The Times They Are A-changin'

There are no flowers on the kitchen table next door today. In fact, there is no table. We don’t spend a lot of time staring from our kitchen window into the neighbours’ kitchen but our windows do overlook each other. Often as I turn from the fridge to the counter to cut up vegetables I notice flowers or a bowl of fruit caught in the winter sunlight that comes through their window. We have nothing as interesting for them to look at in return, just our stainless steel fridge door and perhaps a bit of our stovetop.

Yesterday our next-door neighbours moved. For the last 9 years we have had the best neighbours anyone could ask for. They got to know people in the neighbourhood that we have hardly ever spoken to despite living here for over 30 years. They were happy to fill us in. Since we are retired we tend to sleep late and countless times during those winters I drew the blinds in the living room to discover that the neighbours, who rise early to go to work and get the kids off to school, had shovelled the city sidewalk outside our house as well as doing their own. Sometimes we were lucky enough to be able to return the favour, but I think they cleared our walk much more often than we cleared theirs.

They kept an eye on our house for us and let us know when there was a package delivered if we hadn't noticed.  They picked up the packages that arrived late and took them into their house for safekeeping if we were away for a few days.

When our garage door was open one morning in the fall they let us know and so we discovered that the e-bike had been stolen. We got it back the next day and our neighbours shared our relief. I often wonder how it is that I don’t know or see the things that the neighbours do. Am I just unaware or do I spend too much time in my own head to notice what’s going on outside the house?

During the summers it was lovely to wake to the sound of children laughing as they imagined worlds in the playhouse at the back of their lot. It was also fun to watch the kids on the swing attached to the ash tree in their backyard. There were conversations with adults and kids through the fence or standing in our front yards. The Easter Bunny from next door visited us with chocolates and a couple of years ago a sign appeared in chalk on the sidewalk in front of our house wishing us a Happy Anniversary. We sometimes left muffins on their step and we tried arrange to sing Happy Birthday to each of the family members. 

It was comforting to live next door to friendly neighbours. The people who owned the house before them  weren’t as easy-going.  They didn’t like the way our eaves trough was put up. In the spring, snow melted beside our driveway and ran onto their property. Water does tend to run downhill but somehow that was our problem. When we got a phone call from them or when they knocked on the door we wondered ‘What now?’

The neighbourhood is changing. The property across the back lane that used to be zoned for single-family dwellings is now zoned for multi-family and retail. Houses are coming down to be replaced by x-plexes. The other family from across the lane who also deserves the title of the ‘best neighbours anyone could ask for’ sold their property and, during the summer, moved farther into the neighbourhood away from the busy street and the back lane traffic to and from the bottle depot and the liquor store situated in the next block. The offer from the developer was simply too good to pass up. Their house and the one next to theirs will come down to make way for an apartment complex sometime in the next couple of years. I hope both of our former neighbours love their new locations and that they will have good memories of the time they spent near us. I wish them many joys and neighbours that are as kind, generous, and courteous as they are.

Perhaps having many more eyes from an apartment block on the back lane will be a good thing, although I feel a bit of trepidation about what that will do to the parking situation and to ease of access to our garage. Perhaps the couple who bought the house next door will be wonderful neighbours in their own way. At the moment, though, I’m a little sad that we never had the drinks on our deck or the barbecue in the back lane that we talked about. We did have many other good times, so today I’m going to pause, remember,  appreciate, and although I'm not Irish, offer an Irish Blessing which seems appropriate.

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Why I like camping in the fall

There are no bugs. Well okay there are a couple of flies hiding out from the cold but I haven’t seen a single mosquito. There was one wasp but only one.

There are fewer people who want to camp at this time of year. The campgrounds can still be full on the weekends and, of course, there are fewer campgrounds that are open. When you get one with flush toilets and showers it’s a bonus. We also have an electrical hookup so we brought along a small electric heater that has a thermostat. By setting it at 10C overnight we keep the van nice and warm and, if we come in from a walk and are chilled we can crank it up to 18 or 20 and really get toasty before dropping it down or turning it off entirely.

That brings up another advantage of a hookup. Of course you can use hookups in the summer as well but it’s very nice when the wind is blowing to be able to plug in the electric kettle to make tea or coffee.

Camping in the fall is also easier on the fridge. In the heat of summer the poor little propane fridge works as hard as it possibly can to try to keep food cold and as for the freezer compartment - don’t count on hard ice cream.

I think the best reason for camping in the fall is that it’s not too hot. I’m not a fan of heat and you can only take off so many clothes to try and cool down. I love to go for walks when it’s chilly enough that you need a fleece or a light down jacket and maybe a toque. That is the perfect temperature and if you’re lucky enough to have brilliant sunny days there is heat in the sun.

But the best reason for camping in the fall is the scenery. As I write this, it’s the middle of October. The aspens are stubbornly clinging to their yellow leaves so that the mountain hillsides are sprinkled with flecks of gold. There is also the delightful feeling of making the best of this season before the snow coats the Rockies and the only place I want to be is in my house with central heating. It’s that last touch of freedom. I know some will scoff and extoll the joys of camping in a snow cave, skiing in pristine snow and keeping warm over a wood fire. I’m sure there are delights there too for those hardy enough to enjoy them. It’s a romantic notion, but I’m not in my twenties anymore and the older I get the more I enjoy my creature comforts. What was once a grand adventure is now simply uncomfortable and unpleasant and I’m in the incredibly fortunate position of being able to make choices about how cold or uncomfortable I want to be when the leaves turn and the wind whips through mountain passes.

Tomorrow we will park the van for the season, for despite talk of taking it out every month in the year, I prefer to stay home when the high temperatures never venture above freezing. Oh I might be tempted to go snowshoeing for half a day here and there but I’m pretty sure at this stage of my life I’ll choose central heating over camping in the van every time even though the van is equipped with a furnace.

Covid comes calling

This is 2022 and things are very different from when I was growing up. It sounds stupid to even say that because, of course, things are different. How could they not be? Sometimes when I think back, though, I’m stopped cold by what we used to do and the attitudes we held and never questioned.

When I was a kid the prevailing wisdom was that if you were too sick to go to school you were too sick to do anything fun you wanted to do in the evening. While that might be translated as ‘If you’re sick stay home - period,’ that’s not the way I interpreted it. I dragged my butt to school through colds, flu, and bouts of strep. I remember sitting in a math class with my throat so sore and swollen that when the teacher asked me a question I couldn’t answer it. 

I don’t remember my mother even suggesting that I should stay home. I may have forgotten that detail or perhaps she was in the habit of carrying on regardless of how she felt and she saw nothing unusual about it when I did the same thing. Also I might have been a slightly stubborn child and perhaps she figured there was no point arguing with me. So off I went to school sick or healthy. Luckily I wasn’t sick a lot. I wanted to go from grade 1 through grade 12 without any absences. I have no idea why this was important to me. Chickenpox in grade 10 had other ideas when I had to miss some of my final exams.

In all of this there was no concern that I might be transmitting infection to other people. Even when I was teaching I dosed myself up with Tylenol Cold and Flu, armed myself with boxes of kleenex and staggered into work. It was much more effort to plan for a sub than it was to just go in. Besides, I used to joke, I probably got the bugs from the kids in the first place so why not give them back. Most of my colleagues did the same thing.

Covid 19 has given us a collective slap upside the head when it comes to attitudes like these, and that’s a good thing. Deena Hinshaw’s words, ‘Stay home if you’re sick,’ are loud and clear these days. So that’s exactly what we are doing.

Both of us have tested positive for Covid. We know how we contracted it and we wouldn’t necessarily do anything differently if we were to rewind a few days before we became infected. I’m grateful that we have vaccines and that we are both up to date with ours. I’ve been sicker with other viruses and I’m relieved that I now have permission to stay put and do nothing. How soon I’m going to get back out there will likely depend more on how I feel than strictly on a negative Covid test. I’m in no rush and I realize how fortunate I am that I don’t have a job where others are depending on me.

For now, the sparrows careen around in chittering gangs from bush to bush. The dog walkers make their rounds; a flicker putters around at the bottom of the Manitoba maple, and a cup of English breakfast tea, tepid now, sits on the window sill. In a while I will get out of my PJ’s; in a while I will get Odie up and the quiet of the morning will be broken. In a while I will empty the dishwasher. In this moment I am content.

Among Arctic birds: Arctic 11

High Arctic Explorer: Arctic 11

I love to watch the fulmars. They seem to follow the ship as we move across from Canada to Greenland. Lizanne thought they might follow us all the way to Greenland but somewhere mid Davis Strait we lost them. I don’t know why they follow. Maybe the ship stirs up tasty treats as it cuts through Arctic waters. Maybe they hope for a dump of garbage off the stern. Sorry birds; that’s not going to happen. Or maybe they just like to play in the air currents created by the ship.

Fulmar riding the air

They fly up to the stern of the ship, drop suddenly so you can almost touch them and then swerve to starboard or port at the last possible second. From there they arc out beyond the ship flying away to the stern only to turn and chase the ship again.

As I stood on the starboard deck one evening watching the performance one came within arm’s length of me. I swear he looked at me and kicked his feet in the air as he passed. I can’t think why a bird in flight would kick its feet in flight and I’ve never seen another bird do that. It looked like he was thoroughly enjoying himself soaring and diving alongside the ship.

Part of the fun for me is to try to capture bird moments with my camera. After this trip I have more photos of birds than of any other subject. Most of them are either photos of bird butts 'go-away birds’ or they are blurry blobs. Even though gulls, fulmars, and kittiwakes are much larger than the sparrows and robins at home, it’s still difficult for me to catch them in flight. The best shot would be of a bird in flight looking directly into my lens with the light glinting off its eye. I’ll keep chasing that shot.

On Arctic expeditions the birds I love to watch are the ones that don’t inhabit the south. One of my favourites is the thick-billed murre. Thick-billed murres are in the auk family as are puffins and penguins. One of the reasons I have a particular fondness for these birds is that they seem like such underdogs. One nickname for them is ‘flying footballs.’ They have the highest cost of flight of any bird because of their short wings better designed for propelling them as they dive than for carrying them in the air.. I love to watch their determined flapping and running across the water in an attempt to get airborne. I recall watching one little guy at the side of the ship do his run up to takeoff. Just as it seemed that his stubby wings would finally lift him from the surface, a swell came along and washed over his head. A few seconds later his head emerged and he began his running and flapping again this time successfully.

Coming in for a landing

It's hard to isolate just one

Ok guys who's leading?

I can so fly

Another thing I admire about the murres is that they seem to have to work so hard to survive. They lay a single egg on a rocky outcrop and the parents take turns tending the egg and then the chick. When it’s time for the chicks to join the flock in the water the father sits in the water far below the cliff and calls to the youngster who must then leap into the water with wings not yet ready to carry it up. If the chick is lucky it lands beside Dad and off they go to spend the next 6 to 8 weeks on the water where Dad continues to provide food. I’m not sure what Mom is up to during this time. If the chick is unlucky and lands on the rocks it becomes part of a banquet for the waiting polar bears.

The last of the birds I tried to photograph on the recent Arctic expedition were a pair of parasitic jaegers. Not a lovely name and in Europe they are called Arctic skua. They got their name for a reason however. They get their food by stealing it from other birds. When they are nesting they prey on other birds and their eggs. When they are at sea they wait for a gull or a tern to catch a fish and then chase the bird in order to fluster it and steal its dinner.

We came across a nesting pair in Croker Bay. They were none to happy with us and screamed and dove as people walked over the invisible line that determined their territory. I tried to stay far enough back that the birds would settle on the ground and preen. They have the most fascinating tails. In flight the parasitic jaegers have long straight feathers emanating from their gracefully rounded tails.

I don’t know how long I spent watching and photographing these birds but as with so many things when I’m completely engaged, I didn’t notice how much time had passed. When I looked up from my camera I saw that people were moving toward the shore to get in zodiacs and go back to the ship. As Jason told us many times, not everyone will fit on the last zodiac so I put the lens cap back on my camera and headed to where my splash pants and rubber boots were waiting. That photo shoot burned up half of the remaining battery for my Olympus camera but it was well worth it for the experience regardless of the quality of photos.

The camera conundrum: Arctic 10

So here’s the short version of the battery charger fiasco. I brought the USB cable but not the charging cradle for my battery. I thought I could charge it using just the cable. Nope. Scott asked the passengers at a daily recap if anyone was using an Olympus EM1 mkii. Nobody was but one person had an Olympus camera and kindly took my battery to her room for a quick check as to whether her charger would fit. It didn’t. Okay, next plan. There might be a camera store in Nuuk Greenland where I could pick up a charger.

In the meantime, I was in the ship’s gift shop and happened to notice a point and shoot Nikon Coolpix A 300 on the shelf behind the counter. A camera, with a zoom lens. Not bad. Even better that we had a credit at the gift shop. I bought the camera. As with all baby cameras, it has a pretty wide angle lens but given that photos I take with the zoom on my phone end up looking like pointillism, I was happy enough to get it.

Parasitic Jaeger in flight

After I charged up the battery, I began to play with it. There are a lot of things I like. It’s light and pocketable. Phone in one pocket, Coolpix in the other. The exposure compensation is in a very convenient spot. Twenty mega pixel is plenty for what I want, and the colour rendering is generally to my liking. My main complaint is one of the same ones I have with the phone: I can’t see the blooming screen in bright sunlight so there is quite a bit of ‘point the camera in the right direction and press the shutter.’ Pixels are cheap, opportunities are not so fire away and hope for the best. I hadn’t ruled out using the Olympus but I was thinking carefully about under what circumstances I would willingly drain the batteries.

We arrived in Nuuk on a Sunday and, although it’s like a small European city, many places were closed. There were two stores that sold electronics. Both were closed and as I peered through the windows I could see that the chances were 99% against either having what I needed anyway.

I wasn’t done quite yet. We were staying onboard for the High Arctic Explorer voyage. Maybe someone on that one would have a charger I could borrow. As the new group of passengers came aboard I checked out as many of the brands on camera straps as I could. Mostly Nikon, followed closely by Canon with a smattering of Panasonic and Sony thrown in for good measure. Barbara, our host, asked at a recap if anyone had an Olympus charger that might fit. I was quite delighted when Jon, a friend from previous trips, put up his hand. After the recap he went to get his charger and I went to get my battery. Once again, the two didn’t fit.

At least I knew for sure that I wouldn’t have a chance to recharge the batteries. I chose two locations to shoot the last of the photos with the Olympus. On Monday August 8 we made a landing in Croker Bay. It was sunny and warm and the scenery was gorgeous. I decided there was no point in returning home with any juice in the batteries so I took the Oly. It was a good call. There was a pair of parasitic jaegers, also called Arctic skua, protecting their territory. I had a wonderful afternoon trying to capture their body positions in flight as they squawked at the human intruders. They are much bigger than sparrows so they were a bit easier to track. I also got a chance to try different settings as they flew.

The last battery died on August 10. Because we were unable to reach Resolute we sailed back to Greenland. We paused for a zodiac cruise amid the sea ice in the middle of Baffin Bay. It was foggy and chilly cruising among the bergs and the sea ice. Because of the temperature the battery drained more quickly than I thought it would but, again, I had a most enjoyable time taking the photos.

Cruising in the ice

I’ve come to a few conclusions. I’ll ignore the obvious one regarding battery chargers. I love shooting with the Olympus and I’m getting better at understanding the features. I hate carrying it on the plane though. It is smaller and lighter than a lot of cameras but the 100-400 mm lens is not a featherweight. When I add a second lens to the weight of the camera body, and throw in a book, a notebook, a few coloured pencils, a bottle of water, and the various cables and chargers I need for my other electronics, the backpack comes in at around 9 kilos. That is heavier than I want it to be when I have to sling it into the overhead bin. Before you ask, Richard is more than willing to do the slinging to help me out. There is a part of me that feels strongly that if I can’t manage the pack by myself I shouldn’t be carrying it in the first place. Perhaps I need to up the strength training in between trips. In any case that certainly wouldn’t hurt. The jury is out on whether I will continue to carry the Oly or whether I will look for a lighter travel camera. I really like the one I used in Holland and Belgium but the zoom on it is unreliable and it’s usually just as cost effective to buy a new camera as it is to try to get a point-and-shoot fixed. Oh well, I have another year to make up my mind.

Covid onboard: Arctic 9

Now that I’m back in Calgary I think I should talk about Covid 19 with respect to our trip to the Arctic. Covid was a major concern for us in the lead up to the trip. We wore our masks every time we stuck our noses outside the door, kept our bubble small, and met with friends mostly outside even though we were all fully vaccinated. I did my best not to think about what it would be like if one of us tested positive before we boarded the ship or if one of us tested positive once we were on the ship.

Adventure Canada required a negative PCR test within 72 hours of boarding the charter flight to Iqaluit and, at the initial briefing the night before we boarded, they administered a rapid test to each of us. One person we know of had a positive result on the PCR test and could not go on the trip. He signed up to go during the 2020 season which was cancelled and then postponed to 2022. It was a huge disappointment to him and his sister with whom he was to have travelled. It was also a sobering reminder to the rest of us.

We heard that on the trip before ours there were more than 20 cases. Then there was a five-day repositioning sail and only essential crew stayed on board while the whole ship was cleaned stem to stern, again. We didn’t find out until the end of our Heart of the Arctic trip that the ship remained free from Covid for our entire voyage. The protocols were strict. We wore our masks whenever we were in public spaces. We could remove our masks in the dining room when we were eating but the moment we stood up to get other food, the masks went back on. Unlike previous years, we sat with the same people for meals and went out in zodiacs with the same group.

At the first recap Jason Edmunds, expedition leader extraordinaire, demonstrated what he called the nutcracker method of drinking to be employed after a meal or anywhere else on the ship where we might have a beverage. Pull the mask down below your chin, take a sip, and replace the mask. I have to wonder if alcohol sales were in any way affected by the enforced slow down in consumption. People being people, we all forgot our masks at one time or another and all of us had the responsibility of gently reminding anyone in a public space whose bare face was hanging out to mask up. In every case the reminder was a shocked look of recognition followed by a hurried ‘thank you’ as the offender scurried off to get the mask or quickly whipped it out of a pocket and put it on.

There were many face-palm moments as we told each other “I got all the way to the mud room before I realized I didn’t have my mask,” “That’s the third time today I got up from the table without putting on my mask,” and conversely, “Don’t try to lick your finger when you have a mask on - bad idea.”

Those of us not in the health care professions got a small taste of the irritated skin and sore ears that comes from wearing a mask for extended periods of time. My main bugbear was the foggy glasses. I solved the problem by simply taking my glasses off and carrying them in a case attached to my belt loop. I’m extremely grateful for the successful cataract surgery that allows me to wear glasses or not as I choose. I know some of my friends will be re-horrified (if that’s not a word it should be) by my complete lack of fashion sense. In this case it came back to bite me when I leaned against my glasses and bent the frames. I did my best to bend them back but they are still wonky and fairly uncomfortable to wear so I continue to take them off when I don’t need to read. [ed. They are now fixed and I wear them morning til night as usual.]

I had a hunch while packing for the trip that I should bring a pair of drug store readers with me. After I munched my expensive progressives, I took to leaving those in the room and carrying around the cheapies. I also had a pair of safety sunglasses that I bought at Rona. It’s actually more comfortable for me to hike without the progressives so that worked out well.

On the last night of the expedition, Jason declared that our trip had been Covid free. We all cheered and I felt a twinge of anxiety about the new group of passengers that would board the ship while we stayed on for a second expedition. Even though they followed the same testing protocol as we did, Jason had to announce a couple of days into the trip that Covid was aboard. Everyone who was a close contact had been notified and the unfortunate soul(s) who tested positive enroute was confined to the cabin for 10 days. If that wasn’t the whole trip it was pretty darned close to it. I don’t know which would be worse finding out before boarding that you had Covid or getting onboard and spending the whole voyage in your cabin having contact with only the person who brought you food and water. I have to hope that whoever it was and however many people there were at least had a porthole to look out.

The important thing is that Covid didn’t spread on the ship; I don’t think the case(s) were severe: and we weren’t responsible for taking it into any of the remote communities we visited. We wore masks when interacting with the locals even when we were outside.



In Ottawa we continued to wear our masks when in public spaces indoors. At one point we hid out from the heat in the Rideau Mall. I watched for about 5 minutes and noticed only 6 people in addition to us had masks. I’m really hoping that as the vaccines get more sophisticated there will be one that not only protects from severe outcomes but also protects from contracting the virus in the first place. I don’t even know if such a thing is possible. In the meantime we’ve signed up for another expedition cruise next summer. We will cross our fingers and hope that we will be able to sail and if we have to follow the same protocols we will. However, it would be very nice to be able to dial down the level of anxiety caused by not knowing if you have Covid or not. I’m putting that though on the back burner for later. At the moment I have photos to sort, blogs to publish and both of my camera batteries are now fully charged. Lesson learned, I hope.

Guest post by Barbara Turner-Vesselago

[ed. This summer was Barbara's first trip with Adventure Canada. Before she left, Barbara asked me a few questions about the trip. As many of you know, when I get excited about something it's impossible to shut me up and there were quite a number of emails back and forth. Once we got on the ship there was very little connectivity and I kept thinking of other things I wanted to tell her. Barbara and her husband boarded the ship the day that Richard and I got off so I left a note and a drawing. See tip #7.

Enjoy the tips and, as a side-note, I didn't know there were some many brands of Merino wool!]

Ocean Endeavour with ice berg

Marian’s Ten Best Arctic Travel Tips

1. Top Tip: Wash underwear in stateroom. MH’s reasoning (if the soap in the bathroom dispensers is okay to wash with, it’s okay to wash your knickers with) made sense to me, and it made much more sense than sending underwear out to laundry or bringing 14 pairs. They dried quickly, as did liner socks, on a hanger in the closet.

2. Buy a neck tube. I ordered one from Lupa (Canadian), in sapphire blue (matches Adventure Canada jackets), even though I had never even heard of a neck tube before. I came to love mine dearly. Not only did it keep my neck warm, on deck and on zodiac excursions, it could also be pulled up to cover double chins (or whole face, at 5 a.m.) as required. Often required.

3. Don’t bring other currencies. You won’t need them. I didn’t bring them, and I didn’t need them.

4. Don’t buy anything new for the trip unless you absolutely have to. This would have been an excellent tip to follow. The time I spent combing through websites and going to stores before the trip will only be matched by the amount I’m about to spend returning all the things we didn’t use. (Barbara’s tip: Eddie Bauer, Patagonia and MEC will take things back even if you have used them, any time you want. They want you to be happy with them. What a concept.)

5. Consider merino wool long underwear. Dries fast, MH points out, and does not get stinky. I found MEC’s version scratchy, and also Merino Tech. But the merino wool Kombi tops (MEC) were fantastic – soft and warm. In fact, my husband hasn’t taken his off yet, and they are not yet stinky. My ancient polypro bottoms worked just fine, too (see Tip # 4).

6. Make sure everything has two uses. Like having some idea what your ideal weight would be, this is a good one to have hanging around in the background, to refer to from time to time.

7. Leave your rubber boots inside bottoms of rain pants for easy access next time. MH described this and also drew a diagram. The diagram alone has provided hours of head-scratching on-ship entertainment. [ed. Barbara didn't have the benefit of this photo and my artistic rendering of the concept left something to be desired.]

Configuration of rubber boots and rain pants

8. Get on top of sea-sickness in advance. I’m not sure how much doing this actually helped, but it certainly made me feel as if I was doing something, at a time when everything else – and I mean everything – was clearly heading far beyond my control.

These last two are not tips Marian gave us directly, but they were great tips nonetheless – provided via the age-old principal of showing rather than telling. This is what I’ve learned from being on the receiving end.

9.As you leave the ship, gift your friends with a bottle of wine for their maiden voyage. Have this presented in an ice-bucket with two glasses (and a folded napkin) in their stateroom when they arrive. You will know by now what an enormous schlep it has been for them, just to reach the point of boarding, and how very, very badly they need a drink by now.

10. Encourage your friends to sign up for an Adventure Canada trip to the High Arctic. You know by now that they will have the adventure of a lifetime.