Day 1: A delay by American Airlines while waiting for soccer fans almost cost us our connection in Vancouver, but with hustle and the help of friendly Canadian Airport staff, we were able to catch our flight to Whitehorse. We stayed at the Raven Inn, where Shashi quickly affirmed the appropriate christening, watching a gull fly by. We had dinner at Taj, an only Indian diner, and headed to bed.

Day 2: After a morning run/walk along the scenic Yukon River in Klondike Park, we drove to Haines Junction and checked in at Alcon Inn. We headed for the Sheep Mountain hike soon afterward and missed the trail sign, but practiced creek crossings before being redirected by a passing hiker from the UK.

Day 3: We took a two-hour sightseeing tour of majestic Kluane Park, witnessing awesome snow-covered cliffs, mighty glaciers, and the towering Mount Lodan with its huge glacier-covered plateaued summit.

Afterward, we hiked King’s Throne to its seat. I was tentative and returned earlier because of the scree-covered, steep ridges, which failed to instill confidence in me. The reckless warriors Shashi and Baj continued undeterred, making their insurance carriers nervous.

Day 3: We hiked at a moderate pace and headed towards Carmacks. A jaywalking bear provided the thrill of the day.

Day 4: After the morning walk/run, we headed towards Dawson. We enjoyed a quick hike to Five Sisters on the way. The Arctic highway had its usual maintenance issues, adding to choke points and smothering dust. We ate at our hotel(El Dorado, (same chicken sandwich and fries every night).

Day 5: We headed to Tombstone Park and were fortunate to have favorable weather for hiking to Grizzly Lake, nestled majestically in Canada’s Patagonia. This 14.2-mile hike is considered strenuous, with steep sections of talus and boulders making the ground underfoot precarious. According to the information board, the hike takes 7 hours one-way. We hurried along and finished the back-and-forth in 10 hours. We reached the hotel a little after 10 pm in the blazing Sun, but found the eateries closed and had to observe a coerced fast.

Day 6: We carried a little fatigue in our legs but pushed through the Golden Side hike, followed by a walk along the Klondike River, interspersed with a trip to the Tombstone Interpretive Center.

Day 7: We packed and headed back to Whitehorse with a short but hard Plume Agate hike squeezed along the way. We ran into an intrepid bobcat crossing the highway, and a wayward moose running too fast for our cameras to capture. In Whitehorse, we had Indian food again at the Taj and headed to bed.

Day 8: Mild workout/walk/run and a short drive to the canyon to see the mighty Yukon squeeze through the canyons before boarding the flight back to Vancouver

Some interesting Canadian facts

90% of the population lives within a hundred miles of the US border.

Less than 1% of the area is inhabited.

The three territories have 40% of the land and 0.3% of the population at 136,000.

Canada has the largest area under glaciers in the world.

It has the largest percentage of Sikhs in its population outside Punjab.

It is not the 51st state(yet).

– brij

Returning after a long hike. Grizzly Bear Lake hike. 14.5 miles and 4700 feet. Rated among the top five hikes in Canada.

It is located in Tombstone Park in the Arctic Circle with blazing midnight Sun.

Now for the photos.

Dawson is a town of 2000. It looks like a 1800s gold rush town, with unpaved streets and potholes. We are staying at “the historic Eldorado” with “antique” furniture.

When we came back last night, the restaurant was closed, so I enjoyed a glass of milk for dinner .

We do have running water and AC

250 years!

Long enough for a nation to reinvent itself again and again.

What has been a forever … a constant… is the story of possibility.

America’s belief that a person’s future should not be determined by where they were born, what resources they inherited, or the circumstances they faced along the way. It is the enduring idea that the American Dream should be within reach for everyone.

Few institutions embody that ideal more fully than community colleges.

Community colleges are a uniquely American invention. They were created on a simple premise:

Higher education should not be reserved for a select few. It should be readily available to all who seek to learn, grow, and contribute.

As we navigate an era shaped by artificial intelligence, climate challenges, economic transformation, and rapid social change, community colleges continue to stand at the intersection of opportunity and hope. Yes, we prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow, and perhaps more importantly, we also help them develop the judgment, resilience, and civic responsibility needed to strengthen the communities they call home.

America’s 250th is an invitation to recommit ourselves to the values that have always moved our nation forward: opportunity, service, innovation, and the belief that every person has something to contribute.

Across California’s 116 community colleges, I see those values alive every day.

I see them in the student veteran walking into a classroom after military service.

I see them in the working parent taking evening classes after a full day of work.

I see them in the first-generation college student who dares to imagine a future different from the one they inherited.

I see them in the California Community College faculty member, the classified professional and the administrator who refuses to give up on a single student.

I see them in communities that continue to believe that education remains one of the most powerful forces for individual opportunity and collective progress.

If the first 250 years of the American story were about expanding the boundaries of freedom and opportunity, then let the next 250 years be about ensuring that opportunity reaches every community, every family, and every learner.

The American experiment remains unfinished, renewed by each generation through learning, innovation, and service. Every day, across California Community Colleges, in classrooms, laboratories, apprenticeships, libraries, learning centers, and online, millions of students are writing the next chapter of that story.

As we celebrate 250 years, may we have the wisdom to learn from the past, the courage to meet the challenges of the present, and the imagination to build a future worthy of those who come after us.

That is the work before us.

That is the promise of education.

That is the mission of the California Community Colleges.

Our time is now.

Join the California Community Colleges in marking America’s 250^th Anniversary and celebrating the students, graduates, and communities building California and the nation at https://www.cccco.edu/America250 –

– sonya

Happy 4th

Happy 250th

Good morning

From the 51st state

– brij

My TGIF’s lazy morning was challenged by Fareed Zakaria’s article about liberalism that invites the revolution to move to the center. It got me thinking. Here are some of my nomadic thoughts.

In Adrian Wooldridge’s new book, “The Revolutionary Center,” a brilliant intellectual history of liberalism from the Enlightenment to the present, Wooldridge reminds us that liberalism was once the most radical force in politics. It attacked inherited privilege, monopoly power, censorship, aristocracy, clerical authority, and closed guilds. It was not the ideology of the establishment. It was the battering ram against the establishment

Socialist democrats, a political gadfly, are putting an emphatic stamp on the Democratic Party. Its ascendancy is under scrutiny and anxiety-provoking among most centrists and moderates.

The philosophical core of classical liberalism since the Enlightenment has encompassed individual liberty, limited government, private property, religious tolerance, social pluralism, accountability, free markets, reason, progress, and the rule of law.

Since the 1990s, the laissez-faire approach and the erosion of the essence of liberalism as originally conceived have manifested in corporate consolidations, legacy admissions, meritocratic “aristocracy”, homelessness, obesity, and NIMBYism, among other salient symptoms.

The failure is most glaring at the K-12 level, where union, political, school board, and foundation interests prevail at the expense of the next generation.

The Centrist approach to address this problem, perhaps harshly labeled Paternal Liberalism, is an attempt at reform that seeks to elevate the little guy to a level playing field and connect it with accountability.

The Leftist approach seeks transformation and not reform. The left seeks a system-based redistribution, identity-based politics, and outcome-based liberalism, if it can still use the liberalism label.

At present, the discourse is animated, loud, and contentious. Hopefully, it remains civil. Stay tuned.

– brij

Dear California Community Colleges:

My introduction to you happened in the late 1990s.

I arrived in Los Angeles, a foreign graduate student, trying to understand America through textbooks and LA’s RTD routes.

And then I met you.

An institution built on virtues I could not quite comprehend.

Infinite hope.
Untiring patience.
Radical non-judgment.
You met people where they were.

Not where they should have been.
Not where someone thought they ought to be.
But where they were.

You were born long before I met you in the Central Valley, where community colleges first took root in California soil.
Practical. Accessible. Close to home. Built for possibility.

And then you spread.

From the Central Valley  – Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced
you reached into the Inland Empire – Riverside, San Bernardino
out to the eastern edge of our state – the Coachella Valley, Palm Desert, Indio
up the North State – Chico, Redding
across the Bay – Oakland, Hayward, San José
down the Central Coast – Monterey, San Luis Obispo
into Los Angeles – every corner, every neighborhood in LA
and all the way to the borderlands – San Diego, Imperial Valley.

Across the Sierra foothills.
Along Highway 99.
Down the 5 and the 101.

Into farmworker towns.
Into port cities.
Into rural mountain communities.
Into urban corridors.
Where opportunity needed a doorway you became that doorway.

You evolved.

You empowered people.
You improved constantly
You innovated for students.
You added programs.
Added pathways.
Added chances.

And over three decades, I have watched you love Californians by taking action in real tangible ways.

I have seen the foster youth who carried everything they owned in a backpack walk across a commencement stage because someone at a community college refused to give up on them.

I have seen the formerly incarcerated Californian who found purpose through education, completed a certificate, earned a degree, and now gives back to their community.

I have seen the veteran, resilient, carrying both visible and invisible weight, find a Veterans Resource Center and a faculty member who said, “You belong here.”

I have seen the student with a disability navigate hallways that were once barriers and find accommodations, allies, and a future not defined by limitation but by capacity.

You do not ask for perfection.
You ask for effort.
You do not require pedigree.
You require courage.

Over two million students a year.

Two million stories of trying again.
Starting over. Leveling up.

You are accessible.
You are practical.
You are relentless in your belief that Californians deserve more.

On this Valentine’s Day, I say it plainly:

I love you, California Community Colleges,
– for your open doors.
– for your stubborn optimism.
– for believing in people before they believe in themselves.

You are California at its best.

And after three decades of watching you in motion … through reform, recession, innovation, and renewal,

I am convinced of this:

If there is an institution built on hope in America,

It is you!

With gratitude, admiration, and love
Your chancellor,
sonya

» Read Sonya Christian’s Blog!

Fall Colors

Sept/Oct 

The end of September and the beginning of October present possibilities of Nature’s miracles in the Colorado Rockies. As the temperature looks winter-wards, the green on the Aspens deepens, presenting a dazzling spectacle of colors. From a greenish yellow to deep crimson, a plethora of colors erupt into a visual delight for the mesmerized eyes. Season’s first snow lends added contrast to rich colors. The colorful flora in the lap of towering, freshly snow-covered mountains wows the casual to the committed. 

I happened to avail myself of Nature’s blessings this time around, an annual ritual in this part of the world. Aspen, Snowmass, and Vail are small towns with worldwide fame. It’s easy to see why. 

Nature speaks for them. It finds eloquence in colors, in towering height of fifty-eight 14ers, and lung-cleansing air. The magic seeps deep in the soul.

A single day may befit a year. 

Early morning freeze, midday heat on a taxing hike, late afternoon thunderstorm with “tropical” rain shower, followed by a sudden break in clouds, only to be substituted by late evening snowflakes. It’s a cycle we experienced more than once during our week-long escape to the Rockies.

The long hikes at demanding inclines and challenging altitudes confer long periods of absolute silence. The sense of awe finds a companion in introspection. Problems seem to find solutions.

Plagued by divisiveness, an unsettled mind yearns for an answer in nature. It strives to seek a resolution. 

The changing colors tell a captivating story.

Photosynthesis is the foundational miracle of nature that harnesses water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight to produce life-sustaining oxygen and energy. Trees have evolved to do it effortlessly and flawlessly with 100% efficiency—no wasted effort. No toxic residues. As Fall temperatures plummet, days get shorter, photosynthesis splutters, and leaves blush. No more worthy of photosynthesis, leaves fall and fertilize the next bloom. They fall in style and breathtaking splendor.

Hate should be deciduous, love perennial, the falling leaves seem to say. 

Hate should blush with shame and fall, like fall leaves, to be reborn as love. That’s a cycle of life the Fall seems to inspire. 

Imagine spellbinding colors of a Fall leaf drifting elegantly towards the ground, having fulfilled its obligations to support photosynthesis and now committing to raising the next generation. That’s how nature renews its vows. Life intuitively sustains itself.

Hate is counterintuitive to humanity. Love is the necessary glue. 

The falling leaves helped me shed some of my prejudices. It was a refreshing and necessary interlude.

– brij