Time and Place: The Blossoms of Pink Mountain

This title is an acquisition.

For brief weeks each summer, a few square kilometres at one single summit of hundreds in the Rocky Mountain foothills of northeastern British Columbia blossoms with a highland echo of arctic tundra. Average annual temperatures here are around zero degrees Celsius, and winter conditions are never more than 6 weeks away. Yet in this frigid, windswept, bone-dry place, a wide variety of miniature plants blossom here annually by concocting marvelous adaptations. Plants find tiny footholds in cracks in the rocky terrain, where soils have evolved over years, decades and even centuries. Trees grow just a few centimetres high, while full sized blooms spring forth on dwarf plants. Everything tries to find shelter or keep low to the ground and out of the wind, while capturing as much of the sun's heat and as many drops of elusive moisture as possible. Flies do the work of bees at this altitude, polinating plant species that provide unique incentives for the insects to visit. A wonderful variety of animals, from stone sheep to hoary marmots, can be found on Pink Mountain. A final helicopter ride proves that among the hundreds of mountain peaks in this area, this unique environment has evolved only in this Time & Place.