Pelee Island background, plus an unsettling revelation

 Pelee Island is an incredible place, absolutely no question. It is the very southern part of inhabited Canada, in the middle of Lake Erie and south of Point Pelee. I've always liked this first photo, taken in the early 1980s, as I captured the sunrise from the northern tip of the island where the historic light house occurs. The area between this spot on Pelee Island, known as Lighthouse Point, and the southern tip of Point Pelee, was heavily traveled by numerous ships in the past, and this lighthouse was essential for safer sailing during its operational period.

Due to the recognized historic value of this lighthouse, a concerted effort was made by islanders, to restore it to its original appearance, and this next photo was taken in about the late 1990s, from a southern perspective.

 The natural habitat at this northeastern corner of Pelee Island is Lighthouse Point Provincial Nature Reserve, and during my career, it was managed by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

At the very southwestern part of Pelee Island is Fish Point Provincial Nature Reserve. I have given tours of Pelee Island and the surrounding areas, even by air on one occasion! This next photo shows FPPNR which I took back in April 1989.

 This sandspit sticks out in the lake beyond the tree line, for almost a kilometre. This next photo was taken at the southernmost tip, looking north...

...and this one was taken at the end of the treed area, looking south. Those are cormorants flying over the tip.

Aside from the beautiful configuration of this part of Pelee Island, this island harbours an incredible diversity of unusual flora and fauna. Indeed a good number are considered rare, threatened or endangered in Canada.

I will get to some of those a little farther along in this post, but first of all, I want to emphasize that I was extremely blessed to be able to explore, capture via photography and try to protect this incredible part of God's creation, and others within my work zone. God knew of my interest and passion for Him and his creation, and as I described in a previous post, he had my Rondeau job removed from me back in 1985, and placed me in this new capacity which I functioned in for the next quarter of a century. There were so, so many opportunities to explore and protect His creation, and it was incredibly awesome. I am so thankful....thank-you Father!

For various reasons, I traveled to Pelee Island more than 300 times over the course of my career. Some were just day trips, but due to the time required to get to the ferry and be on the ferry coming and going, a total of about 2 hours each way, many of my trips over were for multiple days. Mostly it was work related, and I will explain more of that later. But there were other opportunities to conduct week-end birding trips for a nature organization, and other natural history focused trips for other groups. 

As mentioned, Pelee Island has an incredible diversity of flora and fauna, some of which are hardly found anywhere else in Canada. What follows is a sampling of some of the rare, threatened or endangered species present on the island.

First is Eastern Redbud. It is arguably the only naturally occurring population in all of Canada. It is a popular species for urban landscaping, not surprisingly, so has appeared in numerous other areas, mostly urban yards.

Next is Wild Hyacinth, or Atlantic Camas. It may only be native in Canada at Pelee Island and Point Pelee NP.

Next is the Blue Racer. There is the occasional record elsewhere in Canada, but I am fairly sure the only confirmed records in recent decades occur on this island. More information on this endangered species a little later.

Blanding's Turtle is next, and it is found in scattered, high quality wetlands elsewhere in southern Ontario as well, but not common anywhere.

 Yellow-breasted Chat, next, nests on Pelee Island somewhat regularly, and is about the only place in Canada where this is true.

There is a reasonably healthy population of Red Mulberry here, especially at Fish Point. It is endangered in Canada.

Next is a photo of me, surveying for Red Mulberry at parts of Fish Point PNR. The photo was taken by Paul, my regional counterpart when he accompanied me on a Red Mulberry search.

Another endangered reptile is this Lake Erie Watersnake. It is related to the much more common Northern Watersnake widespread across Ontario and beyond. The Pelee Island population has been declared a subspecies due in part to the coloration it has changed to over time, to accommodate safety as it lives amongst the light coloured limestone islands found in the western basin of Lake Erie.

shy LEWS

 Pelee Island is an island which has limestone as its base, and this next photo shows what parts of the shoreline area looks like. The rocky plates, broken or turned up by wave action and ice at different times of the year, provide lots of cover for shoreline living snakes such as the Lake Erie Watersnake.

 Another species at risk snake is the Eastern Fox Snake, shown next. It is found in scattered locations in southern Ontario, so is not nearly as rare as the other two snake species.

 Fringed Puccoon is quite rare....

...as is the Fox Squirrel. I am quite sure the only natural population in Canada occurs on Pelee Island.

Eastern Prickly Pear Cactus occurs naturally in only a small handful of places in extreme southern Ontario. A small population occurs at Fish Point.

Fish Point Prov Nature Reserve is a fun place to explore at any time of the year, with a trail that goes to the lake and eventually the sandspit shown earlier. It is a great place to look for migrating birds, as they go across the lake and have the island as a resting place if needed. I know of at least one person who did his M. Sc. on bird migration here.

 The woodland of Fish Point Prov Nature Reserve can be very attractive, especially in the early spring. Parts of the woodland may at times have a carpet of Dutchman's Breeches....

...and a little later, the forest floor may be covered with a rare plant called Appendaged Waterleaf.

Appendaged Waterleaf flower

And at other times, sections of the forest floor may be covered with Ontario's provincial wildflower, the White Trillium.

The island has been known for its pheasant hunting opportunities in the autumn. This has been going on for many decades, and there is a pheasant farm where pheasants are raised before being released for the hunt. 

 Some of the pheasants may be smarter, or luckier, than others, based on how one could interpret this next photo.

There are so many species of concern at Pelee Island, but due to the more challenging aspects of accessing this island by ferry or small plane, it hadn't been examined nearly as much as many natural areas on the mainland. But there was enough known to warrant further study. And in 1988, I managed to coordinate a project that had two excellent field persons to be on site for several months, documenting the flora and fauna at some of the main natural areas. These included primarily Lighthouse Point, Fish Point and the Stone Road Alvar. There was enough known, in general, about the presence of some of the significant snake species, but not the specifics of where exactly they occurred at different times of their year. Blue Racers, for example, were known to be in shrubby/grassy areas at certain times of the year, and there was lots of this type of habitat scattered about. And it was known that they would hibernate underground, as reptiles do. But where, was the question. And since it was a species that was known to travel fair distances at different times of the year, depending on their needs, hibernacula, the underground area where they over winter, were virtually unknown.

During the 1988 inventory work, I along with the other two fellows, James and Brendon, came up with some possible locations for hibernacula, but nothing was very definite. That changed in the spring of 1989. I was going over to the island, with another biologist colleague, Don, in April, and it was one of those days that a snake enthusiast might consider to be a good day. It was fairly warm for the month, mostly sunny and with very little wind. I remember telling Don that it could be a good day to check on one of my high priority sites to see if there was any snake activity. So as soon as the ferry docked and we departed, we headed over to a property that had an old, decrepit barn surrounded by grassy vegetation, and bits of boards and junk laying around. Bingo! In a matter of less than 30 minutes, we had seen a dozen Blue Racers, and had heard other snakes scurrying off for shelter! There could have been twice that many! Even a dozen was unheard of. In the past, most people hunting for racers were lucky to find a single one, sometimes in an entire season other than perhaps a road kill! Finding a dozen in such a short period of time was remarkable to say the least.

 After this fabulous experience, we continued on with other things we needed to do on the island, but I was ecstatic to pass along our finds to Paul, my regional and up line counterpart, when I got back. After various discussions with Paul, and another trip to the island to see some more potential, we arranged to meet with a herpetology specialist at the University of Guelph, who had a keen interest in all snakes but Blue Racers in particular. He indicated that he had a promising student (Ben) looking at snake research for a M. Sc. And so a concerted effort at snake research got underway. Some snakes were caught, had pit tags inserted so they could be tracked to where they came and went, and over a several year period, the amount of information on this nationally endangered species increased considerably.

There were several other reptile and amphibian species of great interest to herpetologists, and the Canadian Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Network had special gatherings every year or so, bringing herpetologists from across Ontario together. On one occasion the meeting was held on Pelee Island, and was well attended. Field trips resulted in seeing some of the featured species, and there was an evening banquet. I was at the banquet, as was the U of G professor who was overseeing some of the Blue Racer research. Now keep in mind that snakes were not always popular on Pelee Island, partly because they were snakes, and partly because the presence of their habitat sometimes placed significant restrictions on property development. So when this professor got up to speak, I remember him saying that if it wasn't for me, mentioning my name specifically, finding some of the significant habitat for so many individual racers in 1989, that resulted in the intensive research over the following years, the research and this meeting likely would not have happened. I can still recall sensing a few negative vibes from some of the islanders who were present at the banquet, but no one said anything directly. Oh well....

Due to the success of the implantation of pit-tags into the racers, some similar work was done with the Lake Erie Watersnake. Those individuals movements on Pelee Island as well as some on the nearby East Sister Island Prov Nature Reserve, was carried out. Here two of my colleagues, Deb and Ron, are putting a pit tag into a LEWS.

 Most of the snake research was begun in the early 1990s, and continued for several years. Study of the Lake Erie Watersnake didn't get underway much until the early 2000s, and similar useful findings resulted. All of this was of paramount importance in evaluating habitat for these significant species at risk, especially when it came to property and shoreline development. More of that story will be evident in the next post. It was an incredibly busy and controversial time, that resulted in a high profile Ontario Municipal Board hearing, and the effects on the Endangered Species Act. This went on for about 10 years, with some challenging, but eventually some satisfying results.

The title of this post mentions an unsettling revelation, so I will get to that briefly now. It was at some point in probably the early 1990s, when I became aware of something that my wife Marie, had been dealing with since her early childhood. She had been sexually abused on several occasions, and the memories were tucked away, but became more evident as the years went on. Her struggles with those memories played a huge, huge, part in her future outlook about things. And the plan is that this will be a major topic of future posts. 

Sometimes there are major clouds and events that enter our lives, and this is certainly one of the most devastating that occurred to Marie and I. I will say too, that due to some of the things I have found out, and learned from over the years has been a significant reason for why I started Life Is A Journey.

There will be a few more posts before I get into that topic very much, so stay tuned.

 

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More travels, home schooling, prairie themes and the beginnings of Tallgrass Ontario

There were some overlapping events in the late '80s and early '90s. Certainly Marie and I enjoyed being the parents of a growing youngster, and Tim was very active. Marie was a big fan of home-schooling, and I supported her. We were encouraged by some friends who were strong advocates of it, and were successful doing it with their kids. Tim seemed to enjoy it, although he was not initially interested in reading. But once he got interested in planes, especially military planes, he adapted to reading quite well, and actually excelled at it. Learning came naturally to him. The military books from the library were always stacked high as Tim locked onto the subject. Even when Marie or I were reading a bedtime story to him, if it was one we had read before, we could not take short-cuts, as Tim would notice and correct us! Home-schooling was done for only about 4 of the elementary school years. There were various benefits, and was definitely the best course of action for all while it lasted.

In the fall of 1992, the three of us took a trip west. Marie had met someone at a writer's conference, who was based in southern Manitoba, but whose father, Jim, was a retired fellow with the US Air Force, and was stationed at Colorado Springs where he was involved with the US Air Force Academy. Since we had Colorado Springs on our travel route anyway, we were encouraged to stop in to see him and see the Academy, which we did. He gave us a wonderful tour of the place, watching the members of the Academy marching around, and seeing some of the various historical planes, and even had our accommodation paid for.  

Tim posing by a plane

While we were at Colorado Springs, we also visited the studio where Focus On The Family produced a kid's radio show, known as Adventures in Odyssey, which we had listened to regularly on the radio. It was an entertaining program for both kids and adults, with so many great Christian values to learn and live by. Not only did we get a tour of the facility, we also were asked to participate with a group of others who were providing background 'crowd noises' for one of those productions.

We moved on from there, stopping at Great Sand Dunes National Park, where the gigantic sand dunes continued to be a crowd pleaser.

 Next on our journey was stopping at Mesa Verde National Park, to explore the long-abandoned cliff houses of the Anasazi people. I had read a book about this place many years before, and was interested in seeing it, and convinced the others it was worthwhile. We camped just inside the park, and then the next day went and explored this fabulous place. It was awesome.

We then continued on, heading for California, stopping at the Edwards Air Force base near Barstow, where a couple of the newly produced SR 71 blackbirds stealth planes were kept. Tim was enthralled by this visit as well, but we had to keep moving. Our western-most destination was to visit a cousin of Marie's, who lived with her husband about an hour south of Yosemite National Park. We stayed there for three days, and I went to Yosemite for parts of all three days. Tim came twice, and Marie only once, as she and I had been there before and she, of course, wanted to visit with her cousin.

Overlooking the Yosemite Valley, taken by Tim

After this part of the trip, we headed north to British Columbia to visit my sister in Nelson, and while we were there, we were keeping track of the success of the Toronto Blue Jays, which both Tim and I were fans of.

In the late spring of '93 the three of us went to Arizona, where my parents were spending the winter. Marie and I had been there several times before, beginning in the early '80s, but it was always a treat to visit family as well as see the wonderful Sonoran Desert with all of the varied cacti and desert wildlife.

At Saguaro National Park, taken by Tim

These trips were great, and Tim really lapped up as much of the history and geography of our travels. One time when we were traveling, with him sitting in the front passenger seat and he and I having some discussions about the area we were traveling through, I still remember him looking over at me and saying 'I just can't get enough history' with a big happy smile on his face. This was definitely a trend for him. I also remember when he was moving to the high school grades, the teachers indicated he should be doing the technical studies program rather than the arts and sciences due to what to them seemed to be a lack of interest or ability in those studies. However he was able to take some of the A & S classes as an option, and in one case it was a history class, and the end result was that he scored right at the top of the class ahead of almost all of the A & S students! And on another occasion when some of the teachers earlier thought he had a learning disability and wasn't doing as well as they had expected, we had Tim appraised by someone who specialized in assessing students with learning disabilities. We weren't too concerned with his suspected learning 'issues', and in fact after he was tested and evaluated by this Ph.D. specialist, we were told that there was no learning disability; the problem was that Tim was probably smarter than the teachers, and may just have been bored! No question that Tim has always been a very smart dude, with a great memory.
 

 My work continued to present all sorts of opportunities and challenges. I was quite involved with anything to do with Tallgrass Prairie, especially as it pertained to management and other issues at Ojibway Prairie Prov Nature Reserve. I had also continued working with the natural heritage staff of Walpole Island First Nation regarding their excellent tallgrass prairies and savannas, along with the management of those exceptional places and the numerous species at risk that were there, which sometimes were seldom or even not found anywhere else in Ontario.

On one occasion as I was examining a section of Ojibway Prairie, I came across this plant.

I was pretty sure what it was, as I had seen it at Walpole in previous years, and took a sample to the staff at the city-run nature centre to get it confirmed. However although it had been discovered in the Windsor area in the early 1890s by the notable botanist of that era, John Macoun, it had not been seen since! This was the first time this extreme rarity, Pink Milkwort, had been documented in the Windsor area in almost a century.

With so much involvement with prairie, along with many other things that were part of my work load, I managed to get to several North American Prairie Conferences. I mentioned in a previous post about going to the one in 1984, at the twin cities of Fargo, ND and Moorhead, MN. I also went to the one in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1988, and stopped in at the historical Rochester cemetery which was surrounded by prairie.

In 1990, I took a prairie display to the NAPC at Cedar Falls, Iowa. It was at this latter conference that Paul, the prairie specialist from Windsor's Ojibway Nature Centre made a presentation to the selection committee to put in a request for Windsor to host the 1992 conference. He asked me to go along, and at one point I was asked by members of the selection committee about OMNR's support for it. I told them it would definitely be supported, and also due to my being quite involved with tallgrass prairie at Walpole Island, the WIFN would undoubtedly be involved as well. When all was said and done, the city of Windsor, along with OMNR and WIFN was given the green light to host the 1992 conference, which would be the first time it was held outside the USA. The staff of the WIFN heritage centre were quite involved, fortunately.

Ojibway Prairie PNR

 We had two years to get ready, and it was a lot of work, but it really was worth the effort. The conference was well attended, and there was a lot of interest and attendance by folks in Ontario who normally would not have gone to the USA to participate in this conference. There were some excellent demonstrations of how OMNR handled the ignition of prescribed burns in a city environment through aerial ignition using a helicopter. Aerial ignition added to the overall safety of the burn, to ensure that local kids were not out exploring in places that would soon be fired up. The attendees were quite impressed. We also had drummers from WIFN perform at one of the evening barbecues, and had field trips to various high quality prairie sites. Being the most familiar with so many of the excellent prairies of WIFN, I was in charge of field trips there. I still remember watching some of the US prairie specialists behaving like a kid in a candy store, as they were quite delighted to see the quality and diversity of prairie on Walpole.

Pottawatomie Prairie, WIFN

It was clear that this conference was an all-round success, and I prepared a short summary of it for my supervisors and the district manager. I indicated that since there was a lot of interest in prairie from the many Ontario attendees, who in many cases were doing some type of prairie management on their own, but on a small scale, it would be really beneficial if we could establish an Ontario Tallgrass Prairie group. The district manager replied, saying it was a good idea, and to go for it! Thus the beginnings of Tallgrass Ontario was under way. It didn't happen right away, however. At one point there had been support from the Species At Risk folks in main office, to establish a recovery team to focus on habitat recovery plans rather than just species specific plans. The initial proposal was to focus on Lake Erie Sandspits, but when I was consulted by my counter-part in the region, I strongly suggested that Tallgrass Prairie was a much higher priority, so he went back to the main office folks, and it was decided to have a Tallgrass Prairie and Oak Savanna recovery team. I was asked to participate on that team, and one of the main recommendations of that report was to establish a group to consolidate the efforts of various people across southern Ontario involved in various ways with tallgrass prairie. It took awhile, but as a result, Tallgrass Ontario officially came to be! Yay!

All the while so much was going on on the work front, family life continued. Tim was growing, a busy seven-year old, and one of his regular prayers was 'Please God, give us a baby'. We had kept on pursuing the adoption route, and in September of 1993, Tim's prayers (and ours) seemed to be answered. A little one-year old girl, who had been in foster care with some folks in Strathroy was going to be placed for adoption. Marie, Tim and I went to meet her and her foster family. Before the meeting was too far along, Tim came up to Marie and I who were sitting on a sofa, with a big smile on his face, and whispered to us 'I want her!' Everything went really well, and we now had a little girl in our family, who we named Kristin Alana Jessie. Yay again!

All this time, Pelee Island had become an ever increasing focus of my workload, and rightfully so. I expect there will be at least a couple of blog posts dealing with the enormous and complex issues it required!

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Exploring some amazing natural areas

 Once we got settled into Chatham, it was certainly different than being a resident of Rondeau. The new job continued to expand into all sorts of opportunities, including with Walpole Island First Nation...

Island Prairie, WIFN

...various things related to Tallgrass Prairie, and Ojibway Prairie Provincial Nature Reserve....

Ojibway Prairie PNR

a reclaimed prairie patch on city of Windsor property

....and the Erie Islands, including Pelee Island. This first photo is from back in the day when, believe it or not, Double-crested Cormorants were considered rather rare. When a population became established on Big Chicken Island, about half way between Pelee Island and East Sister Island, the plan was to band and monitor this populations. A Conservation Officer, shown on the extreme right, handled the boating duties and took a small crew of us out. There were two people from the Canadian Wildlife Service, and three of us from the Ministry of Natural Resources, who went out for the banding.

Lighthouse on Pelee Island

All of these topics were a very, very major focus of my career, and each topic will require one or more posts to cover even the basics, as you will see as future posts get added.

In the early fall of 1988, Marie, Tim and I ventured into the Great Smokies National Park area, the first of many trips we took with the kids. The Smokies were amazing to visit, and Tim enjoyed it as well as a 2-year old could.

This photo shows the 'smoky' appearance, which is frequently what the area looks like.

But one of the more significant things of the fall, was an opportunity for me to go to Costa Rica. At one of the several natural history outings I led at Rondeau for organizations such as the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, a couple of folks who participated had been planning to start up a natural history tour company. So after a few weeks, I got a phone call asking if I would like to join a small group going to Costa Rica as a sort of familiarization tour, to explore potential for future tours. Essentially all it cost me, aside from the time, was the air fare. And so off I went with about 7 others, exploring the cloud forests, the coastal mangrove swamps and various places in between. It was very exciting and a great opportunity. And so as it turned out, I ended up going to Costa Rica three more times, all as a representative/leader for what became known as Quest Nature Tours. The first time was in the fall of 1989, when I was a co-leader for a special group that was made up of strong supporters of the World Wildlife Fund. And in 1990 I went back as the main North American leader two more times! I don't speak Spanish, so there was a local leader with us at all times, as well as the driver of the small tour bus, so the language issue wasn't a problem. There were plans to continue with future tours, but the Gulf War of 1991 brought international travel almost to a halt, so plans for 1991 were cancelled. As it took awhile for that type of travel to build again, I did not go again, but it was for the good, as otherwise I would be gone for about two weeks at a time leaving Marie at home with a very busy young lad.

Being a leader wasn't without some challenges, although the most serious one was when on about the second day out, one of the participants could hardly wait to go swimming in the ocean we were staying near, so ventured out by himself without telling anyone. And he got caught in a rip-tide and was dragged well out, and fortunately someone in a small boat noted his dilemma and rescued him. Whew!

Of course I had camera and binoculars with me on all of the outings, and there were so many highlights of things to see, which I captured on my film camera of course, so I had to go through so many slides and scan a few representative ones to insert them into this blog. But it brought back so many memories, such as a few of them shown here.

Bare-throated Tiger Heron

This Boa Constrictor came to visit us one evening, and was hanging out in a tree right outside a door of our motel.

Next is a Caiman, a smaller version of crocodile, although it can get quite large. It let me get quite close before it dashed off! Fortunately it retreated, as it took off so much faster than I could have escaped if it had decided to attack me.

There were a few Crested Caracaras to be seen, especially in the more open areas.

Emerald Toucanet

On one occasion, we were staying right along the coast, and had the opportunity to venture out well after dark to observe female Leatherback Sea Turtles come ashore to lay eggs. This species is the largest of all living turtles. We managed to see several on a couple of nights in the autumn trips....

...and on another trip, in about March of the next year when again, we were staying along the coast, we saw a small number of recently hatched turtles, scamper from where they had emerged, heading to the water!

Next is a photo of the typical cloud forest of Monteverde...

...and this is the typical scenery along the narrow, winding road we had to go up to get to Monteverde. No guard rails here, and the road was literally right at the edge!

We saw so many things, such as Scarlet Macaws, Three-wattled Bellbirds, and a few members of the monkey family such as this White-faced Capuchin.

The opportunities with Quest Nature Tours were amazing, and I am so thankful for that opportunity! And before long, another significant travel opportunity came along, although it was much more related to my work. During one of my annual evaluations with my supervisor, the question came up about what other work-related opportunities would I be interested in, and I responded saying a chance at doing some natural history field work in another part of Ontario would be nice. And so when a colleague from another MNR district approached me to see if I would be interested in spending some time doing wildlife surveys along the Hudson Bay coast at Polar Bear Provincial Park, I checked with my supervisor and was given the green light! So over the course of 10 days in late June of 1990 I wandered about the sub-arctic coastline habitats along the western extreme of PBPP doing wildlife surveys! We had periodic radio contact with folks from the MNR office in Moosonee, but being so far away it was iffy at times, and we were really on our own. But the excursion was something else. Of course I took my camera, and got lots of photos, some of which I shared with the organizers of the survey project, so when the second year came along, they asked me if I would come back and concentrate on photography since it was an area that so few people even within the local MNR office ever got to. So back I went, for two weeks in late June/early July of 1991, and while I spent more of my time doing photography, I also managed to do a few of the survey routes as well.

This first photo shows the Albany River, which enters into James Bay, not too far from Moosonee. 

  

Next is the extremely wide open sub-arctic tundra landscape.

There were a few trees a little farther inland.

In the second year, our camp was closer to the east side of PBPP, along the Brant River. En route we saw some fabulous parts of the sub-arctic landscape from the air.

Our camp was adequate, using prospector tents for accommodation. For outhouse facilities, it looked like this. 

This was an amazing time to be at this provincial park. It was still light enough to read at 11 p.m., and it started to get light again by about 3 a.m., so there were lots of hours in each day to document things. We got by on very little sleep!

Woodland Caribou came by on occasion, as did Arctic Fox.

We had Willow Ptarmigan nesting almost right in the campsite. The females are well designed for nesting in this landscape. This next photo shows a female on its nest. Can you see it?

...while the more vividly coloured male was not far away.

Nesting Semipalmated Plover

An unexpected highlight was to find a nest of a Parasitic Jaeger....

....and this breeding plumaged Pacific Loon had a nest on a small island just a little way out. This male got our attention more than a few times.

And as our campsite in the second year was close by the Brant River, we managed to catch a few fresh Brook Trout that were coming upstream to spawn.

In a few places where there were trees, we found Bonaparte's Gulls nesting in them. Quite different than any of the gulls or terns nesting in southern Ontario!

In between the various forays I experienced as described above, I also did some more usual things in these early years, such as helping some forestry colleagues in the office to evaluate the impact of severe drainage on a recently established tree plantation.

 So these are a few of the highlights of that time period. God is so good to allow me to experience some wonderful elements of His creation, no doubt about it. But some of the major challenges related to places like Pelee Island and several others, and some of the family times growing and traveling, will be featured in a few of the upcoming posts, so stay tuned. 

 

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