy, with the most important representations on the bottom, bearing the weight of all the other figures, or at eye level with the viewer to heighten their significance. Many poles have no vertical arrangement at all, consisting of a lone figure atop an undecorated column.

Types There are six basic types of totem poles: house frontal poles, interior house posts, mortuary poles, memorial poles, welcome poles, and the ridicule or shame pole.

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InterpNEWS House frontal poles Nuxalk House Frontal Pole, 19th century Carver: Skyuswalus

This pole stood in front of a house in the Nuxalk community of Talio on South Bentinck Arm. People entered the house through the door at the bottom of the pole. Charles F. Newcombe purchased the pole at Talio in 1913 and recorded that it had been carved by Skyuswalus of Talio. The figures on the pole refer to the family histories of its owner, Chief Hemas. Before it was erected in Thunderbird Park in 1941, the pole was repainted and, at some time in its history, the original beak of the Raven may have been replaced. The pole is now exhibited behind glass near the east entrance to the museum.

RBCM 2308.

This type of pole, usually 20 to 40 ft (6 to 12 m) tall is the most decorative. Its carvings tell the story of the family, clan or village who own them. These poles are also known as heraldic, crest, or family poles. Poles of this type are placed outside the clan house of the most important village leaders. Often, watchman figures are carved at the top of the pole to protect the pole owner’s family and the village. Another type of house frontal pole is the entrance or doorway pole, which is attached to the center front of the home and includes an ovalshaped opening through the base that serves as the entrance to the clan house.

House posts These interior poles, typically 7 to 10 ft (2 to 3 m) in height, are usually shorter than exterior poles. The interior posts support the roof beam of a clan house and include a large notch at the top, where the beam can rest. A clan house may have two to four or more house posts, depending on the native group who built it. Carvings on these poles, like those of the house frontal poles, are often used as a storytelling device for children and help tell the story of the owners' family history.

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InterpNEWS Mortuary pole

The rarest type of totem pole is a mortuary structure that incorporates grave boxes with carved supporting poles or includes a recessed back to hold the grave box. It is among the tallest and most prominent poles, reaching 50 to 70 ft (15 to 21 m) in height. The Haida and Tlingit people erect mortuary poles at the death of important individuals in the community. These poles may have a single figure carved at the top, which may depict the clan's crest, but carvings usually cover its entire length. Ashes or the body of the deceased person are placed in the upper portion of the pole.

Chief Skedans Mortuary Pone. Stanley Park. Vancouver, Canada.

Memorial pole This type of pole, which usually stands in front of a clan house, is erected about a year after a person has died. The clan chief’s memorial pole may be raised at the center of the village. The pole's purpose is to honor the deceased person and identify the relative who is taking over as his successor within the clan and the community. Traditionally, the memorial pole has one carved figure at the top, but an additional figure may also be added at the bottom of the pole.

Memorial poles may also commemorate an event. For example, several memorial totem poles were erected by the Tlingits in honor of Abraham Lincoln, one of which was relocated to Saxman, Alaska, in 1938.

The Lincoln pole at Saxman commemorates the end of hostilities between two rival Tlingit clans and symbolizes the hope for peace and prosperity following the American occupation of the Alaskan territory. commissioned the Lincoln pole to commemorate the event. The story begins in 1868, when the United States government built a customs house and

fort on Tongass Island and left the US revenue cutter Lincoln to patrol the area. After American soldiers at the fort and aboard the Lincoln provided protection to the Tongass group against its rival, the Kagwantans, the Tongass group commissioned the Lincoln pole to commemorate the event.

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Welcome pole

Carved by the Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) and Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) people, most of the poles include a large carvings of human figures, some as tall as 40 ft (12 m). Welcome poles are placed at the edge of a stream or saltwater beach to welcome guests to the community, or possibly to intimidate strangers.

Shame/ridicule pole

Poles used for public ridicule are usually called shame poles, and were created to embarrass individuals or groups for their unpaid debts or when they did something wrong. The poles are often placed in prominent locations and removed after the debt is paid or the wrong is corrected. Shame pole carvings represent the person being shamed.

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Seward Pole One famous shame pole is the Seward Pole at the Saxman Totem Park in Saxman, Alaska. It was created to shame former U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward for not reciprocating the courtesy or generosity of his Tlingit hosts following a potlatch given in his honor. The intent of this pole is indicated by the figure's red-painted nose and ears to symbolize Seward's stinginess.

Another example of the shame pole is the Three Frogs pole on Chief Shakes Island, at Wrangell, Alaska. This pole was erected by Chief Shakes to shame the Kiks.รกdi clan into repaying a debt incurred for the support of three Kiks.รกdi women who were allegedly cohabiting with three slaves in Shakes's household. When the Kiks.รกdi leaders refused to pay support for the women, Shakes commissioned a pole with carvings of three frogs, which represented the crest of the Kiks.รกdi clan. It is not known if the debt was ever repaid. The pole stands next to the Chief Shakes Tribal House in Wrangell. The pole's unique crossbar shape has become popularly associated with the town of Wrangell, and continues to be used as part of the Wrangell Sentinel newspaper's masthead.

In 1942, the U.S. Forest Service commissioned a pole to commemorate Alexander Baranof, the Russian governor and Russian American Company manager, as a civilian works project. The pole's original intent was to commemorate a peace treaty between the Russians and Tlingits that the governor helped broker in 1805.

George Benson, a Sitka carver and craftsman, created the original design. The completed version originally stood in Totem Square in downtown Sitka, Alaska.When Benson and other Sitka carvers were not available to do the work, the U.S. Forest Service had CCC workers carve the pole in Wrangell, Alaska. Because Sitka and Wrangell native groups were rivals, it has been argued that the Wrangell carvers may have altered Benson's original design. For unknown reasons, the Wrangell carvers depicted the Baranov figure without clothes.

Following a Sitka Tribe of Alaska-sponsored removal ceremony, the pole was lowered due to safety concerns on October 20, 2010, using funds from the Alaska Dept. of Health and Social Services. The Sitka Sentinel reported that while standing, it was "said to be the most photographed totem [pole] in Alaska". The pole was reerected in Totem Square in 2011.

On March 24, 2007, a shame pole was erected in Cordova, Alaska, that includes the inverted and distorted face of former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond. The pole represents the unpaid debt of $5 billion in punitive damages that a federal court in Anchorage, Alaska, determined Exxon owes for its role in causing the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound.

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Construction and maintenance

Incomplete Haida pole in Skidegate, British Columbia (left), Emily Moore with one of the totem poles in southeast Alaska (right).

After the tree to be used for the totem pole is selected, it is cut down and moved to the carving site, where the bark and outer layer of wood (sapwood) is removed. Next, the side of the tree to be carved is chosen and the back half of the tree is removed. The center of the log is hollowed out to make it lighter and to keep it from cracking. Early tools used to carve totem poles were made of stone, shell, or bone, but beginning in the late 1700s, the use of iron tools made the carving work faster and easier. In the early days, the basic design for figures may have been painted on the wood to guide the carvers, but today's carvers use paper patterns as outlines for their designs. Carvers use chain saws to make the rough shapes and cuts, while adzes and chisels are used to chop the wood. Carvers use knives and other woodworking tools to add the finer details. When the carving is complete, paint is added to enhance specific details of the figures.

Raising a totem pole is rarely done using modern methods, even for poles installed in modern settings. Most artists use a traditional method followed by a pole-raising ceremony. The traditional method calls for a deep trench to be dug. One end of the pole is placed at the bottom of the trench; the other end is supported at an upward angle by a wooden scaffold. Hundreds of strong men haul the pole upright into its footing, while others steady the pole from side ropes and brace it with cross beams. Once the pole is upright, the trench is filled with rocks and dirt. After the raising is completed, the carver, the carver's assistants, and others invited to attend the event perform a celebratory dance next to the pole. A community potlatch celebration typically follows the pole raising to commemorate the event.

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Dancing at a pole-raising celebration in Klawock, Alaska Totem poles are typically not well maintained after their installation and the potlatch celebration. The poles usually last from 60 to 80 years; only a few have stood longer than 75 years, and even fewer have reached 100 years of age.[18] Once the wood rots so badly that the pole begins to lean and pose a threat to passersby, it is either destroyed or pushed over and removed. Older poles typically fall over during the winter storms that batter the coast. The owners of a collapsed pole may commission a new one to replace it.

Cultural property Each culture typically has complex rules and customs regarding the traditional designs represented on poles.

The designs are generally considered the property of a particular clan or family group of traditional carvers, and this ownership of the designs may not be transferred to the person who has commissioned the carvings. There have been protests when those who have not been trained in the traditional carving methods, cultural meanings and protocol, have made "fake totem poles" for what could be considered crass public display and commercial purposes.[ The misappropriation of coastal Pacific Northwest culture by the art and tourist trinket market has resulted in production of cheap imitations of totem poles executed with little or no knowledge of their complex stylistic conventions or cultural significance. These include imitations made for commercial and even comedic use in venues that serve alcohol, and in other settings that are insensitive or outright offensive to the sacred nature of some of the carvings.

In the early 1990s, the Haisla First Nation of the Pacific Northwest began a lengthy struggle to repatriate a sacred totem from Sweden's Museum of Ethnography. Their successful efforts were documented in Gil Cardinal's National Film Board of Canada documentary, Totem: The Return of the G'psgolox Pole.

In October 2015 a Tlingit totem Pole was returned from Hawaii to Alaska

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35 Surprising Facts About Global Warming.

NASA

The consumption of fossil fuels in the last few decades has contributed much to the degradation of our environment. Global warming, climate change, extinction of wildlife species, depletion of the ozone layer, and an increase in air pollution are few of the problems from which our environment is suffering. It may be quite a task for anyone to find some solid global warming facts to alarm for some action. Here are plenty of them, right on your platter.

What is Global Warming?

Global warming is the increase of earth’s average surface temperature and its oceans due to greenhouse gases released as people burn fossil fuels. These greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane absorb heat that would otherwise bounce off the Earth’s surface. Global warming has emerged has one of the biggest environmental issues in the last two decades.

As per NASA, “the global average surface temperature rose 0.6 to 0.9 degrees Celsius (1.1 to 1.6° F) between 1906 and 2005, and the rate of temperature increase has nearly doubled in the last 50 years. Temperatures are certain to go up further.” It seems that the temperature is rising at a rate faster than ever before. Human activities like the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, industrialization and increase in pollution are considered as few of the factors responsible for the rise in global warming.

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NASA defines global warming as, “Global warming is a significant increase in the Earth’s climatic temperature over a relatively short period of time as a result of the activities of humans. In specific terms, an increase of 1 or more degrees Celsius in a period of one hundred to two hundred years would be considered global warming. Over the course of a single century, an increase of even 0.4 degrees Celsius would be significant.”

Below are 35 Surprising Facts on Global Warming Fact 1: Global warming is the result of an increase in the earth’s average surface temperature due to greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane. These gases are required for the presence of human life on earth.

However, global warming is happening due to over-emittance of these gases.

Fact 2: Emissions like carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and other greenhouses gases will remain in the atmosphere for many years making impossible to eliminate global warming for several decades.

Fact 3: According to IPCC 2007 report, sea levels will rise by 7-23 inches by the end of this century due to global warming.

Fact 4: Since 1880, the average temperature has risen by 1.4-Fahrenheit degrees.

Fact 5: The last two decades of the 20th century have been hottest in the last 400 years, according to climate studies.

Fact 6: The Arctic is one of the worst places to be affected by global warming.

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Fact 7: According to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004, the average temperature in Alaska, Western Canada, and Russia have risen at twice the global average.

Fact 8: The Arctic ice is melting rapidly. By 2040 the region is expected to have a completely ice-free summer, or even earlier.

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InterpNEWS Fact 9: The Montana Glacier National Park has only 25 glaciers instead of 150 that were there in the year 1910.

Fact 10: Due to global warming and pollution, coral reefs are suffering the worst bleaching with the highest dying record since 1980.

Fact 11: Global warming that is causing extreme weather changes has shown its implications in the way of forest fires, heat waves and severe tropical storms throughout the world.

Fact 12: There has been a tremendous increase in water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane nitrous oxide and especially greenhouse gases due to polluting substances emitted as a result of industrialization, pollution, deforestation.

Fact 13: Humans are emitting more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, faster than the absorbing rates of plants and the oceans.

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Fact 14: Sea levels have risen about 7 inches in the last 100 years, which is more than the previous 2000 years combined. The rising sea levels due to global warming could threaten the lives of people living along the coastal areas.

Fact 15: Around 100 million people live with 3 feet of sea level and many cities of the world are located near such vulnerable coastal areas.

Fact 16: Melting of glaciers will cause sea levels to rise on one hand and water shortages in areas that depend on natural sources of water.

Fact 17: More than 1 million species have become extinct due to disappearing habitats, ecosystems acidic oceans all caused due to global warming.

Fact 18: The global warming will completely alter the ocean’s conveyer belt which will cause a mini ice age in Europe.

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InterpNEWS Fact 19: Increasing temperatures will release more greenhouse gases, unlock methane, and cause more evaporation of water.

Fact 20: 2000-2009 has been the hottest decade periods of the earth.

Fact 21: The rate at which carbon dioxide is being dumped into the environment is 1000 tons per second until the 2011 records.

Fact 22: The carbon dioxide levels in the 20th century have been highest in 650,000 years. Till 1950, the levels rose by 11% and recently the levels have risen by 40%.

Fact 23: Due to the industrial revolution, the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas started on a massive scale. This not only increased greenhouse gases but was also responsible for large scale deaths due to asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Fact 24: Human activities release around 37 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Fact 25: Since the industrial revolution in 1700, the level of carbon dioxide on earth has increased by 34%.

Fact 26: By the year 2100, the average temperature will rise by 5.8 degrees as a result of global warming.

Fact 27: Each year of the 21st century ranks amongst 14 hottest years since 1880.

Fact 28: In the last 30 years, the average consumption of fossil fuel by the United States has been 80%. Fossil fuels are the most dangerous contributors to global warming.

Fact 29: Between 2000-2100, the heat-related deaths will rise by 150,000.

Fact 30: Global warming is causing colder areas of the world to become hotter, thereby becoming more vulnerable to diseases.

Fact 31: A failure in preventing global warming can cause a major economic collapse causing 20% of global domestic output to fix. .

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Fact 33: The NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) proposed the Clean Air Act to cut power plant emissions by 26 percent in the next 7 years.

Fact 34: The heat-trapping gases have been increasing in the atmosphere at an alarming rate. The presence of a large number of these gases has resulted in an enhanced greenhouse effect. Heat waves caused by global warming are responsible for many heat-related illness and deaths.

Fact 35: Global warming can lead to massive food and water shortages and has a life-threatening impact on wildlife.

If these figures do not startle, then it will be extremely difficult to prevent the world from collapsing from global warming. Many schools, organizations, government bodies, etc are making efforts to encourage people to take steps that would prevent them from taking any action that would lead to global warming. The most important consideration, however, is to feel for the problem and to be fully awakened to the situation.

Unless the critical issue of global warming does not hit every person on earth, it will be very difficult to prevent the world from burning due to global warming in the near future. NASA, NRDC

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InterpNEWS A Call for Environmental Patriotism Anne Marie Todd

This article is adapted with permission from the author’s book, Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement (Routledge, 2013). Material adapted from pp. 1–16 and 99–111.

Reprinted in IN with permission from: Taproot, A Journal of Outdoor Education and the Coalition for Education in the Outdoors

Abstract Environmental patriotism, the belief that the national environment defines a country’s greatness, is a significant strand in twentieth century American environmentalism. This article is adapted from Anne Marie Todd’s book, Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement (Routledge, 2013) where the author is the first to explore the history of environmental patriotism in America through intriguing stories of environmental patriots and the rhetoric of their speeches and propaganda.

The article and book offer a provoking critique of environmentalists’ communication strategies and suggests patriotism as a persuasive hook for new ways to make environmental issues a national priority. This original research should be of interest to scholars of environmental communication, environmental history, American history and environmental philosophy. Keywords: environmental patriotism, environmental history, environmental communication, American history, environmental philosophy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Every day, we read about new evidence of alarming environmental destruction. Staggering consumption in the global north and devastating poverty in the global south besieges biodiversity.1 Every 20 minutes, a species becomes extinct.2 The “cumulative effects” of the “extraction and conversion of both fossil fuels and nonfossil energies, industrial production, and rapid urbanization” have caused “destabilizing global biospheric change.”3 Despite repeated calls from scientists, scholars, citizen groups, and local officials, Americans exhibit extreme apathy toward environmental issues. Fewer Americans perform individual conservation tasks than five years ago.4 Americans’ environmental attitudes have recently undergone “historic, negative shift.”5 According to a 2012 survey of 17 world countries, with developed or emerging economies, Americans live the least sustainably. More worryingly, we feel the least guilty about it.6 Communicators trying to address today’s environmental crises seek a persuasive message, a motivating rallying cry that provides Americans with a salient reason to “be green,” to consider the environmental effects of the way they live their lives. The rhetoric of American environmentalism is replete with attempts to persuade the American public to act in response to public concerns, which frequently seems at odds with citizens’ private interests. This has historically been a challenge facing environmentalists who seek persuasive rhetoric to assuage tension between economic and environmental concerns, short-term vs. long-term worldviews, and individual and societal morality. To address these tensions, I suggest we consider patriotism as an environmental idea.

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Phillip Cafaro, a philosopher from Colorado State University declares that “environmentalism, rightly understood, is patriotism.”10 Environmental patriotism is the belief that a country’s greatness is defined by its environment. I am not the first to use the term,11 but I think it’s time to consider environmental patriotism to motivate a civic and national response to global environmental issues. Patriotism is rhetorical because we build and express our patriotism through symbols, words, and images. Patriotic rhetoric is powerful in developing national identity around a community’s history, heroes, and visions. National songs are particularly instructive examples of patriotic rhetoric because our familiarity with them creates a bond with fellow citizens.12 Consider the imagery in the opening lines from “America the Beautiful,” written in 1895 by Katherine Lee Bates: O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain; For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain!

These words illustrate how popular culture constructs national identity through everyday rituals that capture the patriotic sentiment generations of Americans have toward their homeland. These lyrics are interesting because they are environmentally patriotic. The song’s description of soaring mountain ranges girding the expansive prairies of the Midwest exemplifies how images and metaphors for the national landscape have strong resonance with Americans’ pride in their country. The song’s patriotic description of the American landscape helps to construct the national environment in the American imagination.

Environmental patriotism evokes an aesthetic and ethical connection to place. Environmental patriotism is aesthetic because it is motivated by an appreciation for the beauty of national scenery. Environmental patriotism is ethical because it relies on a deep sense of responsibility to protect the natural abundance that ensures American ideals of freedom and democracy. The aesthetic and ethical dimensions of patriotism are integrally related to a sense of place. Place is socially constructed through memories of the sensual experiences that are the basis of our relationship with our surroundings.13 Our personal experiences create an attachment to place that influences our perception of ourselves in broader ecological and cultural context. When we interpret nature, we make statements about ourselves: when we describe a specific environment, we communicate a sense of place that draws meaning from our experience in that environment. Environmental patriotism is a way to emphasize the role of place in national identity. Environmental patriotism acknowledges the power of national landscapes in influencing a people’s relationship with nature, reminding us of the sublime American wilderness that is part of our national identity. Environmental patriotism offers three ways to reconnect Americans with their environment: conservation or wise use of natural resources; stewardship, an appreciation of beauty and respect for bounty of national landscape; and democracy, participatory engagement in environmental issues.

Conservation Patriotism is a commitment to conservation. Conservation relates individuals’ interests to the broader common good, emphasizes resource availability for future generations to be in the public interest, and proffers a longterm perspective to link future impacts with shortterm interests. Establishing such issues in the public interest and connecting today’s actions with the future of the country can provide patriotic reasons to act to protect and wisely use natural resources. Persuasive appeals to conservation must contextualize environmental crises in longer-term vistas to reconcile security interests of the nation with broader sustainability goals for the world.

The appeal to the common good reconciles perceived tensions between environmental and economic needs and between individual and community values. Conservation encourages us to see the consequences of our own actions, to account for both short-term economic gain and long-term investments that enhance environmental health. Effective conservation rhetoric connects the immediate effects of consumption practices with the more permanent welfare of the nation.

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Stewardship Patriotism establishes membership in a community and an obligation for stewardship grounded on an attachment to communities and environments. Environmental patriotism suggests that citizens’ connection to place could motivate their participation in environmental decisions. Stewardship emphasizes the moral dimension of a nation’s relationship to the natural environment, “rooted in the connection between human and land.”14 Just as conservation emphasizes the common good, stewardship declares the country belongs to the people, who therefore have an obligation to preserve their natural heritage. These types of persuasive appeals declare it the nation’s responsibility to protect public access to magnificent scenery, central to national identity.

Stewardship is the relationship to the environment that derives from sentimental and emotional attachments to the land. These attachments provide an ethical dimension to our relationship with these landscapes and the need to act responsibly toward places of local and national importance.

Democracy Environmental patriotism offers a democratic framework to provide cultural connection and obligation across diverse interests and backgrounds.15 We might call this a civic environmentalism16 that draws upon individuals’ connection to place to persuade them to actively participate in their local communities.

Democracy emphasizes public access to abundant natural resources as a key to national strength. Environmental patriotism engages citizens by linking environmental problems to the experience of daily life and providing opportunities for individuals to identify with the environment.17 Environmental patriotism is a democratic ethic promoted by love of the land: the city, the country, and the world—one that promotes individual accountability and a community responsibility to conserve natural resources. Environmental patriotism rhetoric strives to bridge ideological divides and persuade individuals to come together for conservation. Patriotic rhetoric can help the nation’s environment take hold in the imagination of all people.

Early History of Environmental Patriotism In America Countless historians have documented the significant role the environment has played in American national identity. From the early days of American democracy, the nation’s greatness was defined by the land.

Thomas Jefferson understood that American democracy “depended on equal access to land and its resource.”18 Jefferson promoted an agrarian ideal as the foundation of democracy, establishing a deep-rooted American “attachment to agriculture.”19 A century later, the nation would transition from the agrarian democracy that Jefferson envisioned to an industrial society with production demands that dramatically altered the intensity and scale with which humans exploited natural resources. Beyond the agricultural promise of the fertile soil, new Americans saw a richness in the wild, uncultivated land past the farm fields. In his preeminent treatment of wilderness in American culture, Roderick Nash notes that “wilderness was actually an American asset” that nationalists used to distinguish themselves from their European counterparts: “American nationalists began to understand that it was in the wildness of its nature that their country was unmatched…. The same logic worked to convince Americans that because of the aesthetic and inspirational qualities of wilderness they were destined for artistic and literary excellence.”20 Indeed the “land of the free” captured the imagination of politicians and artists alike. In 1816, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton (who was instrumental in the construction of the Erie Canal) remarked: “can there be a country in the world better calculated than ours to exercise and to exalt the imagination… Here nature has conducted her operations on a magnificent scale…. this wild, romantic and awful scenery.”21 Perhaps Clinton’s boasting of the unparalleled American scenery was the type of American patriotism that vexed Alexander de Tocqueville. The French politico toured America in 1831, and published Democracy in America, popular on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In it, he noted a distinctiveness about American patriotism: “there is nothing more annoying in the habits of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans.

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A foreigner would indeed consent to praise much in their country; but he would want to be permitted to blame something, and this he is absolutely refused.”22 De Tocqueville described a public spirit in the United States, a “love of native country that has its source principally in the unreflective, disinterested, and indefinable sentiment that binds the heart of the man to the place where the man was born.”23 De Tocqueville ascribed Americans’ national vanity to an unbridled patriotism buoyed by pride in the beautiful countryside. As the nation expanded, citizens were lured by the promise of the western frontier’s bounty. Politicians espoused Manifest Destiny: the belief that European-Americans were destined to expand across the continent. Manifest Destiny was primarily used as a reason for the expansion of American territory: the ability to conquer and develop land seen as what would establish America as one of the great civilizations. In 1846, in the Congressional Globe, Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton invoked the “divine command” of European Americans to the land of North America.24 Frontier expansion was seen as a right and a blessing, for the destiny of the new nation was to extend into perpetuity. Americans have long felt a connection to the beauty of the “land of the free” and American scenery influenced national culture. “Images of the American landscape were also among the first popular native expressions of cultural nationalism in the early decade of the nineteenth century [as] the United States turned to Romantic images of nature as a source of patriotism.”24 Sweeping landscapes of American wilderness such as those from the 19th century Hudson River School resonated with a population grappling with national identity. In the romantic period, artists such as Thomas Cole, whose paintings, including View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm, attracted wide attention and confirmed for Americans the greatness of their land.26 Thomas Cole himself remarked, “the painter of American scenery has indeed privileges superior to any other. All nature here is new to art.”27 In his Essay on American Scenery, Cole wrote that his country “has features, and glorious ones, unknown to Europe.”28 Cole helped to establish American wilderness as evidence of America’s superiority to the rest of the world, especially Europe.

William Cullen Bryant and James Fenimore Cooper were among the literary counterparts who praised Cole’s wilderness-dominated canvases. Bryant was one of the first major American writers to focus on wilderness. In his edited volume Picturesque America (1872) he wondered why would one travel to Switzerland given the American West’s abundance of mountainous wilderness. Picturesque America offered more than 900 photos of American scenery that enabled Americans, still healing from the Civil War, “to construct a national self-image.”

The images were evidence of the “variety, uniqueness, and potential wealth of the American landscape and the advanced civilization of its cities.”29 The Leatherstocking novels of Bryant’s longtime friend James Fenimore Cooper, emphasized the unique American environment. His frontier characters “dignified wilderness by deprecating those insensitive to its ethical and aesthetic values.”30 In The Pioneers, Leatherstocking comes upon boys shooting flocks of pigeons without care for where they land and bemoans the “wasty manner” with which Americans squander resources.31 Leatherstocking’s character bolstered America’s self-image through individualism fostered by the wild adventure of living on the frontier. Cole, Cooper, and Bryant exemplify how literary and artistic appreciations helped to establish the wilderness as indelible part of American character. In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner gave a speech at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago on the “significance of the frontier in American history.” Inspired by the “landscape images that had informed the panorama of his own early life [Turner] conjoined the ideas of democracy and the frontier.”32 The ability for individuals to move west and establish land holdings represented a life of physical and social mobility many settlers had not enjoyed in Europe. In 19th century America, the land provided the support for democratic institutions: romantic vistas of the American landscape signified the democratic character of Americans.

The abundance of American land inspired feelings of American exceptionalism: The unspoiled landscape signified the ambitions of settlers and their descendants for a society unfettered by medieval social institutions.

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As America celebrated its first centennial, urbanization and industrialization were already creating a new American landscape—characterized by inspiring scenery and marred by environmental pollution. The development of the steam engine and other industrial technology transformed the American countryside and way of life.33 Resource-based industrialization “quickly became a dominating juggernaut over the physical world and its inhabitants that is now inescapable. Industrialization saw the natural world as obsolete until that natural world was absorbed into the factory system.”34 As industrial expansion devoured increasing amounts of natural resources and brought drastic environmental changes, citizens and politicians alike grew more vocal in their advocacy of conservation and “wise use” of natural resources. Environmental Patriotism in 20th Century America At the turn of the 20th century, early American conservationists were alarmed by rapid industrial development and warned of imminent depletion of the nation’s resources and destruction of the environment for future generations. Conservationists promoted the “rational” use of resources, with a focus on efficiency and planning for future use to the social, economic, and moral benefit of the nation.35 Speeches and writings of early conservationists incited a broad national debate about progress, American identity and the fate of “nature’s nation.”36 Conservationists waged a rhetorical campaign in support of policies to protect the nation’s forests, waterways, and abundant energy sources. Two of the most prominent voices of the national conservation movement were President Theodore Roosevelt and U.S. Forest Service chief Gifford Pinchot. In 1908, they held the White House Conservation Conference to introduce a campaign for a “new patriotism” to persuade all Americans to support conservation policy. For the first time, environmental conservation became a national issue. The publicity campaign worked: all Americans knew about conservation.37 Roosevelt and Pinchot defined conservation to be in the interest of the greatest good for the greatest number for the longest time.38 These three invocations: for the greatest good, for the greatest number, and for the longest time were the foundations of conservation’s new patriotism, and gave the responsibility to Americans for acting to ensure their own happiness and prosperity. New patriotism provided a moral narrative that explained conservation’s historical context, contemporary relevance and future necessity.

During Roosevelt’s conservation presidency, the Western United States experienced rapid and significant development. In 1906, railroad company executives and newly installed political leaders of nascent western cities held a conference in Salt Lake City, Utah to launch the See America First campaign promoting tourism to the region. The conference was an orchestrated event that laid out the rhetorical foundation of the See America First campaign. The See America First slogan was generally adopted and “awakened a nationwide interest in America’s wonder works of nature.”39 Three themes emerged in the conference rhetoric that provided the arguments of the movement for decades: the beauty of the American landscape, the role of railroad travel, and tourism as cultural nationalism. The See America First movement helped to cultivate this attachment and national support for a national park policy. This is part of a larger debate about how America was to use natural resources and ultimately the importance of the country’s wilderness for national identity and national progress.

This conference started a patriotic movement that “had wide currency and deep resonance in the formation of American national identity,”40 and launched a meme that lasted for decades. While cities in the western United States sought to attract more people to their local scenic attractions, populations boomed in Eastern manufacturing cities such as Pittsburgh, Chicago, and St. Louis. The new economy brought large factories and huge tenement houses for workers. Smoke abatement leagues formed in large industrial cities to respond to the “smoke nuisance.”41 A broad coalition of anti-smoke activists, including urban planners, architects, physicians, and everyday citizens, advocated for better standards of living for urban residents. Pittsburgh’s smoke abatement investigation gained national attention; its reports assessing a wide range of effects on city residents, and hosting a conference that launched the city’s smoke abatement movement. Dozens of articles, in newspapers and trade journals such as Power, Industrial World, and The Iron Age, chronicled the investigation and related publicity efforts.

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They illustrated three rhetorical frames: the changing symbol of smoke, the development of modern urban aesthetics, and advocacy on behalf of the city’s healthy citizenry. Pittsburgh’s smoke abatement efforts and the larger national movement were the presage to anti-smog movements of the coming decades. Smoke continued to be a problem for cities into the 1940s, but with the onset of World War II, the nation’s attention focused overseas. America’s industrial economy shifted into overdrive, producing vast stockpiles of weapons and supplies. Federal agencies such as the War Production Board and the Office of Price Administration launched a massive campaign for home front conservation to support the war. “Consumers were deluged with governmentsponsored messages urging them to avoid waste.”42 The government worked with the advertising industry to create hundreds of posters urging Americans to recycle waste and scrap, conserve food and durable goods, and plant victory gardens. Conservation propaganda successfully mobilized Americans to respond to the crisis of materials. The success of these messages also helped launch an advertising-fueled consumer economy after the war. America emerged from World War II a drastically changed nation since the Depression years that led up to the war. After the war, Americans embraced victorious consumption. The national ideals of conservation lost their appeal in a newly enabled consumer economy. Since World War II, patriotism has been inextricably tied to consumerism, marked by individual freedom and economic growth. American consumption has become political, and as consumer citizens, we have lost a sense of democratic patriotism.43 Individualism, “political cynicism, and a consequent retreat from public life … transforms citizens into spectators.44 Sullivan, Fried, and Dietz describe this as a “capitalist patriotism,” a view that exploitation of natural resources is essential to American prosperity.45 As economist Victor Lebow, who articulated planned and perceived obsolescence predicted, this conspicuous consumption became fuel for the American economy and central to the American way of life.46 The turn toward consumer patriotism has created an unsustainable planet. A significant mobilization of both individual efforts and popular support is needed to launch national action.

Conclusions Historian Angus Wright argues we must harness the force of patriotism to respond to the global environmental crisis. Wright asks: “How do we elicit the kind of collective and individual action and creativity that will be needed?... It cannot be fear alone, nor opportunity alone, nor persuasion alone, nor organization alone, but a blend of these elements… something called patriotism —a powerful force for good and ill—and now we need something like a planetary patriotism.”47 A lack of a national vision with regard to the environment calls for a new rhetorical strategy to engage Americans. Patriotism is a powerful rhetorical tool that can persuade Americans to live more sustainably. For the patriot, “critical engagement with one’s country constitutes the highest form of love.”48 National identification with the environment can provide more adherence to environmental causes, but environmental patriotism is a global concept, one that, “exhibits pride of place, but not fear of others.”49 Environmental patriotism is a “patriotism without borders” premised on the belief that “everyone deserves to live on a healthy planet, in peace and prosperity, using sustainability, compassion and respect as our guiding principles.”50 Such patriotic attachment is “not only the arbitrary nation of birth or the chosen nation of adoption but the entirety of this small, lonely planet and its interdependent web of life— unique in the known universe —on which rest squarely our own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”51 Environmental patriotism offers an expanded sense of homeland in order to promote global consciousness: to be patriotic beyond the nation, to be a patriot of the planet. Environmental patriotism is fostered by attachment to local and national environmental places, shared among the world’s citizens, that inspires local, national, and global action. Environmental patriotism rhetoric can revitalize a relationship to place that underscores global ecological connections. Environmental patriotism is a rhetorical strategy that can promote more effective national conservation. The three frames of environmental patriotism influence the way we experience the world: conservation strengthens our identification with the future, stewardship emphasizes a sense of place in our national identity, and democracy molds understanding of our role in shaping our world.

The way we speak about our environment strongly influences our actions. The choices we make as we build, dig, and harvest literally shape our world.

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How we frame the environment matters. Promoting environmental patriotism does more than simply publicize the environmental impact of human activities; is also compels a national response. The Green Patriot Poster project publishes artist submissions with environmentally patriotic messages such as “Uncle Sam Wants You to Recycle.”52 The campaign includes advertisements on Cleveland busses claiming, “this bus is an assault vehicle in the fight against global warming.” A “Bike Your City” campaign posts ads on bus kiosks in San Francisco.

Many of the posters evoke images of the World War II conservation campaign. Bill Maher is a bit more explicit in his book, If You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden, which calls upon patriotism to urge Americans to conserve.53 A modern victory garden movement relies on patriotic themes that also draw upon the wartime patriotism. These modern examples demonstrate how environmental patriotism negotiates the tensions between individual interests and community obligations, between economic progress and environmental protection, and between security and sustainability. Environmental patriotism is pragmatic: it can educate and mobilize public audiences to respond both to global climate change and to local environmental degradation. Environmental patriotism is also constitutive—it helps form our understanding of our environment. It does not just “respond to the zeitgeist—it helps shape it.”54 Notes 1. Conservation International, “The Biodiversity Hotspots,” (2013), http://www.conservation.org/where/priority_areas/ hotspots/Pages/hotspots_main.aspx.

2. Andres R. Edwards, Thriving Beyond Sustainability: Pathways to a Resilient Society (Vancouver, BC: New Society Publishers, 2010), p. 3.

3. Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), p. 158.

4. Anthony Leiserowitz et al., Americans’ Actions to Conserve Energy, Reduce Waste, and Limit Global Warming in November 2011, ed. Yale University and George Mason University (New Haven, CT: Yale Project on Climate Communication, 2011).

5. ecoAmerica, “Trends in America’s Climate and Environmental Attitudes,” (ecoAmerica 2011), 2, http://www.ecoamerica. net/sites/default/files/press/Climate_Environment_Attitudes_2011.pdf.

6. Ker Than, “Americans Least Green—and Feel Least Guilt, Survey Suggests,” (2012), http://news.nationalgeographic.com/ news/2012/07/120712-greendex-environment-green-sustainable-scienceconsumers-world/.

7. i.e., Igor Primoratz and Aleksandar Pavkovic, Eds., Patriotism: Philosophical and Political Perspectives (Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007).

8. Daniel Bar-Tal & E. Staub, Eds., Patriotism in the Lives of Individuals and Nations (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1997).

9. Terre Ryan, This Ecstatic Nation: The American Landscape and the Aesthetics of Patriotism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011).

10. Philip Cafaro, “Patriotism as an Environmental Virtue,” Journal of Agricultural and Enviromental Ethics, 23(2010), p. 192.

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11. Robyn Eckersley, “Environmentalism and Patriotism: An Unholy Alliance?,” in Patriotism: Philosophical and Political Perspectives, Igor Primoratz and Aleksandar Pavkovic, Eds. (Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007), 192. John L. Sullivan, Amy Fried, and Mary G. Dietz, “Patriotism, Politics, and the Presidential Election of 1988,” American Journal of Political Science 36, no. 1 (1992), 212. Christine Klein, “Environmental Patriotism,” in Beyond Environmental Law: Policy Proposals for a Better Environmental Future, Donald M. Driesen and Alyson C. Flournoy, Eds. (Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 1. Alex Steffen to AlexSteffen.Com, December 5, 2012, http:// www.alexsteffen.com/2012/11/climate-patriotism/.

12. Robert James Branham, “”God Save the ___!” American National Songs and National Identities, 17601798,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 85(1999).

13. J. G. Cantrill, “The Environmental Self and a Sense of Place: Communication Foundations for Regional Ecosystem Management,” Journal of Applied Communication 26(1998); J. G. Cantrill et al., “Exploring a Sense of Self-in-Place to Explain the Impulse for Urban Sprawl,” Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture 1, no. 2 (2007).

14. Tarla Rai Peterson and Cristi Choat Horton, “Rooted in the Soil: How Understanding the Perspectives of Landowners Can Enhance the Management of Environmental Disputes.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 81(1995), 157.

15. Robert Hariman, “Aversion to and a Version of the Democratic Aesthetic” (paper presented at the Argument at Century’s End: Reflecting on the Past and Envisioning the Future, 2000), 289; Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, “Performing Civic Identity: The Iconic Photograph of the Flag Raising on Iwo Jima,” Quarterly Journal of Speech, 88, no. 363–392 (2002), 376.

16. Walter F. Baber and Robert V. Bartlett, Deliberative Environmental Politics: Democracy and Ecological Rationality (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2005), 195.

17. M. Jimmie Killingsworth and Jacqueline S. Palmer, Ecospeak: Rhetoric and Environmental Politics in America, (1992), 25.

18. Steven Stoll, “Farm against Forest,” in American Wilderness: A New History, Michael Lewis (Ed.), (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 59.

19. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (London: J. Stockdale, 1781).

20. Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (4th ed.). (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 69.

21. Hans Huth, Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, 1972), 44.

22. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. George Lawrence (New York: Harper Collins, 1835/1969). 23. Ibid.

24. Thomas Hart Benton (Ed.), Manifest Destiny, United States Congress (Washington, D.C. : Congressional Globe, 1846).

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25. Angela Miller, “The Fate of Wilderness in American Landscape Art: The Dilemmas of “Nature’s Nation,” in American Wilderness: A New History, Michael Lewis (Ed.). (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 92.

26. John Rennie Short, Imagined Country: Society, Culture, and Environment (London: Routledge, 1991); Eric Kaufmann, “Naturalizing the Nation: The Rise of Naturalistic Nationalism in the United States and Canada,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 40, no. 4 (1998).

27. Huth, Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes, 46.

28. Thomas Cole, “Essay on American Scenery,” American Monthly Magazine, January 1836, para18, https://www.csun.edu/~ta3584/Cole.htm.

29. Sue Rainey, Creating Picturesque America: Monument to the Natural and Cultural Landscape. (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1993).

30. Roderick Nash, “The American Invention of National Parks.” American Quarterly 22, no. 3 (1970): 726– 735.

31. James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers, 25 vols., vol. 4, The Works of James Fenimore Cooper (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1823/1895).

32. Ryan, This Ecstatic Nation: The American Landscape and the Aesthetics of Patriotism, 20.

33. Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

34. John Opie, Nature’s Nation: An Environmental History of the United States (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1998), ix.

35. Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1920 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999).

36. Richard Grusin, “The Reproduction of Nature: Cultural Origins of America’s National Parks.” Letters 8, no.

2 (Spring 2000). Opie, “Nature’s Nation: An Environmental History of the United States.”

37. see Christine Oravec, “Conservationism vs. Preservationism: The “Public Interest” in the Hetch Hetchy Controversy,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 70(1984).

38. “Letter Appointing the National Conservation Commission,” National Conservation Commission (Ed. under the direction of the Executive committee by Henry Gannett, 1908), 5.

39. The National Rotarian, The National Rotarian: Boston, (May 1912).

40. H. K. Rothman. Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West. (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1998),146.

41. David Stradling, “Dirty Work and Clean Air: Locomotive Firemen, Environmental Activists, and Stories of Conflict,” Journal of Urban History 28, no. 1 (2001); David Stradling and Joel A. Tarr, “Environmental Activism, Locomotive Smoke, and the Corporate Response: The Case of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Chicago Smoke Control,” The Business History Review 73, no. 4 (1999), http://www.jstor.org/stable/3116130 ; David Stradling and Peter Thorsheim, “The Smoke of Great Cities: British and American Efforts to Control Air Pollution, 18601914,” Environmental History 4, no. 1 (1999), http://www.jstor. org/stable/3985326.

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InterpNEWS 42. Catherine Saleeby, Brief History of World War Two Advertising Campaigns: Conservation, (2008), Duke University Libraries, http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/adaccess/conserve. html.

43. Meg Jacobs, Pocketbook Politics: Economic Citizenship in Twentieth-Century America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 185.

44. Johathan M. Hansen, The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), xiv.

45. Sullivan, et al., Patriotism, Politics, and the Presidential Election of 1988, 212.

46. Lebow, Victor. “Price Competition in 1955.” Journal of Retailing 31, no. 1 (1955): 5-10.

47. Angus Wright, “Environmental Historian Angus Wright’s Call for a Planetary Patriotism: Interview with Robert Jensen,” Texas Observer, November 14 2011, http://www.texasobserver. org/environmental-historianangus-wrights-call-for-a-planetary-patriotism/.

48. Hansen, The Lost Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890-1920, xv.

49. Dmitri Siegel and Edward Morris, Green Patriot Posters: Images for a New Activism (New York: Metropolis Books, 2010), front flap.

50. Mark Lovett, “Global Patriot,” (2009), www.globalpatriot.com.

51. Emmett Duffy, “The Natural Patriot,” (2009), http://naturalpatriot.org/.

52. Siegel and Morris, “Green Patriot Posters: Images for a New Activism.”

53. Bill Maher, When You Ride Alone You Ride with Bin Laden (Los Angeles: Phoenix Books, 2005).

54. Siegel and Morris, Green Patriot Posters: Images for a New Activism, front flap.

About the Author Anne Marie Todd is professor of Communication Studies at San José State University. She holds a PhD in rhetoric and cultural studies from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California (2002). Her book, Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement (Routledge, 2013) suggests patriotism as a persuasive framework for sustainability. Her research has appeared in Public Understanding of Science, Environmental Communication, Ethics & the Environment, and Critical Studies in Media Communication.

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InterpNEWS Greyfriars Bobby

by Ben Johnson “Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all”.

For over 20 years I had the privilege of working in Scotland (based in Edinburgh) on a variety of interpretive projects, and enjoyed working on many Edinburgh tourist attractions. One of my favorite sites was visiting Greyfriars Kirkyard (cemetery) with its amazing gravestones. Two of the graves in the Kirkyard are associated with Greyfriars Bobby. Here is how a little dog can be part of a tourism experience. By the way, the statue of Greyfriars Bobby is located outside the entrance to the Kirkyard by Greyfriars Pub (a great “fish & chips). So when in Edinburgh, the Kirkyard is a definite site to visit. John Veverka – Interpretive Planner.

In 1850 a gardener called John Gray, together with his wife Jess and son John, arrived in Edinburgh.

Unable to find work as a gardener he avoided the workhouse by joining the Edinburgh Police Force as a night watchman.

To keep him company through the long winter nights John took on a partner, a diminutive Skye Terrier, his ‘watchdog’ called Bobby. Together John and Bobby became a familiar sight trudging through the old cobbled streets of Edinburgh. Through thick and thin, winter and summer, they were faithful friends.

The years on the streets appear to have taken their toll on John, as he was treated by the Police Surgeon for tuberculosis. John eventually died of the disease on the 15th February 1858 and was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Bobby soon touched the hearts of the local residents when he refused to leave his master’s grave, even in the worst weather conditions.

The gardener and keeper of Greyfriars tried on many occasions to evict Bobby from the Kirkyard. In the end he gave up and provided a shelter for Bobby by placing sacking beneath two tablestones at the side of John Gray’s grave.

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Bobby’s fame spread throughout Edinbu Edinburgh. It is reported that almost on a daily basis the crowds would gather at the entrance of the Kirkyard waiting iting for the one o’clock gun that would signal the he appearance appe of Bobby leaving the grave for his midday meal.

Bobby would follow William Dow,, a loc local joiner and cabinet maker to the same Coffee offee House H that he had frequented with his now dead master, ter, whe where he was given a meal.

In 1867 a new bye-law was passedd that rrequired all dogs to be licensed in the city or they the would be destroyed.

Sir William Chambers (The Lordd Provost of Edinburgh) decided to pay Bobby’s licence icence and presented him with a collar with a brass inscription “Greyfri reyfriars Bobby from the Lord Provost 1867 licensed” ensed”. This can be seen at the Museum of Edinburgh.

The kind folk of Edinburgh took good ood ca care of Bobby, but still he remained loyal to o his master. m For fourteen years the dead man’s faithful dog kept const constant watch and guard over the grave until his own death in 1872.

Baroness Angelia Georgina Burdett-Cout Coutts, President of the Ladies Committee of the RSPCA, RS was so deeply moved by his story that she askedd the Ci City Council for permission to erect a granite te fountain fount with a statue of Bobby placed on top.

William Brody sculptured the statue ue from life, and it was unveiled without ceremony ony in November N 1873, opposite Greyfriars Kirkyard. And nd it is wit with that, that Scotland’s Capital city will always remember its most famous and faithful dog Bobby’s headstone reads “Greyfriars ars Bobby – died 14th January 1872 – aged 16 years ars – Let his loyalty and devotion be a lesson to us all”.

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InterpNEWS Interpreting Scottish folk hero – Rob Roy – The Rest of the Story.

IN Staff I had worked in Scotland for over 20 years, and had taken one of the guided history tours which included a stop at Rob Roy’s family grave site. I learned a lot about this folk hero and thought I would share his story with you. John Veverka, IN publisher.

Grave of Rob Roy (center) and his wife and daughter.

Rob Roy was born at Glengyle, at the head of Loch Katrine, as recorded in the baptismal register of Buchanan, Stirling. His parents were Donald Glas MacGregor and Margaret Campbell. He was also descended from the Macdonalds of Keppoch through his paternal grandmother.

In January 1693, at Corrie Arklet farm near Inversnaid, he married Mary MacGregor of Comar (1671–1745), who was born at Leny Farm, Strathyre. The couple had four sons: James Mor MacGregor (1695–1754), Ranald (1706–1786), Coll (died 1745) and Robert (1715–1754—known as Robin Oig or Young Rob). It has been argued that they also adopted a cousin named Duncan, but this is not certain.

Along with many Highland clansmen, at the age of eighteen Rob Roy together with his father joined the Jacobite rising of 1689 led by John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee, known as Bonnie Dundee, to support the Stuart King James II who had fled Britain during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Although victorious in initial battles, Dundee was killed in 1689, deflating the rebellion. Rob's father was taken to jail, where he was held on treason charges for two years. Rob's mother Margaret's health failed during Donald's time in prison. By the time Donald was finally released, his wife was dead. The Gregor chief never returned to his former spirit or health.

In 1716 Rob Roy moved to Glen Shira for a short time and lived under the protection of John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, also known as Red John of the Battles, "Iain Ruaidh nan Cath." Argyll negotiated an amnesty and protection for Rob and granted him permission to build a house in the Glen for the surrendering up of weapons. "Traditionally the story goes that Argyll only received a large cache of rusty old weapons." A sporran and dirk handle which belonged to Rob Roy can still be seen at Inveraray Castle. Rob Roy only used this house occasionally for the next three or four years.

The remains of Rob Roy MacGregor's house in upper Glen Shira.

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In July 1717, Rob Roy and the whole of the Clan Gregor were specifically excluded from the benefits of the Indemnity Act 1717 which had the effect of pardoning all others who took part in the Jacobite rising of 1715.

Despite many claims to the contrary, Rob Roy was not wounded at the Battle of Glen Shiel in 1719, in which a British Government army with allied Highlanders defeated a force of Jacobite Scots supported by the Spanish.

However, two of the Jacobite commanders, Lord George Murray and the 5th Earl of Seaforth, were badly wounded. Robert Roy MacGregor is claimed in many accounts to have been wounded, but the actual text of Ormonde's account of the battle has the following: "Finding himself hard-pressed, Lord Seaforth sent for further support. A reinforcement under Rob Roy went to his aid, but before it reached him the greater part of his men had given way, and he himself had been severely wounded in the arm." Note that this does not state that Rob Roy was wounded, but Seaforth. Sometime around 1720 and after the heat of Rob's involvement at the Battle of Glen Shiel had died down, Rob moved to Monachyle Tuarach by Loch Doine and sometime before 1722 Rob finally moved to Inverlochlarig Beag on the Braes of Balquhidder.

Paintings of Rob Roy.

Rob Roy became a respected cattleman—this was a time when cattle raiding and selling protection against theft were commonplace means of earning a living. Rob Roy borrowed a large sum to increase his own cattle herd, but owing to the disappearance of his chief herder, who was entrusted with the money to bring the cattle back, Rob Roy lost his money and cattle, and defaulted on his loan. As a result, he was branded an outlaw, and his wife and family were evicted from their house at Inversnaid, which was then burned down. After his principal creditor, James Graham, 1st Duke of Montrose, seized his lands, Rob Roy waged a private blood feud against the Duke until 1722, when he was forced to surrender. Later imprisoned, he was finally pardoned in 1727. He died in his house at Inverlochlarig Beg, Balquhidder, on 28 December 1734, aged 63.

Another version of this series of events states that Rob Roy's estates of Craigrostan and Ardess were forfeited for his part in the rebellion of 1715.

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The Duke of Montrose acquired the property in 1720 by open purchase from the Commissioners of Enquiry. K. Macleay, M.D., in Historical Memoirs of Rob Roy and the Clan MacGregor quotes, "but he had taken the resolution of becoming a Roman Catholic, and he accordingly left the lonely residence we have described, and returning to Perthshire, went to a Mr. Alexander Drummond, an old priest of that faith, who resided at Drummond Castle." Macleay takes the view that Rob did this out of sorrow for his crimes.

Glengyle House, on the shore of Loch Katrine, dates back to the early 18th century, with a porch dated to 1707, and is built on the site of the 17th century stone cottage where Rob Roy is said to have been born. Since the 1930s, the Category B-listed building had been in the hands of successive water authorities, but was identified as surplus to requirements and put up for auction in November 2004, despite objections from the Scottish National Party.

The Rob Roy Way, a long distance footpath from Drymen to Pitlochry, was created in 2002 and named in Rob Roy's honour.

Descendants of Rob Roy settled around McGregor, Iowa, United States, and in 1849 it was reported that the original MacGregor seal and signet was owned by Alex McGregor of Iowa. The Scots Gaelic clan seal was inscribed "S' Rioghal Mo Dhream " ("Royal is my race"). The signet was a bloodstone from Loch Lomond, and was sketched by William Williams.

In 1878, the football club Kirkintilloch Rob Roy was founded and named in his memory.

The year 1723 saw the publication of a fictionalized account of his life, The Highland Rogue.

Rob Roy became a legend in his own lifetime, and George I was moved to issue a pardon for his crimes just as he was about to be transported to the colonies. The publication of Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott in 1817, further added to his fame and fleshed out his biography. Hector Berlioz was inspired by the book to compose an overture. William Wordsworth wrote a poem called "Rob Roy's Grave" during a visit to Scotland. (The 1803 tour was documented by his sister Dorothy in Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland. The editor of the book changed the place of burial to the present location.)

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Adaptations of his story have also been told in film, including the silent film Rob Roy (1922), the Walt Disney Productions film Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (1953), and the Rob Roy (1995) film directed by Michael CatonJones, starring Liam Neeson as the title character, and shot entirely on location in the Scottish Highlands.

In 1894, a bartender at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City created the Rob Roy cocktail in honour of the premiere of Rob Roy, an operetta by composer Reginald De Koven and lyricist Harry B. Smith loosely based upon Robert Roy MacGregor

In 2017, a new statue of Rob Roy was commissioned to be installed in Peterculter, Aberdeen. The sculptor appointed was David J. Mitchell, a graduate of Grays School of Art in Aberdeen.

References: -Rob Roy MacGregor His Life and Times, W. H. Murray -Nigel Tranter, Rob Roy MacGregor, New York: Barnes and Noble. ISBN 1-897784-31-7 (2005 reprint) -Peter Hume Brown, A History of Scotland to the Present Time, p. 154 - The Jacobite Attempt of 1719, ed by WK Dickson, SHS 1895, Introduction li and p. 272 - Carol Kyros Walker (1997). Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland by Dorothy Wordsworth. Yale University Press.

See Appendix 5.

- Louis Albert Necker, A voyage to the Hebrides, or western isles of Scotland;: with observations ..., p. 80 - Sir James Balfour Paul, LLD, ed. (1909). The Scots Peerage, Vol 6. Edinburgh: David Douglas. p. 273.

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InterpNEWS Interpreting the Secrets of Sutton Hoo (UK).

The elite Anglo-Saxon ship burial cemetery excavated there in the 1930s, Current Archaeology.

Overlooking the famous excavation of Mound 1 at Sutton Hoo. Recent excavations have uncovered surprising later aspects of the cemetery’s later use. (Photo: Sutton Hoo Archive)

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InterpNEWS Sutton Hoo is best known for the elite Anglo-Saxon cemetery excavated there in the 1930s, but more recent campaigns tell an even richer tale. The royal burials sprang from an earlier cemetery, and were followed by dozens of graves of execution victims. How does the sequence track the journey of Anglo-Saxons, from pagan immigrants to a Christian kingdom?

Brought together in a new book, Carly Hilts spoke to Martin Carver to find out more.

The sumptuous Anglo-Saxon graves uncovered at Sutton Hoo in 1938 and 1939 are arguably the most celebrated early medieval discoveries excavated in this country. The outline of the great ship buried beneath Mound 1, together with its gold and garnet grave goods, and the moustachioed face of the helmet recovered from its remains, are immediately recognizable relics of a long-vanished heroic age.

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Sutton Hoo visitor center exhibits and artifact displays.

Yet beyond these trappings of regal glory, the last phase of the site’s life had a darker tale to tell – as Martin Carver (now Emeritus Professor at the University of York) found while leading investigations on the site between 1984 and 1993. It was not further princely burials that this project uncovered, but evidence of judicial executions, carried out not as part of pagan ceremonies, but, more likely, by Christian kings.

Sample of the burial goods on display in the interpretive center.

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Sutton Hoo Ship Burial and the Famous Helmet That Could Belong To Raedwald, King Of All The Kings Of Britain.

Shadows in the sand Two intriguing groups of graves were uncovered during Martin’s excavations on the site 25 years ago. They are spread some distance apart – with one cluster lying on the very eastern fringe of the cemetery, and the other apparently focused on one of the royal barrows, Mound 5 – but they are united by their unusual contents.

Thanks to the highly acidic local soil, the skeletons that these burials once held have long since vanished, and yet it is still possible to pick out their occupants. Fragile shapes preserving the rounded form of their bodies, cast in crusty brown sand, could still be seen at the bottom of each grave – leading these figures to be dubbed the ‘Sandmen of Sutton Hoo’.

Although the acidic soil had long-since consumed most of the human remains, fragile outlines of bodies, picked out in dark sand, could still be seen in the graves. These enigmatic forms were dubbed ‘Sandmen’.

(Photo: Nigel Macbeth)

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InterpNEWS This remarkable preservation was not the only unusual aspect of the graves. While it is not unusual to find Anglo-Saxon burials in crouched positions and other postures besides lying flat on their backs, the agonised poses of these contorted bodies was something else entirely. Apparently interred in some haste, some of the Sandmen had been buried lying on their sides, on their front, and even folded in half. Others showed signs of having their wrists and ankles bound, while still more had been subjected to mutilations including beheading.

What did these grisly discoveries signify?

A view over the barrow cemetery.

Some of the Sandmen burials investigated by Martin Carver clustered around Mount 5 (Photo: c Hoppitt/Martin Carver).

Taking the two groups individually, the 16 burials lying in the shadow of Mound 5 (a barrow covering the cremated remains of what is thought to be an elite man) are scattered mostly around the south and east sides of the monument, with the majority dug directly at its foot and five more lying in reused quarry pits. All of their occupants seem to have met a brutal end: many were found lying face down, and some had had their heads removed and set in odd places – by their shoulder, knee, or foot. In one case (Burial 54), the head seems to have been taken away altogether, while in another (Burial 52), the head had been replaced at the neck but turned 180 degrees, so that its otherwise supine owner was staring into the soil at the bottom of the grave.

Equally dramatic was Burial 55, containing a body folded backwards almost double and possibly cut into quarters – while there were also double and triple burials, notably the remains of a decapitated man lying on his back, with the bodies of two women placed face-down on top of him.

At the time of their discovery (see CA 118), it was suggested that these could be satellite burials directly associated with the mound – human sacrifices, ritually slaughtered as part of a princely funeral. Their mutilated bodies might reflect some aspect of these rites, it was thought – but while the other group of Sandmen showed similarly distorted poses, their burials hinted at a different interpretation.

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InterpNEWS

The Sandmen burials were remarkable not only for their unusual preservation, but for the agonised poises of the figures. (Image: Juliet Reeves)

The ‘Group 1’ graves on the edge of the Sutton Hoo burial ground lay in two arcs around an open space at the end of some kind of avenue, and these 23 graves exhibit a similarly diverse range of poses to those around Mound 5 (‘Group 2’). Although the team also found a small number of more conventional burials among them, where individuals had been laid to rest in wooden boxes or coffins, the majority had undergone similar treatment to the Mound 5 bodies. Three individuals had been placed in the grave in a crouched or kneeling position; others had been decapitated; one – nicknamed ‘the ploughman’ – had been interred in a spread-eagled arrangement, covered by some kind of wooden implement; and another’s neck had apparently been broken, with skull and several vertebrae lying at a right angle to the rest of their body. Many of these individuals also seem to have been tied up; four, found lying face down, had wrists and ankles crossed as if they had been bound at the time of burial, while another individual, seen with an arm pinioned behind their back, and one with arms stretched over their head, may have been similarly restrained. But why?

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InterpNEWS

The rest of the story about the 15million-year-old rhinoceros fossil found at Blue Lake, Washington.

Burke Museum

Blue lake rhino replication, Burke Museum, Seattle Courtesy Burke Museum

Not all fossils are bones. (Or shells. Or teeth.) Most of us would agree that mammoth tusks and Stegosaurusspikes are pretty darn cool. And yet, the fossil record is not limited to old body parts. "Fossils" are defined as any "naturally preserved remains or traces of [life forms] that existed in the geologic past."

If you'll excuse the pun, that covers a lot of ground. A fossil can take the form of a footprint, a leaf impression or a filled-in tunnel left behind by prehistoric land beavers.

One of the strangest fossils ever discovered is actually a cave. About 15 million years ago, in eastern Washington state, a volcanic fissure eruption sent lava streaming into a shallow river or lake where a rhino happened to be wallowing.

A layer of basaltic rock formed around the beast, preserving the outline of its (well-cooked) body. For millions of years, this rhino-shaped hole in the earth lay hidden in the cliffs of Washington's Grant County, near Blue Lake, a popular hiking destination.

This diagram shows how the rhino was likely exposed by a glacial flood 200 feet (60 meters) above the surface of Blue Lake in Washington. Note the bubblefilled basalt from an earlier lava flow, the light-colored sandy sediments, which were once a lake bottom, and the pillow basalt surrounding the cave. Courtesy of the Burke Museum.

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A cast (exact replica) of the Blue Lake Rhino mold fossil as it used to be displayed in the Burke Museum.

By the 1930s, erosion had worn a hole into one end of the subterranean creature mold, exposing it to the open air. Here's the story of how the "Blue Lake Rhino Cave" came to be — and how four Seattle rock hounds accidentally discovered it.

American Rhinos Only five rhino species are alive today, and none of the living five species are indigenous to North or South America. However, from about 40 to 70 million years ago, rhinos were common in North America. Some — like the barrel-chested Teleoceras — were hippo-like, semiaquatic animals. Others had wicked tusks instead of the nasal horns we see in their modern-day counterparts.

Paleontologists think the Blue Lake Rhino Cave likely formed around the corpse of a Diceratherium. This type of rhino was sexually dimorphic, meaning that males and females looked visibly different from one another.

While female Diceratherium were hornless, each adult male had a pair of small horns sitting side-by-side near the tip of his snout.

The dimensions of the Blue Lake cave tell us that the Diceratherium who left it behind was about 8 feet (2.4 meters) long from snout to rear and stood a little less than 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall at the shoulder. In life, the animal probably weighed 1 ton (0.9 metric tons) or so.

Nobody knows if the creature had already died when it became entombed. However, judging by the contours of the mold, it seems the body was rather bloated. This could indicate that decomposition was already setting in.

Also, the legs are pointed skyward, telling us the rhino may have been floating on its back in a state of rigor mortis.

The cave's walls are made of 15-million-year-old pillow basalt, a kind of igneous rock that normally forms when lava contacts cold water and rapidly cools down. So dead or alive, the Diceratherium must've been hanging out in a body of water during a volcanic eruption. Then the lava came pouring in.

Lava can hit temperatures of more than 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit (900 degrees Celsius). Ordinarily, this ultrahot material would've burned right through the beast's skin, flesh and bone. But instead, the cold water converted the molten rock into a tightly packed layer of hardening pillow basalt.

The corpse eventually rotted away and most of its bones disappeared. Yet the mold that enveloped the body stayed largely intact. Largely, but not entirely.

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The rhino cave (seen here on the right) was originally located in the summer of 1935 by two couples hiking high on the cliff in search of petrified wood. Courtesy of the Burke Museum.

A Chance Discovery When you think about it, the fact that we even know this weird little cave exists is pretty amazing. Millions of years after the thing formed, flowing water carved an opening in the mold, right about where the rhino's hindquarters used to be. Yet, erosion hasn't destroyed it completely.

Today, the cave's entrance is big enough for an adult person to enter. But getting inside may prove difficult for some visitors. You see, the Blue Lake Rhino Cave is located in the face of a cliff, about 300 feet (91 meters) above the lake that shares its name.

During the summer of 1935, the Peabodys and the Frieles — two adventurous couples from Seattle — were hiking around the cliff in search of petrified wood. On their trip, the quartet happened to discover the cave; Mr. Haakon Friele had the honor of becoming the first person in recorded history to enter the prehistoric rhino mold.

Inside, he noticed a handful of fragmentary animal bone fossils, including a partial jaw. These were sent to paleobotanist George F. Beck of Central Washington University, who couldn't resist visiting the site for himself. Upon gathering more bones, he enlisted California Institute of Technology paleontologist Chester Stock to identify them.

Stock determined that the bony bits came from an extinct rhino. Soon, the scientific community realized that the cave itself was a full body cast of that very same animal, a beast who last drew breath 15 million years ago.

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In 1948, a team from the University of California at Berkley heroically scaled the cliff and filled the cave with plaster, creating a three-dimensional duplicate of the interior. Also, an exact, hollow replica of the cave was put on display at Seattle's Burke Museum.

Attempting to enter the real thing can be dangerous — the surrounding cliff face is quite steep. But hey, you can always listen to the musical tribute! The Ratfish Wranglers, a science-savvy rock band led by paleoartist Ray Troll, play a fossil-tastic song called "Blue Lake Rhino."

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InterpNEWS Newly Discovered Fossil Footprints from Grand Canyon National Park Force Paleontologists to Rethink Early Inhabitants of Ancient Deserts NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY & SCIENCE The National Park Service Press Release, 2019

Artwork depicting the Coconino desert environment and two primitive tetrapods, based on the occurrence of Ichniotherium from Grand Canyon National Park. Credit: Voltaire Paes Neto illustrator

(Grand Canyon, Arizona) - An international team of paleontologists has united to study important fossil footprints recently discovered in a remote location within Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. A large sandstone boulder contains several exceptionally well-preserved trackways of primitive tetrapods (four-footed animals) which inhabited an ancient desert environment. The 280-million-year-old fossil tracks date to almost the beginning of the Permian Period, prior to the appearance of the earliest dinosaurs.

The track-bearing boulder (Coconino Sandstone), Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. General view of the boulder and the tracks (left). False color depth map (depth in mm) (right). Scale: 50 cm (NPS Photos).

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The first scientific article reporting fossil tracks from the Grand Canyon was published in 1918, just a year before the park was established as a unit of the National Park Service. One hundred years later, during the Centennial Celebration for Grand Canyon National Park, new research on ancient footprints from the park is being presented in a scientific publication released this week. Brazilian paleontologist Dr. Heitor Francischini, from the Laboratory of Vertebrate Paleontology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, is the lead author of the new publication, working with scientists from Germany and the United States.

Francischini and Dr. Spencer Lucas, Curator of Paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque, New Mexico, first visited the Grand Canyon fossil track locality in 2017. The paleontologists immediately recognized the fossil tracks were produced by a long-extinct relative of very early reptiles and were similar to tracks known from Europe referred to as Ichniotherium (ICK-nee-oh-thay-ree-um).

This new discovery at Grand Canyon is the first occurrence of Ichniotherium from the Coconino Sandstone and from a desert environment. In addition, these tracks represent the geologically youngest record of this fossil track type from anywhere in the world.

Ichniotherium is a kind of footprint believed to have been made by an enigmatic group of extinct tetrapods known as the diadectomorphs. The diadectomorphs were a primitive group of tetrapods that possessed characteristics of both amphibians and reptiles. The evolutionary relationships and paleobiology of diadectomorphs have long been important and unresolved questions in the science of vertebrate paleontology.

Although the actual track maker for the Grand Canyon footprints may never be known for certain, the Grand Canyon trackways preserve the travel of a very early terrestrial vertebrate. The measurable characteristics of the tracks and trackways indicate a primitive animal with short legs and a massive body. The creature walked on all four legs and each foot possessed five clawless digits.

Another interesting aspect of the new Grand Canyon fossil tracks is the geologic formation in which they are preserved. The Coconino Sandstone is an eolian (wind-deposited) rock formation that exhibits cross-bedding and other sedimentary features indicating a desert / dune environment of deposition. Therefore, the presence of Ichniotherium in the Coconino Sandstone is the earliest evidence of diadectomorphs occupying an arid desert environment.

Close-up view of the Ichniotherium trackway from Grand Canyon National Park. Photo courtesy of Heitor Francischini.

According to Francischini, "These new fossil tracks discovered in Grand Canyon National Park provide important information about the paleobiology of the diadectomorphs. The diadectomorphs were not expected to live in an arid desert environment, because they supposedly did not have the classic adaptations for being completely independent of water. The group of animals that have such adaptations is named Amniota (extant reptiles, birds and mammals) and diadectomorphs are not one of them."

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Lucas also notes that "paleontologists have long thought that only amniotes could live in the dray and harsh Permian deserts. This discovery shows that tetrapods other than reptiles were living in those deserts, and, surprisingly, were already adapted to life in an environment of limited water."

During 2019, in recognition of the Grand Canyon National Park Centennial, the National Park Service is undertaking a comprehensive paleontological resource inventory for the park. A large team of specialists in geology and paleontology will participate in fieldwork and research to help expand our understanding of the rich fossil record for Grand Canyon National Park.

For more information on Grand Canyon National Park’s Centennial anniversary and a full list of events please visit, go.nps.gov/2019_events.

Media Contacts: National Park Service: Contact: Vincent L. Santucci, 202-359-4124

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Researchers Unearth Largest-Ever Dinosaur The giant thunderclap dinosaur. The dinosaur was twice the size of the modern-day large African elephant.

By Alexa Lardieri, Staff Writer US News

(CNN) If humans had lived 200 million years ago, they would have marveled at the largest dinosaur of its time.

It's name means "a giant thunderclap at dawn."

The recently discovered fossil of a new dinosaur species in South Africa revealed a relative of the brontosaurus that weighed 26,000 pounds, about double the size of a large African elephant.

The researchers have named it Ledumahadi mafube, which is Sesotho for "a giant thunderclap at dawn."

Sesotho is an official South African language indigenous to the part of the country where the dinosaur was found.

"The name reflects the great size of the animal as well as the fact that its lineage appeared at the origins of sauropod dinosaurs," said Jonah Choiniere, study author and paleontology professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. "It honors both the recent and ancient heritage of southern Africa."

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Jurassic dinosaur fossils seen at the Dinosaur National Monument. The newly-discovered dinosaur is believed to be from the Jurassic period, approximately 200 million years ago. (MIKE LYVERS/GETTY IMAGES)

Apart from its massive size, there are other evolutionary details about the new species that make it entirely unique, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

"It shows us that even as far back as 200 million years ago, these animals had already become the largest vertebrates to ever walk the Earth," Choiniere said.

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Finding a new dinosaur Choiniere's graduate student, Blair McPhee, discovered the bones of an unknown dinosaur in 2012.

"Blair told me how important he thought it was, and even showed me that some of its bones were still sticking out of the rocks in the field," Choiniere said.

Over years of excavation, the team uncovered the fossil of a fully-grown adult dinosaur, likely about 14 years old when it died.

Ledumahadi was a close relative of sauropod dinosaurs, like the brontosaurus and others that ate plants and walked on all four legs. But the fossil shows that it evolved earlier, and independently, of sauropods.

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Sauropods had a posture and thick, column-like limbs that are very similar to elephants. But they evolved from ancestors that walked predominantly on two legs. Adapting to walk on all fours allowed sauropods to grow larger and supported the digestive process needed for their herbivore diet.

The researchers believe that Ledumahadi was a transitional dinosaur, an evolutionary experiment itself during the Early Jurassic period. The forelimbs of this dinosaur are more "crouched," while being very thick to support its giant body.

"The first thing that struck me about this animal is the incredible robustness of the limb bones," said McPhee, lead study author. "It was of similar size to the gigantic sauropod dinosaurs, but whereas the arms and legs of those animals are typically quite slender, Ledumahadi's are incredibly thick."

The researchers wanted to find out whether or not this dinosaur walked on two or four legs, so they developed a new method to test it. They compiled data of dinosaurs, animals and reptiles that walked on two or four legs, including leg measurements and thickness. Comparing the data from the fossil with this dataset enabled them to determine Ledumahadi's posture.

While the method helped them determine that Ledumahadi walked on four legs, it also revealed that other early similar dinosaurs were also experimenting with walking on all fours.

"The evolution of sauropods isn't quite as straightforward as we once thought," Choiniere said. "It appears that sauropodomorphs evolved four-legged postures at least twice before they gained the ability to walk with upright limbs, which undoubtedly helped make them so successful in an evolutionary sense."

Sauropodomorphs by Raul Martin

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Location is key The newly discovered dinosaur is a close relative of gigantic dinosaurs that lived during the same time in Argentina, which supports the idea that all of the continents were still assembled as Pangea, a supercontinent made up of most of the world's land mass during the Early Jurassic.

"It shows how easily dinosaurs could have walked from Johannesburg to Buenos Aires at that time," Choiniere said.

When it roamed the land 200 million years ago, Ledumahadi lived in South Africa's Free State Province, but it looked very different then. Instead of the mountainous area that it is now, the land was flat and semi-arid, with shallow streams that could easily dry out.

And Ledumahadi was just one of many dinosaur species in the area.

"There was a thriving dinosaur ecosystem here in South Africa, at the bottom of the world, featuring 12 ton giants like Ledumahadi, tiny carnivores like Megapnosaurus, the earliest mammals, some of the earliest turtles, and many, many others," Choinere said.

He and his team are continuing to look for fossils in South Africa from the Triassic and Jurassic periods.

Ledumahadi also adds to the list of remarkable discoveries made in South Africa.

"Not only does our country hold the Cradle of Humankind, but we also have fossils that help us understand the rise of the gigantic dinosaurs," said South Africa's Minister of Science and Technology Mmamoloko KubayiNgubane in a statement. "This is another example of South Africa taking the high road and making scientific breakthroughs of international significance on the basis of its geographic advantage, as it does in astronomy, marine and polar research, indigenous knowledge, and biodiversity."

Sauropodomorphs by Raul Martin

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Prehistoric Turtle Had a Toothless Beak but No Shell.

BY MARK MANCINI

This rendering shows what a 220-million-year-old shell-less turtle may have looked like. ADRIENNE STROUP, FIELD MUSEUM

Teeth are a luxury that turtles did away with millions of years ago. In lieu of pearly whites, all living turtle species — be they vegetarian tortoises or eccentric fish-gulpers like the matamata — have horny, toothless beaks. Along with their shells, this shared trait is one of the things that sets turtles apart from lizards, crocodilians and other cold-blooded modern reptiles.

Fossil evidence tells us that early turtles did not gain their shells and lose their teeth at the same time. In 2008, a groundbreaking discovery was announced: Paleontologists had identified the remains of a long-tailed, semiaquatic reptile that lived in China 220 million years ago during the mid-Triassic period.

It was identified as an ancestral turtle, but the beast looked far removed from its contemporary brethren. For one thing, it was missing the upper half of its shell (called the "carapace"), though the bottom half (the "plastron") was present. Also, this Triassic creature had tiny peg-shaped teeth.

Accordingly, it was given the name Odontochelys semitestacea, which means "half shell with teeth."

Now scientists have found what almost looks like the yin to Odontochelys' yang: A primitive turtle with a toothfree beak, but no trace of a shell. The big news was broken Aug. 22, 2018 in a paper published in the journal Nature.

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"This creature was over 6 feet [or 1.8 meters] long, it had a strange disc-like body and a long tail, and the [frontal] part of its jaws developed into this strange beak," Chicago Field Museum paleontologist Olivier Rieppel, one of the paper's co-authors, said in a press statement.

Like Odontochelys, the newfound animal was unearthed in China. The reptile expired there about 230 million years ago. Judging by its anatomy, Rieppel says "It probably lived in shallow water and dug in the mud for food." Eorhynchochelys sinensis — or "dawn beak from China" — is the name that's been coined for the recently-discovered reptile, the oldest beaked turtle that we know of.

The lack of teeth isn't the only thing about Eorhynchochelys that has attracted interest from scientists. There's a pair of holes behind each eye where the reptile's jaw muscles would've been attached. The openings lend further credence to the growing belief that turtles ought to be classified as diapsids, the group of reptiles containing snakes and lizards. Most diapsids have twin sets of holes behind the eyes, but modern turtles don't.

Eorhynchochelys suggests that the openings were once present in early turtles and then vanished at some point in the lineage's evolution.

That brings us to another interesting point. Contrary to popular belief, evolution isn't a linear step-by-step process. Look at Eorhynchochelys. We now know that shell-less beaked turtles and toothy, half-shelled turtles lived within 10 million years of each other in the same part of the world.

As study co-author Nick Fraser said in a press release, "[Eorhynchochelys] shows that early turtle evolution was not a straightforward, step-by-step accumulation of unique traits, but was a much more complex series of events that we are only just beginning to unravel."

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InterpNEWS Guided Tours on the Air Wildlife Interpr Interpreters Use Radio to Instruct / Inform Visitors sitors & to Alleviate Staff

Visitors flocking to parks and wildlife areas can c challenge staff information resources. Animals of the two--legged variety often prove just as challenging, if not more so, to park pa rangers and interpreters than the flocks and herds of wildlife wildl they are tasked to protect and make available to the public. ic. To help he address this problem, increasingly wildlife viewing areas, especially those with little or no cell coverage, are incorporating ting information inf radio technologies into their interpretation on programs program in order to reach out to visitors as they arrive. The radio broadcast adcasts not only have the potential to alleviate ongoing communication unication demands de on staff during peak hours but also continue “interpre nterpreting” for visitors during off hours, when facilities and informa nformation centers are not staffed, multiplying their value.

Flying Fowl Fever Cleveland Metro Parks and Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio offer visitors instructions right in vehicles as they approach and move through the parks. Self-led tours in Cleveland offer 5-minute, repeating messages that impart treasures of the area.

Migrating geese attract thousands nds of bi bird-watchers to Pennsylvania’s Middle Creek eek Wildlife W Management Area. "We have 135,000 snow geese eese [[each February] and with that, hundreds to o thousands thousa of visitors daily," states Lauren Fenstermacher,, Middle C Creek’s Visitor Center Manager.

The Center logs 250,000 human guests annually. That’s a lot of activity. "Our rules and regulations can be confusing,” advises Fenstermacher, which is why the Pennsylvania Game Commission installed a state-ofthe-art information radio station to help ease the communication burden

When visitors leave the Visitor Center, they can listen continuously as they tour. This allows Center staff to focus on answering visitors’ questions rather than repeating the same general information for them so often.

Guests sts can hear he an audio-tour broadcast oadcast up and down the entire wildlife dlife viewing vi road on AM 1620. This allows Center staff to focus us on answering a visitors’ questions stions rather than repeating the same general g information for them so often. of The 11-minute audio udio tour broadcasts – 24 hours a day – 365 days da a year.

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InterpNEWS Antennas for Antler Lovers Each year elk fans clamor by the thousands on 2-lane 2 roads to visit the remote Winslow Hill Elk Viewing Area in Pennsylvania, Pennsy where the Game Commission has installed another information ion radio rad station.

Traffic tangles on Winslow Hill Road as visitors stake out spots to view elk.

“We’re in a very remote area with little to no o cell coverage,” states spokesperson Mandy Marconi. “And have a lot of important information that we want to get to visitors round-the-clock,” ock,” especially e the case during fall rutting season, when elk fans from all over the world drive in to experience elk up close. Radio provides a conven onvenient means of reaching them effectively.

“A lot of people pull into our viewing ing ar areas and want to view the animals right from om their the cars,” which is especially the case on col cold days or if they have difficulty with mobility. obility.

The broadcast also allows them too listen aas they drive the local roads in search of viewing viewin opportunities. She says if visitors do get out of their cars, it often is to position themselve mselves to get a better view of wildlife. Conseque onsequently, they are likely to walk right by kiosks osks and signs. “But, almost everyone has a radio iin their car, though; so that's a natural way y to reach them.”

The radio system repeats advisories intended to keep visitors and wildlife safe. In between When the elk become active, Marconi coni com comments that some people will do things they reminders, it wouldn’t normally do – such as approac pproach animals or try to feed them or even rescue ue them. the does a lot more.

Some will stop their vehicles in the he middl middle of the road to take pictures or enter private ivate property. The radio system repeatss adviso advisories intended to keep visitors and wildlife fe safe. safe But in between safety reminders, it does a lot more. “We want to enhance people’s experience by telling them the best st place places and times to view elk and the other wildlife dlife they may see. We give them a little le histor history of our elk herd and let them know how we manage them.”

The program is changed seasonally sonally so it’s relevant for what people will see when they hey arrive. arr “This allows us to keep visitors current with h what is i happening, but also, if we have some kind of emergency rgency, we could get that information out to everyone immediately.” immedi

A nursery herd of females and calves es se seen from the Woodring Farm viewing ng site.

The fifteen minute, multi-voice voice broadcast bro message is broadcast on an Information on Station Specialists’ S “Information Station IP” system, stem, installed inst in the fall last year (hear sample). The signal nal range rang on AM 1620 blankets 3 viewing areas, the connecting conne roads and the Elk County Visitor Center.

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Minneopa’s opa’s location, l only 90 minutess southwest sout of MinneapolisS apolisSaint Paul, will allow many to o experience expe bison in a native habitat, habita on a day-trip.

Bison-Drive Development Minnesota’s Minneopa State Park operates an Information Radio Station ation on 1610 AM to educate and inform visitors who can drive through a new bison viewing area.

The first 11 animals, recently introduced oduced into the Park, are rare in that they are genetically very close to the original American plains bison.

The herd is expected to grow to 30-40 40 animals.

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“This station helps answer visitor questions and saves time for our staff.”

According ding to Minnesota Mi DNR Regional onal Naturalist Nat Alex Watson, "An informat nformation radio station was the safest est option opt to deliver information ation to t users who spend time along long the road searching for wildlife. e. This station helps answer visitor questions questi and saves time for our staff.”

Savannah NWR Chooses Radio io inste instead of the Internet to Deliver Interpretive Messages.

How to provide interpretive information mation tto visitors along a 4-mile wildlife drive: that was the challenge nge of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge.

Techniques ranging from mannedd interpr interpretive stations, to extensive signage, to GPS-based location-aware ware rrecordings, to cell phone QR codes, to rented hand-held audioo players, to radio broadcast systems – were considered. Each of these methods ethods have advantages, but Savannah NWR selected an InfOspot spot AM radio system to spread interpretive information to a widerr audi audience.

The Refuge hosts about 200,000 00,000 visitor visitors annually, along the 4-mile Laurel Hill Wildlife ildlife Drive. Almost all use vehicles for touring; and almost all ll the ve vehicles have an AM radio receiver. The Refuge efuge, therefore, positioned several InfOspot transmitters strategical tegically along its wildlife drive.

Blue signs visible along nearby highway highways notify visitors to, “Tune to 1610 AM for or Information,” Info which fosters public acceptance and overall rall posi positive touring experiences. Each InfOspot ot station covers c up to a halfmile; and the stations do not require quire a li license from the Federal Communications Commission.

Comm Monica Harris, the Visitor Services es Man Manager, created interpretive scripts with consultat onsultation and assistance of many other specialists. Each script pt is about two minutes long, enough to contain valuable valuabl interpretive information but not so long that visitors would be bored. The presentations cover a wide ide range of information.

The next step is to seek feedbackk from vi visitors about the interpretive radio system..

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Two Categories of Interpret erpretive Radio Stations: InfOspot and the Information ormation Station.

InfOspot radio station The cost of an InfOspot license-freee rad starts at about $500. The stations are re eeasy to use and install with custom options. Each ch st station offers up to a ½-mile range with few restrictio ictions on content.

The InfOspot License-Free ree Radio Ra Station, recently upgraded by Information on Station Stat Specialists has enhanced audio, flexibility lity and range. Parks, historic sites, wildlife viewing areas, reas, unattended u visitor / nature centers and interpretive pretive kiosks commonly employ these micro-radio dio stations stat to get aural interpretation to visitorss approaching, approa parking or traveling through sites. Each station st has up to a halfmile range and, coupled d with instructive i signs, can be a useful tool for instructing ructing and informing visitors ̶ especially in ADA applications. a There are few restrictions ons on content, c per FCC Part 15 Rules, which allow operators operator to include music or even sponsorships to defray fray costs. c

InfOspot is the only certified license-fre free radio system with a coaxial cable link in n its FCC-approved F design.

This allows the transmitter to operate rate in a protected location that can be conveniently ntly monitored m – safe from theft, wind damage, moisture intrusion usion aand lightning. It also allows the transmitter’s r’s antenna ant to be positioned at a high point on a building or pole, enhancing range. Options are available ilable to customize station packages to application needs. _______________________

The Information Station is a 10-watt att radi radio station that operates on AMband frequencies. Signal coverage ge is typi typically a radius range of 3-5 miles (or 25-75 square miles). Stations tions ccan be remotely controlled with live and recorded broadcasts. A newly ewly de designed audio processor takes advantage of recently revised FCC C audi audiofiltering standards to supply improved quality, intelligibility and nd vol volume. Antenna systems are simple and varied.

The Federal Communications Commiss ommission licenses the stations under Travelers’ Information Station guideline uidelines to state and local government agencies. Federal agencies, suchh as nati national parks and wildlife refuges obtain authorization for their stations ions to ope operate through the National Telecommunication and Information tion Adm Administration.

Broadcasts must be intended for motori motorists, commercial-free, voice-only and public-safety/service-oriented. d. Trave Travelers are notified to tune to the stations via road signs.

The Information In Station Inform nformation Stations each have a 35-m mile range. The FCC license nses the stations. Messages must ust be noncommercial and public lic service s in nature. Cost begins gins at about $13,000.

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Can Rocks Grow?

Of course they can!

Ron Kley

This image shows a soccer ball sized rock that raised its head far enough to be scalped (white scars) by a lawnmower, and was extracted in revenge by the author. The eyeglasses are for scale only; rocks can grow, but they can't see even with glasses.

Ask any farmer in the northern U.S. or other areas subject to severe winters and they’ll tell you about times when they’ve hung up a plow in the springtime on a rock that “wasn’t there” the previous year. Many homeowners in the same regions can report lawnmower blades that have been nicked or bent by springtime encounters with rocks that have raised their heads amid grass blades on the lawn since the prior year’s mowing.

So, at least in a vertical sense, those rocks have “grown.” How can this be?

The underlying mechanism is quite simple, and it is quite literally “underlying.”

If a “free” rock (not an integral element of a bedrock ledge) is embedded in the ground within the “frost zone” of soil that freezes solid each winter (and this can be as deep as four feet in some inhabited areas) it will be subject to pressure from all sides as interstitial moisture in the surrounding soil freezes and expands. Buttressed by frozen earth below and on all sides the rock will respond to this pressure by moving upward just a smidgeon – a millimeter or two – because the layer of overlying earth is thin enough to buckle upwards just slightly in response to the pressure from below.

This image show a group of growing rocks that were preemptively extracted before they reached mower blade height.

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The final image shows a rock in the author's gravel driveway that has grown about 2 inches over a span of 50 years. Exploratory manual excavation has shown that it's too big to be extracted by pick and shovel methods. If not disturbed by an excavator or dynamite it may pop right out of the ground on its own in another millennium or two.

Come spring, the frosty embrace is relaxed, and gravity invites the rock to slip back down to where it was…but it can’t quite do that. Water from rain or melting snow will have filtered through the soil, nudging particles of sand/silt/clay into the vacant void beneath the nudged-up rock. Eventually the rock responds to gravity and slides down, but not quite to where it had been before the frost’s push-up.

Repeat that freeze/thaw cycle and the resulting push-up/fill-in/slide-partly-back sequence over time and soilembedded rocks from pea to boulder size will migrate upward or “grow,” to the point where they may be visible to the eye (or perceptible to lawnmower blades and farmers’ plows) where they hadn’t been before.

I’ve lived in the same house for a bit more than 50 years, and have watched rocks “grow” during that time span from subsurface depth to the point where they need to be either avoided or extracted to prevent lawnmower damage. I enclose photographic evidence, and rest my case..

Yes, rocks can grow!

Ron Kley ronkley@juno.com Editor’s note: be careful, rocks and “grow on you” too! JV

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InterpNEWS “The Shack, the Town, and Jumpin’s Wharf on the Ocean, An Interpretation of a Fictional Setting” By Dr. Martha Benn Macdonald InterpNEWS Regional Editor

When I visited my son and his family in Seattle in October of 2018, we walked to a book shop in Queen Anne. I still see the lay-out of that shop more than a year lager---books, cards, glasses, maps, games, and much, much more, music playing in the background. Queen Anne books was a lovely shop that I would recommend to anyone who goes to Seattle.

Not sure what I wanted to read that rainy morning, I bought a pair of glasses (no pun intended) and a few cards, then moved from one aisle to the next, finally settling on Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

After reading the novel two times, I decided to review it for my book club, “Over the Teacups,” in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and serve refreshments adapted from food which Kya, the main character, eats, for example, biscuits, cornbread, pimiento cheese sandwiches, and, ice cream which she enjoyed on two occasions. I will not serve grits and mussels or saltines with Crisco or mussels that Kya was sometimes forced to eat because there was nothing else in the shack.

Although this interpretation is not a review of the book per see, I would ask us to look at what Kya experiences in relation to the shack, the town, and Jumpin’s Wharf.

The youngest of several children, Kya is a nickname for Catherine Danielle Clark, who awakened one “burning” hot August morning to see her Ma “in a long brown skirt,” walking down the lane from the family’s shack. Her ma carried a blue train case and wore fake alligator-skin shoes. Kya wanted to call to her mother, but for some reason, didn’t.

Readers may wonder why the little girl who had learned so much from her mother about cooking, manners, and more, did not call to her or follow her. We’ll never know why. After their mother left, Kya’s brothers and sisters also departed. They were tired of being beaten by their father. Kya’s brother, Jodie, was the last to leave. Ultimately, then, Kya was all alone in the shack, except for an occasional visit from her father until he finally left for good. Surrounded by woods with a variety of trees, including oaks, pines, and palmettos, the Shack was sparsely furnished, the kitchen the primary room. No plumbing, the outhouse served as the family’s bathroom. Corn, turnips, and greens from her mother’s garden, along with eggs from the chickens, until they finally flew up into the trees because there was no food for them, had served as food, along with whatever her brothers caught when they fished or hunted.

Kya did not learn to read until later in her life, and she was extremely shy. Realizing she was all alone, Kya turned to the marsh. The marsh became her best friend because it connected her to the ocean, to the town, and to Jumpin’s Wharf. Above all, the marsh kept her company.

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Before Kya’s father finally left, after burning his wife’s clothes and many of her paintings, he told Kya that she’d have to earn her keep by cleaning the house, washing clothes, and cooking. A tall order for a six year old to wash her father’s denim overalls and dry them. Determined, somehow feeling guilt, she washed and dried those overalls on palmetto branches. One morning to her surprise, her father, wounded in World War II, gave her a dollar and told her to go to town. Shoeless and dressed in bib overalls that didn’t fit, unable to count or read, Kya ventured to the town of Barkley Cove: “There were two streets: Main ran along the oceanfront with a row of shops; the Piggly Wiggly grocery at one end, the Western Auto at the other, the diner in the middle.

Mixed in between these buildings were Kress’s Five and Dime, a Penny’s (catalog only), Parker’s Bakery, and a Buster Brown Shoe shop. Next to the Piggly was the Dog-Gone Beer Hall, which offered roasted hot dogs, red-hot chili, and fried shrimp served in folded paper boats. No ladies or children stepped inside because it wasn’t considered proper, but a take-out window had been cut out of the wall so they could order hot dogs and Nehi cola from the street. “Colored” couldn’t use the door or the window.” This was the narrow-minded, segregated south in the 1950s, despite its four churches. The bitter irony!

The other street, Broad, ran from the old highway straight toward the ocean and into Main, ending right there. So the only intersection in town was Main, Broad, and the Atlantic Ocean. The stores and businesses weren’t joined together, as in most towns, but were separated by small, vacant lots brushed with sea oats and palmettos, as if overnight the marsh had inched in.

“For more than two hundred years, then, sharp salty winds had weathered the cedar-shingled buildings to the color of rust, and the windows framed and mostly painted white or blue, had flaked and cracked. Mostly, the village seemed tired of arguing with the elements, and simply sagged. . . .Barkley Cove was quite literally a backwater town,” bits scattered here and there among the estuaries and reeds like an egret’s nest flung by the wind.”

You, my readers, may remember these little towns along the ocean or a river, you may recall the hypocrisy of the church, and you may recollect stories of segregation in such towns that led to the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Do you? Just outside the fictional town of Barclay Cove was an area known as “Colored Town” where Junkin’ and his wife, Mabel, lived. With the exception of Tate, they were Kya’s only friends. Kya went there to deliver her mussels. Everywhere the little girl had to go in what would be considered the “civilized world,” she was shunned and mistreated, abused, and dubbed the “marsh girl” or “poor white trash.” Toward the end of the novel after she’s finally acquitted of a murder charge, Kya says to her brother, Jodie, who has come to visit: “That’s what nobody understands about me. I never hated people. They hated me.

They laughed at me. They left me. They harassed me. They attacked me. Well, it’s true; I learned to live without them. Without you. Without Ma! Or anybody!”

And she did. The gulls, the egrets, the turkey birds, shells, trees, and much more, all of nature, became her friends. Kya talked to them, fed them, and found solace from them, often naming her birds. And Jumpin’, the black man to whom she sold her mussels (not as in the song, “In Dublin’s Fair City Where the Girls Are So Pretty”), so that she could buy kerosene, matches, and more, became her best friend. In fact, when he died and Kya took blackberry jam to his widow, Mable told Kya. “You a daughter to him.” Jumpin’ was the father Kya never had, and Mabel became her mother. Jumpin’s Shack stood on a wobbly wharf in the ocean, and there he sold seeds, Sugar Daddys, Vienna sausages, beans, and staples, as well as gas for the boats.

Kya was grateful to him, for she no longer had to endure the stares and unkind comments at the Piggly Wiggly in Barkley Cove. She never forget the one time her father took her to a restaurant in Barclay Cove when she was allowed to order ice cream. How exciting! When the Methodist minister’s daughter with pale blonde curls wanted to shake Kya’s hand, however, her mother chastised her daughter and called Kya evil and dirty. What a vicious woman the minister’s wife was! She’s an archetype for those who call themselves Christians, and yet rail out against those who suffer. The ironies of the church!

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What we learn about the town, in particular, is how absolutely narrow-minded the citizens are. Through no fault of her own, Kaya, the little girl, l had to struggle to survive. She’s a victim of circumstances beyond her control, and yet, she had courage. Thanks to her mother’s paintings and Kya’s persistence in drawing, she learned to identify the feathers, the shells, and all that she collected from nature. Thanks to her friend, Tate, who teaches her how to read and more, Kya becomes a writer and publishes her findings in books which are published.

Even though I did not grow up on the coast, I have vacationed at the ocean and at the river, and I grew up in the South where I have witnessed the cruelties of would-be Christians, like the minister’s wife snatching her child away from Kya who has no shoes, and then in the book, when Kya is accused of murdering Chase Andrews, the “colored,” such as Mabel and Jumpin’ are not allowed inside the courthouse; they must wait outside, even in the rain, while inside, the towns people enjoy watching Kya being handcuffed at the end of each session, before she is led back to her cell, sort of like the townspeople in The Scarlet Letter, who enjoy watching Hester Prynne being forced to stand on the scaffold each day in the scorching sun, where they tempt her to name the man who committed adultery with her, where her husband, late from Amsterdam, calling himself Roger Chillingworth, tempts Hester to reveal the man’s identity.

From the early seventeenth century to the mid twentieth, human nature has changed so little. We have tended to think that those living in the upcountry and the backwoods are less civilized and less cultured than those living near the coast, but that is not at all true, especially in Where the Crawdads Sing. This is what a third reading has shown me, and a look at the role of settings: Kya’s shack, the town, Jumpin’s Wharf, and, ultimately, the court house. Setting, indeed, plays an important role in any sort of interpretation.

Dr. Martha Macdonald College English instructor (Ret), author, and performer. doctorbenn@gmail.com

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Designing Receptive Experiences to Encourage Action Isabel Yun The design minds

“Are you even relevant anymore?” Nina Simon, former executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History and the author of The Art of Relevance, revealed the challenge in which museums and institutions need to reassess and “mak[e] connections that unlock meaning” in cultivating inclusive community engagement (Simon, 2016).

The question highlights an important cultural shift of museums and institutions to embrace polyvocality; leverage diverse perspectives as part of a dynamic exchange in strengthening meaningful experiences. The experiences within museums and institutions have the potential to empower and bridge authentic and sustainable connections with its community. As a designer at The Design Minds, Inc., a content-based exhibit design firm, I strive to develop experiences that highlight the visitor experience to foster meaningful and inclusive exhibitions. In this article, I plan to discuss the commitment to engagement and effective dialogue through the role of evaluation in exhibition design and development. Secondly, I seek the collaborative interchange of best practices in the field to learn and adapt to the changing landscape of our museums and institutions. Furthermore, I will share my hopes for the future in pursuit of designing receptive experiences to transform and encourage action.

Audience research and evaluations provide an opportunity to empower visitors to voice their diverse opinions in strengthening the exhibition experience. As a graduate student in Johns Hopkins University’s Museum Studies program— and facilitated by my firm’s work on a current project—I had the opportunity to conduct an evaluation first-hand in the Evaluation Projects and Practice course with Dr. Karen Wizevich. The Smithsonian National Postal Museum is set to exhibit their forthcoming exhibition, Baseball: America’s Home Run, in April 2020. To gain better insight in understanding visitors relevance to the exhibition content, I had the opportunity to develop and conduct a combination of a front-end and formative evaluations with 40 randomly selected visitors at the museum in March 2019. The evaluation sought to inform the Concept Design phase of the anticipated exhibition to provide vital insight that would shape the subsequent phases in the design and development process. How do the intended goals and objectives of the exhibition align with the exhibited material? How do we build meaningful connections between the exhibition and the visitor? The examination of the “extent to which visitors’ meaning-making processes line[d] up with the conceptual framework of the exhibition” was studied (Downey, 2002, p. 41). Through a mixed-methods approach, interviews, questionnaires, and observations were used as data collection methods.

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InterpNEWS Participants were provided with ith a ta tabloid size booklet with excerpts from the exhibition ibition materials m on each page to view and react to when answering the inte interview questions. To understand which exhibition tion approaches app the museum should leverage, participants filled outt a que questionnaire, rating approaches on a Likert-scalee of 1-5.

1 In addition, to understand insight to the participants’ prefer preference of artifacts, a basic observation study was as conducted. cond Twelve artifact cards were given to participants to study udy the attraction power through a “like” and “dislike” e” interactive inte inventory.

Participants revealed the meaning theyy made in response to the exhibition materials, “including uding misconceptions, m misunderstandings, personal associations ons and memories, as well as interest level” (Downey, y, 2002, 200 p. 41).

(From left to right: Evaluator observation record sheet, artifact card sample mple (1 ( of 12), exhib exhibition approaches questionnaire scale sheet)

The evaluation provided insight ht in ffurthering the refinement of the design and developm velopment. The evaluation revealed the favoring of interactive opportun portunities that engaged the entire family and have informed inform the development in offering more dedicated immersive and nd hand hands-on experiences. As participants formed nostalgic talgic memories describing their associations to baseball, the needd for a space to reflect and share stories was suggested. ed. In addition, a broadening perspectives of baseball was supported ed as pa participants expressed concern for the lack of represen epresentation of ethnic and gender diversity. Development of exhibitry ibitry sshould be based on the feedback from the visitors. tors. It is what makes exhibitions relevant, where sharing diverse verse pe perspectives broadens the potential for diverse visitors visitor to make personal connections to the themes and stories.. The op opportunity to engage in deep connective dialogue ogue aids ai in creating relevance.

As the forthcoming exhibition is currently ently un under development, communication with the exhibit xhibit developers reveal the implementation of evaluation recommendat endations to the exhibitions. As participants expressed sed the lack of inclusive perspectives that broaden the story of baseb baseball and philately, the exploration of diverse stories ories where w baseball is a sport for all received added emphasis in the subse subsequent phases of the design process. The benefits its of conducting this evaluation and promoting the bridging ng of know knowledge, provide the invaluable input and feedback dback to improve and enrich the overall experience of the forthcoming ing exh exhibition, which aid in forming effective meaning-m making.

Not only is leveraging knowledge edge th through visitors and the extended communities able to t drive relevance, but also the collaborative interchange of best pr practices within the field aids in fostering discovery overy and an innovation as a whole.

Digital engagement strategist, Mar Dixon, ixon, leading world trending social media campaigns ns such as a #MuseumSelfie and #AskACurator, led the keynote address ess at the 2019 Visitor Experience Group (VEX) Conferenc nference and powerfully asserted the “shift from academia to a more emotive” otive” trend in the role of the museum (Dixon, 2019).

19). Rather Rat than the traditional approach of passively displaying objects, cts, the path toward a visitor centric approach was highlighted highlight for increasing relevance.

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As a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Fellow at the VEX conference, guided by Krista Kusama, Audience Engagement Chair and Elena Bras, DEI Committee, I was offered a meaningful opportunity, fostering engagement and connection to my own practice as a designer who places the visitor at the heart of the designed experience. Through the dynamic workshops and speaker series, I had an opportunity to learn from and collaborate with an expanded network of professionals in the field, offering my perspective and instilling valuable contributions to affect a greater impact. Through empowering conversations with Anne Ishii, executive director of Philadelphia's Asian Arts Initiative (Asian Arts Initiative, n.d.), my understanding of the potential museums and cultural institutions hold as sacred spaces to bridge to varied communities inspires and challenges my belief of reinventing the future of museums and cultural institutions.

Through AAI, Anne champions the advancement of “racial equity and understanding, activating artists, youth, and their communities through creative practice and dialogue grounded in the diverse Asian American experience� (Asian Arts Initiative, n.d.). Leveraging the diverse assets of communities and allowing access to become involved in the ongoing discussion makes for a relevant, dynamic cultural hub which fosters the community's sense of belonging. I believe it is vital to learn from our experiences and share personal challenges and successes; gaining and contributing to the field with an open and ready mind.

(From left to right: VEX Meet-The-Artist with Anne Ishii workshop, VEX Welcome at the Academy of Natural Sciences, community engagement workshop at the Franklin Institute)

As a designer, I am passionately committed to broaden and enrich the holistic unification between the experience, the story, and the built environment to design receptive experiences that leverage action. These experiences cultivate my desire to design receptive experiences that invite human connection. The importance of relevance is instrumental in promoting a sustainable future. Through this article, the exploration of engaging diverse community members and visitors to learn what is personally relevant is instrumental in challenging assumptions through ongoing dialogue and evaluation, respectively. After all, the museums or institutions are created for the benefit of the people who visit them.

The importance to holistically engage in cross-departmental dialogue is imperative for collective impact toward innovation. As a lifelong learner, I value critically analyzing and evaluating improvements to the future of our field. This can be achieved by being up-to-date with best practices in the field, where one would have the opportunity to learn current and emerging issues through practice, observation, and discussion with colleagues, all of which help promote for an evolving field. As Simon (2016) powerfully asserted, “I believe relevance is the key to a locked room where meaning lives.

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We just have to find the right keys, the right doors, and the humility and courage to open them.” Unlocking this “door” of relevance, can be accomplished through a team effort. We are all in a unique position where we hold the “key.”

Each of us illuminates a different perspective that strengthens the collaborative efforts in opening the “door.” I hope that this vision inspires more authentic conversations through collaborative reflection and refinement toward sustained growth. Furthermore, encouraging interchange of diverse dialogue cultivates interdisciplinary engagement within the field to inspire a future that illuminates excitement, optimism, and relevance.

Isabel Yun Contact: isabel@thedesignminds.com

References Asian Arts Initiative. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://asianartsinitiative.org/about/mission-history Dixon, M. (2019, October). A Troublemaker’s Guide to Happiness. Keynote presentation at the Visitor Experience Group, Philadelphia, PA.

Downey, S. (2002). Visitor Centered Exhibition Development, The Exhibitionist.

Simon, N. (2016). The Art of Relevance. Retrieved from Artofrelevance.org

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InterpNEWS Market Place

JVA interpretive writing courses.

We’ve been working to update our interpretation programs, services and media Market Place as a place for exhibit planners and designers, media developers and other interpretive related agencies and organizations to advertise their services. We are happy to offer non-profit organizations reduced advertising for their memberships or fund-raising as well.

We reach thousands of agencies and organizations in 60 countries!

Our new advertising rates for 2020: - Full page advertisement - $200.00 - ½ page advertisement - $100.00 Ÿ page advertisement - $50.00 For advertising details visit our InterpNEWS Advertising Website: http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpnews_advertising_details.html For special discounts for multiple ad placements for 2020, send me an e-mail and we can work out a deal for you. jvainterp@aol.com

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The Heritage Interpretation Training Center The Heritage Interpretation Training Center offers 44 college level courses in heritage interpretation, from introductory courses for new interpretive staff, docents and volunteers, to advanced courses for seasoned interpretive professionals. Courses can be offered/presented on site at your facility or location, or through our e-LIVE on-line self-paced interpretive courses.

Some of our on-line courses are listed below. You can start the course at any time and complete the course at your own pace: Introduction to Heritage Interpretation Course. 14 Units - 2 CEU credits. $150.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/introduction_to_heritage_interpretation_cou rse.html Planning/Designing Interpretive Panels e-LIVE Course - 10 Units awarding 1.5 CEU Credits $125.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_panels_course.html Planning Interpretive Trails e-LIVE Course - 13 Units - 2.5 CEU Credits $200.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_trails_course.html Interpretive Writing e-LIVE Course - 8 Units and 2 CEU Credits $200.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_writing_course.html Training for Interpretive Trainers e-LIVE Course - 11 Units and 2 CEU Credits. $200.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/training_for_interp_trainers.html The Interpretive Exhibit Planners Tool Box e-LIVE course - 11 Units and 2 CEU Credits. $200.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_exhibits_course.html Interpretive Master Planning - e-LIVE. 13 Units, 3 CEU Credits. $275.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_master_planning_course.html A supervisors guide to Critiquing and Coaching Your Interpretive Staff, Eleven Units, 1.6 CEU Credits. $175.00 http://www.heritageinterp.com/critiquing_and_coaching_interpretive_staff.h tml

The Heritage Interpretation Training Center/John Veverka & Associates. jvainterp@aol.com – www.twitter.com/jvainterp - Skype: jvainterp Our course catalog: http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretive_training_center_course_catalogue_.html

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The Heritage Interpretation Training Center Interpretive Bookstore and the Heritage Interpretation Resource Center http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretation_book_store.html

If you’re looking to expand your interpretive library, check out our interpretive bookstore. Most of these books are available as e-books. These are the same text books that I use for our 44 interpretive training Courses.

All of these books can be ordered/purchased through PayPal at the bookstore web site page. http://www.heritageinterp.com/interpretation_book_store.html --------------------------------Interpretive Master Planning Volume 1, Strategies for the new millennium. (Available as an e-book $30.00), Interpretive Master Planning Volume 2, Philosophies, theory and practice resource materials. (Available as an e-book - $30.00).

Advanced Interpretive Master Planning -.Developing regional and multi-site interpretive plans, interpretive systems planning and creating “Landscape Museums”. John Veverka's Master Copy is available as a PDF ebook - $30.00.

The Interpretive Trainers Handbook Available as an e-book - $30.00. The fine art of teaching interpretation to others.

The Interpretive Trails Book. The complete interpretive planning book for developing and interpreting selfguiding trails. John Veverka Master copy – e-book publication copy available as a PDF - $30.00 The Interpretive Writers Guidebook - How to Provoke, Relate and Reveal your messages and stories to your visitors. Interpretive copy writing for interpretive panels, museum exhibits, self-guiding media and more.

Available as a PDF - $40.00 - this is our new Interpretive Writing text book used for the Heritage Interpretation Training Center's Interpretive Writing Courses.

40 Years a Heritage Interpreter – This is my huge collection of interpretive resource articles and reference materials from 40 years of doing, teaching, and writing about heritage interpretation. $40.00. Sent as an ebook.

You can also visit: The Heritage Interpretation Resource Center: http://www.heritageinterp.com/heritage_interpretation_resource_center.html The Heritage Interpretation Resource Center has a list of FREE articles and handouts.

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