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| Polar
Bear Blog - Incredible Shrinking Polar Bears - August 30, 2006
I
am not sure why but I really get irked when I read news articles
about the latest scientific disaster to hit polar bears. There
are always announcements that the ice cap is melting, they have
less time to hunt seals, they are drowning, they are being over-hunted,
they are turning to cannibalism, they are turning into hermaphrodites.
And now their genitals are getting smaller. Great.
I
really respect polar bears, they scare the living daylights out
of me and really decrease the amount of REM sleep I get around
this time of year but I still respect them. Every new study and
new article just feels like a friend has been kicked while he
is down.
I
mean, give the bears a break - not from pollution or climate change
(we should have done that twenty years ago...ten years ago...March
2nd...) - but from pity. Will somebody please write a story about
polar bears doing something majestic instead of simply more demeaning
science?
We talk about how we created climate change and climate change
is killing polar bears and how we have to save them - but that
does not translate politically, we will save them as long as it
does not really inconvenience our day-to-day life. It does seems
a little twisted.
But,
in the big picture, what are we saving? Polar bears emerged as
their own species about 200,000 years ago. That is a long time
in terms of weather patterns, ice ages and individual lifespans
but a very short time in terms of evolution. Maybe the polar bear's
time has simply come and it will die off or slowly return to a
more grizzly lifestyle. Or maybe the grolar or pizzly is not an
alarming death knell but the beginning of an amazing jump in evolution.
To
read about the latest climate change disasters for polar bears,
put on some Nina Simone, get a box of tissues and head over to
the polar bear news page |
| Polar
Bear Blog - Polar Bear Conspiracy Theory - August 29, 2006
Yesterday,
I got a call from a film crew coming up to do a documentary about
polar bears. I agreed to show them around for a few days and part
of those few days involve going up in a helicopter with Canadian
Wildlife Service researchers to dart polar bears.
Last
year, the Canadian Wildlife Service released the results of their
latest three-year aerial study of the western Hudson Bay polar
bear population. Essentially, researchers fly along the coast
of Hudson Bay, shoot polar bears with tranquilizer darts from
a helicopter, take measurements of body weight and general health,
extract a tooth to age them, tattoo their lip or ear tag them
and then mark their shoulder so that they do not handle them again.
Results
of this study indicate that in less than ten years, the western
Hudson Bay polar bear population has dropped from around 1200
polar bears to 950 polar bears. A 20% decline is definitely alarming
and seemingly proof of the detrimental effects of climate change.
But,
of course, there is a slightly different theory in Churchill.
People up here are seeing more mothers with cubs (including triplets)
and just generally more bears - this, of course, could be due
to changing wildlife patterns but a lot of people up here simply
believe that bears are learning to recognize the sound of helicopters
and this affects the research results.
When
I used to drive for Tundra Buggy, you could recognize when helicopters
were approaching before any human could see or hear it. Every
bear in the area would raise its head and some would even get
up and walk or run away; quite confusing for the human observer,
that is, until the helicopter appears about thirty seconds later.
I
have also seen bears recognize and hide from the Polar Bear Alert
truck and hunker down in a clump of willows when the helicopter
is called out to relocate a problem bear. Many bears learn through
only one repetition and many people up here think that polar bears
have simply learned to hide from the helicopter. (If mothers can
teach cubs to return annually to the garbage dump, why not teach
them to avoid a dart in the neck?)
This
is not to say that an earlier break-up of Hudson Bay is not having
a detrimental effect on the polar bears of Churchill but not many
northerners believe that we have lost 20% of the population in
the last few years. |
| Polar
Bear Blog - Ptarmigan Says - August 28, 2006
The
weather forecast for this week looks pretty good, hovering around
20C (70F-ish) for the next few days. But the willows and birds
are saying otherwise.
There
has been a flock of about eight or ten ptarmigan living around
Camp Nanuq this year. Ptarmigan are kind of an arctic partridge,
camouflaged red and brown in the summer and turning white for
the winter. They wallow near the bottom of the food chain, just
above willows buds and gravel.
So,
it is kind of surprising that there are still ten of them around:
a mother and her brood. Of course, most adult males ptarmigans
are gone to ptarmigan heaven by now thanks to one of Mother Nature's
little tricks. The female and young are completely camouflaged
for the summer,while the male maintains some of his white feathers
much longer, making him stand out to both birdwatchers and potential
predators. He sits on a rock and waits for a hawk or fox to take
him instead of his family - the perfect husband!
Anyway,
the remaining ptarmigans, locally called 'tundra chickens', are
already turning white for the winter, about two weeks early. Geese
have staged and are leaving in huge flocks (with a northwest wind
forecasted more should go tonight). The dwarf birch and willow
leaves have distinct yellow and orange tints; the sedges adn grasses
are fading and the bearberry leaves are already quite red. Come
to think of it, fall is really quite beautiful up here - the only
drawback this year is that the black flies have made a comeback...with
a vengeance.
Should
be interesting to see if this can be chalked up to climate change
messing with traditional wildlife patterns or if it really will
be an early winter. Either way, I am booking my ticket to Costa
Rica just to be safe. |
| Polar
Bear Blog - Pemmican Free - August 26, 2006
As
I was having my morning coffee and breakfast, I was looking out
my window and thinking how nice it is not to have to eat pemmican
day after day. Or at all for that matter.
Pemmican
is a traditional food of Native North Americans and became a staple
of exploration and of the fur trade. Voyageurs, Hudson Bay men
and their Native guides all survived on this stuff for months
at a time as they paddled their way across Canada in search of
pelts and new trade routes.
It
is a mix of meat, berries and rendered fat (suet) and whatever
else is around. Pounded and dried, it gives you a lot of energy
but tastes pretty gross. Pemmican translated means 'food for long
trips', it lasts forever, as in decades, and still tastes gross.
This is probably why you do not see a lot of Native American restaurants
around.
Of
course, without pemmican, we probably would not have Canada. So
cheers to Pemmican.
If
you ever feel like canoeing the old fur trade rivers in Manitoba,
with GORP instead or pemmican, Northern
Soul Wilderness Canoe Adventures is a very good company to
go with and the owner, Dave, is a pretty good guy too. |
Polar
Bear Blog - Polar Bear Blog Goes Sailing - August 25, 2006 - later
So,
I was feeling pretty intense today, as I do sometimes and then
I saw a sailboat floating by my front window! This is not really
a major thing except that my lake is less than one metre deep
at its deepest!
Turns
out it was two mostly french speaking guys from 'The Flats' and
they were just trying out the styrofoam sailboat of the Catholic
Diocese in Churchill. One of them is a trapper and has been here
for thirty years and will never leave. Understandably.
The
best part about it all was that I was in the midst of this frothing
rant about ecotourism and ethics when this all happened and we
ended up tying their styrofoam sailboat to the top of their minivan
and talking about how we should use duct tape because that is
what 'green and red' would do. ('Green and red' is my french friend's
translation of Canada's
'Red Green Television Show') Sometimes Churchill is good.
Quote
of the day:
I'm
a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess - Red Green |
| Polar
Bear Blog - Polar Bear Blog Goes Green - August 25, 2006
This
is a 'green' entry, I mean Churchill has become pretty 'green'
since I came up in 1999. As a moss-hugger, I was pretty freaked
out by the vast amounts of styrofoam, plastic and just general
garbage produced in the six weeks of October and November that
we call 'bear season'.
Since
the initial blow to my eco-freako values, things seem to be more
'green' today. We have a recycling program,the garbage dump is
closed, Tundra Buggy Adventure has won the Manitoba eco-tourism
award twice now. Things must be 'green'.
Of
course, this is the north and nothing is ever what it seems. Our
recycling program and waste transfer station are going great with
the exception that WE ARE NOT RECYCLING ANYTHING OR SENDING THE
WASTE ANYWHERE!!!! Somehow, the government (local, provincial
and federal) and project consultants disappeared as soon as the
project was announced. In fact, so did the plan to ship our garbage
to Thompson (from the sounds of it, I am not sure that anyone
really cleared this idea with the City of Thompson in the first
place).
This
rant started when I was reading one of my old editorials from
my old newspaper 'The Hudson Bay Post'. I was very much in favour
of the new recycling centre but after rereading it, wow, the only
thing that sounds 'green' is that we ever bought into this pipe
dream.
I
mean, the consultants actually proposed a plan that a northern
community could change from a recycling rate of 8% to 65% in three
or four years. Of course, maybe I am wrong and maybe it has, but
how would we know? There is no monitoring in place and everyone
has moved on to new projects.
The
article ends with a quote from the consultant... 'Take, cardboard
for instance, there is a lot of it in Churchill going to the landfill.
It is a heavy material and easily recycled. That alone makes quite
a difference.' Mmm, hmm. Quite a difference. Instead of the landfill,
we have 900 sq.ft. mountain of cardboard sitting in L5 waiting
for someone to recycle it at a facility that (unless, I am mistaken)
does not exist in Manitoba.
But,
wait there is word of a solution! Rumor has it that one of the
remedies being considered is...AN INCINERATOR! The consultants
will tell us to build another god-awful building and wreck another
scenic vista of Hudson Bay in our 'eco-tourist' town to burn,
wait for it...not garbage but OUR RECYCLABLES. Yes, finally, we
are giving it all back to the earth! In vapour form!
Now,
I understand that I am a redneck hippy living on the outskirts
of civilization and I am prone to extreme viewpoints and momentary
outbursts but even I remember that - 1. we shut the dump down
and started this million dollar recycling project so that we would
stop burning garbage. and 2. - Churchil built an incinerator in
1970 to fix the polar bear and garbage problem. It was a complete
failure then so I am sure it will work fine now.
Amidst
all this, 'bear season' is coming and despite all the awards,
both tundra vehicle companies and the main tour companies serving
Churchill still produce copious amounts of garbage. There may
be recycle bins aboard the buggies but everyone knows that nothing
is going to be done about it (the only way you could not know
is if your only interest in Churchill is strictly financial).
Both companies will make their money and leave for winter but
their garbage will still be here.
It
is up to them to step up and make a difference for the community
that built their tundra empires. Both of them could easily pay
to have Churchill's recyclable materials transported south to
the proper facilities. One train car of recycling would cost about
$5000, roughly the equivalent to the cost of renting one entire
tundra vehicle for one day. Not to mention, what a handy tax write-off.
The
problem is ol' Kermit the Frog got it wrong. It is easy
being green when it is the colour of your skin, it is hard being
green through and through. Until that changes, Churchill and its
tourism industry will only be as 'green' as this blog entry. |
| Polar
Bear Blog - Is it Bear Season Yet? - August 23, 2006
Of
course, our afternoon visitor came back this morning, around 5:00am
this time. You know there have been a lot of bear encounters when
you wake up to your dogs barking and howling, your girlfriend
grabbing the shotgun, running out the door saying, 'Are there
cracker shells or slugs in the gun?' and your equally sluggish
response is 'Umm... slugs.' and then you just drift back to sleep
amidst the howling, honking, barking and blasting.
But,
it is 6am now and I am up and enjoying the sunrise and some very
very good coffee (Kicking Horse Organic Coffee Co.). Thinking
about how all things polar bear have changed this summer. A few
reasons for this:
-
Changes with Churchill's garbage - Many polar bears are just not
too sure where to go now that it is gone. I would say that 8-10
polar bears pretty much lived and hid in the willows behind the
dump up until its closure last year. Yesterday, we watched one
bear just sitting on a gravel ridge where the garbage dump used
to be, kind of willing it to come back.
Conversely,
there has been garbage sitting at Churchill's new recycling/waste
transfer station for almost ten months now and it is pretty stinky.
While town employees are continuing to one-up the polar bears,
it is a challenge. When polar bears broke the garage bay doors,
the town put up iron, barred gates to keep them out. Of course,
some bears crawled under the gates. Once the town fixed that,
the bears simply started chewing and clawing their way through
the walls and ceiling instead. After that, the town flattened
some scrap metal and bolted it to the exterior walls. The bears
are now thinking about their next plan of action...
-
Changes in the Polar Bear Alert program - With the closure of
the dump and opening of the Recycling Centre closer to town, the
Polar Bear Alert has centred its activities around the community.
Some of the old trap and polar bear snare areas, including polar
bear alley and the old dump site, are no longer used. Now, provided
a polar bear does not venture within five miles of town, he probably
will not be relocated or captured.
-
Changes in the climate - Break-up of Hudson Bay was fairly early
this year, meaning more time for polar bears to arrive and hang
out in Churchill. This is not as much of a problem as a late freeze
since more and more bears gather along the Cape and then head
to town after tourism season shuts down in mid-November. This
is pretty rare, however, as the date of freeze-up is pretty reliable,
usually occurring November 15th or so. Of course, with the first
hints of frost in the air this morning, it might be a little early
this year...hard to say. |
| Polar
Bear Blog - Too Hot to Bother - August 22, 2006
Wow,
the bear just went for a swim in our lake - watching a polar bear
from your deck is very very cool. As he was swimming, actually
just floating around, a family of Pintail ducks swam right by
his nose and he did not even flinch. Probably too skinny for him
to consider it worth his time. |
| Polar
Bear Blog - Polar Bear for Breakfast - August 22, 2006
 We
were finishing breakfast on our friends' last day here and I noticed
a big, white rock across the lake that wasn't there yesterday.
For the last hour or two, we have watched a polar beat lazily
stroll, roll, scratch and yawn across our little pond.
He
is pretty laid back, probably overheating a bit on this clear
and sunny day, munching on blueberries and crowberries to pass
the time. There is a light breeze coming off the bay, just enough
for his hyper-sensitive nose to figure out everything about us
and our breakfast and our espresso. It is also just enough of
a breeze to prevent our dogs from catching his scent and interrupting
their afternoon siesta.
All
in all, it is a pretty amazing feeling knowing that a polar bear
is sitting about 300 metres from our cabin right now - watching
us watching him. |
| Polar
Bear Blog - My Brief and Tumultuous Career as a Travel Writer
- August 21, 2006
So,
I just finished a ten-day argument with editors at UpHere Magazine
about my 'Confessions of a Buggy Driver' article. You see, I have
a slight problem with authority and especially authority that
changes my creative ejaculations. I take it personally.
Things
were going quite well until I received the latest rewrite and
then replied by email that I was going to fly to Yellowknife and
punch one of their employees in the face if the article ran unchanged.
Usually, I am quite a reasonable guy but there is something about
someone rewriting or redrawing or remixing something you created
that is akin to putting the moves on your girlfriend while you
are in the same room (they have not slept with her but you still
feel violated and enraged at the same time and kind of have to
do something about it).
But,
I suppose that despite my prima donna fantasies, this happens
to all writers and it is merely a part of the game and it will
end up fine in the end with no one noticing other than me. |
Polar
Bear Blog - Brand New Day Bed - August 20, 2006
Still
sitting at the computer, waiting for Adobe Creative Suite 2 to
reinstall... so here's another blog entry.
After
all of solving all of our gender problems on the planet, we went
for a walk along the ocean to look for fossils and blueberries.
Hard to go wrong with that plan - even men and women agree that
the ocean is beautiful.
So,
we pulled up and right beside the truck was a polar bear day bed.
Brand new, maybe two days old - very cool! A day bed is made in
lyme grass or kelp (this one in lyme grass) and is kind of a daytime
resting place for polar bears as they pass the summer by in Churchill.
What
was really neat was picking hairs out of the day bed. I am helping
out the Polar Bear DNA project in a very small way and part of
that is looking for bear hair when the main researchers are back
at home. And WOW what a neat feeling! Crawling around in a polar
bear's bed looking for a crinkly little white hair or two. |
Polar
Bear Blog - Men and Women - August 20, 2006
Well,
I was going to write about the polar bear that came by at 4:04am
this morning and firing cracker shells and running around in my
skivvies chasing him but there are greater issues at play these
days. And of course what could be greater than male/female relationships
- the blessing and scourge of the planet all at the same time.
Where
did this all come from? Well, first of all, men and women should
never ever try to work together. We are different. Our friends,
Chad and Nancy, are up here right now and it is a blast. It is
also great to meet someone else who is just as much of a disaster
as we are and realize that 99% of everyone are disasters as well.
Me
and Chad finished the veranda today and it looks awesome. Standing
on the second level is vundah-bah-hah-hah-hah (as my ancestors
in the Wunderbar commercials would say). Any elevation in the
arctic is spectacular, a view of one lake becomes a view of fifteen,
eight feet up.
Anyway,
things went incredibly well with Chad and myself; men communicate
well together and work well together - one becomes the boss but
is willing to listen to the other's opinion. In a nutshell, veranda
was completed along with a couple glasses of whiskey in about
an hour or two. The women were out berry picking, it was all very
primal.
However,
we had to relocate the satellite internet receiver after completing
the veranda. We did that after the women returned and made the
mistake of asking for help. Not saying that women are not capable
and wonderful people, but we have very different ways of working.
Women are verbal and men are physical. That means, while we are
doing things, women are talking about the way we should be doing
them even if we are doing them that way already that aggrevates
men and then women get upset that we are not validating their
opinions and then men respond by drinking more and eating charred
meat.
So,
we ended up having a forty minute debate (and it was extremely
civil now that I think of it) of the differences between men and
women. All I can say, is that Discovery Channel reality TV should
just set up here, they would be entertained. |
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