Happy New Year and
welcome to 2014!
Did you have a nice New
Year’s Eve? How did you spend it? Warm and cozy at home with family? Enjoying a
lovely (and safe!) gathering with friends?
Perhaps you spent it
enjoying a circus on the bottom of a frozen solid lake?
Well, believe it or
not, somebody did!
Picture towering
mountains cradling a rugged valley. Picture steep, smooth slopes tumbling down
to the massive, sparkling body of water below. And imagine that the water is so
clear that, standing on the shore out you can see up to forty feet into its
depths.
That place you’re
seeing in your mind is Siberia’s Lake Baikal.
This sprawling body of
water was one of Mother Nature’s
earliest creations. It fact it’s known as the oldest lake in the world
at the hearty age of 25 to 30 million years. It was formed when tons of rock
collapsed from the bottom of an expanding fault line, creating a huge stone
bowl.
It wasn’t long in
geological terms before that stone bowl began to fill up with assistance of
rainfall and the three hundred or so rivers that empty into it. It’s a
startling contrast that there’s only one river carrying water out of it.
Today, Lake Baikal
holds more water than all five of North America’s great lakes combined. In
fact, it contains more that 20% of the worlds total non-frozen fresh water
supply. That’s a whole bunch of water! It’s probably no wonder that Baikal is
also the deepest lake in the world. It would have to be to accommodate that
kind of volume. It has a maximum depth of
more than a mile (That’s 5314 feet!)
And sheer size! The
surface alone is roughly the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut put
together.
If you thought that was
enough amazingness for one lake, think some more!
Lake Baikal also just
so happens to be a very highly endemic environment. That means that 80% of the
plants and animals that live there, live ONLY there, and are found nowhere else
on earth. This includes a couple of species of golomyanka fish, translucent
deep water dwellers who can’t tolerate sunlight and begin decaying as soon as
it touches their skin.
Then there’s the BaikalSeal. This cute, fuzzy little guy is one of only two species of freshwater
seal known to exist, and you will only
find him at Lake Baikal. His closest cousin lives some 2000 miles away in the
Arctic. Do you think this big-eyed, gray, velvet-faced little guy knows he’s
living on one of the most amazing places on earth?
So, then, what is this
Underwater Circus all about? Apparently it’s a tradition that on New Year’s
Eve, a hole is cut in Baikal’s floor with a “New Year’s Tree”. They set the
tree down there, then dance all around it. Happy New Year!
Lake Baikal made the
news, recently. As one of the region’s best natural resources, it’s a huge
attraction to local industry. Sadly, Baikal’s banks are lined with
civilization.
Late in 2013, the
Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill closed it’s doors for good, bringing an end to the
tons of waste dumped into the water every day. This monumental move was made in
response to tremendous pressure to put the environment first.
And it is absolutely
awesome that this one-of-a-kind place is being protected. This is wonderful
news!
At the same time,
however, it makes me cringe that this decision had to cost over a thousand
people their jobs.
I wish it didn’t always
have to be a choice between whether to take care of Mother Nature or to look
after each other. I will jump up and down with glee and kick my heels together
the day we figure out a way to do both.
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