Algonquin's wolves!

Since I'm waiting for the bus in the beautiful sunshine, I thought I'd might as well update my blog. Thank you BlackBerry :)
I spent the last three days in Huntsville to attend and present at the annual conference of the Canadian Institute of Forestry. The Monday and Wednesday were filled with technical sessions, while the Tuesday was reserved for a field day. The venue? Deerhurst resort on the edge of Algonquin Park. Deerhurst is probably well known for hosting the G8 last year (and the millions it received for upgrading...). But the location is beautiful, especially with the colours starting to turn as well. 
So all in all three days well spent! 
A quick recap:
I arrived Monday around noon after a four-hour drive through beautiful surroundings (it made me want to move back to the valley!). Monday evening was reserved for the banquet and award gala. The Canadian Wood Fibre Centre (my group!) won the forest management group award! Pretty cool for sure. 
I had signed up for the Hardwood Management Tour which was quite good. I don't work a lot in hardwood, so it was very interesting to see that side as well. The weather was absolutely amazing and it made for a great day in the field! That evening we had the visitor centre of Algonquin Park to ourselves with an outdoor barbecue! We also had the great opportunity to listen to the park naturalist, who gave an incredible presentation on wolves in the park, and the history of the public wolf howl. 

*** Algonquin's Public Wolf Howl information ***
The first public wolf howl was organized in 1963 (almost 50 years ago). There were a couple of staff on hand, and expectations were blown out of the water when 565 people showed up!
Since that date 111 public wolf howlings have been held, normally on Thursday evenings in August, and on average 1700 people attend these sessions!! I had no clue!  And apparently they are as quiet as can be. It must be quite the sight.  

We were treated to our own private wolf howl that evening, but unfortunately no wolf decided to respond. 

On Wednesday afternoon, we had our session on partnerships and knowledge exchange, and that went quite well. We decided to shake it up a bit and make it interactive after we finished the case studies. After 35 minutes of conversations, I had a hard time getting people back as a group, since they we're so engaged in their discussions. I guess that's a good sign?

Now it's back in Ottawa, where we are finalizing the details for our component leaders forum next week. Did I mention that I am one of two facilitators? Not sure how, when or why that happened. Hopefully all will go well. 
This weekend should be good. We're heading to Brockville on Sunday (or so I think) to celebrate Nolan's birthday. It's his birthday on Tuesday, in case you want to congratulate him. And unlike last year, I'll actually be able to spend the day (or at least evening) with him!

Life is keeping me busy!

It's been a while since I posted, for which I apologize... Life has definitely kept me busy, but in a good way! As I mentioned before, we had a long weekend, and instead of getting a cottage ready for the summer, which is what the majority of Canadians is doing but since we don't have a cottage, we spent the Monday in Brockville with Nolan's parents. It had been a while since I had seen them, and we had a really nice time catching up and just hanging out. Perfect!
Wednesday I was up at the PRF again, to attend some site visits for a new biomass study that will hopefully be put in and harvested later this year. It's very exciting and includes some leading edge harvesting equipment and other technologies. I actually spent the other days in the office, which doesn't happen very often anymore these days!
The weekend was great. Well, it started with a visit to the vet which went well for Murphy, but unfortunately Fertile might need some more dental work done. But first we have to wait and see what her blood tests will say, since there is also a chance she might have hyperthyroidism. But besides that she is very healthy! On Saturday we had our running friends over for a lunch and birthday cake for Debbie. Lots of food and lots of sun. Tom decided to stay home, since Nolan has been nursing a cold for the past few days, and he had his hopes on a Boston qualifier time the next day during the Ottawa Marathon. Saturday morning was quite chilly, we even had the heat on since it was so cold and damp in the house. However, by the end of the day it got really humid, sticky and warm. I went for a 9k run at the end of the day, and got back completely soaked! Strange how it can change so quickly.
On Sunday we ventured downtown to watch the Ottawa marathon and half marathon, which was somewhat strange. We both have ran it so often that it felt weird to be on 'the other side'. But it was fun cheering people on, and it was quite impressive to see how many runners in as many shapes and form are participating! I knew several people who participated, but missed half of them just to the sheer number of people. The half marathon had about 11,000 runners, and the full around 5,500 runners. Quite a few!! It was really fun to watch, although the steady rain did make it a bit tough. By the end we were soaking wet and cold. Especially for Nolan, who still didn't feel great, the rain didn't help. But we still had a great time!
Tom did manage to get his BQ, which was very exciting! Now it will be a challenge to actually sign up for the race. Last year it sold out in about 6 hours... JoAnn was the only one running the half from our core running group, and she did really well and finished strong. So proud of her!
But I'm also proud of all my other friends that ran a race (there were also a 5 and 10k) that weekend: Debby, Julia, Ann Marie, Julie. Did I forget anybody?? Well done ya'all!!
I am currently back in Petawawa. I spent the day in Mattawa at the Canadian Ecology Centre, to meet up with some of my FRP and CIF colleagues. It was nice to see everybody again, had some good meeting, a great bbq lunch and nice walk (despite the mosquitoes...). The weather has also greatly improved. After all the rain we had last week, this week proves to be more sunny and also much warmer! Tomorrow they're expecting a high of 32...
I have to admit, I'm a little nervous for tomorrow. Our new ADM is visiting the PRF, and Pete and I will be presenting. It is a great opportunity, but I am also a little scared. I know he is a nice guy, but I don't know him well enough to know what to expect. But on the other hand we'll be talking about something that is dear to our heart, so it might come naturally! We also planned a field tour for the afternoon, so hopefully the bugs will behave themselves...  I will let you know how it went!
This evening, so distract myself from the presentation tomorrow, I went for a great run along the Fish Hatcheries in Petawawa, a great trail system. I guess I did have some energy left to burn. I felt really good, and I have good hopes that I might actually get back into our running routine. At least it's going into the right direction!

Home sweet home

Yesterday afternoon, I finally returned after an amazing week in Jasper. I say finally, because by the end, I was ready to go home. The week was phenomenal, but I am not used to spending so much time with other people, and at the end I was just exhausted! But it was very much worth it.

The CIF Conference came to an end Wednesday afternoon, and we left shortly after to go back to Edmonton. There, Nancy and I spent one more night before I caught an early flight back to Ottawa the next morning. Nancy didn't leave till 3 pm, so she got to sleep in!

But it is good to be back home, to see Nolan (who spent most of the week in bed, sick...), to see the cats, and to see our new house again. I still love it!

Since the program in Jasper was so jam-packed with interesting sessions, we made the difficult decission to skip a couple of presentations and play hooky... We took a little tram up one of the mountains and hiked to the top. The view was amazing, and it feel good to finally see a bit more of the area than just the view from the conference room!

 But really, I can't complain. Especially since Tuesday was our field day, and we saw quite a bit of the area as well, followed by one of my best trail runs ever, after we got back to the lodge. So in a nutshell, it was one fantastic week, and I feel very privileged that I was able to go.

Below a few more photos:

Big horn sheep on the hills, which are reclaimed after coal mining. They try to grow trees, but are having a hard time with extremely low survival rates of the seedlings. As a result, the bighorn sheep population (and the elk) is booming!

The Rockies all around us! In the distance you can see Mount Robson, the highest peak of the Canadian Rockies.

And that's me...

And that's Jasper in the valley. 

The lines on the mountains are really neat. It looks like somebody held a ruler beside them!