Beringia

BERINGIA

Now if ever you wonder what pair of eyes

First saw what grows ‘neath American skies,

You need only to travel (in time not space)

To when great sheets of ice covered the place.

Many thousand years back, our story goes,

To when an Age of Ice numbed all fingers and toes,

When glaciers grew tall while the seas shrunk down

And where once it was water, now it was ground!

And ‘tween Alaska and Asia was one odd spot

Where the land was exposed and did offer a lot

Of roving tribes who were out on the hunt

A way to the vast American continent.

Now, this bridge of land we’ll call Beringia,

-- A path leading out of old Siberia.

And animals too, like the mammoth and bison,

Could cross this stretch for a new horizon.

And with no tour guides to ask and no maps to check

They followed the herds on a cross-country trek.

And armed as they were with spears and with stones

They feasted well on this game – just look at the bones!

So onward they trod, through the snow and the slush,

‘Til on far distant lands their feet came to touch.

Yet still further they ventured to South and to East,

Exploring new regions while tracking the beasts.

And like each branch of an oak, these farers spread out

O’er the hills and the plains this land throughout.

In time the ice melted and the snows were gone

-- Alas, too, the woolly mammoth and the mastodon.

But with fewer meaty creatures now roaming around

Folks put roots in the soil and they settled on down.

And thus born was the tale of this country we see

Whose wonders abound by each river and tree…