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| Snow geese |
So as I enjoy a sedate Sunday (on call but that is not a dangerous descriptor in this community during the spring goose hunt as the hamlet has emptied out of people this long weekend) with the shore captain having gone to play with his friends....I mean hunting with one of the RCMP members here, all is well. The geese are beginning to return on their annual migration and there are snow, Canadian, white fronted, ross and brant arriving daily. The local hunters are saying that this week will be the main overfly but, the hunter I brought with me has already seen and downed more geese than he would in a lifetime in the maritimes.
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| brown hills |
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| COOP gas |
With the receding of snow cover there is the eruption of various pieces of derelict machinery and the inevitable muck such as seen here on the left in front of the 'gas station' with the office on the left and the pump station in the middle ..... Soon we will be dealing with the dry northern summer with clouds of dust when vehicles go by and clouds of insects as well, but I will have migrated myself when that occurs. Fortunate that we got out last week on the skidoo run to Cape Kellet as there wouldn't be enough now to make it a comfortable ride.
We had a date night, northern style, described as taking a run on the ATV with the shotgun (to scare away a polar bear should we encounter one) as far as the dump, which turned into goose hunting. Now although I've been with this guy for over 40 years, I haven't been goose hunting with him. Have been to camp while he's tended rabbit snares or was deer hunting hunting, but that involved occasional walks in the woods, keeping the wood fire going and having supper ready when he came back.We stopped the 4wheeler on the edge of the road and walked down through the cleft in the hills which runs to the shore known as Allen's Creek, an area geese are known to fly up through. With frantic gesturing and terse instructions to "get down, don't put your hands up, here they come" we watched various configurations of birds fly over and two came home with us. The rules for outsiders (non land claim beneficiaries) hunting on this island include only harvesting snow or ross geese within a 9 km area around the hamlet (no hunting in sanctuaries) and no egg collecting. With the large numbers (estimated between one and two million) of geese who are in the main flyover it is not the capturing but the plucking / preparing of geese which are the issue.
This week also saw the (delayed due to fog) return of my job share partner - spring is an iffy time of year for northern air travel - and we have settled into our 'family' trio (not as polygamous as it sounds) with the life partner making sure that even if he is busy capturing the food that 'the ladies' are fed supper after work. Work is a relative term this time of year with the population having migrated 'out on the land' to the lakes for ice fishing, goose hunting and egg collecting. With the snow having left the roads it was necessary for the old guy to free the health centre ATV from the C can (shipping container) and get it started (getting to be quite a small engine mechanic) so now he has a country and an urban mode of travel.
It has been nice to catch up both professionally and personally with the job share partner as it's been about a year and a half since we did that. Long discussion with her about a more flexible working arrangement as in....casual, not locked into the job share schedule and I have promised to think about it. Not that she's trying to get rid of me, just stating that work gets in the way of vacations (so very true) and this would deal with the solution to not being ready to completely walk away yet. I'm chewing on that. So, time to make some chocolate chip cookies for my roomies. Later ....
