The St. Bernard breed of dogs from the Alps in Italy and Switzerland were originally bred for
rescue in those mountains. The dogs were named for a real person, St. Bernard of Montjoux.
St. Bernard was born in 923 and ran away from his home to avoid an
arranged marriage. He went to Italy and joined the Benedictine order. In
the Alps he found people still following pagan
ways and dedicated the next 42 years of his life to converting the
local people. In 962 St. Bernard established a monastery and a hospice at the
highest point of a highly traveled and treacherous pass in the Alps
between Italy and Switzerland. Eventually that pass came
to bear his name.
The monks would go out during heavy
snow storms (as well as the rest of the year) accompanied by their dogs in search of travelers or
those who had perished trying to travel the pass. The earliest written records of the St.
Bernard breed are from 1707 from that very monastery though paintings
and pictures date back even further.
St. Bernard (the man) is the patron saint of skiing, snowboarding, hiking, backpacking
and mountaineering and the dogs that bear his name are still very tied
to the Alpine lifestyle. His feast day is May 28th (our youngest son’s
birthday).
I have pinned this medal to my backpack strap as a physical reminder that I have asked St. Bernard to pray for me in my prep hikes and during my Appalachian Trail journey and for the safety of all hikers. I have also asked family and friends for their prayers -- those who have gone before me and those living because we are the communion of saints.
by Albert W. Palmer,
Excerpted from The Mountain Trail and Its Message (1911)
"There are always some people in the mountains who are known as "hikers."
They rush over the trail at high speed and take great delight in being
the first to reach camp and in covering the greatest number of miles in
the least possible time.They measure the trail in terms of speed and distance.
One day as I was resting in the shade, Mr. Muir overtook me on the trail and
began to chat in that friendly way in which he delights to talk with everyone
he meets. I said to him: "Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve
of the word 'hike.' Is that so?" His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch
accent he replied: "I don't like either the word or the thing. People ought
to saunter in the mountains - not hike!
"Do you know the origin of that word 'saunter?' It's a beautiful word.
Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy
Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where
they were going, they would reply, "A la sainte terre,' 'To the Holy
Land.' And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now
these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them
reverently, not 'hike' through them."
John Muir lived up to his doctrine. He was usually the last man to reach
camp. He never hurried. He stopped to get acquainted with individual trees
along the way. He would hail people passing by and make them get down on
hands and knees if necessary to see the beauty of some little bed of almost
microscopic flowers. Usually he appeared at camp with some new flowers
in his hat and a little piece of fir bough in his buttonhole.
Now, whether the derivation of saunter Muir gave me is scientific or fanciful,
is there not in it another parable? There are people who "hike" through
life. They measure life in terms of money and amusement; they rush along
the trail of life feverishly seeking to make a dollar or gratify an appetite.
How much better to "saunter" along this trail of life, to measure it in
terms of beauty and love and friendship! How much finer to take time to
know and understand the men and women along the way, to stop a while and
let the beauty of the sunset possess the soul, to listen to what the trees
are saying and the songs of the birds, and to gather the fragrant little
flowers that bloom all along the trail of life for those who have eyes
to see!
You can't do these things if you rush through life in a big red automobile
at high speed; you can't know these things if you "hike" along the trail
in a speed competition. These are the peculiar rewards of the man who has
learned the secret of the saunterer! "
(Photo of Alum Cave Creek taken on our hike to Mt. LeConte 9/6/2012)
I hope I can take this message to heart and be a saunterer on the Appalachian Trail.
