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December 2008 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: The year of getting closer Feature: Hungry as a bear Feature: Plight of the bumblebee Feature: The messenger The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations À la carte

It is the height of summer some 200 years ago, and a fit young man in his late teens is crossing a pass in the St. Elias Mountains of northwestern British Columbia. He comes from a region where coastal Tlingit and inland Athapaskan families have intermarried for generations. He had spent time recently in the Interior, but his journey started on the Pacific coast. He is travelling fast in the forbidding alpine terrain, covering more than 30 kilometres a day. He wears a woven rainproof hat, is clad in a warm fur robe and carries lightweight gear — a small knife, lengths of cordage and a beaver-skin pouch lined with soft mosses, possibly for staunching wounds.

Before departing, he had dined on fresh roe from sea urchins and the salty stems of beach asparagus. For the journey, he packed crabmeat, berries, more of the asparagus and salmon. Now, several days into the trip, he pauses in the high mountains near the edge of a glacier for a drink of meltwater and a quick meal. Along the route below, native wildflowers in high-summer bloom splash the alpine meadows in brilliant colours. Above is a colder, harsher world. A massive glacier cracks and heaves ominously like some giant creature stirring to life.

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