 |
|
|||||
|
Outdoors
|
||||||
|
Blue ’Eyes
Biologists are scratching their heads over a strange new colour of walleye Some anglers in northwestern Ontario are seeing blue—and it’s not just in the clear sky overhead. Seems walleye in the area are occasionally turning up with a distinctly blue hue, a phenomenon that so far has fisheries biologists baffled. 
In The Game
In the spring of 2000, new hunter Roma Czech was interested in honing her skills at the shooting range, so she phoned her local anglers and hunters club in southern Ontario to apply for membership. After a long pause, the fellow on the other end of the phone told her that women could not join the club. She was, however, welcome to join the women's auxiliary, where she could help cook the wild game dinner once a month. And one more thing: she couldn't leave the kitchen to eat with the men. Incredulous, Czech said thanks, but no thanks.
All Creatures Great And Small
"I just have to see if the rat has thawed yet." It's shortly after seven o'clock on a cool grey Saturday morning in June, deep in 155 acres of bush and grasslands north of Kenora, Ont. I'm at Iggy's Wildlife Rehab Centre, and Lil Anderson is getting breakfast for the dozen or so critters she has in residence today.
Deep Waters The figures are stark: A three-week canoe trip, in 10-degree C waters. Twenty-seven boys, aged 12 and 13. Four leaders, four canoes. Ten hours into the first day: 18 people huddled onshore, four overturned canoes, and 13 dead from hypothermia. In James Raffan's account of a doomed 1978 canoe trip in Deep Waters: Courage, Character and the Lake Timiskaming Canoeing Tragedy (HarperFlamingoCanada, $35), those figures underpin the riveting narrative, but they aren't the whole story.
Sleepless In Nipissing
When you buy an old cottage, you get more than four walls and a fireplace. You get a mountain of Stuff. A propane fridge, oil cans, boats, ice augers, a couch or two - all the unwieldy items no one wants to schlep somewhere else. At the top of the "oh, just leave it there" list are cottage mattresses. Old cottage mattresses are heavy. And lumpy. They have mysterious stains no one wants to inquire about too deeply. Old cottage mattresses used to be new city mattresses that, towards the end of their useful lives, develop a sort of magnetic-north attraction to cottage country.
|
||||||
| email: bonnie@northstarwriting.ca | |