On Tuesday, May 12 I travelled up to a favourite property for an annual monitoring visit - "to Georgian Bay!" is always one of my favourite things to say! It was a cold, cloudy, windy evening but we trekked out by boat to this water access only property near Pointe au Baril to monitor for reptiles, frogs, birds, spring plants and really anything we could find. I've only been to this property in late summer/fall before, so this was going to be a new and wonderful time of year to see this lovely place. Two minutes in: bear scat. A minute later: rocks flipped by bears. This is nothing new - bears are present on almost every property I work on and I have never seen one to date. I've had vague hopes of seeing one - from far, far away, as it disappears into the forest of course. However, on this 10 acre parcel of land with a water taxi being the only way off, I would be more than pleased if the bears kept their furry distance. Deep forest adjacent to a giant conservation reserve and barely any cottages feels a bit more like me barging in on Winnie's home than some of the other places with roads and trails that I frequent. As we listened for frogs and flipped logs for salamanders and kept our eyes peeled for new and interesting plant species I noticed my assistant and I were being MUCH quieter than we usually are - we were listening! I have a theory that I never see bears because I never stop talking and they know easily to keep their distance from that noisy girl. So on the bear-iest property, we were the quietest we'd ever been - probably not the wisest - and luckily were standing right next to each other when I scanned around and locked eyes with a black bear. He was on all fours, on the small-ish side in terms of weight but as tall as my hip. I can still hear my own voice, quietly, with much fear masked: "Laura, there's a bear."
Laura sweetly reached for my hand as if to pull me away. I said "get the bear spray out of my bag". Once I had it in hand, our training on how to handle bear encounters kicked in and we started being BIG and LOUD to frighten the bear away. Bears are generally not interested in eating humans (it would be like a semi-vegetarian suddenly grilling up a huge steak - quite odd and unlikely) and they tend to be not interested in meeting/tussling with us. Exceptions include predatory bears (like the one in Cochrane that broke in and dragged a guy out of his house - http://www.thesudburystar.com/2013/05/11/women-fight-off-bear-attacking-a-man), mama bears (protecting cubs) or bears that are startled/threatened. This bear made a motion as if to bound away when we yelled, but slyly looked back over his shoulder which prompted us to decide to get the HECK out of there. Laura reminded me not to run (WOW what a powerful urge it was to run!) and we walked swiftly away. We heard a Broad-winged Hawk calling and decided "we won't let this bear ruin our day!" and Laura began pulling out her binoculars to look for it. Her hands were shaking. My knees were shaking, almost knocking together like in a cartoon. Then I spotted the bear again - he was coming at us from a different direction, and not slowly either. Laura stuffed the bins back in her bag and we proceeded to yell and shout and wave our arms to scare it away. I yelled things that now seem so ridiculous: "Kristyn and Laura are VERY SCARY!" "Do not mess with us! We are tough!!!" "Get OUTTA HERE, BEAR!". You could hear the fury and then the disappointment in our raised voices as we realized this bear was not pausing in his pursuit towards us and we realized nature was breaking its deal with us - we take good care of nature where I work; nature is supposed to take care of us. At that point we didn't see another option except a hasty retreat back to the shoreline. We stood, basically vibrating we were shaking so hard, on the rocky shoreline, staring back into the forest where we'd left, and hopefully left the bear. Laura was holding a giant stick. We didn't take our eyes off the trail into the forest as we called the water taxi to pick us up 2 hours early (thank goodness for cell service in the middle of nowhere!). A bird landed on Laura's shoulder during these moments, which is hilarious to think back on because it's always my dream to have birds land on us in the field and it's never once happened. We were a little too shattered to enjoy it properly, though! After much cheesy lasagna, sharing the story with everyone we could talk to, and a good long hug, we were feeling a bit better. After much research and discussion, I now understand that the bear was young, curious, hungry and smelled the food we had in our backpacks and decided to "investigate" and possibly try to share our dinners. It's tough going in early spring finding food if you're a black bear. I still don't forgive him. We will not be back to this property until well after the berry crop is out this season, and will be bringing at least 2 other staff people, that's for sure. I'm glad I didn't have to use the bear spray, or poke the bear in the eyes fighting for my life - I am grateful - but it took many days before the flashbacks went away and I felt normal again: "Laura, there's a bear".
We actually had a stellar next day on Georgian Bay near Sans Souci. 72 acres, 1 bear scat, no bear sightings - phew! The following day I was down in Norfolk county, where bears are non-existent and I could finally relax (minus worrying about black-legged ticks crawling into my pants and giving me Lyme disease.. come on nature, cut us a break!). I was helping the team down there cut down some Black Locust trees. Invasive, nasty trees, with big crazy thorns on them. I was wearing thin latex gloves, as we were applying some herbicide to the trees, and got a real "POKE!" from one of the trees as it was cut down. I pulled out the thorn with copious amounts of hand sanitizer, and brand new tweezers, and saw the whole thorn come out and thought nothing of it. But later that afternoon my left ring finger (thankfully minus my 2 wedding rings which might have had to have been cut off otherwise!) had swelled up like a sausage and I could barely move it! I learned the thorns are covered in nasty bacteria and frequently cause reactions in people who get pokes from them. The swelling went down the next day and I seemed to be good. Phew!
That weekend I was off on our annual adventure to Cedar Point to ride the big rollercoasters with my friends. It's always a wild journey travelling all the way to Sandusky, OH. It's been even trickier since we started leaving Bailey with my parents in Niagara-on-the-Lake, meaning we have to travel under Lake Erie to get there, and the voyage becoming about a 7 hour journey - ack! We planned to have Saturday free to pack, do laundry, get our act together, before taking the dog and ourselves down south on Sunday. We'd hit the park Monday and travel back Tuesday. But my kooky friend Pam (she's bananas!) suggested that we do an extra day at Cedar Point because it was closing earlier than we were used to (10 a.m. - 8 p.m. - short day!!) and the weather looked a little iffy for Monday. Jeff and I mulled it over for about 10 minutes and as we are also bananas decided to go for it. We wouldn't be able to make the camping work with the timelines, so we had Pam book us a couple of rooms in Cleveland that night and made the epic trip down. The hotel was awesome, the breakfast the next morning delightful, our day at the park simply magical (Maverick! Millenium Force and no one fainted!), and we had a lovely campfire that night and a nice evening of camping with great weather. We went to the park AGAIN the next day (bananas) and my feet were pretty done-zo by the end of it but I'll never forget the feeling of being in third in line on Top Thrill Dragster and then flying from 0 to 200 km/hr in 4 seconds. Can't beat it. Also the combination of Maverick followed by Chick Fil A as a delicious late dinner still makes me feel warm and fuzzy thinking about it a week later. Jeff, in the spirit of bananas weekend, ended up with a terrible hangover on Day 2 at the park and after he and I did the maiden ride on Top Thrill he said "I'm done." and disappeared, not to be seen on another ride that day! Later, Jay said "sorry you didn't make it on Top Thrill a second time, Jeff" and Jeff replied "I had my own Top Thrill in the washroom". I laughed for 10 minutes about that. Poor Jeff - 6 beers are not his friend in old age! ;) Our trip home on Tuesday took 9 hours (OMG - I nearly threw myself out the window on the QEW) and back to work Wednesday morning felt a little... bananas.. but totally worth it, of course!
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| Waiting for TTD to launch w/ Jay and Kevin (ride#2, I am sitting with a stranger while Jeff takes this pic) |
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| Millenium Force fly-by - Kevin and my hands both look like crab claws |
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| Team Basketcases trying to get a positive ID on some swallows flying around the Kirkfield Lift Locks! |
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| The sunset was amazing - picture snipe, nghthawk and whip-poor-will song over this background - wow Carden! |
By the end of the night I was having trouble making a fist with my left hand but I told my finger to shut it, got into bed with a hot water bottle at a friend's in rural Carden (Uphill - look it up!) and aimed for my glorious 5 hours of sleep: 12:30 - 5:30. That's all the rest you get until 6:00 p.m. Saturday night when it's time to sit down to dinner. I was beyond dismayed to wake up at 2:45 a.m. with my finger positively screaming. I actually had tears in my eyes and had to slow my breathing to try to calm down. Because what the HELL could I do besides tough it out? After an hour of agony, I decided I had another option, so I snuck out of the house at 3:30 a.m., trying not to wake my sleeping teammates scattered through the hallway, left a note, left their gear inside, and disappeared into the night like a cat burglar: "gone to hospital for antibiotics - will text update - so sorry - good luck". I sped 30 minutes to Orillia Soldiers Memorial Hospital, feeling epicly stupid for admitting myself to the ER for "finger pain" but also knowing I had no other option if I wanted a chance of getting through the next day.
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| Sausage Finger - reading/waiting in the ER exam room |
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| Olympia Marble butterfly - a "lifer" for me! |
We stopped at our friends the Ridgway's and didn't pick up a single species but managed 2 rounds of wine on the deck by their pond before we headed out on the road again. During the visit the blackflies were so bad that I joked that my friend Trish looked like one of those moose in the documentaries you see about northern Canada in summer "this moose finds relief from the incessant bugs by submerging himself in the water" - and you can see the thick curtain of bugs around him.. that was Trish. Blackflies=bananas. Today I have a nice case of what I'm calling "blackne" - bloodied blackfly bites covering my neck, ears and shoulders - tasty!! However.. the best part of the day was: WE WON! In our category, we have always placed below the top rung but last night we took home the trophy! I was so happy I was able to stick it out and join my team for the celebration - ridiculous sausage finger and all. Unfortunately I was hit hard by the effects of the antibiotics on the drive home last night. They are never kind to my sensitive system. I left at 8:45 p.m. and by 9:00 was on the phone with Jeff asking him if he could book me a cheap hotel.. somewhere,.. anywhere.. as I knew the nausea, headache and general fatigue/dizziness were not going to bode well for another 2.5 hours in the car. I ended up in Newmarket at the Holiday Inn and you can guess how soundly and for how long I slept in that big soft cozy white bed! I finally made it home in one piece (more or less) this morning, but I need some serious rejuvenation before my next field adventure! Oh.. it's Wednesday - Saturday?? I better work harder at relaxing today!!
What a bananas, bananas couple of weeks. I hope next week is bug-free, bear-free, with only the prettiest flowers blooming, and warblers landing on my shoulder to sing me a song. And not infecting me with anything in the process.
Said to Laura, while hightailing it out of the forest: "we're going to laugh about this, right?". Line of my life!
