FAVORITE TREE

      One of my favorite trees came to an accidental end this week. 

      This tree was a gigantic poplar . It was probably 70 ft high and had a trunk of over 2 ft . Lower branches were about 1 ft thick and I'm not sure what the branch coverage would be. And yes , this was a good looking tree...nicely shaped. This tree showed up in many of my photos but I couldn't find many of the photos. 

     So for this area the tree is exceptionally large. 

     A freak wind went through a few nights ago and the wind probably went between two trees and the giant was not strong enough to remain standing. About half of the trunk was rotten so the tree , while looking great, was probably not going to last too much longer. 

    This tree was  favorite of the bohemian waxwings so I just have the top of the tree in the photo.

      When I asked Karen to have my picture taken, I wanted to be up on the trunk above my head. She just said with great emphasis, "You're not going up there! " It's a good thing somebody  takes care of the fools!

CHALLENGE OF WEBSITES

      Okay, I'll get right to my problem. I am severely challenged to log into and sign into websites that one must sign into! I'm not sure that I know the difference between sign in and log in. 

      Here's my experience from yesterday.

      I've had a miserable Aeroplan account. There's only one business in town that gives Aeroplan points. Needless to say I don't build up many points. 

     So I decided to spend my miserable  few points and ditch the account. 

     I know that I have an account with Aeroplan so I thought I'd find out what I could buy and buy it. 

    Well, I tried to sign in. I had the email I used and the pass word I had used. So when it doesn't work, try again , and again and again. Then try to change your password again, and again and again. Then it says you've been on here too long so it's time out for 30 min. 

    Well. after deciding to use my number and a few more pass words I got into my account. Then I found out that we could put our miserable points together. Then to add insult to injury I found out that all we could get was a $25.00 gift certificate. 

    So , I'll order the gift certificate. The miserable website isn't finished with me yet. I ordered three times and nothing happened. Then I spy something that doesn't look like I should click on it . I clicked on it! Presto. I was told that I had just bought a $25,00 gift certificate to Boston Pizza! 

    Is it just me or does this happen to others. I can't seem to just easily sign into these websites . I just don't seem to be able to read the procedure and follow through.

    There,  that's my gripe. 

MORE...

      I have been rather careless in the last couple of posts and got a head of myself. 

      In my last post I used an example of a death that happened in the settlement that I worked in as a local administrator, teacher and principal. 

     I thought that I had written about this death. When I looked for the post I couldn't find anything. Today I found the post I was looking for. It was written in 2012. So for those  who asked more, here is a post with more info.

WHERE ARE THE BODIES?

      This morning I heard a radio interview that connected a few dots for me. 

      With the finding of about 215 bodies of children at a residential school there have been many questions. Many times parents did not find out what happened to their children. Parents were somewhat nomadic and wandered to where the hunting and trapping was best. If we go back further many parents didn't have much of an idea where their children went. There was not a legal apprehension just an apprehension. There wasn't much in the way of legal responsibility. There was no such thing as "ward". 

     Many parents did find out about their children's death. A few parents requested that their children's bodies be sent back home. The government refused to pay to send the body back to parents. This is extremely sad. 

     Now I had an experience with a death when I was in Wakeham Bay. A toddler was murdered by the mother. In the matter of investigation the child's body was taken south to Montreal. 

     A year later one of the elders asked me about the baby and where the body was. I didn't have an answer. I didn't know what happened to the body. I can't remember what I told him but it would have been of little value. I was in my mid 20's and the Quebec administrator was also in his mid 20's We were not at an age where we were mature enough to think about the significance of bodies. We were not trained to look after a murder. 

     I have thought of this incident many times and asked myself why I didn't take some action. I  could have written a letter. The powers that be played fast and loose with some of these issues.

    The interview this morning explained just how bad things were when the government refused to send a body back home. 

MORE ON RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL TRAGEDY

     Check out the Furry Gnome for more information on the aboriginal tragedy found lately at Kamloops B.C. 

     Furry Gnome comes from an academic background and has done his research on this issue. 

      Check him out. 

A TRAGIC DISCOVERY

     A few days ago in Canada they discovered the bodies of 215 indigenous children who were at a residential school . This school operated by a church, from about 1890 to 1980 .  The bodies were on the school property

     Churches made an aggressive effort to get aboriginal children to their school. Children were forcibly taken from their parents. Many times the parents did not know where their children were. Just think what a trauma it would be if your young children were taken away from you? 

     The churches idea was Christianity , make the kids into little white men and beat the aboriginal culture out of them. Along the way there were many tragedies. Children were mistreated badly. In many cases they were beaten and assaulted. Living conditions were poor and many children died. Tuberculosis was common and at that time they didn't know much about treating it. Kids were crammed into small quarters so any germs could spread rapidly.

    But 215 kids? Come on. There should have been some kind of communication. In many cases parents were not told of the death of their child.

    Kids went back to their communities and were not able to cope in their home community. The original culture was gone. 

    In 1968 , when I  was a local administrator in a small Innuit settlement, a child was murdered. The police came in and took the body out for forensic examination. About a year later one of the elders asked me where the child's body was. I couldn't tell him. I regret that I did not write and ask where the child's body was. So in the 1960's the authorities still played fast and lose with the way aboriginals were treated. 

     Now begins the sad task of identifying the bodies and telling families what happened to their ancestors.

    Will we ever learn?

RISKY ADVENTURE

        I had many adventures  when I lived in the north. You had to be adventurous to see and learn about things. You had to take some precautions to be safe because there was some risk.

         However, there was one adventure that I took that was much  too risky. Looking back I see that it  was a high risk adventure and that at the time I didn't fully appreciate it. 

          My adventure was to go up the Mackenzie River...all 1010 miles of it.  Not only was it a long river but a large river. At Point separation it is 10 miles wide. As you move up the river there are some rapids and some fast water. So for most of the river there's little  danger.

         Many northern people would dream of boating up the Mackenzie but few ever do it. The micro Manager wanted this adventure and so did I so we made plans. We had a good boat and two motors. We had camping equipment and used the RCMP to keep track of us. Always the next detachment of police were watching for us and if we didn't appear they would have to search for us. 

      The upper Ramparts where the river narrows

There is a tremendous amount of barge traffic on the river as most northern freight comes in on the Mackenzie. So I managed to snag a navigational chart of the river. The policeman I got it from wanted it back and he wouldn't tell me how he got it.  So navigation worked this way .  You would line up between two very large diamond signs that you could see from 5 to 20 miles away. Stay between those signs and you were okay. They sounded and dredged the channel 

       Weather was another thing out of our control . The first five days were

warm calm and beautiful summer weather. One night we happened to be stopped in a settlement. That night a storm hit. Our canvas over the boat leaked like it wasn't there. The next morning someone found us and took us to an empty government house. It stormed for three days. The river rose and was swollen. We were in a hurry so we started out when the storm was over. We thought we would travel along the bank. Within 5 miles we hit a rock. Luckily the boat suffered no damage One of the props had minor damage so we escaped with little damage. We decided to go back to following markers but when we were out further in the river the current was so swift were were going to get swamped.  Luckily we found a small inlet on a sand bar that we entered before the boat swamped. 

     The San Sault is a famous set of rapids but we navigated them without problems. Just take your time. We had misjudged our gas supply but got very lucky when we found an oil exploratory camp. 

                      The Lower Ramparts

     After  those problems we had nice sailing for about 400 miles. We had to cross a corner of Great Slave lake for a bout 15 miles. We were in an open area the was exposed to 250 miles of water. We started out right after dawn to try and miss any rough water. The waves did roll in and we could not run into them but had the go slowly and take each wave one at a time. 

                     The end and we're still alive

       So we made it and my mother gave a great sigh of relief as I had promised to phone her when we were finished.

       It was an adventure and trip of a life time. 

      However , when I look back at it I realize how incredibly dangerous it was. A series of small errors could have led to catastrophic ending. 

                     Looking out over Great Slave Lake 

                     There was some great scenery as the Camsel Mountains. Most of it was through flat country.