As the Athabasca Expedition team paddles to the delta of Alberta's greatest river, I wish them well. To the team members, and to everyone else who is along in spirit, I offer the following food for thought — as well as a reading assignment.

Myriads of humble organisms live in the river, some of which have changed very little since they appeared millions of years ago.

While these amphipods and ostracods and gastropods seem incapable of laughing, you never know. Everything is smarter than we think it is. If they can laugh, they will have had the last laugh many times as they watch other species come and go. Simplicity, adaptability and a good general skill set — that's the formula for longevity on this planet.

These creatures seem to know their places in the ecosystem. They do not try to take over the river for their own exclusive use. Most humans think that taking over things is just fine, that massive growth of anything signals success. However, ecologists know that this notion is wrong. Edward Abbey — a writer who claimed not to be an ecologist, but who actually was — said it best: "Perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell."

"We should go for smallness... The Athabasca suffers when we make the error of embracing bigness." Perpetual growth is also the creed of many economists, few of whom have heard of Edward Abbey. At least two, however, are in full agreement with him. Herman Daly and John Cobb, Jr. wrote a book called For the Common Good. It's an amazing treatise on post-industrial, steady-state economics, and it's profound, right up there with The Wealth of Nations. It puts to rest old, discredited notions about innate human selfishness, the inherent goodness of constant economic expansion, the endless pursuit of material goods and yet more convenient ways to wreck the globe.

I recommend For the Common Good to Athabasca Expedition members with time on their hands through the slower sections of the river.

To anyone who needs a dollop of hope for our species, Daly and Cobb offer it. According to them, we should go for smallness. Smallness in human affairs, from the size of our families to the size of our companies and our communities. To quote Ernst Schumacher, another gifted economist, "Small is beautiful."

The Athabasca is not small. It is a big, powerful river. Yet it is also a confluence of many small streams, a gathering of rivulets. Thus, it is beautiful.

The Athabasca suffers when we make the error of embracing bigness, when we arrogantly assume that we are stronger than it is. But like the amphipods, the Athabasca has been here for a very long time. It was flowing before the Rockies were built, before the ice ages (a temporary inconvenience for it) and long before we humans came along, invented engineering and thought of ways to "use" it.

"Can rivers laugh? ...wise up and laugh along with it." Can rivers laugh? Their waters seem to. Will the Athabasca have the last laugh? The way we are going, it will. I'd rather we wise up and laugh along with it, happily dipping our paddles into its glacial runoff a thousand generations from now, having learned our lesson, smallified everything human and saved the world from ourselves.

- Ben Gadd, Jasper
Naturalist, Writer & River Advocate