Through the Pyrenees

As we take the long and winding road to Andorra from Puigcerdà I can't help but feel a strong sense of nostalgia. The route through the Pyrenees is one surrounded by hills below tree line, and it is only occasionaly that we get a glimpse of the great rocky peaks carving out the horizon. Though there are many differences in vegetation and soil, I can't help but see the Pyrenees through a lens.
For many summers during my youth, my father and I would travel the length of the Dempster Highway, from Dawson City to Inuvik, and back. Dad is a professor of Geography and his research is conducted in northern Canada. From age three to sixteen, my family would spend three weeks in Mayo, Yukon, while Dad worked at various sites in the area from Keno City to the banks of the Stewart River near Mayo. August would see him travel to Inuvik where he would base his activities in various parts in the Beaufort Sea. Once I was old enough, I would travel with him while my mother and the family cat headed back south.

Seeing the Pyrenees, my memories of travelling through the Richardson mountains on the Dempster flood back. As we drive past hills of brown stone and soil with grass bushels unevenly distributed across its face my mind turns the stone grey and the grass into tussocks. This doesn't make the trip through this mountain range any less special, however. It's the journey we take which helps us discover who we are, is it not?