The news of Treveor Greene and the other events involving the Canadian Forces in south-east Afghanistan coincided this week with TVO presenting Michael Palin's travel series Himalaya including the episode Friday about the Chitral area of northern Pakistan, its most northerly district of the NFWP that is wedged between India, Afghanistan and near a bit of the former USSR republic of Tajikistan. A later episode describes the manly unbifurcated garments of Bhutan much farther east. The same mountain grouping that includes the NWFP at its eastern edge also includes the area where Canadian Forces are located in Afganistan as well as the Kyber pass where my great-grandfather apparently plied his trade as a British Sgt. Major around 1900. Here is a handy description of the various sub-regions of the NWFP and here are some handy maps.

Palin's episode this week focused on the Kalash people who are believed to be decended from the army of Alexander the Great. They also invented polo. The Waziristan region at the south of the NWFP is currently an area of military operations against Al Queda.