Some friends of mine from the mine (heh) have been up visiting this weekend, and there's nothing like company to make you appreciate where you live! We got out to all the museums I only visit when friends come up to Whitehorse, and got a spectacular show their last night when the northern lights danced across the sky. Sorry for the crummy photo - I didn't have my tripod set up.
One of my favourite places up here that I don't get out to nearly enough is the
Yukon Wildlife Preserve, a non-profit centre that provides safe public viewing, research, conservation and rehabilitation for many of the territories native animals. The animals live in open enclosures that reflect their natural environment, and it's a huge reserve so it's a bit of a long tour but wonderful to experience. On this trip, we took the bus tour, so we got through a bit quicker with lots of extra stories by the conservation officer. Such as the time the muskox took issue with the SUV that entered their enclosure and
destroyed it. Ornery buggers (they're my favourite).
This time, I took out my fancy camera with the wicked zoom (50x optical and 100x with digital) and got some decent pictures. I thought I'd dump them here to share, because our territorial critters are
adorable.
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| Wood Bison, chilling out in a pile of hay and crap. |
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| The ridiculous (and at the preserve, chubby) Mule Deer. |
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| Muskox - SO FLUFFY! |
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| Mountain Goats, oogling us from a cliff high above the bus. |
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| Linx kit, enjoying the sun. Or stalking a bird. |
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| Grumpy old Linx, given his own space when the kits were too rough. GET OUTTA MA YARD. |
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| Adorable Arctic Fox. |
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| Caribou that's dropped its' antlers. Fun fact: both male and female caribou grow antlers! |
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| Caribou nose! |
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| 9 mth old Moose, hiding in the trees. Fun Fact: Yukon population: 70 000 moose, 35 000 humans. |
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| Arctic Hare. Tough life being a hare - nearly everything eats you, including ground squirrels. |
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| And here's a final blurry shot of the dancing lights, lightened a bit to show off the pinks. |
I love my home, and I love sharing it with others. It was so fun rediscovering some of our treasures with my friends. If I can't bring you guys all up here, I guess I'll just have to show parts of it off to you here!
What is a ground squirrel that if can eat a hare!?! I can't imagine living in such a beautiful, somewhat isolated place. It sounds heavenly. I want to see the northern lights in my lifetime. That, and the mid oceanic ridge in Iceland. (I think thats what it's called, where the Earth is splitting and new Earth us constantly emerging?). That's one I'm sure you appreciate, as a geologist. I saw photos of it in high school geology.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I should do a blog post in response to this about where I live. It can have photos of brightly lit refineries at night, stray dogs, the frog that lives in my sedum plant, and vultures out for road kill. Hehe, I'm not really down on my hometown. We do have lots of alligators and water moccasins.
Apparently ground squirrels will eat baby hare! Weird, eh? They're not that big, smaller than the hares for sure (except at the Wildlife preserve, where they are total chubsters!).
ReplyDeleteI grew up seeing the lights (although less spectacular than what we see up here), so it seems strange to me that so many people have never seen them. I've been pretty lucky, I guess, although I have to put up with some pretty wicked winters to experience them!
What are water moccasins? Are they water-proof booties? Our moccasins are made of leather and fur and some beautiful beading and are wonderfully warm on the feet, but they're not that waterproof...