The first few years on the new job

Before proceeding to the next post, I want to make the following quite clear: As I look at the duration of my career, in spite of the major change I experienced in 1985 which I described in my previous post, I at first focused on the devastation and loss. At that time, I just could not fathom the incredible blessings and opportunities God had in mind for me. However as time went on, I can see that it opened up so many opportunities in learning about, and protecting God’s creation. He knew of my great and increasing love and passion for His creation, and decided to put me in a position to have a much greater impact on protecting it than had I remained at Rondeau. Certainly there would have been opportunities at Rondeau had I remained, but with my new position now covering the most biodiverse part of Ontario, and arguably Canada, there were so, so many more needs and opportunities, with wonderful habitat diversity and numerous SAR.

 So the things I have, or will, suggest that ‘I’ accomplished in some of the next posts, I must give proper credit to God for the huge and ongoing number of blessings over the years that He enabled me to have a significant role in, and they continue even to this day. It is awesome having the Creator of the universe who knows what is best for me and has this plan for my life to help protect and educate people about His creation…He is my best friend and we communicate numerous times a day!!

My new position in Chatham resulted in me being the first District Ecologist within the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Chatham District, at the time, just included what was then, the tri-county area of Kent, Essex and Lambton (but that changed about a decade later). Not a huge part of Ontario, but the biodiversity and natural history needs were immense, and certainly the greatest in Ontario. My new role encompassed so many things, although they started by focusing on the provincial parks and nature reserves in the south half of the district. But that soon expanded to include some additional challenges when it came to influencing municipal planning and private development and the effects of such developments on natural areas and a multitude of rare, threatened and endangered species. 

This period was just getting underway to be one of the best times within OMNR, at least from a natural history perspective. There was now a focus on things such as Wetland Inventory, Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest and an ever increasing number of species being considered by provincial and national governments regarding to be legally protected via the Endangered Species Act. The ESA first came about in the early 1970s, with a mere 12 species on it. Over the years, there were dozens of new species added in the Endangered category, with many more on the Rare and Threatened categories as sort of a watch list, which was re-evaluated every year. 

Since public education was such a major part of my role at Rondeau, it continued now that I was in Chatham. Two of the educational programs that OMNR was involved with was Project Wild and also Focus on Forests. I attended the training sessions of each, and brought the energy and information back to Chatham. I gave several sessions to teachers during their professional development days regarding these two programs, in various schools across the district. It was quite rewarding to share the enthusiasm with them, and see how they responded.

I mentioned in an earlier post about initially thinking about pursuing a career in forestry, but that changed to biology before I actually applied to university. However some of my colleagues within OMNR, especially some of the Chatham forestry technicians, felt that I could benefit from a forestry perspective rather than just my biological one, and so I was nominated to take the Forest Resources Certificate Course. This was a great opportunity to get an inside look at the forest industry across Ontario, and I spent a week in southern Ontario, a week in central Ontario, and two weeks in northern Ontario (one week in the Cochrane area and another in the Thunder Bay area) learning from some of the provincial specialists. It was quite enlightening, although I was still glad my specialty was in the biological realm.

For the first couple of years of this new position, we lived at Rondeau. Marie and I regularly enjoyed meandering the trails and natural features of the park.

 I should mention that I had been building a relationship with folks at the Walpole Island First Nation (WIFN) over the years. For example I had been the regional coordinator for the first Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas, which occurred from 1981-1985, and part of the region I was responsible for included WIFN. And as it turned out, I became involved in an inventory of the nationally significant tallgrass prairies and savannas of WIFN, which started in 1985. I was heavily involved with collaborating with the staff of WIFN and others, overseeing the project and actively participating in it to its completion several years later. So my connection with WIFN increased quite a bit, and I have maintained at least some connection to the folks and programs at WIFN even after retirement. I am convinced that the connection with WIFN in those early years had some bearing on our family's future.

Marie and I were not able to have children the biological way, but we kept trying! But we realized that adoption was likely the more successful way to have a family, so began the adoption process. Marie was quite involved with the local Right-to-Life organization at the time. She had also been employed at the Southwestern Regional Centre, and then with some group homes in Blenheim. 

In the late spring of 1986, Marie and I decided to take a trip to explore the west. Most of the other trips west were later in the summer, or even in the autumn, so exploring in the spring sounded appealing. While we were going to be away, some married friends of ours from university were going to enjoy our cottage.

Shortly before we left, we were in the early stages of another adoption possibility, but the person representing the adoption agency (Jewels for Jesus) said that since several of our previous adoption possibilities had not come to fruition, to carry on with our travel plans. But she did say to keep in touch with my parents being the contact, just in case.......

We got as far as southern Saskatchewan, and camped at a small community called Big Beaver. Marie called my parents from a nearby pay phone, and found out that the adoption process was going to happen!!! Praise the Lord!! We had about a day of leeway, so as we were just at the edge of the proposed Grasslands National Park (GNP), we took a bit of time to explore it, but were also anxious to get home. We made it home the day before our son was being brought to us.

This part of extreme southern Saskatchewan is very wide open, as this next photo illustrates. I took this the day before we returned home. 

 I also managed to get this photo of a Burrowing Owl, a regular but not common resident of such open areas.

 

 We had to call our cottage visitors, and explain the situation, of course. We were only gone a little over a week in total, so they had some cottage time at Rondeau, but not what they were originally hoping for. They do come back during some of the spring period, camping and birding.

Our new son was barely a month old, when he arrived and has both Indigenous and Caucasian heritage. I am quite sure that my connection for several years with the WIFN, worked in our favour through our home study, to be selected to become his parents. What a huge blessing it has been to have Tim as our son!

We continued to live in Rondeau, but now that we had a youngster,  that meant Marie was less able to get out for various things. I was gone for long days, so we realized it was probably time to move. 

Another important point is that ever since I was young myself, I realized that all I had belonged to God, and that included income. I believed that tithing a portion of all the income was a good idea, and it was Biblical, so we tried to do at least the minimum all the time. We supported various God-honoring organizations, such as the church we attended, as well as organizations like Compassion Canada (we have supported 1-3 children for many years), World Vision, Open Doors, Slavic Gospel Association, Hope and Healing, UCB Canada, and things like that. I am convinced that God honored our tithing and our hearts, as we also realized that everything we had was a result of His blessing and generosity. And that had allowed us to purchase our cottage at a very low price in 1982, especially since the cottage leases did not have a long life at that point. When it came time to sell and move to Chatham, the price we got for our cottage was several times what we paid for it. We basically lived in the park for free! Thank-you Lord! 

We looked at many places to move to, and since both Marie and I grew up on a farm, we chose a place that was on the edge of the city, with a municipal park on two sides of us, and a completely open view across farm fields. Of course the farm fields of 36 years ago gradually were filled with houses, but the municipal park remains, and this house and setting has been another huge blessing for so many years.

Moving day, March 2, 1988

We planted a few trees, shrubs, wildflowers and such. In fact someone who lived near by, and knew we had lived in Rondeau, even asked one time if we were trying to make our lot look like Rondeau!

June, 2025

 

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