magazine / ma06
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March/April 2006 issue |
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Flight of the navigator
The first day of the fall migration is a long game of tag, hide-and-seek and follow-the- leader,
with stubborn birds refusing to leave home and others flying too fast or too slow, getting
spooked by highway traffic or just wandering where they please. But Bill Lishman, better known
as Father Goose for his groundbreaking flights with birds, knows it’s all part of the learning
process.
Artist, environmentalist, innovator and aviator, Lishman shares his stories in April during The
Royal Canadian Geographical Society spring lecture. He gained international attention
in 1993 for leading a flock of 18 Canada geese hatched in captivity by ultralight aircraft
to northern Virginia from his home outside Toronto. The flock later completed an unassisted
return migration, a story recounted in the film Fly Away Home.
More recently, Lishman has turned his talents to an endangered species. His Operation Migration
team led a group of whooping cranes from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin to
Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida late last year. Lishman flew the first
few legs of the journey with the cranes but soon found "they didn’t need me."
In 1942, there were only 21 whooping cranes in the world. The population nests in Wood
Buffalo National Park, which crosses the Alberta–Northwest Territories border, and
has since grown to 220. The challenge for Lishman and his team was to teach cranes hatched
from this flock their historical migration route, encouraging them to form a second population
on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
On Dec. 13, 2005, Operation Migration pilots dressed in white bird costumes escorted 19
whooping cranes to northwestern Florida, where an exuberant crowd had gathered at Dunnellon
Airport to watch them pass overhead. The project will likely continue for several more years
until there are approximately 125 birds in the new population and about 25 breeding pairs.
This will ensure a healthy flock of rather welleducated, if undisciplined, whooping cranes.
"We are often asked why we dedicate our time and effort to save whooping cranes," Lishman
says. "As aviators, we have a love for the creatures that taught us the art of flying.
Now that they need our help, how can we refuse?"
Join Lishman on April 19 and 20 at Ottawa’s Centrepointe Theatre and April 25 and 26 at
Toronto’s Ontario Science Centre.
— Shannon Long
Learning by listening
Teaching students to listen — really listen — to their natural surroundings is
not an easy task, says Phil Mullins, a doctoral student in outdoor education at the University
of Alberta, but it may be the key to changing how we see our place in the environment.
Last summer, Mullins and his team paddled from Hinton, Alta., to the Arctic Ocean at Kugluktuk,
Nunavut, to develop a better understanding of the interaction between individuals and the
outdoors.
The 100-day adventure, funded in part by the The
Royal Canadian Geographical Society, covered 3,500 kilometres. For the first month,
Mullins and two fellow instructors travelled with 12 students, teaching them to tear their
eyes from their maps and hear the world around them.
At first, they resisted, says Mullins. "They would pick their lunch spot on the map
before we would even leave camp." But as the students began to take the lead down the
Athabasca River, he says, they began to trust the natural cues. Being on alert for rapids
and streams forced them to pay attention to the changing gurgle of the river.
The students left the group at Fort McMurray, Alta., and the instructors joined three others
for the journey North.
Spring ice and high winds forced them to drive around Great Slave Lake rather than risk
a shortcut across open water. It was a tough choice, says Patrick Maher, one of the team
members, but "it allowed the group to finish," he says. "Everyone wasn’t a
broken heap once we got to Kugluktuk."
— Elise Stolte
Divided by ship
When the first winter shipment of nickel concentrate from the Voisey’s Bay Mine plowed
through the Labrador sea ice in January, it cut a trench between communities, friends and
hunting cabins.
New ice forms quickly during a Northern winter, but the periodic open water could take
a deadly toll on the region’s Inuit, who must cross the ice to hunt, says Jamie Reschny,
a master’s student in geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s.
Funded in part by The Royal Canadian Geographical
Society, Reschny spent six weeks in Nain last spring, before shipping began, documenting
Inuit concerns and studying the potential for sustainable mining.
"This will affect everyone living in the region," Reschny says. If it becomes
too dangerous to cross the ice, Inuit elders may lose their ability to teach their grandchildren
their traditional way of life.
A formal agreement signed by the Voisey’s Bay Nickel Company and the Labrador Inuit Association
in March 2005 prohibits the company from shipping during a sixweek period in December and
January, while the ice is forming, and for six weeks in April and May, when the water might
not refreeze. The company is also limited to four shipments each winter. But it’s too early
to tell whether this will work, says Reschny, who plans to return to Nain in March.
"If the company wants to be sustainable in a region, it has to pay attention," he
says. "Mining itself is not a sustainable activity. But if you start taking economic
and social aspects into consideration, if there are enough positive benefits for the community,
then it can become sustainable."
— E.S.
Sense of place
Does geography matter? The answer is complex, according to an online discussion site launched
last year by The Royal Canadian Geographical
Society.
"Isn’t geography just knowing the capitals of each country?" asked
one participant, prompting a flurry of fervent denials.
"Maybe the way to convince people that geography does matter is to see
it in action," said another, called GeoMama. "The spread of diseases
is a classic geographical study, but you won’t likely hear any reference to the
word geography in news stories."
"Through geography," wrote a participant named Michelle, "I see
not just a pretty landscape as I drive home but all of the forces over long periods
of time to bring that landscape into being."
Does geography matter to you? Visit www.geoforum.ca and
tell us how.
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