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!

Oops, we did it again...

The beginning of this week, I had the pleasure of spending two days at Acadia Research Forest, in New Brunswick. Canada has two national research forests, Petawawa and Acadia. As is probably well known, I spend quite a bit of time at Petawawa, however, the National Research Forest Program encompasses both forests, and I therefore need to spend more time at Acadia to get a better understanding of research and management priorities there.
The two days were very well spent, especially since we were outside for most of it, and as we all know, a bad day in the field is always better than any day in the office! I got to see several active management sites, as well as some old research sites that we need to decide on what to do next with. It was great talking 'shop' and management options with both managers and scientists. Always so much to learn and absorb, but I also feel like I can actively participate in the conversation and have the odd smart suggestion as well :)

I caught an early flight back on Thursday, and spent the rest of the week in the office, which was a bit of an adjustment... On Saturday, Nolan and I decided to go on a shopping spree, since we both need clothes, and I needed a dress for Carrie's upcoming wedding. We said to each other before hand that whatever we do, we're not to buy art!
In case you didn't know, I seriously hate shopping, especially for clothes. So by the time I found some nice shirts and two dresses, I had mentally checked out for the day. How do people enjoy shopping with so many people around them?
We ended the day in an art gallery, trying to find a wedding gift for Carrie. We looked around a bit, and the sales person noticed we were interested in one specific artist. We had looked at her work before, but were never totally sold on it. He told us he had another piece in the back, which he could show us. I started laughing and said that it might not be a wise thing to do, since we have a history of buying art impulsively. He brought it out anyway, and we fell in love. Darn it!!! We negotiated a bit, and indeed bought it... So yes, we did it again.
We hung it up in the living room, and that evening I looked up some info on the artist, Maya Eventov, and noticed that the picture of the painting on the website was upside down. We looked some more, and more, and noticed that the actual painting was framed upside down! We both hadn't noticed it, and understand how the mistake could have been made. But now knowing that it was upside down, we wanted to fix it. We called the gallery this morning, and they told us they would fix it for us, but since it was just a matter of changing a couple of screws, we did it ourselves. So now we have a new, beautiful painting in our dining room! It almost feels like we bought two :)

This picture is not great, I'll take another one soon, but it is really cool how it shows the sunlight coming through from upstairs. We're both really happy with it!

This morning we went for a great trail run in the green belt. Over 12 km on beautiful trails, with leaves already changing. We saw deer, two porcupines, heard lots of ravens, and saw lots of other wildlife like snakes, squirrels, chipmunks, and many birds. So great to virtually have this in our backyard. Any complaint about my commute just seems unjustified knowing we live in such a great place!

I'm off to Huntsville tomorrow to attend the Canadian Institute of Forestry Conference, and actually moderate a session on Wednesday. Should be fun, and the drive through Algonquin Park will be amazing with the colours slowly starting the change.

Labour Day Weekend

Labour Day Weekend, aka the last long weekend of the summer, or also known the last weekend before the kids go back to school, and for me also known as the last little break before 'officially' the busiest time of year commences. Fall is traditionally busy; fieldwork is drawing to an end, September and October are popular times to organize conferences and workshops, and really is the only time to organize field days without the bugs, before the snow flies, but you also need to be thoughtful of hunting season. Long story short, life is about to get really busy!

We spent the long weekend at a friend's cottage, about 2 hours north-east of Ottawa, and it was absolutely amazing!  The group consisted of our running-partners-in-crime, although the average miles covered by the group is seriously decreasing, with only Debbie and Nancy training for a half marathon, JoAnn still on crutches, and the rest of us trying to fit a run in whenever we can find the time. If all goes well, we'll be meeting up with Ann to finally get a Sunday morning run in this weekend.
Of course, exception to the above, is Tom. He just qualified for Boston, but is hoping to improve on his time to actually be able to register for the world famous marathon.
The weekend itself was very relaxing, with lots of good food, delicious drinks, and a nice hot tub! The cottage was on a lake, but Nolan and I managed to get a quick paddle in, but it was a little too cold for a swim. Especially after we got drenched on Sunday night, and then again Sunday afternoon. But it didn't dampen the spirits. And of course, we had to very cute, but quite flatulently dogs... Overall a great weekend thanks to some great friends!

The next few weeks might be a bit more quiet when it comes to blog updates... I'm leading a Lakehead University Tour at the PRF this weekend, then heading to New Brunswick on Monday for a few days, then off to Huntsville to present at the CIF Conference, after that I'll be busy with our Component Leader's Forum in Ottawa, followed by a week of training in October. I'll check in when I get a chance though. Told you it would be busy...

Utah - Part 8 (final) - Antelope Island

SLC is famous for its large Great Salt Lake. A very large, and mostly a very salty lake. It is so salty, only brine shrimp can live in it. There are also lots of brine flies, lots and lots of them.

The day started with thundershowers, but it cleared up after a bit. Pretty funny how we managed to get two days of rain in one of the driest places in North America... Antelope Island is known for its bisons, antelopes and deer and of course its many, many birds. It's a famous island for migrating birds to fill up on brine shrimp before they head further south (in the fall) or north (in the spring). 

We also came across some other creatures...

Distant rain

All those black dots are birds

Our first bison!

A deer with a huge rack!

More bison

We went into this shed, which was part of an old farm on the island, and we saw this snake. At first I thought it was fake, but then it moved. Definitely the largest snake I'd ever seen in the wild. 

You can somewhat make out the clouds of brine flies flying away in front of the running boy. we took some footage as well, that I'll try to upload somehow as well.

At the end of the day, we had to return the rental back, and we found a really nice Mexican restaurant where we had an awesome meal with even awesomer (!) guacamole! A good way to end our fantastic vacation!

This is it for Utah, now back to our normal life :)

Utah - Part 7 - Uinta National Forest

After a night of great sleep in Richfield, we decided to head up north towards Salt Lake. We took some back roads, and ended up in Uinta National Forest. There we took the 'scenic route' through the forest, which got us up to over 9000 feet!

You can definitely tell how it's starting to get greener out there.

An interesting thing happened in Uinta National Forest though… We took a little side road, which ended up on a campsite but provided a good view of Mount Nebo, the tallest mountain there. We got out of the car to take some pictures (still didn’t have enough!) and we were approached by an older lady in a car. She told us that she lived nearby and loved this area. She also told us about a bridge crossing a small creek with a nice area on the other side, and if were where to go there, she wouldn’t mind come with is since it had been a while for her to visit that spot.

All fine and all, but then she pointed to a truck with two guys and she mentioned how they had been following her. All of a sudden I had this really weird gut feeling, and I just wanted to get away from there. We politely said that we had to go, and before we knew it she took off. We left the campsite area as well, back to the main road. She was nowhere to be seen, and the guys in the truck didn’t follow us. I’m not sure what it was all about, but we were wondering if they were trying to get us away from the car, so they could rob us? Not sure, but we felt a bit uneasy for the rest of that trip, despite the fact we climbed 3000 feet and you could see the road below us with nobody on it. Nothing happened, and maybe there was nothing weird about it, just our imagination, but it just didn’t feel right.

Anyway, we were still able to take a few photos. It's 'open range', which means that cows can roam freely. Hence the cows.

Guardrails anywhere??

Even here you can find those red rocks.

Dreams get broken in Vegas

Close to 3000m

Photo op!

Lake Utah

Just to make sure we're going the right direction.

Are you sure we need to turn right??

After we left Uinta Forest, we decided to do something else. We checked the CAA book (which proved pretty valuable in the past week), and looked up stuff to do in Provo (just south of SLC). It turns out they had an aquarium. SInce we were getting a little tired of driving, and the temperature started to climb again, we headed to the aquarium. It was pretty fun actually. Of course, more photos were taken...

Also, did you know that scorpions glow in the dark?

Utah - Part 6 - Capitol Reef National Park

Wednesday - Hump day!

After a bit of a disappointing dinner in Green River, but good night sleep, we headed south towards Capitol Reef National Park. The highway there was very similar to what we had seen the day before; lots of nothing! But that in itself is so impressive. How often do you see something so 'empty' but still so full? I was really intrigued by it, and just loved the vastness of the landscape and the ruggedness. The numerous rocks of which none looked the same, the colour and the shapes. All in all just very different to what we are used to, and I loved it!

Really, really dry, in case you were wondering

A tree trying to survive

Another Arch, although they called it a bridge, this time in Capitol Reef National Park. Still impressive.

Cool colours and lines

Wild wild west!

The gooseneck at Capitol Reef NP

After Capitol Reef, we planned on driving to Richfield, but we saw a little side road to Fish Lake. After seeing all those rocks and deserts, it was somewhat weird, but also very familiar, to see a lake and trees! In a way very familiar to what we have in our own 'backyard', but here it just seemed somewhat out of place!

Fish Lake