Art, Music, Food, and Rights

    During our classes on February 5th and 7th the subject we were to discuss is Art, Music, Food and Rights in the North.  I missed the first half of presentations this week that was suppose to be focused on Food, Religion, Music and Art but made it for Karlyn's presentation on the Grey Wolves in concerns to the rights of animals in tourism and the zoos.  

 

    Karlyn told us about the town of Thomson putting together a wolf discovery  centre that doesn't house any wolves.  The town of Thomson does have an active wolf population. 10 percent of the 50 000 wolves in Canada are in Manitoba (according to the presentation). They however decided to keep the wolves separate from the zoos but to bring awareness and information into the town.  Doing a little extra research my self I found that the wolf discovery center, or the spirit way,  is a 2.5 km walking or biking path that has been marked as one of the top 20 places to visit in Manitoba, and designated as a Manitoba star attraction. Check out the following web page for 16 reasons, and points of interests along the spirit way. 

  

Found on Pinterest from Sheri Dubec
 http://pinterest.com/pin/261349584595381876/

http://www.thompsonspiritway.ca/take-the-walk/points-of-interest/

    So after reading these 16 points, does it make you want to head up to Thompson and take the spirit walk for yourself?  I don't think I would be too interested in paying the money to check this out. There's just no bang for your buck in this excuse to stop over on your way up north to see REAL live polar bears or go swimming with Beluga whales. (I'm still really excited after learning you can go swimming with Beluga whales up north, and really just thinking of that as another excuse to go up to Churchill!)

   I think this would be the biggest problem with animal rights when it comes to zoos and wildlife protection agencies.   They need money to help support conservation initiatives to help the animals, but people expect an up and close encounter if they're dishing up some money to go see them.   For the wolves in Thompson, it wouldn't be helping the wolf population to cage up the wolves and have them be put on display in small spaces to do shows in front of people.  So I'm happy that the city is attempting an alternative solution to this buy putting up their spirit way walk.  Unfortunately I wont be adding this to my list of things to do.

   I like to think that my past trips have left a meaningful purpose to animal life and that wasn't causing any harm.  I've already talked about this before in my previous blogs, but seeing the panda's in Chengdu, China I believe to be a positive zoo.  The zoo is located in the location that the Pandas were originally found. They are using the area they house the pandas in to grow more bamboo.  They don't have to worry about the climate or any changing weather because the pandas were meant to be there. They are not being put into a colder climate, or somewhere to dry.  One of the bigger concerns I have when I think about zoos now, is what are animals doing during the winter when they are not suppose to be cold. Or the opposite, of how winter animals can adapt to warm temperatures.  I found a really good article article that weighed the options of elephants in cold climate zoos at http://www.helpelephants.com/coldclimatezoos.pdf.  The conclusion to the article talks about how zoos in cold climate should prohibit the display of animals that can't be properly cared for in cold climates.

   I had a good conversation with a woman I met at the festival du voyager this past week whose son is a zoo keeper here in Winnipeg.  I remembered going to see the Australia exhibit when I was kid, but after learning about the dangers to animals in cold climate zoos, I thought I would ask if we still have the Australia exhibit. She ensured me that it was too cold for the animals and that we had to get rid of them. And also with other animals that require warmer temperatures that they are sent south for the winter time, and transported back to the city in the spring.

  I've never been to our zoo in the winter time. I want to remind my readers that the zoo here in Winnipeg does remain open during the winter season.  They have also received a new polar bear member to the zoo named Hudson that is on display!  I'm thinking this could be a fun trip for me if I can find some time in the busy semester!  Check out more information on Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Zoo at   http://www.assiniboineparkzoo.ca/index.php

   As for other Winnipeg outings and to learn more about Inuit Art I suggest heading to the Winnipeg Art Gallary to see their extensive collection of Inuit Art. Check out the link http://wag.ca/art/collections/inuit-art for more information. They also have a new exhibition going on till April called Creation and Transformation: Defining moments in Inuit Art.  Check it out, and keep reading my blogs for more information and insight on Northern Environments. 

Mother and Child, Sheokjuk Oqutaq
http://wag.ca/art/collections/inuit-art/display,collection/61859

Thanks for Reading!

 

 

Climate Change and Impacts

   Whoopse! I got a little behind on my blog's, you'll have to forgive me for my blogging routine is still in the works. For this weeks topics, our focus was on climate changing and the impacts it has.  I found the presentations had a very negative outlook on climate change, which goes along with most of societies views on the topic.  I always like to think in a 'cup is half full' type of view, so would like to try and highlight some positive aspects of climate change and look at the negatives as well.

  From our presentation on Tuesday, I learned that 75 percent of the worlds fresh water is preserved in glaciers.  Glaciers in the Himalayas provides water for over 1.3 billion people, I think that increased fresh water runoff could help benefit these neighboring communities.  With a growing population, don't we need more fresh water? and isn't it easier to distribute while its flowing down the sides of a mountains and not frozen up in high altitudes.  I can see negative aspects from glaciers receding too much as well. At what point do the glacier's go from being a renewable resource to finite.   

  Another idea I always think about when I think about all that water flowing down the sides of a mountain is energy. Are we able to manipulate the flow over water down a mountain and turn it into energy?  Or can we dam the fresh water and use it to irrigate more crops for our growing population.  As important as it is to understand why our climate is changing, and how to slow down the changing climate, I think its just as important to begin studying how we are going to cope with the changes of climate in a positive fashion.

    After all this talk about glaciers in Tuesday's class got me reminiscing about my past travels, so I thought I would share a little travel story I have with Glaciers.

   I went to visit Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand back in 2009 as a part of a Contiki tour.  We started the tour off with a valley walk, towards an oncoming stream of glacier water. The valley walls were high with the reminiscent striations of the old glacial moraines.  A small water fall trickled over the side from another mountain top.  We continued climbing towards the glacier until we approached it head on, and then snuck around the side through a carved out path to get on top of it.  We wore our trekking shoes with spikes for extra grip on the mass of ice and snow, and had walking sticks just for extra balance.  As we continued to climb up the toe of the glacier workers were carving out an ice stair case to make it easier to go up higher for the tours.  We had to cross large open gaps in the glacier, which we were told could easily slip one of us down and into the glacier forever (or at least till we were melted out). At this point we had the opportunity to take a helicopter tour of the glacier and land near the top to get a feel of the size of the glacier, and some extra hiking along the top of the ice ground. We decided to just stay on our walking tour this time.  Unfortunately for this great tourist expedition I went on, they have closed the entire hike up to the front of the glacier and made it only possible to access the glacier by helicopter, which makes it less accessible to backpackers with smaller budgets.  This glacier has been receding since 2008, and due to a hole in the glacier and re occurring ice quakes it is no longer safe to do what I thoroughly enjoyed doing at this spot. 

    **Check out Laura Mills article on the Franz Josef Glacier at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10818264 and be sure to look at the 2008 -2012 photo comparisons.

   **I also suggest taking the helicopter up to the glacier if you're in the area. It really was a great experience. Check out this website for more information: http://www.franzjosefglacier.com/

     The majority of Glaciers in the world we hear about in terms of climate change is resulting in receding ice fronts, I did a little bit of digging and found one story where this run off could have positive effects. There has been a study in 2009 in the Gulf of Alaska that looks at the runoff from glaciers, and sees a positive effect it has on the ecosystem. The runoff from ancient glaciers is providing bio-available organic carbon for coastal ecosystems in the area.  This area produces some of the most productive fisheries in the United States, the study believes that future changes to the glacier could affect the food webs in the area.

   **To read more, check out Anthony Watts article at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/28/glacier-melt-discovered-to-have-an-upside/ 

Photograph: David Bathgate/Corbis

     I also thought it was interesting that not all glaciers are receding in the the world today. Found in the Karakoram Range along the borders of Pakistan, India and China is a large mass of ice and snow that is continuing to grow and expand. There seems to be a lot of uncertainty as to why its growing, and not following the trend with the rest of the world, but there is a belief that climate change around the area is producing extra precipitation that is freezing and adding to the ice mass in the range. This sounds like one of my next's trips!

   **Ian Garland writes more about the growing Karakoram Range at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2130184/Forget-global-warming-Scientists-discover-glaciers-Asia-getting-BIGGER.html#axzz2KEnpn086

    Even if I didn't come up with any answers on how to change to this environment,  I hope I can challenge everyone else to create innovative ideas on how to gain a positive change with our new climate, instead of only focusing on keeping things the way they are.  It really does seem to me that the negative really does out weight the positive effects on this issue and from what I've read it seems most important right now to understand why things are changing at the rate that they are and how we can control it.

   **For additional positive effects of Global warming, check out the Environmental Graffiti website at http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbeat-news/the-top-5-positive-effects-of-global-warming/728?image=5

  

Swimming Amongst the Whales

   This past week was busy for the Northern Environment class. We had a focus on wildlife in the North, covering topics as big as the polar bears in Churchill, to as small as the often overlooked invertebrates that are the most common and diverse lifeforms in the Arctic.  I found it amazing that whales in the North could live for up to 100 years, while the arctic fox has only a short life span of 3 to 6 years and looking at the respect that the Inuit people from Northern Canada have for the animals they hunt and compete with in the wild.

    My favourite part of writing a blog is that I get to choose what I write about, and you have to listen... well I guess you could always skip to the next blog if you really wanted to. After hearing about the presentations this week I thought it would be great to share my own experience I have had with whales.  Unfortunately I encountered whales down South in the Pacific, but I already mentioned that I'm going to include the South close to Antarctica in my description of the North, so here we go.


   Humpback whales will travel over 5000 miles between their feeding grounds in the Antarctic and the warm pacific water to either mate or birth their calves.  The migration of humpback whales is the longest of any mammal living. I met up with these humpback whales in the Kingdom of Tonga on one of the Ha'apai Islands called 'Uoleva.  We could get to the island on a boat, or if we ran fast enough along a sand bar connecting the islands while the tide was low, we chose the boat. We were fortunate enough to spend most of a week on this island in a small little hut with no running water or electricity.  We made friends with the other island residents, which ranged from 4 people when their was no tourists, to about 30 people when the island was busy.  During the day it was common to look out into the ocean to see our Humpback friends playing in the calm, warm water.

  One morning we joined a tour boat in hopes of swimming with the whales.  The excursion entailed whale watching from the boat,  the possibility to swim with the whales, and some snorkeling around a reef with lunch on the boat, totaling about an 8 hour day.    The majority of the time we spent looking for the whales surfacing. They would jump out of the water nose first, hump their large backs over and expose their giant tails to us.

   The most exciting part of the trip was actually getting into the water with these whales.   We caught up with a group of three whales in a stretch of open water including a mother, her calve and the escort.  It's common for the whales to travel in packs of three, the escort generally being a male who follows the mother and her calf along the waters.  He is often looking to mate with the females, even though she is looking after her baby it is still possible at this point for her to mate.  We were able to get into the water after observing the mother resting in one spot. If she was travelling, there would be no way for our sad little flippers to keep up with her large tail and fins.  We went in as a group, and stuck close together.  We would approach from the side, so she could see us at all times.  We don't want the mother to feel surprised when seeing us or threatened if we swim close to her calf.  We had the gentle, giant mammals swimming under us, directly towards us, up and out of the water until gradually swimming away.  This made for one of my all time most memorable experiences.

    To learn more about the whales visit ''Whale watch Vava'u'' at http://www.whalewatchvavau.com/whales.html they have information about the whales, discuss their tours and services, and have a pretty amazing gallery of photos and videos of the whales.

    In our Northern Environments class we talked a lot about the declining number of northern animals. During one of our learning exercises we discovered hunting, fishing, global warming, and pollution to be some of the largest reasons that their is declining number of animals, and this would be true again for the humpback whales down south.  Tourism, such as the guided boat tour I had rode in the Kingdom of Tonga, allows for a way to help protect the animals.  If they can make enough money off the animal through tourism then it can make for a better reason than hunting the animal, and then the community will begin to protect the animal.  I've seen this many times such as my trip to Rwanda to visit the mountain gorillas, or to Chengdu to visit Panda's or visiting Koalas in Australia.  Since learning so much about the polar bears I've added a trip to Churchill to my bucket list in places to go as well.

 The photo above is a Mountain Gorilla from Rwanda, and below is a Panda from Chengdu.  Tourism has helped both these species from becoming endangered today.

    Some of the highlights from the lectures this week for me include the pure beauty of the Arctic Fox hunting in the snow.   You can see the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP15zlyra3c

and the discussion of when tourism becomes dangerous for the animals as seen in the reality show 'The Polar Bear Family & Me.'' where Buchanan follows a family of polar bears in a steal cage.  Main concerns were towards the polar bear, that found the steal cafe interesting enough to attack. But what would happen if the polar bear injur's a paw, or tooth and can no longer hunt, or if the polar bear did get to the over excited camera man inside the box.  You can read more on this topic at http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/news-room/pbi-blog/reality-tv-hits-new-low-high-arctic-bbc%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9C-polar-bear-family-me%E2%80%9D

International North - Gender equality in the North

Hey,

So here's my first blog. What is it about? I'm not sure yet. You'll have to keep reading to find out.   I'm taking a course this semester in concerns with Northern Environments.  What is a Northern Environment? My first guess is anything North of your own current location.  I had a few days in New Zealand this past summer, we went up North to the Kingdom of Tonga.... maybe that shouldn't count as a Northern Environment in respects to what I'm studying this semester.  I'm planning to define my Northern Environments very vaguely anyways, maybe my description will change, but at the moment I'm thinking anywhere that has to deal with cold winter weather, and close to the arctic circle  (I'll also include Antarctica when it makes sense).

The first week in the course we look at the International North.  I don't really understand why we named this week the International North.  The first two presentations were about storytelling in Scandinavia (and someone decided to show a Canadian Inuit film, after our one guideline was to avoid Canada this week), and about the snow, our second day of presentations discussed seals and penguins.  Maybe we should have thought about renaming our class topic for the week, and just made it an introduction to the North week, as we talked about some culture, science and biology that occurs in the North(... and the South).

I was fortunate to present my topic in our first class.  Before doing any research, I decided to study the art of storytelling specifically in historical Scandinavia.  I wanted to find stories about braving the cold, surviving long winters, and vikings sailing through snow storms. Instead I found stories about trolls in the wilderness and fairy tales that I grew up with.   When I started to think about the North in Canada one of the first things to hit me was that the use of storytelling among First Nations people was important in their culture.  I had known of very few stories being told in this culture, but decided that it would be fun to look at someone else's culture before looking at my own.  I've had a huge connection with Scandinavia in my life and thought it would be interesting to apply my travels and life to my studies.    I still hope that someone else brings up Native American storytelling in our class....

---Aside ---- How appropriate is it to just put in a random thought as I go along?? I guess its my blog, so I will choose to do as I wish.   My class is going camping next weekend, and we intend to build igloos to sleep in.  I can see this as a good opportunity to do some storytelling.  Maybe I'll attempt to find a book on traditional Inuit stories. -----

What I found most interesting in my own research was the Icelandic Sagas.  Iceland's history was actually most accurately recorded using stories.  The stories are regarded as one of Europe's most important pieces of literature, and I never even know about it before a few days ago. An article from the UK's guardian online also described how women hold strong roles in the stories as well. After looking a little more into the topic of women's issues in Iceland, I found that the country is one of the most gender equal nations. The World Economic Forum named Iceland the best country for gender equality in 2010 for the second year in a row, followed by Norway in second, Finland in third, Sweden in fourth and Denmark lagging a little behind in 7th (BBC News. Oct, 2010). They say that the low gender gaps are related to high economic competitiveness,  I'm curious if their history and development of a country could also help mold these accomplishments.  Another possibility for the gender equality could be the Scandinavians belief in the Jante laws.  The Jante laws were created in a factitious novel written by Aksel Sandemose about the Danish town of Jante, where the people live by their own ten commandments. (Lee, K. Nov. 2011) These ten commandments are:

1. Don’t think you’re anything special.
2. Don’t think you’re as good as us.
3. Don’t think you’re smarter than us.
4. Don’t convince yourself that you’re better than us.
5. Don’t think you know more than us.
6. Don’t think you are more important than us.
7. Don’t think you are good at anything.
8. Don’t laugh at us.
9. Don’t think anyone cares about you.
10. Don’t think you can teach us anything.

Living in Denmark my self I've been able to see how these laws still function in most society.  People in Copenhagen do not show off their money.  They live in modest housing, very often everyone bikes to work, the wages are more equal. As I worked in a restaurant in Copenhagen, I was never talked down to by a guest.  The customer is always right - does not really apply in this area. I believe these Laws of Jante should be taught more often, and can help in developing more equality and acceptance in the world today.

 

(A photo I took on my first trip to Copenhagen, Benjamin Plamondon, December 2009)


BBC News (Oct, 12, 2010). Iceland 'best country for gender equality'. BBC News buisness. Retrieved on Jan 19, 2013 from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11517459

Lee, K. (Nov. 9, 2011). Jante law (or 10 rules for dealing with people). Associates mind. Retrieved on Jan 19, 2013 from http://associatesmind.com/2011/11/09/jante-law-or-10-rules-for-dealing-with-people/