Tenth Blog

Ice floating on God's River

This is my second try at posting this, the Tenth Blog. I wrote it last weekend but lost all of it at the end due to loss of connection.

I cant believe it is almost the end of November and soon I'll be heading home for the break. It seems it was just the other day when I had packed and left for Shamattawa. And I am certain I will be saying the same thing in few weeks time about the holiday!

Last weekend three of us, teachers went for a short outing on the freshly frozen wetlands leading to Ontario. It was nice to see areas and step on the ground that has been out of reach since last April. I cant wait for the river to freeze so we can go north west and explore the other side of God's river. There seem to be much more wildlife on the other side as it is out of reach of humans for long periods. I am pretty sure it will happen before we head for the holidays.

The road East to Ontario

I must say that we are having a relatively mild fall so far. Outside temperature is about -4 which is pretty warm for a late night in late November. The rive is completely frozen to the East and it wont be long it stops flowing completely for the next 4-5 months. Fishing is sadly out of the question, well at least comfortable fishing that is. The open sections of the river has ice formed on either sides by about 20 meters or so which makes it impossible to cast. The only option would be to wait for it to completely freeze, then attempt ice-fishing. I have limited my free day-light time, roughly 5-6 hours on Saturdays and Sundays, to walking in the woods and looking for Ruffed grouse and Willow ptarmigans. It has been slim picking but not bad nonetheless. I should have had two more of those today if it wasn't for my useless dogs chasing and scaring them away. Not only they didn't spot the birds first, which was supposed to be their natural talent, they came running back to me as soon as seeing me crouch to shoot. After the mishap I decided to get rid of them; easier said than done. I went back to the main road in hope of getting a ride further up the road just to lose the dogs. Fifteen minutes later I got lucky and jumped on the back of a pick up truck. Dogs followed us for a couple of hundred meters but as we sped up they gave up. Mission accomplished. The look on their faces was priceless!

River starting to freeze from the East

I jumped off the truck and ventured in one of the side trails. Right away I noticed a few rabbit snares and looking closely I saw a dead rabbit in one of them. Its sad to see animals suffer a dreadful death like that. I wish people shot them rather than snaring and trapping. Further up the trail I noticed that I was following a very large wolf's path on the trail. It was obvious that it was ahead of me by an hour the most. I guess they have learned of the snares and check those spots regularly. Right away I regretted not having the dogs along! Although there were quite a few fresh tracks of birds all around, I was more concentrating on spotting the wolf than looking for birds. Unfortunately there weren't any large tree for me to climb either, so I had to be extra vigilant. It took me about 20 minutes to round that side-trail and was very relieved to be back on the main road where there were plenty of large trees to climb in case of an emergency.

Dead snared rabbit

On the way back I walked through the garbage dump, landfill, and noticed a few dogs feeding. Its nice to see they have a last or only option for food!

Trying to get the dogs in the picture

As for work, days are moving along smoothly and I am happy to have the core group of serious students still intact. My only issue is to wrap up the respective sections and chapters before the festivities begin. I know as soon as the holiday spirit kicks in it will kick out the learning spirit. So I better be ahead of the curve by finishing what we are doing now and start something relatively different after the break.

Ninth Blog

Sheldon and Okka in the beginning of the hike

Brothers starting the fire

Today was Aboriginal Veterans Day, start of our 4-day long weekend. As there isn't much to do up here for the long break, I decided to head out into the woods again with Sheldon and Wallace. We ventured out the same way as we did last weekend in hope of better seeing whats out there. With roughly about 30cm of fresh snow it would be very easy to read the stories that were unfolded the previous night/day.

Wallace leading the way, Okka pondering.

Today it was Okka that followed us for the journey. He is a puppy of about 4-5 months and very energetic. Although today's outing might have been a bit too much for him. We walked about 6 hours in total but due to deep snow it felt much longer and harder than last week's 7-hour hike. Surprisingly enough we didn't see as much as we would have hoped for. We saw numerous tracks of rabbits, foxes, wolves an caribous but none in sight! However it felt great walking on fresh and undisturbed snow, enjoying the stillness of the surroundings and breathing the cold crisp unpolluted air.

Sheldon by the & tree!

A successful fire out of wet branches

As for trophies, we only managed shooting two grouse. From now on I have to do a better job of hunting, as fishing season is sadly coming to an abrupt end. There are non-stop slabs of ice floating on the river which makes casting very difficult. Worse yet the river has started to freeze from both sides and there is already about 10-15 feet of ice formed on the banks. Even if I do mange to hook a fish it will be almost impossible to bring it to shore, as it will be pulled under the ice. I plan to head out tomorrow and see if I can break the ice in a thin section and reel the line in through a narrow channel.

Okka & I

Okka resting at lunch time

The extra long weekend also provides me with a welcomed opportunity to finish off and organize the mid-term report cards that are due sometime next week. I am glad the spreadsheet template I created last year is compatible with Mac's Number software; all I have to do is to change the names of students and the number of assignments, tests. Everything else will work just fine.

Wallace and Okka, towards the end of the hike

My unit

And the dog everybody seems to love!

Eighth Blog

Sunset, most sunsets are spectacularly purple

Weather for th past few days has been fantastic, daytime high of 4, 5 and 6! I remember last year this time giant slabs of ice were floating in the river. It is supposed to get a bit cooler for the next week, and we might have just enjoyed our last plus temperature for the remainder of the year. Fishing has been pretty good, as everyone is catching lots of Northern Pikes. Yesterday after work I went for an hour of fishing with a couple of friends and ended up catching 15 relatively large Pikes in under an hour's time.

 Muskeg

     
  

This morning I ventured out with a couple of my local friends, Sheldon and his baby brother Wallace. They guided me in trails and areas that I would never have dared to explore on my own. It was a glorious day and I had to shed gloves, hat and the sweater in the first hour of the hike. I was under the impression that we were going for a maximum of 2-3 hour-hike. But it turned into a 7-hour hunting adventure. Luckily for me Sheldon came well prepared and had more than enough food, water, snacks and even instant coffee/hot chocolate for all of us. I owe him big! We stopped by the river and built a little fire to heat up the food and have hot drink.                                                                           

 Lunch

Wallace and his trophies

Sheldon & Wallace

Wallace & I

We managed to shoot three rabbits and two grouse. By we I mean the 17-year-old Wallace. He spotted and shot them all. It is almost impossible to see rabbit let alone shooting them but it was amazing how he managed the impossible. There are lots of rabbits up here, but they are nocturnal and rarely move during the day. Most people snare them, since it is very difficult to spot them during the day.

Sheldon leading the way

My new nameless buddy!