Interstate 35
Interstate 35 is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north-south route stretching from Laredo, Texas, at the Mexican-American border to Duluth, Minnesota, at Minnesota Highway 61 and 26th Avenue East; the highway splits into Interstate 35E and Interstate 35W in two separate places, the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex in Texas and at the Minnesota twin cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul. At 1,568 mi, Interstate 35 is the ninth-longest Interstate Highway following Interstate 94, it is the third-longest north-south Interstate Highway, following Interstate 75 and Interstate 95. Though the route is considered to be a border to border highway, this highway does not directly connect to either international border. I-35's southern terminus is a traffic signal in Laredo, just short of the Mexican–American border. Travelers going south can take one of two toll bridges across the Rio Grande and the Mexican border, either straight ahead into the Juarez-Lincoln International Bridge, or via Interstate 35 Business through downtown Laredo into the Gateway to the Americas International Bridge.
To the north, I-35 terminates in Duluth, with connections to Canada from the interstate's terminus via Minnesota Highway 61 to Grand Portage, or north to the border at International Falls, Minnesota via U. S. Route 53 in Duluth, but that route is more accessed from the south by Minnesota Highway 33 at Cloquet, Minnesota. In addition to the Dallas-Fort Worth and Minneapolis-Saint Paul areas, the major cities that I-35 connects to include San Antonio. I-35 northbound begins at a traffic-signaled intersection with Business Spur I-35 in Laredo, just north of the Rio Grande and the international border between Mexico and the US, it has a 17-mile concurrency with U. S. Highway 83. Through Webb, La Salle, Frio counties, it has a north-northeastern course, turning more northeastly around Moore, it cuts across the corners of Medina and Atascosa counties before entering Bexar County and San Antonio. I-35 is named the Pan Am Expressway in San Antonio. There, it has brief concurrencies with I-10 and I-410, it serves as the northern terminus of I-37.
I-35 heads northeast out of the city towards Austin. In Austin, I-35 is the Interregional Highway and has a concurrency with US 290 through Downtown Austin. Throughout Austin, elevated express lanes were constructed on either side of the original freeway. Prior to this expansion, this section included an at-grade railroad crossing, unusual for a freeway. From Austin, I-35 goes through Round Rock, Temple and Waco. In Belton, south of Temple, it serves as the current eastern terminus for I-14. In Waco, I-35 is known as the Jack Kultgen Freeway, begins its concurrency with US 77; the campuses of both the University of Texas at Austin and Baylor University are located adjacent to I-35. I-35 heads to Hillsboro, where it splits into I-35W and I-35E and runs through the Dallas–Fort Worth area; the official mile markers, along with the route of US 77, follow I-35E through Dallas—I-35W, 85 miles in length, carries its own mileage from Hillsboro to Denton, as though it were an x35 loop. In Dallas, I-35E is the R.
L. Thornton Freeway south of I-30, which picks up the name heading east. North of I-30, it is the Stemmons Freeway. After passing through Dallas and Fort Worth, I-35's two forks branches in Denton near the University of North Texas campus; the unified Interstate continues north to Gainesville before crossing the Red River into Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, I-35 runs from the Red River at the Texas border to the Kansas state line near Braman, it passes adjacent to many of the state's major cities. From south to north these cities include Ardmore, Pauls Valley, Norman, Oklahoma City, Del City, Midwest City, Edmond, El Reno, Guthrie and Ponca City. In Downtown Oklahoma City, I-35 has a major junction with I-40 and spurs into I-235 through the north central inner city as heavy traffic follows through the city into the northern area of the state. Between the Oklahoma state line and Emporia, I-35 is part of the Kansas Turnpike; this section of interstate passes through the Flint Hills area. At Emporia, I-35 branches off on its own alignment.
This free section of I-35 provides access to Ottawa before entering the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, where it serves Johnson County, Kansas City, Kansas. Of note on the route, at several points between Cassoday and Emporia in the Flint Hills dirt driveways that provide direct access without a ramp, for cattle trucks, may be found in either direction along the highway. BETO Junction is a highway intersection in Coffey County, Kansas, the intersection of U. S. Highway 75 and I-35, it derives its name from the four major cities nearest the intersection: Burlington, Emporia and Ottawa. It is located 16 miles north of Burlington at exit 155; the intersection referred to as "BETO Junction" before I-35 was constructed was located on the old US 75 highway alignments 2 miles south and 2 miles east, near Waverly, Kansas. I-35 enters Missouri two miles southwest of Kansas City's Central Business District as a six-lane highway. After merging with Southwest Trafficway and Broadway, it becomes eight lanes and continues north to downtown Kansas City, where it serves as the west and north legs of the downtown freeway loop.
Along the north edge of the loop, I-35 joins with I-70 west of Broadway and carries six lanes of traffic with a s
Fox
Foxes are small-to-medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. Foxes have a flattened skull, upright triangular ears, a pointed upturned snout, a long bushy tail. Twelve species belong to the monophyletic "true foxes" group of genus Vulpes. Another 25 current or extinct species are always or sometimes called foxes. Foxes live on every continent except Antarctica. By far the most common and widespread species of fox is the red fox with about 47 recognized subspecies; the global distribution of foxes, together with their widespread reputation for cunning, has contributed to their prominence in popular culture and folklore in many societies around the world. The hunting of foxes with packs of hounds, long an established pursuit in Europe in the British Isles, was exported by European settlers to various parts of the New World; the word fox comes from Old English. This in turn derives from Proto-Indo-European *puḱ-, meaning ’thick-haired. Male foxes are known as dogs, tods or reynards, females as vixens, young as cubs, pups, or kits, though the latter name is not to be confused with a distinct species called kit foxes.
Vixen is one of few words in modern English that retains the Middle English southern dialect "v" pronunciation instead of "f". A group of foxes is referred to leash, or earth. Within the Canidae, the results of DNA analysis shows several phylogenetic divisions: The fox-like canids, which include the kit fox, red fox, Cape fox, Arctic fox, fennec fox; the wolf-like canids, including the dog, gray wolf, red wolf, eastern wolf, golden jackal, Ethiopian wolf, black-backed jackal, side-striped jackal and African wild dog. The South American canids, including hoary fox, crab-eating fox and maned wolf. Various monotypic taxa, including the bat-eared fox, gray fox, raccoon dog. Foxes are smaller than some other members of the family Canidae such as wolves and jackals, while they may be larger than some within the family, such as Raccoon dogs. In the largest species, the red fox, males weigh on average between 4.1 and 8.7 kg, while the smallest species, the fennec fox, weighs just 0.7 to 1.6 kg. Fox-like features include a triangular face, pointed ears, an elongated rostrum, a bushy tail.
Foxes are digitigrade, thus, walk on their toes. Unlike most members of the family Canidae, foxes have retractable claws. Fox vibrissae, or whiskers, are black; the whiskers on the muzzle, mystaciae vibrissae, average 100–110 mm long, while the whiskers everywhere else on the head average to be shorter in length. Whiskers are on the forelimbs and average 40 mm long, pointing downward and backward. Other physical characteristics vary according to adaptive significance. Fox species differ in fur color and density. Coat colors range from pearly white to black and white to black flecked with white or grey on the underside. Fennec foxes, for example, have short fur to aid in keeping the body cool. Arctic foxes, on the other hand, have tiny ears and short limbs as well as thick, insulating fur, which aid in keeping the body warm. Red foxes, by contrast, have a typical auburn pelt, the tail ending with white marking. A fox's coat color and texture may vary due to the change in seasons. To get rid of the dense winter coat, foxes moult once a year around April.
Coat color may change as the individual ages. A fox's dentition, like all other canids, is I 3/3, C 1/1, PM 4/4, M 3/2 = 42. Foxes have pronounced carnassial pairs, characteristic of a carnivore; these pairs consist of the upper premolar and the lower first molar, work together to shear tough material like flesh. Foxes' canines are pronounced characteristic of a carnivore, are excellent in gripping prey. In the wild, the typical lifespan of a fox is one to three years, although individuals may live up to ten years. Unlike many canids, foxes are not always pack animals, they live in small family groups, but some are known to be solitary. Foxes are omnivores; the diet of foxes is made up of invertebrates such as insects, small vertebrates such as reptiles and birds, can include eggs and plants. Many species are generalist predators. Most species of fox consume around 1 kg of food every day. Foxes cache excess food, burying it for consumption under leaves, snow, or soil. Foxes tend to use a pouncing technique where they crouch down to camouflage themselves in the terrain using their hind legs, leap up with great force to land on top of their targeted prey.
Using their pronounced canine te
Duluth, Minnesota
Duluth is a major port city in the U. S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Saint Louis County. Duluth is the 4th largest city in Minnesota, it is the 2nd largest city on Lake Superior. The largest is Thunder Bay, Canada, it has the largest metropolitan area on the lake, with a population of 279,771 in 2010, the second-largest in the state. Situated on the north shore of Lake Superior at the westernmost point of the Great Lakes, Duluth is accessible to oceangoing vessels from the Atlantic Ocean 2,300 miles away via the Great Lakes Waterway and the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Duluth forms a metropolitan area with Wisconsin; the cities share the Duluth–Superior harbor and together are the Great Lakes' largest port, transporting coal, iron ore, grain. A tourist destination for the Midwest, Duluth features the United States' only all-freshwater aquarium, the Great Lakes Aquarium; the city is the starting point for vehicle trips along Minnesota's North Shore. The city is named for Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, the first known European explorer of the area.
The Anishinaabe known as the Ojibwe or Chippewa, have inhabited the Lake Superior region for more than 500 years. They were preceded by the Dakota, Menominee and Gros Ventre peoples, whom they pushed out of the area. Established as traders, after the arrival of Europeans, the Anishinaabe found a niche as the middlemen between the French fur traders and other Native peoples, they soon became the dominant Indian nation in the region, forcing out the Dakota Sioux and Fox and winning a victory against the Iroquois west of Sault Ste. Marie in 1662. By the mid-18th century, the Ojibwe occupied all of Lake Superior's shores. For both the Ojibwe and the Dakota, interaction with Europeans during the contact period revolved around the fur trade and related activities; the Ojibwe are known for their crafting of birch bark canoes, use of copper arrow points, cultivation of wild rice. In 1745, they adopted guns from the British for use against the Dakota nation of the Sioux, whom they pushed to the south; the Ojibwe Nation was the first to set the agenda with European-Canadian leaders for signing more detailed treaties before many European settlers were allowed too far west.
The settlement in Ojibwe is Onigamiinsing, a reference to the small and easy portage across Minnesota Point between Lake Superior and western Saint Louis Bay, which forms Duluth's harbor. According to Ojibwe oral history, Spirit Island, near the Spirit Valley neighborhood, was the "Sixth Stopping Place", where the northern and southern branches of the Ojibwe Nation came together and proceeded to their "Seventh Stopping Place" near the present city of La Pointe, Wisconsin; the "Stopping Places" were the places the Native Americans occupied during their westward migration as the Europeans overran their territory. Several factors brought fur traders to the Great Lakes in the early 17th century; the fashion for beaver hats in Europe generated demand for pelts. French trade for beaver in the lower Saint Lawrence River had led to the depletion of the animals in that region by the late 1630s, so the French searched farther west for new resources and new routes, making alliances with the Native Americans along the way to trap and deliver their furs.
Étienne Brûlé is credited with the European discovery of Lake Superior before 1620. Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers explored the Duluth area, Fond du Lac in 1654 and again in 1660; the French soon established fur posts near Duluth and in the far north where Grand Portage became a major trading center. The French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, whose name is sometimes anglicized as "DuLuth", explored the Saint Louis River in 1679. After 1792 and the independence of the United States, the North West Company established several posts on Minnesota rivers and lakes, in areas to the west and northwest, for trading with the Ojibwe, the Dakota, other native tribes; the first post was where Superior, Wisconsin developed. Known as Fort Saint Louis, the post became the headquarters for North West's new Fond du Lac Department, it had stockaded walls, two houses of 40 feet each, a shed of 60 feet, a large warehouse, a canoe yard. Over time, Indian peoples and European Americans settled nearby, a town developed at this point.
In 1808, the American Fur Company was organized by German-born John Jacob Astor. The company began trading at the Head of the Lakes in 1809. In 1817, it erected a new headquarters at present-day Fond du Lac on the Saint Louis River. There, portages connected Lake Superior with Lake Vermillion to the north, with the Mississippi River to the south. After creating a powerful monopoly, Astor got out of the business about 1830, as the trade was declining, but active trade was carried on until the failure of the fur trade in the 1840s. European fashions had changed and many American areas were getting over-trapped, with game declining. Two Treaties of Fond du Lac were signed by natives with the United States in the present neighborhood of Fond du Lac in 1826 and 1847, by which the Ojibwe ceded land to the American government; as part of the Treaty of Washington with the Lake Superior Band of Chippewa, the United States set aside the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation upstream from Duluth near Cloquet, Minnesota.
The Ojibwe population was moved there. As European Americans continued to settle and encroach on Ojibwe lands, the U. S. gove
North American beaver
The North American beaver is one of two extant beaver species. It is native to North America and introduced to Patagonia in South America and some European countries. In the United States and Canada, the species is referred to as "beaver", though this causes some confusion because another distantly related rodent, Aplodontia rufa, is called the "mountain beaver". Other vernacular names, including American beaver and Canadian beaver, distinguish this species from the other extant beaver species, Castor fiber, native to Eurasia; the North American beaver is an official animal symbol of Canada and is the official state mammal of Oregon. This beaver is the largest rodent in North America and competes with its Eurasian counterpart, the European beaver, for being the second-largest in the world, both following the South American capybara; the European species is larger on average but the American has a larger known maximum size. Adults weigh from 11 to 32 kg, with 20 kg being typical. In New York, the average weight of adult male beavers was 18.9 kg, while non-native females in Finland averaged 18.1 kg.
However, adults of both sexes averaged 16.8 kg in Ohio. The species seems to conform to Bergmann's rule. In the Northwest Territory, adults weighed a median of 20.5 kg. The American beaver is smaller in average body mass than the Eurasian species; the head-and-body length of adult North American beavers is 74–90 cm, with the tail adding a further 20–35 cm. Old individuals can exceptionally exceed normal sizes, weighing more than 40 kg or as much as 50 kg. Like the capybara, the beaver is semiaquatic; the beaver has many traits suited to this lifestyle. It has a large, paddle-shaped tail and large, webbed hind feet; the unwebbed front paws are smaller, with claws. The eyes are covered by a nictitating membrane; the nostrils and ears are sealed. A thick layer of fat under its skin insulates the beaver from its coldwater environment; the beaver's fur consists of short, fine inner hairs. The fur has a range of colors, but is dark brown. Scent glands near the genitals secrete an oily substance known as castoreum, which the beaver uses to waterproof its fur.
Before their near-extirpation by trapping in North America, beavers were ubiquitous and lived from the arctic tundra to the deserts of northern Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. Physician naturalist Edgar Alexander Mearns' 1907 report of beaver on the Sonora River may be the earliest report on the southernmost range of this North American aquatic mammal. However, beavers have been reported both and contemporaneously in Mexico on the Colorado River, Bavispe River, San Bernardino River in the states of Sonora and Chihuahua. Beavers are active at night, they are excellent may remain submerged up to 15 minutes. More vulnerable on land, they tend to remain in the water, they use their flat, scaly tail both to signal danger by slapping the surface of the water and as a location for fat storage. They construct their homes, or "lodges", out of sticks, twigs and mud in lakes and tidal river deltas; these lodges may be surrounded by water. Beavers are well known for building dams across streams and constructing their lodges in the artificial ponds which form.
When building in a pond, the beavers first make a pile of sticks and eat out one or more underwater entrances and two platforms above the water surface inside the pile. The first is used for drying off. Towards winter, the lodge is plastered with mud which, when it freezes, has the consistency of concrete. A small air hole is left in the top of the lodge; the purpose of the dam is to create deepwater refugia enabling the beaver to escape from predators. When deep water is present in lakes, rivers, or larger streams, the beaver may dwell in a bank burrow and bank lodge with an underwater entrance; the beaver dam is constructed using branches from trees the beavers cut down, as well as rocks and mud. The inner bark, twigs and leaves of such trees are an important part of the beaver's diet; the trees are cut down using their strong incisor teeth. Their front paws are used for digging and carrying and placing materials; the sound of running water dictates where a beaver builds its dam. Besides providing a safe home for the beaver, beaver ponds provide habitat for waterfowl and other aquatic animals.
Their dams can help reduce flooding. However, beaver dams are not permanent and depend on the beavers' continued presence for their maintenance. Beavers concentrate on building and repairing dams in the fall in preparation for the coming winter. In northern areas, they do not repair breaches in the dam made by otters, sometimes breach the dam themselves and lower the water level in the pond to create more breathing space under the ice or get easier access to trees below the dam. In a 1988 study in Alberta, Canada, no beavers repaired "sites of water loss" during the winter. Of 178 sites of water loss, beavers repaired 78 when water was opened, did not repair 68; the rest were repaired. Beavers are best known for their dam-building, they maintain their pond-habitat by reacting to the sound of running water, damming it up with tree branches and mud. Early ecologists believed that this dam-building was an amazi
Pinus strobus
Pinus strobus denominated the eastern white pine, northern white pine, white pine, Weymouth pine, soft pine is a large pine native to eastern North America. It occurs from Newfoundland, Canada west through the Great Lakes region to southeastern Manitoba and Minnesota, United States, south along the Appalachian Mountains and upper Piedmont to northernmost Georgia and very in some of the higher elevations in northeastern Alabama; the Native American Haudenosaunee denominated it the "Tree of Peace". It is known as the "Weymouth pine" in the United Kingdom, after Captain George Weymouth of the British Royal Navy, who brought its seeds to England from Maine in 1605. Pinus strobus is found in the nearctic temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome of eastern North America, it prefers well-drained or sandy soils and humid climates, but can grow in boggy areas and rocky highlands. In mixed forests, this dominant tree towers over many others, including some of the large broadleaf hardwoods, it provides food and shelter for numerous forest birds, such as the red crossbill, small mammals such as squirrels.
Eastern white pine forests covered much of north-central and north-eastern North America. Only one percent of the old-growth forests remain after the extensive logging operations of the 18th century to early 20th century. Old growth forests, or virgin stands, are protected in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Other protected areas with known virgin forests, as confirmed by the Eastern Native Tree Society, include Algonquin Provincial Park, Quetico Provincial Park, Algoma Highlands in Ontario, Canada. Small groves or individual specimens of old growth eastern white pines are found across the range of the species in the USA, including in Ordway Pines, Maine. Many sites with conspicuously large specimens represent advanced old field ecological succession; the tall stands in Mohawk Trail State Forest and William Cullen Bryant Homestead in Massachusetts are examples. As an introduced species, Pinus strobus is now naturalizing in the Outer Western Carpathians subdivision of the Carpathian Mountains in Czech Republic and southern Poland.
It has spread from specimens planted as ornamental trees. Like most members of the white pine group, Pinus subgenus Strobus, the leaves are in fascicles of 5, or 3 or 4, with a deciduous sheath, they are flexible, bluish-green, finely serrated, 5–13 cm long, persist for 18 months, i.e. from the spring of one season until autumn of the next, when they abscise. The seed cones are slender, 8–16 cm long and 4–5 cm broad when open, have scales with a rounded apex and reflexed tip; the seeds are 4–5 mm long, with a slender 15–20 mm wing, are dispersed by wind. Cone production peaks every 3 to 5 years; the branches are spaced about every 18 inches on the trunk with 5-6 branches appearing like spokes on a wagon wheel. While eastern white pine is self-fertile, seeds produced this way tend to result in weak and malformed seedlings. Mature trees are 200–250 years old, some live to over 400 years. A tree growing near Syracuse, New York was dated to 458 years old in the late 1980s and trees in Michigan and Wisconsin were dated to 500 years old.
The eastern white pine has the distinction of being the tallest tree in eastern North America. In natural pre-colonial stands it is reported to have grown as tall as 70 m. There is no means of documenting the height of trees from these times, but eastern white pine may have reached this height on rare occasions. Greater heights have been reported in popular, but unverifiable, accounts such as Robert Pike's "Tall Trees, Tough Men". Total trunk volumes of the largest specimens are 28 m3, with some past giants reaching 37 or 40 m3. Photographic analysis of giants suggests volumes closer to 34 m3. Pinus strobus grows 1 m annually between the ages of 15 and 45 years, with slower height increments before and after that age range; the tallest presently living specimens are 50–57.55 m tall, as determined by the Native Tree Society. Three locations in southeastern United States and one site in northeastern United States have trees that are 55 m tall; the southern Appalachian Mountains have the most locations and the tallest trees in the present range of Pinus strobus.
One survivor is a specimen known as the "Boogerman Pine" in the Cataloochee Valley of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At 57.55 m tall, it is the tallest measured tree in North America east of the Rocky Mountains. It has been measured by tape drop by the Native Tree Society. Before Hurricane Opal broke its top in October 1995, Boogerman Pine was 63 m tall, as determined by Will Blozan and Robert Leverett using ground-based measurements; the tallest specimens in Hartwick Pines State Park in Michigan are 45–48 m tall. In northeastern USA, 8 sites in 4 states have trees over 48 m tall, as confirmed by the Native Tre
Birch
A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus Betula, in the family Betulaceae, which includes alders and hornbeams. It is related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae; the genus Betula contains 30 to 60 known taxa of which 11 are on the IUCN 2011 Red List of Threatened Species. They are a rather short-lived pioneer species widespread in the Northern Hemisphere in northern areas of temperate climates and in boreal climates. Birch species are small to medium-sized trees or shrubs of northern temperate and boreal climates; the simple leaves are alternate, singly or doubly serrate, feather-veined and stipulate. They appear in pairs, but these pairs are borne on spur-like, two-leaved, lateral branchlets; the fruit is a small samara. They differ from the alders in that the female catkins are not woody and disintegrate at maturity, falling apart to release the seeds, unlike the woody, cone-like female alder catkins; the bark of all birches is characteristically marked with long, horizontal lenticels, separates into thin, papery plates upon the paper birch.
Distinctive colors give the common names gray, black and yellow birch to different species. The buds form early and are full grown by midsummer, all are lateral, no terminal bud is formed; the wood of all the species is close-grained with a satiny texture and capable of taking a fine polish. The flowers are monoecious, opening with or before the leaves and borne once grown these leaves are 3–6 millimetres long on three-flowered clusters in the axils of the scales of drooping or erect catkins or aments. Staminate aments are pendulous, clustered or solitary in the axils of the last leaves of the branch of the year or near the ends of the short lateral branchlets of the year, they remain rigid during the winter. The scales of the staminate aments when mature are broadly ovate, yellow or orange color below the middle, dark chestnut brown at apex; each scale bears two bractlets and three sterile flowers, each flower consisting of a sessile, membranaceous two-lobed, calyx. Each calyx bears four short filaments with one-celled anthers or two filaments divided into two branches, each bearing a half-anther.
Anther cells open longitudinally. The pistillate aments are pendulous, solitary; the pistillate scales are oblong-ovate, three-lobed, pale yellow-green tinged with red, becoming brown at maturity. These scales bear each flower consisting of a naked ovary; the ovary is compressed, two-celled, crowned with two slender styles. Each scale bears a single small, winged nut, oval, with two persistent stigmas at the apex. Betula species are organised into five subgenera. Birches native to Europe and Asia include Betula albosinensis – Chinese red birch Betula alnoides – alder-leaf birch Betula ashburneri – Betula baschkirica – Betula bomiensis – Betula browicziana – Betula calcicola – Betula celtiberica – Betula chichibuensis – Betula chinensis – Chinese dwarf birch Betula coriaceifolia – Betula corylifolia – Betula costata – Betula cylindrostachya – Betula dahurica – Betula delavayi – Betula ermanii – Erman's birch Betula falcata – Betula fargesii – Betula fruticosa – Betula globispica – Betula gmelinii – Betula grossa – Japanese cherry birch Betula gynoterminalis – Betula honanensis – Betula humilis or Betula kamtschatica – Kamchatka birch platyphylla Betula insignis – Betula karagandensis – Betula klokovii – Betula kotulae – Betula litvinovii – Betula luminifera – Betula maximowiczii – monarch birch Betula medwediewii – Caucasian birch Betula megrelica – Betula microphylla – Betula nana – dwarf birch ) Betula pendula – silver birch Betula platyphylla – —Siberian silver birch Betula potamophila – Betula potaninii – Betula psammophila – Betula pubescens – downy birch known as white, European white or hairy birch Betula raddeana – Betula saksaren
Whitewater kayaking
Whitewater kayaking is the sport of paddling a kayak on a moving body of water a whitewater river. Whitewater kayaking can range to demanding, extreme whitewater. Paddling on rivers and oceans is as old as the Stone Age; the raft, the catamaran, the canoe and the kayak evolved depending on the needs and environment of the indigenous peoples in different parts of the world. The modern day kayak most originated about 8,000 years ago along the Siberian coast line by the Yupik and transformed from the open canoe, via the Aleut and Inuit, into an enclosed kayak; the first boats made were hard to sink because they contained inflated seal bladders, which made them ideal for navigating whitewater. The Greek, Herodotus, 484-425 BC, wrote in his travel diaries about boats with which merchandise was brought from Armenia to Babylon; the boats were made of a wooden framework, covered with animal skins. Mules hauled the precious skins back to Armenia; the Russian, Grigori Ivanovitch Langsdorff, reported from his trip around the world on the ease and elegance of paddling Eskimo kayaks/canoes.
The Scot, John MacGregor, came back from his North American trip full of excitement about the kayak/canoe and in 1860 started building six boats that resembled Eskimo canoes/kayaks, weighing app. 80 lb. In 1866 he published the book A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe; the timing was right and the book became a resounding success. With the Industrial Revolution leading to more leisure time in the middle of the 19th century, people in Europe started to enjoy floating down rivers in all kinds of contraptions taking in nature only available to a selected few. 1905, Alfred Heurich, an architectural student from Leipzig, invented the "Faltboot", a folding kayak called Folboat in the US. Heurich went on to paddle over 100,000 km on lakes. 1907, Alfred Klepper, a master seamster from Rosenheim, bought the patent, improved the rigidity with a lever system and started production. Born was the Western culture's invention of a paddle craft that for the first time in human history that allowed hardy enthusiasts to see wild river sections and canyons never before seen by the human eye.
The design made it not only suitable for whitewater but easy to travel with and affordable. World War I stopped any progress. 1920s, boating on WW with Folboats developed. Boaters flocked to lakes by train or bus. During that time, the Austrian, Edi Hans Pawlata reinvented the Eskimo roll. 1927, Franz von Alber, Klaus and Arndt von Rautenfeld, claimed to have independently developed a roll with their sea kayaks. Early 1930s, Walter Frentz, Herbert Rittlinger and a handful of others became pioneers and advocates of WW kayaking with documentaries and books. 1933, Adolf Hitler started to dissolve kayak clubs. They did not serve his plan and the impact on the sport was devastating. World War II brought the paddle sport to a total halt.1946/48, Depending on the region, the Allies lifted the ban on river travel in Germany. Paddle clubs were again allowed to form. 1952, Walter Frentz, published an inspiring book In den Schluchten Europas. The book was based on his river trips prior to World War II. Publications in those days told great stories with awesome pictures of first descents but with little information regarding river conditions.
The tough times of the post war era had come to an end and people traveled abroad again looking for adventures with Folboats and canoes. 1955, Herbert Baschin in Stuttgart built the first polyester/fiber kayak. Despite the much improved maneuverability and material, Baschin’s hard shell was received with skepticism by paddle sport enthusiasts who were in love with their folboats and depended on public transportation; the ice broke. The hard shell kayak was hauled to rivers and remote put-ins that were not accessible before. In the late 60s the WW sport started from Europe to spread around the world and transformed from adventure trips into a hardcore sport. With it came safety consciousness and protective gear. 1973, Tom Johnson, a racer and trainer from Kernville, California designs and markets the Hollowform: the first roto-molded polyethylene boat. It was mass-produced by a garbage can manufacturing company; these indestructible boats revolutionized the sport, took off in California. Paddlers no longer had to repair their boats during and after trips.
They began to be able to use rocks as part of the strategy of negotiating difficult rapids. Hard runs became more accessible to less-skilled paddlers. In 1978, Bill Masters, a kayaker and inventor in Liberty SC further perfected rotational molding for kayaks with his company Perception Kayaks. Bill advanced the sport of whitewater kayaking beyond any of his predecessors through consistent innovations in manufacturing and design, his patented processes are still used to this day. 1980 the manufacturer Prijon in Rosenheim introduced polyethylene to Europe which made WW boating maintenance and repair free in giant contrast to the Faltboot which had started it all. 1980 Holger Machatschek, together with ESKIMO kayak company in Landsberg, developed the first 2.2 m playboat called Topolino which galvanized kayaking into many new and exciting forms of extreme sports. There are five "sub-categories" in whitewater kayaking: Riverrunning is the essential - and some would say most artful - form of kayaking.
Whereas its derivative forms have evolved in response to the challenges posed by riverrunning, such as pushing the levels of
.JPG)
.JPG)
