All Good Things Come To An End

Well time to finish this blog up and summarize the trip. It was successful beyond my or Marlene's dreams. When we got back to PSA on Tuesday, August 11th we had a sit down discussion about the trip and they were very happy. Thank you for all the input on your evaluation that you filled out on the plane.
Take Care
Doug and Marlene





The Big Churchill airport.



Last Group Picture.....

Down by the Bay [CHURCHILL STYLE]

Hello to all friends and family of PSA Far North '09!
Today we, (Alana and Patricia) have the pleasure of informing you of our busy day here in Churchill, Manitoba!

(sing to the tune of Down by the Bay)

By Hudson Bay
Where the polar bears go
We've learned some things
We did not know
And what we did out here today
Was...learn how animals adapt; by increasing fat
By Hudson Bay!


By Hudson Bay
Where the polar bears go
We've learned some things
We did not know
And what we did out here today
Was...have a long nap, so we could use our thinking cap
By Hudson Bay!


By Hudson Bay
Where the polar bears go
We've learned some things
We did not know
And what we did out here today
Was...we had exam review so we'd know what to do
By Hudson Bay!

By Hudson Bay
Where the polar bears go
We've learned some things
We did not know
And what we did out here today
Was...we studied with the intent of getting 100%
By Hudson Bay!

By Hudson Bay
Where the polar bears go
We’ve learned some things
We did not know
And what we did out here today
Was... we ate dinner on the beach with 900 bugs each
By Hudson Bay!

By Hudson Bay
Where the polar bears go
We’ve learned some things
We did not know
And what we did out here today
Was...we went for a swim with some capelin
In Hudson Bay!

Love, Alana and Patricia

Hungry?!?!?

Recipe for Memories You Won't Want to Forget!

From Jolene and Karen's Kitchen

Cook time: 16 hours

Ingredients:

-16 people, stirred too early, about 3000 lbs.

-one bus, Wayne

-one river, fresh water

-two Zodiacs

-two all-purpose guides, prepared

-four hundred twenty tons, Beluga Whales

-handful of Common Eiders

-16 or more packs hot chocolate mix

-one Parks Canada guide

-one Cape Merry countertop

-5 GPS handhelds

-one Chilly Churchill geocache

-16 bagged lunches

-6 kayaks

-one town Churchill

-sixteen plates din-din

-16 blankets

Preparation: Mix whales, Eiders, and river, and set aside until required. Gradually add people into Wayne, and bring them to river mix.

Blend people and guides and place in Zodiacs. Place Zodiacs in river mix, and shake for just over one hour. Take wet people to Cape Merry countertop to dry. Heat people with hot chocolate. Let stand for two hours. On countertop, smoke out geocache with GPS handhelds, then sample lunches. Return to river mix. For two hours, simmer 1/2 people in Zodiacs, while mixing the rest with kayaks to aerate. Switch people after one hour.

Marinate all in Churchill for one hour. Stuff people with din-din. Return to countertop and garnish people with knowledge, herbs, and jam from Parks Canada guide. Top with blankets to stand.

Serves: 16

Comments from the Chefs:

"Be careful when removing people from Zodiacs; recipe may be ruined if people are added to river mix!"

Close call!

"Add group singing for extra merriment in final product!"

Hey all!

It's Lindsay and Mike bringing you today's top news headlines. The story of the hour: the 11 polar bears that the PSA group saw just today. There were five on First beach: a mother with her two cubs, a big male, and a really lazy one sleeping on the rocks when the tide was coming in!

The others were seen at the old dump and in polar bear alley. The PSA group also had an exiting adventure in geocaching. Geocaching, for those of you who don't know, is a high-tech, scientific version of hide and seek. The group started by finding Frisbee's and decoding a quote with the GPS's. The riddle was the talk of the day. Many were going far enough as to call it journal worthy! "Why do people give each other flowers to celebrate various and important occasions? They're killing living creatures. Why restrict it to plants? Sweetheart, let's make-up. Have this deceased squirrel."

The trip that the group took up to Twin Lakes was entertaining, as well as informative. The bus ride cause quite a bit of excitement. I wonder if school buses were designed for off roading??? Something to look up later. The forest is in a stage of succession from a forest fire that scorched the entire area about 25 years ago. Believe it or not, it's not very developed. The game that was played demonstrated that succession battles against all of the negative influences, which are more abundant that the positive.

Seeing as we are getting up very early for our kayaking adventure, its good night for now!

Lindsay & Mike.

Freezing Frogs? Not Only in Dr. Seus...

Dear House and Homes,

We should have bought a lottery ticket, because today is a lucky day. Mac and Seb (us) get to blog about, presumably one of the best days so far.

Even though we’re more than half way there, we doubt that the rest of the days could compare.

Today we all read about Yertle the Turtle, and that inspires us to write today’s journal.

So here we go, and the day began, with a breakfast of muffins and toast and jam.

After that scrumptious and filling meal, we met with Professor Cash who said Churchill’s ideal; for sticklebacks, amphibians, sedge in the bogs, tadpoles and beetles and super cooled frogs.

There is one cool animal, called the Rana sylvatica, who freezes in winter, which surprises a lot of us.

It’s called the wood frog, and we heard how it talks; it uses ribbets and chuckles, when a mate it stalks.

We got ready to research, and wielded our hip waders, and went out to catch some tadpole evaders.

We looked for the traps, and examined the catch, only to learn that things don’t always match.

Sometimes pools were abundant with life, while others seemed to be the result of a strife.

It just goes to show, that nature leaves questions, that science was answering and left us suggestions; for any future research that we may endeavour, but if we’re not clever, we’ll just say …

...whatever. *snap*

~Mac and Seb

Churchilling

We started the day with another scrumptious breakfast of bacon, sausage, potatoes and fruit salad. Normally we need to fill ourselves up in order to have enough energy for a day of travel, but today turned out to be a chill-out day unrelated to the outside temperature.
The morning's lesson was a crash-course in GPS, to have us prepared for the geocaching that we will do later. It turned out to be much needed, as turning the
bloody devices on seemed to be more confusing than interpolating coordinates via triangulation.

After eating a delicious non-bagged lunch in the cafeteria, we returned to the classroom to watch 'An Inconvenient Truth' (right after Catface, of course), since quite a few of us hadn't seen it before (some had seen it upwards of 4 times already, but we all know there's no such thing as too much Al Gore). After discussing the movie, we watched a few short video clips of expert scientists talking about the issues of climate change; all facts, no political tactics. We all learned a lot about the science of climate change, the impacts it has and will have on our planet, and what we can do to solve the problem.

One supper later, we were all back in the AV room to watch another video, this one was a (somewhat informal) documentary about animals in the Churchill area, mainly Belugas. The two hosts were even more outrageous than the beard on Doug Isaak's face in his starring role as a boat driver in that film. Aparently, people will ask to be dragged behind a motor boat in arctic waters in an attempt to get good shots of the whales.
Now we have free time to...work...

1001 ways to use a caribou...

Wotziye!

For those of you who don’t know, that is the greeting of “Hello” in the Dene language. Churchill has always been well known for its nature. From polar bears, to belugas, to the beauty of the northern lights, it has been well known for many years. But what makes the town of Churchill deep down, is its aboriginal culture and their contributions to our history, which we got to experience full on today.

Shelves full of traditional Aborginal sculptures greeted us at the Eskimo museum. Some told stories of success, some of history and some... well... read for yourself:

Polar Bear Kills Walrus
“The bear surprises the sleeping walrus on the ice. Picking up a piece of ice he crushes the head of the walrus. If the piece of ice is too light to kill the walrus the bear will dip it in and out of the water until the size is increased.”

We don’t know about you, but we always thought that a “bear kills walrus” situation would include more teeth and claws. You really do learn something new every day.

Are you the kind of person who follows the “three second rule” when you drop your food on the ground? How about the “couple of weeks, probably stepped on by a bear” rule? That’s the way they do it up here.

Seaside Sandwort. Sounds disgusting... tastes like beans.

Kelp on the other hand... looks disgusting and tastes like plastic. We didn’t try it, but kudos to Jolene for trying.

Who knows how long that’s been on the beach?

One of Doug’s old friends, Caroline, a Sayisi Dene, came in to share her stories. She described what it was like to grow up as a Dene, and the culture of her elders. But the part we enjoyed most about Caroline’s memories was how nothing was ever wasted with the Dene tribe. Every part of the caribou could be used for food, clothing, bags, and toys. Who knew that a game made out of old caribou bones could be so much fun?

Sarah & Megan