Survival Shelters - Copeland Forest - November 16, 2011

If stuck in the woods in decent weather we know that we can eat a certain family of mushroom and probably live to tell the tale. Which one is it? Do you remember?

 The body can get along without food for a long time. Water is a different story. If you have to drink water in the wild you want it from the deepest part of a lake or from the fastest part of a river. If you can boil it for 10 minutes then great!

We know that since we're loved, if we get lost then eventually someone will be sent out to find us. For that reason it pays to tell someone where you plan to be walking, canoeing or camping and when you plan to return. Cell phones are great but not 100% reliable.

If lost the best bet is to settle down and await rescue. Make yourself as visible as possible in the process. Get comfortable. It might take a few days.

Comfortable is easy if the weather is temperate. If you bring snow or rain or cold into the equation then it gets ticker. Today we built shelters. Our aim was to build ones that would hold up against snowfall and be still standing in the spring.

We had passed a model on our previous hike. It was round and sturdy and small. It was sort of daunting to imagine copying it.

However, we're hardy types. We gave it a go. Instead of building a free standing structure, we built a lean to, using a tree as a support and a fork in it to support a second branch. We used a lot of ironwood trees. They're straight and strong.

Initially we had 2 structures going. One was a nice tall Eeyore House. The other was short and long, like a truncated longhouse. Both were very cool. The difference between them turned out to be the ease with which they could be roofed. In the end we moved the sticks from the Eeyore House over and built an uber-shelter. It made our model look a little, well, small. Cute, mind you, but small.

We tested the strength of the roof by simulating snow fall using 8 year olds. We roofed over the ironwood ribs and the stick supports with fern and hemlock branches. We also found some dry white pine to add substance. We began to empathize with beavers.

We also noticed that it was in fact warmer inside the shelter. The roof was dense enough to trap heat and the walls proved an effective wind break. I wonder how many animals will use our shelter over the winter? The land on which it sits has good drainage. It is snug and situated in a fairly open area. Location, location, location. Who will decide it is prime real estate?

While gathering sticks I noticed that in terms of mushroom rot the maple, pine and ironwood looked pretty resistant. Some sticks just fell apart when I picked them up. These looked to be poplar or birch. If I had to build a shelter and my life depended on it I now know which wood I'd want as ribs.

At the end of an hour and half or so we had some pretty comfortable looking housing. It was almost tempting to try sleeping out in it. It was definitely fun to use it as a fort.

I think that for me the coolest thing about the entire build is that we just went at it and ended up with something viable. I figure that if I am lost in the woods by the time I figure out I'm going to need a shelter it will be a few hours until sunset. I wont have time to plot out all the angles. I'll want to build the way we did, fast, sturdy and strong.

The following is a link to the group that does the survival talk at Ste. Marie Among the Hurons during the First Light event.
http://www.survivalinthebushinc.com/index.html

Field Trip - Haliburton Forest - November 9, 2011

Like the song says, Canada is really big (Arrogant Worms). Usually we have to be on a logging road or north of North Bay to really get the hang of that but there are parts of Southern Ontario that also are kind of wild and wooly. Take out the road map and have a look at the land under Algonquin Park.

If you're going from point A to point B then chances are good you won't go there. Of course if point B IS there then things are different. So it was that we went south of Algonquin in search of wolves. Wooly country it is, rife with hunters and loggers and S-curves, oh my!

The Halliburton Forest has an interesting history. It is privately run and managed and sustainable. You can read about it here: http://www.haliburtonforest.com/

You will note that it is branching out from forestry into eco-tourism and so forth. You will note that there are wolves there and you can read the story of the wolves. You will not yet see the story of Hershey and it is a pretty nifty story.

Once upon an night in June a mother moose was hit by a car and killed. The Ministry of Natural Resources went out and found two calves, both a few weeks old, both assumed to be female. The question arose, what to do with the calves? If they were to survive then they would need care but it illegal in Ontario to keep a wild animal as a pet. On the other hand, if you keep a moose long enough for it to thrive then this will, more than likely, make it unfit to be released back into the wild. Exceptions were made and the "meese" came to the Halliburton Forest.

One died due to stress. The other was nursed carefully by Elka, our guide to all things moose and wolf. It lost a tremendous amount of weight. Elka slept in the barn for most of the summer since the moose needed feeding every 2 hours. Eventually it decided to live. It began to thrive.

Hershey's formula and subsequent diet was adapted to suit him.The health of any animal, Elka told us, can be predicted by the form of its stool. Diarrhea almost always spells disaster. Constipation is easier to deal with. Here we have healthy moose poop. Hershey is doing fine.

It became apparent that the moose was not a female which makes it a doubly lucky moose. Female moose are occasionally rescued but male moose are routinely euthanized. This is because male moose in rutting season run amok. A male moose, habituated to humans, running amok is not a good thing.

So here we have Hershey, cute fuzzy and living with a donkey and a horse and a sow. We have Elka, who is learning many things about moose. We have a lovely opportunity to learn about moose. Who knew, for example, that moose like carrots? Who knew that they dislike camera lenses? I'd guess that the big open lens looks too much like the eye of a predator. Who knew that a moose will play with a dog and run him off but with a half wolf half dog be much more wary? Hershey has a fascinating life ahead of him. He will be castrated to cut down on the running amok and, hopefully, he will continue to thrive.

We left Hershey and ambled down to see the wolves. Along the way Elka told us about exotic animals and a few reasons why you might not want to rush out and buy one.
1) Sure, it might be trendy, and it makes great conversation at cocktail parties but your cute bundle of exotic will grow up
2) If it has big teeth or a tendency to strangle people then this can be a problem
3) Getting a babysitter, even if you only want to nip out and see a movie will be problematic
4) You can pretty much forget about ever going on vacation
5) Wild is wild - ask any lion tamer

In the wolf center we learned that wolves are present in the history of every nation on Earth. Even the Egyptian jackal gods were originally wolves. One assumes that once they ran out of wolves they had to switch to jackals. We learned that coyotes and wolves are very different. We learned that if your wolf skeleton gets all jumbled up in it's box it takes a real labour of love to piece it together again.

We even got to see the wolves. There is a viewing station with 1 way glass built so that the wolves will not be stressed by having people stare at them all the time. The wolves have 14 acres to roam and the hill in front of the viewing station has a southern exposure and is also the highest point in those 14 acres, so they are comfortable there.

It was very nifty to watch the wolves. We saw one pup lying on a patch of what we thought was grey and blighted grass. In actual fact it was moose hair. We saw 3 of the pups string out in a line and watch a couple of people who had approached the fence in order to take pictures. We saw the alpha female alert to something, inform the alpha male and then take up guard duty while he streaked after it. Wolves are really fun to watch.

When I was a teenager wolves were big news. They have been hunted to extermination in some parts of the globe. As humans we have a hind brain reaction to wolf howls that tells us to run and hide. Wolves and humans are at the top of their respective food chains. Each can kill the other, though wolves prefer not to eat other omnivores. Elka told us this has to do with the bacteria in their tummies which is best able to deal with herbivore meat.


When everything is said and done, science is made up of a body of knowledge. Knowledge sometimes comes from odd and unusual places. The more knowledge we have the more tolerant we tend to be because we make our decisions based on our understanding. Hershey and the wolves are contributing to our understanding. Pretty nifty stuff.





Wolf Links:
http://www.isleroyalewolf.org/wolfhome/home.html
http://www.nfb.ca/film/cry_of_the_wild/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Cry_Wolf
and one about moose:
http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=93

Trees - Copeland Forest, October 12th 2011

                                                                                It is hard to argue with trees. They are big, they are enduring and they outlive us by hundreds of years. In Ontario it is sometimes hard to imagine that in the 1940's most of the land was scrub because we'd logged out all the trees. It is even harder to imagine that the logging was done with horses, men and saws on non-mechanical nature. If you go the Logging museum in Algonquin Park you'll hear amazing statistics. For instance, in the early half of the 19th century 80% of the workforce was involved in logging over the winter months. It's hard to argue with trees but you sure can cut them down.

Ordinarily you'd have to hike out to the West Coast or Temagami to really get the scope of a tree in all its glory. Last hike we noted some pretty large eastern white cedar. That was odd when you consider that this area was easy to log. Odder still was this last hike when we noted some very large white pine. Straight as an arrow some of that pine - representing a small fortune in lumber. Then there was the black cherry. Cost out some black cherry flooring. Expensive.

 
So, all in all, its pretty cool that the Copeland Forest contains some very large trees. Today we went out to learn how to identify a few - pretty neat trick what with much of the canopy either changing colour or down. There is more to a tree than just pretty leaves though, there's bark.

Tree #1 was an evergeen in any case. I'll set it up with tree #6, another evergreen. The two are very similar. One has smaller needles and the needles have stems. The bark has blisters. The other has broader needles. Two of the pictures are Hemlock, one is Balsam Fir.

Tree #2 is being hugged up top and has 5 long needles in a cluster. It is not to be confused with Tree We Didn't See, which has 3 long needles in a cluster, this being Red Pine. 

Tree #3 was Yellow Birch, a softer and more mellow version of the White Birch, which we saw but did not investigate since it was off the trail on a slope. White Birch is clinging to the southern end of its ideal growing range here. We don't often see big ones.

Trees #4 and #5 were maples. Red maple is also called soft maple but probably not considered soft wood. Yellow leaves denote sugar maple.

Tree #7 has very distinctive bark that looks like burnt cornflakes. This is the highly sought after black cherry. If you have one of those in your yard then tend it lovingly. 

 Last of all, Tree #8 is cute and shaggy and straight as an arrow. This is Ironwood.

We also saw some Aspen, also called Poplar and a Beech. The latter does not always drop its leaves so you'll see those in early December clutching faded gold leaves about them. We did not see Tamarak (Larch) but they're worth mentioning because they are a conifer that does drop its needles. They're turning yellow right about now and you'll see them on the border of wetlands.

On this excursion we also found ferns with seeds on the underside and trees with holes bored into them by a woodpecker called a sapsucker. It's a good bet that if you're being attacked by a sapsucker then a mushroom infestation won't be far behind. Eventually, barring some unforeseen circumstance, you're going to fall over and rot.
                                                      While in the forest we also made Twig-a-ma-Jigs, nice for anything from a quick game of lacrosse, to snowshoeing out of an emergency, to hanging on a wall, all festooned with foliage. 

The mushrooms on this pine tree are somewhat deceptive. Last walk we saw a trillion shelf mushrooms of the Boletes Family. Are these ones Boletes?

 A bonus shrub is at the bottom. In August you can boil the fruit gently and add lemon juice and sugar for a nice scruvy fighting drink. We also found a bonus bug, elegant, but currently Nameless - also, thankfully, Toothless.

20 September - We Meet our Study Area and Hunt for Mushrooms

Mushrooms are very cool, or I think they are at any rate. They've been a motif of my entire life, lying around on folk art and in books about fairies. Probably one of the first things I ever wanted to draw well was a mushroom. Even by the name toadstool they are cool. Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet but she ought to have sat on a toadstool. 

The only downside to mushrooms is that a great many of them when picked in the wild and subsequently cooked tend to cause gastric upset, if not death. My mother, being from Poland, has fond memories of mushroom picking in the woods but she told me, and still tells me never do that without someone who knows 100% the poisonous from the not. Here, in Ontario we have a lot of questionable shrooms as well as 3 deadly ones.  If you want to eat a mushroom then buy it in a supermarket. Otherwise, though, enjoy your shrooms because they are beautiful. 

We leaned some things today. Mushrooms aside, we learned that the Copeland Forest is beautiful. I just want to state this right off the bat. We have ourselves a lovely study area. 

Shroom-wise we learned about 3 types: Gilled, Morels and Boletes. 

Gilled mushrooms are the ones we see in the supermarket with the gills under the cap. The spores fall out of the gills and you wont see the gills until the mushroom is ready to drop them. This is your classic toadstool.

Morels also have caps but the caps are long and sponge-like. We did not find any morels on this expedition. Most are edible and most are quite good. Of course, mushrooms being mushrooms, there is a False Morel out there which spells DOOM to the unwary.  

Boletes are shelf mushrooms. These are the ones you'll see lined up along the length of a rotting tree. You'll know the tree is rotting, even if it still has leaves because this is what mushrooms do. They break things down. They are an integral part of the decay cycle.  Boletes are mainly edible but not all that yummy as mushrooms go. If you are stuck in the woods and hungry then this is your safest bet fungus-wise. Boletes donot have gills. They have a dense sponge-like texture on the bottom.

 

This is not a mushroom we found in the Copeland Forest. This mushroom was growing in Bay of Fundy National Park this past August. The picture shows us that slugs eat mushrooms.Slugs are quite keen on mushrooms. Between the mushrooms and the slugs you have very efficient breakdown of organic matter, though it can takes years for mushrooms to spread. 
 
After our look at mushrooms we investigated the pond next to where we were settled and also the culvert that drained the pond. There was still quite a bit of life in the pond and someone found a water boatman. In the spring we will look more closely at the pond. 
 
Back at home we took our forest notes and put them into a journal. Here are two mushroom related  links:
Photos on this page are by Lisa BC and Tracy Ward.


http://www.ont-woodlot-assoc.org/sw_mushrooms_2.html
http://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/?p=68