I spent the week out in the Meadow Lake, SK area. Although the forecast kept threatening rain, we only got some the Monday night and the rest of the week was pretty good. A canola crop freshly harvested, it sits for 18 days before they collect it.
I’ve never stayed at the Nor’Wester Motor Inn, although I’ve bought expensive beer from the Cold Beer store and have eaten at the restaurant once.
Traveling back to Saskatoon on the Yellowed Highway.
I was down in Champaign, Illinois last week for a few days. I had meetings with folks from the National Atmospheric Deposition Program at the University of Illinois. We flew direct from Toronto to Indianapolis and then drove 2 hours to Champaign. The weather was nice during the day, sunny and hot. It brought in a nice thunder and lightning storm that evening.
There was a nice sunrise the next morning.
The one night they took us down to Campustown for dinner. This is the main quad, that is Foellinger Auditorium in the background.
The Alma Mater statue, a popular spot for grad photos.
Altgeld Hall, this is the original university library building in 1897, it now houses the Department of Mathematics and Mathematics Library.
Noticed that the markings on the tarmac at the Indianapolis Airport are in the racing motif.
I was down in Nova Scotia this past week, had a chance to visit the Kejimkujik Seaside, it is part of the National Park that is on the coast.
It had a set of the red Adirondack chairs.
On Friday, we had some time before heading to the airport to stop at Duncan’s Cove, just outside of Halifax.
A Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus).
An old gun battery.
My colleague that I was travelling with lived in Nova Scotia for a few years before coming to work for us. This was one of the out of the way spots he used to visit.
After arriving home at 3:30am on Sunday morning from Jamaica, I was back at the airport on Monday morning heading to Fort Smith, NWT, spending the week at Wood Buffalo National Park. The first day on the way to the site we saw 12 black bears (Ursus americanus).
The one bear was grazing at the side of the road and when the truck stopped it came a little closer and sat down and watched us.
We only saw one bison the whole day.
When we arrived at the site a bear came wandering into the clearing.
It spent a couple of hours grazing around the site.
We saw about 4 bears on the way back to town.
One evening we headed down to the Rapids of the Drown to see the American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos).
I had brought my big zoom lens.
They have the second largest average wingspan of any North American bird, after the California condor.
One of the air quality techs from from the Government of the Northwest Territories Environment was down from Yellowknife for the week. He is an avid bird and wildlife photographer.
Sunset over the Slave River. The weather the first two days were sunny and hot, the temperature in Fort Smith when we landed on Monday was 24 degrees C. By Wednesday morning it dropped to 5 degrees C.
There were just as many bears each day we headed out to the site.
We saw a few “brown” black bears or cinnamon bears. That was something to see, it was the first time seeing one.
This one was a darker brown colour.
We even saw a bear up in a tree.
WE stopped at Little Buffalo Falls on the Thursday.
In the spring it is always an impressive waterfall.
It was a good week in Fort Smith, even got some work done. My colleague and I both had our luggage bumped on the flight from Edmonton to Fort Smith on the Monday. The plane was 200 lb over its weight. After they took our names and numbers, I asked if there was any compensation for us, since we didn’t have our bags. The girl came back out with $40 cash each. It bought our beer. Our bags didn’t end up coming until Tuesday afternoon. Looking into the cockpit on the return flight to Edmonton.
I spent the week of April 25-29th in Madison, Wisconsin for work. It was the Spring meeting for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program. This year I am Chairing the Technical Subcommittee and the Joint Committees portion of the meeting at both the Spring and Fall Meetings. In November, the meeting is being held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Here is a photo of the Capitol Building, the hotel is located across the street. This was the third time I have been to Madison for the meetings.
Work had me out to British Columbia this past week. A colleague and I had to get some of the equipment back up and running after some recent problems. We lucked out with the weather, there was some rain when we were crossing on the ferry Monday and a little bit early Tuesday morning, but the rest of the week was mostly sunny.
Shanna had some time off and was planning to go to Abbotsford, so when she heard I was coming, she planned her route via Saturna Island. It was good to see her.
This is the Four Winds B&B that we were staying at, it sits right on the water.
Before we headed to dinner on Wednesday we took in East Point. The island in the middle of the photo is a hangout for sea lions, seals, and bald eagles. It is about 200m offshore. This is an old fog alarm building.
Here are some of the sea lions (Otariinae), the grey mounds in the foreground are the seals. (Click on photo to enlarge)
There were two bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) on the island as well. (Click on photo to enlarge)
With the tide out there were lots of purple sea stars (Pisaster ochraceus).
Some of the seals (Phoca vitulina) in the water.
There was a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) sitting on the building.
As we got closer to the hawk on the building, it took off and landed in a nearby tree.
These were Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula).
We just missed the sunset by the time we got to the pub for dinner.
The next morning was clear so there was a nice sunrise.
The sun rising over Tumbo Island with Mt Baker in the background.
Waiting for the ferry back to Swartz Bay.
The ferry from Saturna Island to Mayne Island wasn’t that busy.
Leaving Saturna Island behind, the last time I was there was 4 years ago, hopefully it isn’t as long until the next trip.
We had to transfer at Mayne Island.
We got back to Vancouver Island and had dinner in Sidney at Shabai Thai, it was delicious. Shanna stayed with me in Sidney before catching an early ferry back to the main land Friday morning. I had an early flight back to Toronto.
I was in Stephenville, NL last week for work, it was my first trip this calendar year. Getting there was no problem, getting back was another story. I was scheduled to fly back from Deer Lake on Thursday afternoon, through St John’s. The storm that went through Toronto on Wednesday, came through Thursday morning with the same snow, ice pellets, freezing rain and then rain. My flight out of St John’s had already been delayed before I got to the Deer Lake Airport, when I checked in, they re-routed me through Halifax instead.
I was able to get to Halifax with no problem, which was good since my flight from Deer Lake to St John’s had been cancelled shortly after I landed. Halifax was pretty busy, I have never seen so many colours on the arrival/departure screens.
I headed to the lounge to wait for my 17:20 flight, only three hours. Eventually my flight was slowly being delayed and eventually cancelled. It turned out that the weather (winds) in Toronto were wreaking havoc in the other airports. There was a hold on all incoming flights until 16:30, anything that hadn’t left their airport of origin were being held. I was able to get booked on another flight for 20:30, originally they tried to re-book me for Friday morning. The incoming flight arrived so I headed down to the gate. The screens were still about the same.
The plane left the gate about 30 minutes late and I arrived at YYZ by 22:15 and eventually in the front door by 23:00. In the end only 5.5 hours behind schedule.
Here is a photo of one of the intersections in Stephenville, note the single traffic light for all four directions. This year is the 50th anniversary since the US closed the Air Force base.
I was meeting with a colleague from St John’s, we made a visit to one of his weather stations down in Burgeo, which was about a 2 hour drive from Stephenville.
I was down in Rochester, NY in October for the 9th Acid Rain Conference. It was a combination of meetings at the beginning of the week, followed by the conference.
It was held at the Rochester Riverside Conference Centre. There was a reception held at the George Eastman House on the Wednesday. We were able to tour the house and museum.
I was back on a plane on Wednesday afternoon, this time heading west to Edmonton. I had a final site inspection meeting with Public Works at our Joussard, AB site. It is about a 3.5 hour drive northwest of Edmonton. The weather was good for driving, mainly blue skies.
There was a standing pool of water that may become an issue. Based on the footprints around the water, there were moose, deer and this one looked like a bear print.
I should be home for the next couple of weeks, before a busy October schedule. I’ll be out to Flat Valley, SK and Rochester, NY among other places.
I had an extended trip out west, a colleague and I were sent out to our two sites that were impacted by the forest fires this summer. It was a 10 day trip that took us to Pinehouse Lake, SK and Fort Smith, NT. We flew into Edmonton, rented a truck and drove to Beauval, SK. This was the sunrise on Lac La Plonge.
The accommodations were a little sparse, there was no internet or television for a few days.
On our third day we drove to La Ronge to catch a charter flight to do an aerial assessment of our site. The plane was a Cessna 185 float plane, it was the first time I have taken off and landed on water.
The road and our site at the end of it. The black and brown areas are all fire damaged. Even though the plane ride was a little rough, it was an awesome opportunity.
On the Friday we headed back to Edmonton to catch our flight to Fort Smith. It was about 6:30 when we came across a herd of cows blocking the road. Eventually with a little honking and inching forward, they moved out of the way.
We only had a few days in Fort Smith. We saw this small group of bison on the way back to town on the Saturday.
There were three adults and a couple of younger ones.
What my telephoto lens lets me see. I was in the drivers seat and they were on the passenger side of the highway. I had the back window down and pointing my lens towards them.
Sunday was an off day for us, so we headed down to Mountain Rapids to see if we could see the nesting Pelicans. They were all on islands pretty far away.
The scenery on the Slave River is spectacular.
The Mountain Rapids.
We were able to watch the end of the Blue Jays/Yankee game when we got back to town. After the game we headed to Grosbeak Lake.
Some bison footprints in the mud.
Even though it looks like two rocks it is just one rock that has eroded over the years by the salt.
We set our alarms for the second last night to see if we could see the Aurora Borealis. We drove down to the river around 12:30am.
Those are lights from another vehicle that pulled up while we were there.
It was kind of odd, as the colours were not as vibrant as they appear in the photos. We could see some of the green, but not much of the purple.
Note the Big Dipper in the top left of this photo.
Most of these photos were taken at a 30 second exposure on a Gorillapod on the roof of the truck.
On the Monday we had another charter booked with Northwestern Air Lease. This time our plane had wheels. It was a Cessna 206, a little bigger than the previous one. As the pilot said, this was more like the station wagon of Cessna’s.
The scenery below was a little more interesting.
Some of the burn area, that is the main highway that goes between Fort Smith and Hay River.
The Slave River.
Our last night in Fort Smith we headed down to the Rapids of the Drowned. They are right in town and a short hike down to the river from town. The Pelicans were still far away, not as close as they were in May when I saw them.
A final sunset over the Slave River.
Day 10 and we had an early flight from Fort Smith to Edmonton via a stop in Hay River. On the flight to Hay River there were three of us on the British Aerospace Jetstream 31 that can hold 19 passengers.
After we landed in Hay River to drop off one pax, the pilot said we were it to Edmonton. So my colleague and I had a private charter from Hay River to Edmonton.
