Friday February 17, 2023

Day 5

The last day

Friday February 17, 2023, Final day of the trip.

This morning would consist of folks packing up for the final day. The plan was to be fully packed up, your gear out of the cabin where you slept, and food and other things out of the main cabin, and to meet just after 9:00 am out front by the vehicles for our morning circle.

Danielle and I packed up all our gear, said goodbye to the sweet birdhouse cabin, and the 2 electric space heaters. We placed our gear into the giant black sleds, and pulled it all the way back to the main parking area, to pack Danielles hatch-back car. A bitter- sweet process.

Myself pulling my gear in the sled, complete with blustery snow, wind, and absolute content. The only other selfie you’ll find from this trip. Danielle with her gear, caught off guard as I called her name, to turn around for this photo.

Everyone met just after 9:00 am. We held our morning gratitude circle, complete with a photo of our amazing group of people, and we even included the Wildlife Research Station sign off the one building! I don’t think we were supposed to take that sign off, but it felt like we had some sort of right to doing so, since we had been immersed on the land this week. After the photo was done, we did place the sign back where it originally was, as though nothing had ever happened.

The group would be split in to two groups. One crew would go with Lee, into the forest from the main parking area, and the other group with Alexis down the driveway a bit and also into the forest. My group consisted of Lee, Allanah, Matt, Brendon, Danielle, and myself. We snowshoes up a small hill that I realized was a clear line for the electrical line or telephone lines, I hadn’t noticed this opening before. Odd. We checked the first telephone pole for bear signs, nothing. We came up to a second pole, with a good line of tracks crossing our path. We hung out here for a bit, analyzing the tracks, and observing the pole for bear sign. I was able to locate several black hairs caught in the fibres of the wood. This was one of the colder days of the week. The night before, it had snowed a ton. The forest now resembled a winter wonderland. All things were covered in a wonderful glorious and healthy layer of snow! With the sun shining down, it was a glorious day, but if one did not continue to move the body, the toes would soon become cold. We pressed on. Along this line of telephone poles, this opening we were following, we came to some funny looking old, structures. Small falling apart wooden buildings, old boxes and cages... what was this place?

Lee shared that it would be great to look around here for porcupine feeding signs. Unfortunately the porcupines were interested in the type of glue that was used with these buildings. Sad, but interesting, how wild animals will seek out glue for consumption, even when in a forest filled with their proper food types. We explored the funny structures, and the area they occupied. I was seeing a lot of moose feeding signs on the young maple trees. Buds being nipped off, as well as some young maple trees being completely broken over, from moose literally walking over the trees, with the full intention, to break the tree, bringing it lower to the ground, for the convenience of eating. There was a lot of moose sign here. Lee went on to explain that many years ago folks at the park, who were employed, and working here at the station, were studying moose. To do this, at that time, that were apparently treating moose similar to how we may treat horses. To keep them within a fenced in area, with food, water and shelter. Apparently those people studying the moose quickly learnt that this was not the way to learn about moose, that they did not fare well, being corralled in a smaller area. Hence forth, the old falling apart wood buildings, complete with porcupine feeding signs we found soon after.

We plotted on into the snowy evergreens.

Out of no where, something amazing happened!

Something leaped up and out of the snow before us, and flew up into a not too distant tree. It was a grouse! I did not see it clearly, but I heard it, and noticed something fly up. Looking where it had leaped from, there was some scat sitting within an indentation in the snow, where the grouse must have bedded down for some time. Looking up into the trees, we all looked carefully for the grouse. I checked in with Alannah, to ask her if she thought the grouse was more likely to fly up and land in a tree, and stay there or if it perhaps came down to the ground. She shared that it was most likely to be up in a tree, after getting spooked. This made sense to me, especially after hearing these words come from someone who is an avid birder. Allanah had also brought out her Thermal Scope! This amazing tool, I had never ever heard about! Essentially a monocular, a single lens type of binocular, with 1 lens to look through versus two. “Mono” meaning one, and “bi” meaning two, like bicycle, two wheels. This monocular, however, had a black and white thermal setting that allows for one to pickup anything that is warm. It will light up through the scope, detecting any birds or animals in the forest. The only issue, was that if it was a sunny day, the light of the sun on the trees and reflecting off the snow, causes a lot of glare. This would appear in the scope like that of if a live animal was spotted, too. This made the function of the thermal scope, a lot harder to use in this type of light. Allanah shared that on an overcast day is ideal for such a tool. We were all unable to find the grouse. We chose to leave it be, and make our way back out of the forest, with the intention to hit that clear line we had been following originally with the telephone poles.

Going as strait as I could, I cut the snowshoe trail, hoping I would soon meet with that opening again. Instead, we soon came to a hill.
That funny sense of disorientation began to come over me; a feeling that I find refreshing, to not be fully confident about where I am, and where I am going directionally. My senses start to kick in, and my awareness goes up. I look up to the sky, to look for the sun. It was still high in the sky, around mid day- this was one of my ways to become more oriented: look for the sun to help determine direction and time of day. Our small group got together, and touched base about directions.

Today we had a smaller time frame to be out in the forest. The plan was meet back at the main cabin for 1:00 pm (if I remember correctly), to finish cleaning up, give the main cabin a good sweep, and hold our final and last closing circle of the trip.

The next step was to get out the technology, and reference the map. We had about under an hour to make it out and back to the main cabin, and hopefully have a nice lunch before 1:00 hit. Referencing the map, the full sense of orientation returned. We needed to go north-east, towards the dam, with the goal of hitting the main road that goes up to the dam. Walking with more direction, and focus, we did cross a fresh grouse trail along the way! Was it a different grouse from the one we spooked earlier? With Brendon leading the way, Lee, Danielle, Matt, and myself soon came to an opening from the trees. It looked just like that clear path we began on with the bear pole... but it wasn’t.

A sense of disorientation returned. Where have we come to? A few other people knew where we were. Looking at the ground, I saw a line of snowshoe tracks fresh from that day, that also had a hole beside them, about the size of a dollar, punched into the snow every few feet.

Then, it hit me.

I had an “Aha!” moment. They were Alexis’s tracks, and the little hole was his tracking/walking stick he always has. This was from when he came earlier that day to get the trail cam they had set up earlier in the week. We were at the driveway to the cabin! Closer to home than we had thought, we decided to enjoy the spot of sunshine that was before us, and have some lunch.

Here is the only picture I took on that walk that day: lichen on pine tree. Ive not identified this yet, maybe some type of cup fungus?

Any thoughts?

Everyone met back at the cabin around 1:00 pm. Folks were busy packing up final objects, cleaning the kitchen, sweeping floors, and packing up vehicles. Danielles little hatch back was full of all of Byron, myself, and Danielles things from the week. It was amazing that it all fit!

When 2:00 hit, we all gathered in the cabin for our final circle. With everything tidied up, it was as though we had never been there.
WE all sat in the 2 big green couches, the hard framed chairs. Everyone would take a turn sharing gratitude about the week, and what was on their hearts. It was beautiful. I think a few tears almost came out at one point. It had been such a deep and intimate dive into tracking, creating community, friendship, wild animals and more. Everyones hearts were full, from what I could feel. I don’t think anyone would have much to complain about.

We ended the circle, with 3:00 pm on the horizon, our true end time to the trip. Folks said their goodbyes, hugged, tentative plans to visit each other were made. Danielle got in the drivers seat, Byron in the passenger seat, and I, by choice, in the back, cozied up real snug with a pile of backpacks, and snowshoes that I was protected from and leaning on by a few pillows! Perfect! With my bag of road snacks and hot tea at me feet, I was as ready as id ever be. Off we went down the driveway, making our way back to Highway 60. With music playing, the hatchback urned left, due east for Dwight were we would get some gas and check the oil. With the afternoon sun shining brightly, and our spirits full of adventure, and tracks, the 4 hour drive back down south to Guelph had begun.

The end.

Thank you for reading my stories of this amazing trip.

Its a true honour to share my experiences, in hopes to inspire others, and learn more along the way.

If you have any reflections, comments or questions from reading about this trip, please know all are welcome!

Shoot me an email:

connect@windandrain.ca