The Word On The Street in Saskatoon

LinkJust back from a wonderful three-day break canoeing and fishing in Meadow Lake Provincial park, in Saskatchewan’s northwest. With all the kids back in school, and the official summer season over, we almost had the entire park to ourselves.

The weather was fantastic, with daytime highs in the mid 20s and nights above freezing, and we had our campground entirely to ourselves. We encountered black bears twice, in both cases when we were driving.
This group of a mother and cubs was feeding on low-bush cranberries right by the road. They all looked fat and sassy.

The canoeing was great. The waters were calm, and the fall colours were just getting going.

Now I have a bigger task. Today is the city’s first ever participation in The Word On The Street Festival and I have been drafted at the last minute to act as an MC for one of the afternoon sessions. We have a stellar line-up, with 32 readings and activities in three performance venues. Our headliners are Yann Martell and Sandra Birdsell, but we have lots of other authors, and a major attraction will be Netty the talking car.

The Word On The Street is a free Community Festival that celebrates reading and advocates literacy. It takes place across Canada on the last Sunday in September each year and this year Saskatoon joins established venues Toronto, Halifax, Kitchener and Vancouver as well a newbie Lethbridge as we bring together talented writers from our city, our province and beyond.

You can find out lots more about the day at our website You can also see a short clip that was made by the students at the Evan Hardy High School media school during last year’s preview event They will be with us again this year and we look forward to seeing what they can come up with.

Hunting and meat from stores

Link

A couple of weeks ago the writers group of which I am a member met and reviewed some of our work. Most of the group write in the world of science fiction & fantasy, but two of us write outside that genre. One is a mystery writer, and then there's me, writing in creative non-fiction.

I have related in my published work that I am a hunter, and have been for many years. For the last 30 years my wife & I have not purchased meat, except bacon (a little difficult to hunt). We get ultra low-fat meat, and what fat there is has only 3-omega fatty acids. Some members of the group could not understand that I have spent a career trying to work on wild animals in many corners of the globe and then go hunting.

To me it is simple. I get good food, I know where it comes from and I can control how it is processed. Cost is not an issue. By the time I have purchased licenses, filled my truck with gas and paid for ammunition I probably spend more than I would at the butchers shop or supermarket. I also get great enjoyment being outside in the countryside or sitting in a canoe casting a line.


It is obvious that there is a huge disconnect between my approach and that of some urban dwellers. We know that many inner-city folks have no idea that milk comes from cows, but then one of my group sent me this.
Where did this writer come from? Does she or he eat chickens, steaks of sausages? Or is this a case of an elaborate spoof. Sadly, I doubt it

Canoeing in Prince Albert NP

Linkhttp://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/sk/princealbert/index_e.asp

Just back from a wonderful canoe cum fishing trip in Canada’s Prince Albert National Park. We chose to make a circular trip through what is known as the Bagwa route. The sunset across the lake was reward in itself.

The trip involves a two-hour paddle across the western side of Kingsmere Lake, one of the largest in the park, a quiet trip for forty minutes or so up a shallow, weed-filled channel into Bagwa Lake and an overnight stop there after hopefully catching a supper’s worth of walleye, known more commonly as pickerel.

From here it was to be a short glide through Lily lake, a portage around the base of a slight rise, some more fishing (for Northern Pike, also known by several derogatory names such as slough shark and hammer handle in Claire and another portage, this time across a board walk over a swamp, back into Kingsmere and base camp at South End.

We had first done the trip over thirty years ago and it is a real pleasure to be able to relate that little has changed in the area over that longish gap. The campsites have improved, with much better places to put ones food, and no garbage. The bear-proof food caches are about 15 feet up on platforms that have metal-clad legs, to prevent sharp claws from getting a grip, and have ladders up to them that can be pulled away. I have never seen a bear climb a ladder, but you never know.

The first leg was a huge success. The wind, what there was of it, had no negative effect on the canoe. Kingsmere can be dangerous, turning from millpond to maelstrom in moments when strong winds blow, but we skimmed across and had the added bonus of landing three nice lake trout as we went. The Bagwa channel was gorgeous. The water lilies had just begun to open their buds and yellow balls dotted the water surface. There were mallards galore, lots of grebes, and small flotillas of pelicans sailing along. More pelicans planed down in tight formation to join them.

On that first trip we had sat on a beaver lodge and watched enthralled as a moose cow and her calf swam towards us. We only moved when it became obvious that she wanted to exit on the lodge that as our viewpoint and that there really was not enough room for both groups. She had turned aside and landed about thirty metres down from us, stopping briefly to take a disdainful look at us. This time there were no moose, but we did see three white-tailed deer, one of them a buck in velvet, walking along the lakeshore with a complete lack of concern.

There was one sour note, as a motorboat roared up the channel and into the lake, stopping for the night away from the official campsite. Bagwa, and even its entrance channel, are off limits to motors, and there can be no doubt that the people in the craft, tow men, were there to catch pickerel. If they had disregarded the motor rules, how many pickerel above their limit did they take out?

We forgot the intrusion as we fell asleep to the manic cries of loons and the cackling of grebes

The pickerel fishing was as good as we remembered and so we did not complete the round-trip, with its two portages, as we guessed that a paddle out back through the channel and across a slightly more windy Kingsmere. This proved to be a good choice as we caught the last trout on our permit and came home with a limit.

Marie Stopes International

Linkhttp://www.mariestopes.org.uk/Home.aspx


Been away with family in the USA, and did not take my computer, so was “off air” for a couple of weeks. Canoeing in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and telling bedtime stories to grandchildren makes a nice change.

After wading through the usual stack of emails and dumping the obvious rubbish I found one that at first looked interesting. It appeared to come from the Mary Stopes International folks, who are so well known for their world-wide work in the women’s health field, and especially in the area of reproductive choice. The have expanded their activities and now offer services as Sexual Health Specialists with tabs on the web site for women, for men, and for young people.

The remarkable Scottish woman for whom the organization is named was educated as a palaeobotanist and had a remarkable academic career in the early part of the 20th century, earning a PhD in 1907, when women had a tough time breaking into the male dominated world of science. According to Wikipedia (where this photo of her in her lab in 1904 appears) she edited journal Birth Control News which gave anatomically explicit advice and it is for her work on family planning that she remembered.

The “reply to” address on the email header was in Hong Kong, and the message mentioned Mary Stopes Canada. Something made me hesitate before replying, although I have seen Stopes clinics in many countries and admire their work. In countries like Uganda they are a vital refuge for many women. A check on Google gave me no hits for a Canadian leg of the organization. I penned an email to the head office, and soon got a reply. My instincts had been right. The thing was a scam. I hope nobody got caught.