Carrie’s Ramblings

Lakehead Univeristy Alumni Magazine article0
Carrie posted in What's happening on December 12th, 2010

Recently I was asked to answer some questions for a blurb in the Lakehead University Alumni Magazine. I thought my answers were going to be a little blurb on the side like, “This is what Carrie says…” but turns out it was a full page spread about me. You can read it here: http://magazine.lakeheadu.ca/2010/fall/promoting-environmental-stewardship/

A Lion and a Lynx0
Carrie posted in What's happening on December 11th, 2010

I wrote this article for a local paper who does a Pet Adoption Success story every once in a while, encouraging people to adopt pets from the shelter.

A Lion and a Lynx

After going through the painful process of putting down our 16-year-old cat, my partner Ryan and I were hesitant about going to the shelter. I felt like I never wanted to love again if that was how it had to end. The loss of a pet is never easy, but the silver lining for both of us was that we could now open our home to a cat who might need a friend. We both liked the idea of adopting an older cat from the shelter; one who had seen his share of tough times and needed a warm sunbeam or comfy lap to relax in his old age.
Within about seven seconds of meeting “Dill”, Ryan was completed smitten. I was horrified. “We can’t get that cat, he’s a small lion. He’ll crush us in our sleep!” I said. Dill was an enormous orange cat whose desire for affection was almost overwhelming. I was won over about ten seconds later.
“You know,” I said to Ryan, “we could get two cats. They could keep each other company, and once you have one cat another isn’t that different.” However, our desire for an older cat was completely undermined by a spunky little kitten with a disproportionally long bushy tail, and six toes on each foot. They both came home with us that day.
“We have a kitten?” Ryan looked at me slightly amused. I shrugged my shoulders and grimaced, “What could I do? We connected.” With long tufts of hair coming out of his ears, his grey tabby colour, and huge snowshoes for feet he looked just like a little lynx.
A little patience was needed when we first brought them home, as they were nervous about the change and hid in secret nooks and crannies in our house. Now “The Boys” have gotten over the Hide-under-the-bed-all-the-time stage and have taken over their new kingdom. Here we are a month later and you would think our house was built specifically for them. ‘Every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.’
Dill is now Phineas, the Lion King, and his second favourite spot is sprawled out on the foot of our bed; his number one spot is anywhere that is on top of someone. We should have a sign on our door that reads: “Do not expect to sit down in this house without a cat in your lap.” The spunky little stray kitten was instantly named Zephyr, the West Wind who has come crashing into our home. Zephyr can’t sit still long enough to have a favourite spot. In true kitten nature everything is interesting and he always needs to be part of the action, following us wherever we go. He’s often bugging Phineas to play with him, though he still hasn’t figured out that 4 extra toes doesn’t improve his traction on hardwood floors.
Introducing two cats to a new home has not been without its challenges: Zephyr needed to be neutered and when we brought him home from the vet Phineas thought he was an Evil Space Creature or something. There followed a week of tension and stress with cat fights all night, fur flying and the whole house turned upside-down. It was also the first time I’ve ever bathed a cat (it was recommended to get the smell of the vet off of Zephyr). I didn’t know a cat could make noises like that! Phineas absolutely will not share the bed and is unfazed when pushed out, simply readjusting and making himself comfortable on top of us. He’s also crushing my arm right now as I try and type this. We still catch both felines on the kitchen counters though they jump down right away because they know it’s not allowed. And the training of a stray cat to use a litter box is still not complete. Ryan growls in frustration and mumbles something about the stupid cat, but then I catch him and Zephyr curled up together on the couch for an afternoon nap. How did we end up with such a pushy lion and a troublesome lynx?
Every now and again I visit the Mae Bachur website and look at all the cats we couldn’t take home with us. I’m sad to see some of our favourites still haven’t found somebody to love, but smile when I notice different profiles disappear from the website as they find their “forever homes”. At night when the four of us snuggle up together in bed and struggle for our share of covers or pillow space, Ryan and I are happy that Phineas and Zephyr have proven worthy successors of our old cat.

“Another cat? Perhaps. For love there is also a season; its seeds must be re-sown. But a family cat is not replaceable like a worn-out coat or a set of tires. Each new kitten becomes its own cat, and none is repeated. I am four-cats-old, measuring out my life in friends that have succeeded but not replaced one another.” ~ Irving Townsend

Cayo Coco0
Carrie posted in What's happening on February 3rd, 2010

Last week we returned from a trip to Cayo Coco.  Where is Cayo Coco?  It’s technically part of Cuba, but not really. I mean, our passports would say we went to Cuba, but Cuba and Cayo Coco are two very different things.

Cayo Coco is more like a Canadian tropical island.  The province of Cayo Coco.  Ha! The Canadian version of Guantanamo Bay.  Only instead of a dubious prison, Cayo Coco is an island of resorts.  Just resorts.  There are no towns on Cayo Coco, no Cubans actually live there.  The white sand beaches are lined with resorts but 85% of the island is undeveloped.  No building can be more than 3 stories high, so our 3rd story hotel room had an excellent view of the ocean even from 500 metres away from the beach across the lagoon. The flight leaves Toronto directly to Cayo Coco with the stewardesses getting everyone pumped saying “Is everybody ready for vacation!?”  Because everyone on that flight was going to one of those resorts.  And every resort was full of Canadians.  French Canadians mostly.  Ours was nearly empty as it was the off season, but other people we ran into said that their resorts were nearly 90% French Canadian. Every waiter, cook, bar tender, and activities programmer spoke French and English and Spanish and who knows how many other languages.  I met a couple of Brits…one family from Argentina, the rest Canadian.

It was so strange for Canada to suddenly be the centre of the universe. The staff would all ask, “Where in Canada are you from? Toronto? Montreal? Vancouver?”  We smiled and tried explain “Norte”.  That brought questioning looks until we explained we lived near the Arctic Circle.  If you think the Cubans were astounded you should have seen the reactions from the other Canadians.  One woman from Quebec didn’t understand that I would actually live there.  She thought I was just there for work, no one actually lives there.  The Lifeguards had Canada hip bags; the housekeepers ankle socks with maple leaves on them.  Gardeners had Habs t-shirts or Flames baseball caps and people don’t think twice about receiving a Twoonie or Loonies as a tip.  The seats on the Bici-Taxis had maple leaves on them and MuchMusic was playing in Spanish on the TV.  I thought, this is what it must be like for Americans to travel and have so many familiar things around them…

But we weren’t really travelling.  The purpose of the trip was rest and relaxation and visit with Ryan and Linner’s parents.  We made a serious dint in our book collections (and our livers), played cards with intensity, and enjoyed meals together catching up.  We sat on the beach, went snorkeling, scuba diving, and sailing.   We did take one day to join a tour to the mainland and visit a couple of cities, a cigar factory, a sugarcane mill, a plantation, and a mangrove forest, but we didn’t really like it as we’re not very good “Follow the Flower” tourists.  We kind of cringed as we realised that we were the Holland America tourists who sit on their coach buses who we make fun of all the time.  Not to mention that the game was up when we quickly realised the driver and tour guide were in cahoots with certain tourist traps where they strategically dropped us off.

I would love to go back and travel around Cuba. I think it’s a fascinating country.  Even from the very little we saw of it, so many myths were destroyed.  It helped too that Ryan is a walking dictionary and his Spanish fluency allowed us to have some more in-depth conversations with the gardeners.  They always had the best stories and loved to hear about where you were from and what your home was like.  They could talk forever and we would trade beer we snuck from the bar for small animal figurines woven from palm fronds and flowers for our rooms.  Even in Ciego de Avila Ryan struck up a nice conversation with an old woman sitting on the park bench next to him.  I was highly motivated to take a Spanish class so that I could speak with people as well.  I got by with a combination of French and “No hablo Espagnol” but it wasn’t the same.

But while I greatly enjoyed soaking up the much needed Vitamin D to get me through the rest of the winter (the Groundhog says there’s 6-weeks left of winter. HA! We should be so lucky…) one week of sitting on the beach was about all I could take.  There’s only so much canned-entertainment and getting fleeced as a tourist that we could put up with.   The all-inclusive deal sucks you in then nails you with all the extras.

But I have a nice tan…

Pictures here.

New Year’s Eve at Sprucewind0
Carrie posted in What's happening on January 11th, 2010

For a change of pace, I rented Sprucewind Girl Guide camp for New Year’s weekend.  Traditionally we’ve spent New Year’s at a friend’s place at Marsh Lake but it was taken by the flood so we needed a new venue.  Sprucewind was a great locale were we could all hang out but have good access to shinny-hockey, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing.  A couple of friends said, “Well you need to sell this to me,” to which I responded, “No way. If hanging out in a rustic lodge and playing outside on New Year’s Eve with good friends doesn’t speak for itself, you don’t have to come.”

In the end 8 of us trekked out to the camp after work on New Year’s Eve to enjoy the time together.  When we arrived we surveyed the un-plowed parking lot, then picked up some speed and dove in. The little Versa prevailed and plowed through the snow right at the lodge doorstep.  The other small cars didn’t have any trouble either and it was actually the giant pick-up truck that got stuck and took us 20 minutes to get out!

I quickly ran inside to light a fire and start the slow process of thawing out the lodge.  It took us a good 2 hours of blazing fire to get the lodge to a temperature where you could take your mittens off and not freeze your hands.  At one point Ryan and I were starting to cook some Pad Thai for dinner (our chicken had frozen solid) and were dancing around the lodge in full battle dress (down booties, snowpants, Down jacket, wool toque and scarf and mitts) and we looked at each other thinking, “Are we having fun yet?”  It was dark at 4 pm and the temperature was rapidly falling.

Soon more food and friends arrived and we shoveled paths to the outhouses and woodlot and a little parking lot.  We chopped and chopped and chopped firewood and had very scientific debates on exactly how to bank the fire so that it would burn all night and we wouldn’t freeze in our beds.  Eventually we found old emergency wool blankets in the corner closet and pinned them up against the windows to try and preserve some heat.  While the lodge was not frozen anymore, you definitely had to have some indoor shoes and didn’t want to get too far away from the stove.  We kept the corner closet door shut but our veggies froze so we pulled them out.  We discussed the pros and cons of chamber pots and if it was really, I mean really, worth it, and the boys complained of cold toilet seats until us-girls taught them the art of hovering.  As we dashed out to the outhouses or to get more wood, we watched the temperature outside gradually creep down and finally rest at 38 below, with not a breath of wind.

One of my friends asked me, “So you actually bring little girls out here in the winter?  That’s hardcore.”  I smiled and nodded but had to think that it would be tough to have young girls out here at this temperature. At the same time, this is what good camp stories are made of.  “Remember the time we went to camp and it was so cold we couldn’t sit on the outhouse seats?”  And I thought, this is what good Girl Guides are made of.

In the middle of the night the fire died down and I woke to the sound a friend getting up to make a dash for the outhouse.  When she came back in she collected more wood from the veranda, chopped some more kindling, got the fire going again and banked enough to last us until morning.  As I lay snug in my warm bed, tackily not offering to help, I couldn’t help but really appreciate camping with Northern Girls.  This friend grew up in Stewart Crossing, in a cabin heated by wood, dog team in the yard, and wild game in the freezer.  She knew what she was doing. I didn’t have to get up and supervise, or listen to her whine from her bed that she was cold.  I could totally count on her skills to keep us warm for the night and I was so thankful I chose to go winter camping, at 40 below, with Northern Girls.  Girls who weren’t afraid of cold weather, could light a fire in the middle of the night without turning a light on, and wanted to spend New Year’s eve in a frozen Girl Guide camp.  Yeah it would be tough to have some young girls out there, but they would be tough because of it.

In the end we never did go skiing or skating; we just sat around and enjoyed each others company.  The blue-moon light up the forest and when the cell phone told us it was midnight we broke leftover Christmas Crackers, put on paper crowns, played with silly kid’s toys, and hugged each other to ring in the New Year…and for warmth.

Lynx release1
Carrie posted in What's happening on December 9th, 2009

On Monday I was invited to participate in the release of lynx that had be rescue by an extremely lucky woman.  Lucky as in she’s lucky she didn’t die.  In the picture in the paper, that’s me taking the photo in the background as they move the crate out of the truck.  It was pretty uneventful really.  In fact the lynx didn’t even leave when we opened the crate.  We had to practically dump it out to get it to move.

Read the article in the Whitehorse Star.
That’s my job…

Olympic torch comes through Whitehorse0
Carrie posted in What's happening on November 10th, 2009

Last week the Olympic torch was brought and run through Whitehorse. My office is right across from the airport and so we ran out there to see it come running by, then at home it came down from the Canada Games Centre and right past our house.  The funniest part was the gridlock it caused at the intersection of the Alaska Hwy and Hamilton Blvd.  There were cars backed up for…metres… and people would go to turn left and suddenly there was no place to go so they were stuck in the middle and the light would change and cars are trying to go around them and they’re trying to back up but the person behind them doesn’t know what to do and everyone is waving and panicking and no one knows what to do. I thought, “Aww it’s just like home…”

Afterwards we went down to Shipyards park where they had a stage set up with musical entertainment and food boths and lights and speeches etc.  It was very carvival-like.  CocaCola gave out free cokes in glowing bottles and everyone had flags or cowbells or these weird little tamborine things that RBC gave out.  You could get your picture taken with the torch and they had bonfires all around.  I was really tired and didn’t want to go out of the house again, but I thought, “This thing doesn’t come through here every year, so I’d better go and check it out.”  so i did.

This is what I saw.

The Great pumpkin shortage1
Carrie posted in What's happening on October 28th, 2009

I read today that a blog, to be a blog, must be updated every few days.  Since I seem to have fallen off on that recently I guess I’d better start writting. I think I’m mostly jealous of other people’s blog.  Uncle Mikey has cool photos and stuff on his.  I can’t figure out how to do that. So I’ll just have to focus on writing well.

Yesterday we tried to have a pumpkin carving party.  2nd annual.  Last year’s was actually pretty big.  We had heaps of people and cool carvings though none as interesting as Hayley’s Obama silhouette carving last year.  But this year was a little less exciting.  It sorta snuck on me, Halloween.  So I called people together using the reliable Facebook messaging system and people couldn’t come! Why?  Here’s why:

1) Nick has highland dancing at the college.  And he was sober.  I try to imaging a 6-ft-something tall gangly guy doing Highland dancing and have to say, “Pardon me?”

2) Holly had a pottery class to attend.

3) Sheila had Can-Can.  She just told me Can-Can.  I don’t know what that means.  Like, is she watching it or doing it or is it code for, “I don’t want to go to your stupid party this year”?

But all of this doesn’t really matter, because it’s not like there were any pumpkins around.  Ryan went to both major grocery stores as well as 2 of the smaller ones and there were none to be found.  Apparently, word on the street is that there was a bad pumpkin crop this year and so they’re hard to come by.  Tim managed to get one earlier that day but by the time we got to the store, nada.

I wondered if other people had managed to find a pumpkin and when they started showing up I realised we weren’t the only pumpkin-less people.  So we got beer instead.  Pretty good trade off if you ask me.

Lindsay however, would not be deterred so easily.  She purchased a small watermelon that must have cost her a fortune at this time of year and proceded to carve it.  Jack, the Pumpkin King from the Nightmare before Christmas resulted, and he’s quite cute sitting there all green.

At least we’ll have one decoration for Halloween.

Yurt living0
Carrie posted in What's happening on October 13th, 2009

Thanksgiving came and went quickly it seems.  The long weekend was a welcomed break.   I mean, 3 weeks of this full-time job thing and I’m beat.  Slept late and did some puttering, then dinner at a University friends’…place.  It’s a yurt.  Yeah like, Mongolian engineering at its finest.  I’m talking 1 room circular tent made out of yak wool.  Well, theirs is a little more modern (not many yaks around these parts).

Actually the yurt is quite cozy.  We had 10 people all sitting in there (on log stumps for stools) and even had to open the door because it got too warm with the wood stove running.  My friends are borrowing land for their yurt and have built the platform and set it up, this Thanksgiving being the Christening of the first night in the yurt.  They have electricity (”we’re going hungry but we got tunes!”) but no running water and a good trek to the outhouse.  Together, with the dog, the happy couple will spend the entire winter.  Good luck with that.

We also tried to pit-bake a chicken.  You dig a pit and line it with stones, then light a fire to heat up the stones. Lay sticks across (like an oven rack) and sprucebows and then the chicken on that.  Cover the chicken with a burlap sack and heap on the dirt.  The rocks are supposed to cook the chicken, as you may have guessed, but we apparently need more practice at ours.  It was quite funny when we checked on the chicken’s progress only to find it somewhat warm.  Quickly Jarod and Laird grabbed the chicken before anyone noticed and scurried off into the yurt to boil it!  Later Jarod jokingly complained that dinner was delayed because my potatoes took so long to bake in the fire.  It was a great boiled Thanksgiving chicken though.

It was a fun night of reminiscing on school (there were 10 Lakehead Grads there of various years) and talking about the upcoming mushing race circuit and who was running what.  The whole thing was very…organic.

On Sunday night we had dinner with the gang.  We even had a big enough table for everyone to sit, so we decided to dress up all fancy and make a night of it.  We had so much food (and a vat of mulled wine) but finished it all.  During intermission, between dinner and dessert, we played road hockey on the street.  We could barely see the tennis ball in the streetlamps and we used someone’s winter tires as goal posts.  It made dessert that much more deserved.

What do I do?0
Carrie posted in What's happening on October 7th, 2009

What do I do, what do I do, what do I do….

The transition period of working for Wildlife Viewing has been relatively painless, given that I did a small stint here last winter as coordinator of the Celebration of Swans.  Now, as a permanent, full-time Wildlife Viewing Technician I’m drawing on a lot of what I learned last season and expanding on it in fields other than just…swans.  A good chunk of the last couple of weeks (being my first couple of weeks) were spent reading policy. OHMIGOD I HATE POLICY.  But the idea was to become familiar with the WV programme and thus what it is that I’m supposed to be doing.  The most complicated part of the Wildlife Viewing Programme, from what I can tell, is that it is not just “governed” by the Fish and Wildlife Branch, but rather has a committee of members that represent Yukon Parks, Tourism Yukon (including one really abrupt lady who frightens me), the education department, and lastly (and sometimes leastly) Fish and Wildlife.  All of these people have made this 5-year strategic plan for the Wildlife Viewing Programme which we’ve been following for 2 years now and will finally be presented for approval to the Directors this Friday.

No one said the government made sense.

So my job, as a technician, is to do everything.  It’s really quite a good match because you need to sort of be a Jack-of-trades.  I have to know about tourism trends: managing databases, conducting research/surveys/monitoring activity patterns, working with tourism operators to develop opportunities; I have to understand parks and protected areas and their mandates; I have to be able to design lessons plans for school children of all ages and adult programmes, as well as deliver them both in the traditional classroom and in the field.  But to be able to do this all effectively I have to have a solid grounding in ecology and biology that at least gives me enough knowledge to ask the right questions, to find out what I need.  I’m not an elk, fish, caribou, or bear technician, but I need to know about all of those things.  Our goal is to develop programmes and initiatives that promote wildlife viewing in the Yukon, mostly to residents, but also to visitors.  In doing so, we hope to encourage better environmental behaviours though stewardship rather than regulation.
I work with Bruce Bennett who’s been the Wildlife Viewing Biologist for the last 10 years and is a quirky hippy who is a little frustrated regarding the lack of appreciation within the “Game Branch” for Widlife Viewing opportunities and development.  Our new slogan - which we came up with after Elk bugling a couple of weeks ago where we saw the most magnificent Elk on record which was then shot - yes, our new slogan is now “We view ‘em, you shoot ‘em.”  No, I have not stumbled into a mess of public service malcontent, it’s really not bad but it is present: a feeling of being under-appreciated.  Right now I’m so overwhelmed with a 9-5 that I’m going to stay busy playing oblivious for a while.

So I have a desk surrounded by a couple dozen mounted animals including a very creepy Bald Eagle on my desk behind my computer and a rather vicious looking Wolverine on the filing cabinet behind me.  The Pine Marten is super cute though!  I work a 28-day Flex schedule, meaning I have to work 150 hours, no more no less, in 28 days and I do whatever works for me (and the job of course).  So I could work four, 10 hour days, and take a day off, or come in at 7 am and work ’til 3.  For example, I worked 12 hours on Elk bugling day because I was in the office all day then delivered a programme for 3.5 hours that night.  So for the last couple of days I’ve been leaving work an hour early to go to the rink and skate.  It works really well.

BUT WHAT DO I DO?

Last week I worked on a new Yukon Wildflowers brochure.  I research the flowers, write up a bit about them, find appropriate pictures, write intro, viewing etiquette, First Nations information, and do the initial layout for the designer.  I’m also working on the Carcross wildlife viewing pamphlet.  I helped deliver an Elk bugling nature hike where we took a bunch of people out into the bush to call for Elk.  Bruce and I, along with the education co-ordinator will be designing some school programmes and delivering them in Old Crow next month. I’m collection information from naturalists, locals, and ornithologists to create a Birding Checklist for the Dawson area.  I’m researching aquatic ecosystems in Watson Lake to creat 6 interpretive panels for their walking trails.  I’m following up with tourism operators regarding the Wildlife Viewing Workshop we hosted last winter and what’s going on there.

When I took both my Undergrad and my Grad degrees people would often say politely (and some less politely), “Oh that’s nice…what do you plan on doing with that?”  I usually made something up that sounded important until I became more defensive and said, “Whatever I want!”  Suddenly I’m in an interview where they ask me what degree is titled, and as opposed to the blank looks that I usually get, they say, “Oh that will fit in perfectly here!”  So now I have a job that combines my interest in science and biology, with my knowledge of tourism and natural areas, throwing in my passion for the outdoors and teaching, and I’m doing exactly what I want.

Elk bugling0
Carrie posted in What's happening on September 29th, 2009

Last Thursday for my first official work field trip we took a bunch of people Elk bugling.  Having never actually bugled for an elk I did a lot of Googling, before my bugling. (Ha I crack myself up).  Turns out bow-hunters in particular use commercially made Elk bugles to call curious male Elk in closer so that they can get a good shot.  Who knew there were commercially made elk-bugles?  I spent most of Thursday trying to make a bunch from bugles from metal electrical cable coverings…if you saw them you would know what I’m talking about.

During the rut, male Elk bugle (almost sounds like whistling really loud) and grunt to attract mates, tell other dudes to get lost, tell other dudes that they’re bigger and better, etc.  Anyway it’s a pretty cool sound because this huge deer (second largest only to the moose) tenses up all its muscles and looks like it’s getting ready to roar, and then lets out this high pitched squeal that sounds like it should be coming from a bird or something.  Male Elk keep harems of females during the rut and defend them from other males.  If he hears another bugle nearby he’ll get super curious and will wander in closer to see who’s checking out his ladies.  This way, when you go out Elk bugling, you can see them up close.

We were fortunate enough to just have to drive up the highway to Takhini River Valley until we saw a HUGE 9-point bull Elk.  For pictures of the night you can check out Janet Webster’s album, who was a guest on the walk with us.  We also used the radio telemetry from a couple of collared animals in the region to help narrow down the search.  In total we have about 60 people there and we all walked into the bush and stopped to listen to the Elk all around us calling back.

In trying to describe the Elk bugling event for the CBC radio interview, I drew a parrallel between the spring swan migration, the Faro crane and sheep viewing festival, wolf howls, and the elk bugling.  It’s like in every season there is a big event; something that really indicates the changes and is characteristic of that time/place.  Elk bugling is for the fall.  Hopefully it will become “The thing to do”.  Everyone goes to see the swans in the spring, and they should hear the Elk in the fall.  The major difference is, you’re not allowed to shoot the swans the next day.