The
first week in April was certainly one of the busiest that I have had in a long
time. The beginning of the week was full of fourth year assignments, but I had
completed the rest of my undergrad by the end of the week. The last day of
classes was on the 5th, I packed up all the stuff in my apartment on
the 6th, and packed for the Yukon that night. I flew out of Pearson
at 8:30 on the 7th, stopped over in Vancouver, and flew in a fairly
small plane up to Whitehorse. Overall the flight was great, except for the fact
that I left my phone in the plane to Vancouver. By the time I realized this,
the plane was already boarded for a flight to South Korea (As it turns out, Air
Canada ended up Fed-exing the phone back home to Brampton. Yay!)
I landed in Whitehorse at about
2:30, and spent the afternoon picking up last minute supplies and searching for
wifi to send my last few final assignments off. After that, it was about a 2
and a half hour drive to squirrel camp. It was a beautiful sunny day, so I had
a great view of the mountains for the whole drive. Despite not having slept for
48 hours, my captivation with the scenery kept me wide awake.
I got into camp at about 9:00pm
(It was still quite light outside), and was immediately greeted by my colleagues.
After a brief tour around camp, I moved my stuff into my new hut, where I will
sleep for the next 5 months.
Apparently
the Hobbit Hut was the very first one to be built at the camp. When the project
started in the 80s, everyone slept in tents that were set up on pallets. The
first night was a little chilly (-15ish), but for the most part it has not been
below -5 degrees at night.
The next morning I got right
into the normal work routine:
I
get up at 6ish, eat breakfast, and start trapping squirrels at 7:30.
Red
squirrels are highly territorial, and defend territories called middens. This
makes it easier to target specific squirrels for trapping. One of the main
goals of morning trapping is to determine the progress of each female’s
pregnancy.
After
lunch, we usually go back out and search for the nests of females that have
recently given birth. After we successfully find a nest, we climb whatever tree
that the nest is in and retrieve the newborn pups. We count and weight the
pups, and return them back to the nest. Day old pups are blind and naked, and
resemble pinky mice.
When the pups are 25 days old we
return back to the nest, and recount and reweigh them. We also ear tag them so
we can identify them once they emerge from the nest. If you weren’t convinced
that the day old pups were cute, the nest 2 pups (25 day old) are bound to
convince you.
They are much more mobile, and very
clingy. On my first nest, one of the pups managed to climb up my sleeve past my
elbow before I could catch him again.
I had originally planned to try and
post every week or two, but I only have a few hours a week when I have internet
access. Hopefully I will have more time to take photos in the coming weeks.
Here are some more photos from the past few weeks:
 | |
| Although this photo didnt turn out very well, this is the view from the camp outhouses. Its absolutely stunning so ill have to take another shot when it is sunnier outside. |
Last weekend it showed all night. The next morning all of the trees were covered with snow. It looked much nicer when I knew I didn't have to go out in it.
I haven't taken to many photos since i have been here except of squirrels, but i thought this one was nice. Hopefully I can get some shots of some non-squirrel wildlife soon.
This weekend we got two days off, so a bunch of us decided to visit Haines Alaska for the weekend. On that note, I am going to go explore Haines.
Until next time,
-Dylan
