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Tuesday, May 29, 2007
A Couple of Islands
"Photo by R.Tanabe"
I'm off to Manitoulin Island this week for another site operator search.
The destination is Gore Bay, on the north shore of the island. Waiting
to cross the Swing Bridge at Little Current. It is only a one lane
bridge.
I went out to the site at Burnt Island, not really an island, it is well
connected to the main island. A popular place during deer season.
The closest town is Silver Water. I saw this sign.
Here is the sign in proper context.
It was a beautiful day on the island.
Sunset over Gore Bay.
Looking out to the North Channel.
Gordon's Lodge in Gore Bay.
See the bird on the rock?
A close-up.
Went for a drive after dinner.
Not sure what type of birds these are. I think they are Sandhill cranes.
Lots of deer out in the fields at dusk.
The Lodge from across the bay, my room was in the building on the right.
A lighthouse out on Janet Head.
Light on!
Light off!
Wildlife was abundant on this trip. I saw a black bear run across the
highway just outside of Sudbury. I also saw lots of deer and Great Blue
Herons on the island.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Clear skies, finally
The clouds finally cleared out this morning and we were able to see the
horizon.
It was a very crisp morning, it was around -22°C this morning.
This photo was taken at 12:30 pm. The only sound was the crunching of
the snow from my boots.
Somewhere over the hills is the sun.
When i got to the lab, there were some wolf tracks leading up to the
entrance. that line in the snow was him marking his territory I guess.
Looking towards the east.
This is our datalogger, showing room temperature and the ambient air
temperature.
This was taken at 3:00 pm.
Lets hope the sky stays clear, it makes the trips out to the lab a
little more bearable.
The current temperature at 4:00 pm.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Wolves
I checked the Environment Canada weather this morning for Alert and it
said it was going to be sunny. Waited all day but there was no sun, it
was clear, that was the closest it came.
I went out for a walk after lunch and it was cold. There was no wind so
the -28°C was really -28°C, the coldest yet with no windchill. I saw a
couple of the wolves, they hang near the back of the kitchen, even
though it is next to impossible for them to get in the dumpsters, they
still hang out there. It was hard to take a picture with low light, the
one actually came up to me and was about 3 ft away. This is one of the
young ones, so it has been around humans from birth. I think he moved
his head at the last second.
This one is a little better. I think there are 8 of them in total.
Some of the sunny skies today.
Just as I was uploading this entry the power went out and the fire alarm
sounded, again, this time it was in the power plant, that wouldn't be a
good thing. The all clear was given in about 20 minutes. It seemed a
little more serious as you walked through the halls in pitch black, with
only emergency lighting every so often to give us light.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
It's looking better
Tonight will be my 18th night away on this trip. Seems twice as long.
The plane left Trenton this morning and headed for Thule, Greenland. It
should be here tomorrow morning to pick up 15 of us and drop off 22. It
sounds like we will be spending Friday night in Iqaluit and then back to
Trenton on Saturday. I hope it is sunny, I guess anything will feel warm
compared to the -32°C today when I went out for a walk.
I went for a walk around the main complex this afternoon. It is a clear
night (day) so the moon and stars are out.
To the west there is still a hint of daylight on clear days.
I saw the "Trashman" out picking up garbage from the dumpsters.
The wolves came around to see what was going on.
You can see my shadow on the ground.
While I was crouched down trying to keep the camera steady, one of the
other ones was walking up to my side.
Here is one of the lifelines they string between buildings when there
are bad storms. The wolves hang out under the buildings for shelter.
The Alert skyline.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Back in the field
After a couple of days at home, I'm back in the field. I was originally
scheduled to travel to Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora on Monday,
but due to my delay in Alert, my trip was pushed back a couple of days.
I flew into Winnipeg ans stayed in Kenora on Wednesday night. Thursday
morning I opened my curtains to see about four deer.
On the way into the site I saw a pair of bald eagles. Here is one in the
trees.
Here is the other one in flight.
Shortly after that a rabbit ran along the road. On the drive from
Winnipeg last night there were alot of deer along the sides of the Trans
Canada. The weather has been good, some snow and mild temperatures.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
More eagles before heading home...
We finished most of what we had to get done before heading home.
On the way out we saw more eagles, we stopped to watch this one.
We had one of the students throw a snowball in the direction of the
eagle so it would take off.
Some of the scenery.
Heading into Winnipeg.
The Winnipeg Airport.
Some of the fire fighting water bombers.
A British Airways aircraft on the tarmac.
We ended up catching an earlier flight out of Winnipeg. I should be
sticking around Toronto for awhile.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Lunch in Halifax
I'm down in Nova Scotia this week, today and tomorrow I'm in the Truro
area and then down in Kejimkujik for the rest of the week. Today was a
travel day, so we had the opportunity to have lunch in Halifax.
Across from the restaurant was NovaScotian Crystal, it is on the
waterfront and the glassworks area is open to the street. Here is the
one guy blowing the glass.
Then he passed it off to another guy who added the handle.
The glass jug with handle.
The oven.
Somewhere along the waterfront.
Some of the boats in the harbour.
Close-up of the floats on the boat.
A lighthouse on Georges Island.
Some jellyfish in the harbour.
This is a cool play structure on the waterfront, it is shaped as a boat.
A sign outside the visitor information centre.
A sign on the wharves, "Wooden Wharves Please Do Not Smoke".
It was low tide at mid day.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Ticks and Toads
The weather this week was pretty good, a few days of clouds, but no
significant rain as forecasted. The blackflies were out in full force,
even the operator admitted she pulled out her bug jacket at the
beginning of the week because they were getting bad. Here I am in my bug
jacket. Of course my hands got chewed alive.
As well the ticks seemed to be worse then I have ever seen. Almost every
time you went outside you were bound to pick a couple of ticks up, they
like to hang on to the tall grass and railings and as you walk by they
jump off and onto your pants, shoes, whatever. Here is a tick on my
pants, the penny shows the size of the tick.
A closer look at the tick. This looks like the wood tick. It is the
blacklegged tick which carries lyme disease.
I saw this toad as I was leaving the site.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
South of Anchorage
I had some time on my last day in Anchorage to take in some sights. I
decided to rent a car and drive south of Anchorage towards Portage Lake.
This is Turnagain Arm, you can see the mudflats in the foreground. A
couple of people have died after venturing out and getting stuck in the
fine silt and then being unable to get their leg free as high tide comes
in.
This is McHugh Creek, just one of many that flow down towards Turnagain
Arm.
This was Beluga Point, didn't see any belugas though because of the low
tide.
Looking east in towards the arm.
A compass on the ground to orient yourself.
Some wildflowers near one of the lookouts.
Most of the drive was in cloudy overcast skies.
A timer picture of me.
Turnagain Arm is one of the few places in the world (about 60 places)
that have tidal bores. The Bay of Fundy being one of the larger tidal
ranges.
This was closer to the Portage turnoff.
There was no sign prohibiting the use of firearms.
I was able to see a moose in his natural habitat.
And then I saw some muskox by the side of the road.
And wouldn't luck have a brown bear was off in the distance.
There were a couple of wood bison minding their own business.
I wasn't sure if this moose was thinking of charging.
You must of figured out by now that these animals weren't quite as free
and wild as they look. Close to the Portage Lake turnoff is the Alaska
Wildlife Conservation Centre. This place takes in injured or
orphaned animals. You can either drive through it or park and walk
through. Here is a close-up of the Wood Bison, this herd was from
Canada, they are there for a couple of years and then they will be
released into the wild.
They had the Sitka Black Tailed deer and elk mixed in together.
Caribou or "reindeer" grazing in their compound.
This was a Plains Bison different from the Wood Bison above.
The brown bear sitting for a picture. As you can see there isn't much
between the bear and me, it is about 6ft away, behind an electric fence,
the fence and then a rail fence on my side.
This cabin is the remenants of the 1964 earthquake that hit Alaska, it
register 9.2 on the Ricter scale, the largest ever in the Northern
Hemisphere. The town of Portage was destroyed, and many areas dropped so
much that the saltwater killed much of the low lying forests and
surrounding vegetation.
This bird kept flying around when I was walking along a trail.
This is Portage Lake, the icebergs are from the Portage Glacier. The
glacier comes down and enters the water and extends about 100 feet into
the water.
The glacier use to extend right across the lake, in order to see it
close-up you need to take a cruise boat up to the face of it.
If you drive a little further there is a viewpoint where you can
actually see part of the glacier.
The Begich-Boggs Visitor Center, the glacier use to reach the visitor
center in 1911.
This either the Burns or Byron glacier.
A hanging glacier in the distance.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Back on the Road...
My travels have started. I managed to stay home for the month of
September, but starting today, I will be on the road through the week
quite a bit. My first trip was to Lac Edouard, Quebec. It is about three
hours north of Trois-Rivieres.
It was an interesting drive, I managed to hit a moose head on and walk
away unscathed. The road was hilly and as we came over the top of one of
the crests, there was a moose on the right side of the road and another
one straddling the centre line. I saw the one on the side first and then
his buddy on the road. I hit the brakes and took out his legs and it
rolled onto the hood and slammed into the windshield. The car stopped
and he rolled off and then he got up on all fours and walked into the
bush. We were lucky the car had a low profile and that it was a juvenile
moose with no antlers, otherwise it may have been another ending. Here
are some photos of the car.
The body landed on the drivers side and the head slammed the passenger
side.
There was some damage to the front quarter panel.
The worst was the windshield, with some help from the locals where we
were staying, we were able to get the windshield repaired, otherwise the
rest of the vehicle was driveable.
The auto shop that repaired the windshield, provided a rental vehicle. A
Dodge Ram 1500 5.7 HEMI, not the most environmentally friendly vehicle.
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