Spot the bunny

White on white

Picking out a creature that is all white from a landscape that is also all white can be challenging.
It's the snowshoe hare's eyes that give him away to a night vision trail camera.
I'll be darned if I can see one when I'm walking in the bush. There are bunny tracks everywhere but seemingly nothing making them.

When your smart phone can't save you

There are no cell towers out here

When your smart phone can't save you. That would have been a better title for the book reviewed a few posts back.
The truth is when you are really in the "wilderness" or "the bush" as we call it here in Northern Ontario you better have some skills other than how to wiggle your thumbs.
Case in point, you have fallen through the ice. What are you going to do, search YouTube for a way to get out? Or maybe you have been attacked by a bear and are being dragged away. Do you pull out your hip, sleek, digital device and calmly type: What to do if my head is in a bear's mouth?
Even if you did call out to The Cloud, it would fall on deaf ears because there is no Internet service out here, you see. That's why it's called the wilderness. There are no people or any of their inventions like cell towers.  In the Wild, the real Wild, you have to think and fend for yourself.
I've spent most of my life living in or writing about the Boreal Forest and while I don't know everything there are a few tips not often heard that I would like to pass on.

Black bears

The usual advice -- make noise, don't give them anything to eat -- is all that just about anyone needs to avoid bear trouble. But despite taking such precautions it should be noted that there are a few bear attacks every year in Canada, some of them fatal. (Keep in mind there are millions of people entering the bush every year and almost none experiences threatening situations. The odds of meeting a mean bear are incredibly low.) In nearly every case the culprit is a large male bear exhibiting predatory behaviour. My advice is if you ever see a large black bear, leave the area immediately. For instance, if you are canoeing and plan to make camp at a certain location but see a large male black bear anywhere near that spot, keep going. Get at least five miles away before stopping. How do you know if it is a male bear? Because it is large. Females usually are quite small.
Another thing to know is that these bears almost always attack lone people. So travel with a buddy.
If you ever need to do battle with a bear, know this: other than a gun your best weapon is a stout club. Something like a 1 1/2-inch- thick, three-foot-long birch sapling. It won't break when you swing it with two hands and all your might right across the top of a bear's head. Right between the ears is the best target. That's where the brain is located. A bear's skull is not very thick, nothing like a moose, for instance. You can crush it with a club and in so doing kill the bear. You just need one properly-placed hard blow but if you miss slightly and the bear is only stunned, hit it with all your might again, this time in the right spot, then get away.
Chances are the reason you might ever need to club a bear is because it has already grabbed someone who was alone when the bear attacked. Biologists, prospectors and forestry workers are the ones most at risk. They usually work loosely in pairs, sometimes hundreds of yards apart. Many times the threatening bear flees when the second person comes running after hearing cries of help. If it ever comes to stabbing a bear you need a knife with at least a six-inch-long blade to reach vital organs. A better idea is to club it. Bear spray must be sprayed right into the eyes of the bear and even then sometimes doesn't stop an attack.
Never climb a tree to get away from a bear. That's what bears do when they are afraid. A bear that was going to leave you alone might attack if it sees you climb a tree.
Likewise, walk but don't run away. If the bear follows you, even at a distance, make a club and be prepared to make a stand if the bear gets too close.

Traveling on ice

No matter how cold it has been, places with current such as narrows, rivers and creeks should be avoided. The entrances to long, narrow bays also are hazardous. So is the area in front of a beaver house.
Falling through the ice is only one hazard. There can also be areas with slush that can bog down snow machines and get your feet wet. Wet feet become frozen feet.
If you aren't sure about the ice conditions, don't travel.
We must also keep climate change in mind when considering ice travel. Lots of people just have a date in mind to make that first ice-fishing trip. For instance, they might have always gone ice fishing on the first of December because the ice is always solid by that time. Well, no longer. Even if the lake has been frozen for a month, the temperatures might have been insufficiently cold to make thick ice.
Check it first.

Store fuels outside

Never bring fuel cans inside a building where there is fire, machinery or electric motors that can make sparks. Keep the watertight caps secured on the fuel cans and leave them outside in the fresh air.

Just don't take risks

Just like there are no old, bold bush pilots, there are also no old reckless trappers, prospectors, biologists, etc. If you encounter a risky situation where you think you will probably be OK, don't do it. You must KNOW you are going to succeed.
Have you ever heard this saying? Never step on a log that you can step over and never step over a log that you can walk around.

Take out your boot liners

Every time you take off boots with felt liners, take out the liners and place them and the boots where they can dry. The liners will always be damp with perspiration and if worn in frigid conditions the next day can lead to frozen feet.

Carry a butane lighter

All you need to do to survive is make a fire. It will keep you warm and bring help. A butane lighter can light thousands of times. Keep the lighter warm in an inside pocket in frigid conditions or it won't have the pressure to light.
You also need to know how to make a fire in inclement conditions but that will be the subject of a future post.

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On a clear day we can almost see forever

From the corner of our house we can see Mount Baldy, one of two ski hills near Thunder Bay

Northwestern Ontario still has some of the cleanest, clearest air in the world. From our home on a foothill of Silver Mountain, just south of Nolalu village, we can see Mount Baldy, a ski hill 64 kilometres (40 miles) away.
We could easily see the smoke and lights of Thunder Bay (50 kms) except that a range of hills, part of the Norwester Mountains, blocks our view.
The elevation of Thunder Bay, at the top of the Great Lakes, is 199 meters above sea level. Nolalu is obviously higher yet but I don't know it's exact elevation. My guess is about another 100 meters.
Distance in the image above is distorted by the use of a telephoto lens.

Warm and gloomy or cold and sunny

Continuous cloudy, snowy weather can be a drag

You would never know it from the photo above but the days now are considerably longer than just a month ago. I notice the extra daylight especially in the evening. Cork and I can take our walk in the late afternoon, getting back home at 5:30 and still have lots of light.
When it comes to winter weather our choice here in Northwestern Ontario is for it to be relatively warm but cloudy or cold and sunny. I prefer the latter. Although I don't get seasonal affective disorder SAD like many others I still feel better when it's sunny.
Dogs love to lay in a sunny spot on the floor during the winter. I decided a few years ago to try it myself. It's wonderful! Find where the sun is beaming mid-afternoon and lay down on a blanket in that spot. The feeling is incredible.

Good book but needs a different title

Just about every outdoorsperson will find this book a good read. In fact I can envision people reading passages of it aloud while at the cabin and a lively debate ensuing night after night.
The book is chock full of facts about dangers that we all face when outdoors.
Here's a snippet: what is the most dangerous creature in the world? Bears? Wolves? Rattlesnakes?
You're not even close. It is the mosquito which kills about a million people annually, mostly in sub Saharan Africa, from malaria.
"Oh, that's cheating!" you might say. "I thought you meant in the United States and Canada."
OK, let's make it the U.S. and Canada then. Again, bears, wolves, rattlesnakes? How about scorpions or spiders?
Nope, it is the good old whitetail deer which kills 130 people and injures another 30,000 each year in the United States alone from auto accidents. Would you believe there are 1.5 million deer-auto accidents each year, resulting in $1 billion in insurance claims?
Incidentally, scorpions have only killed four people in the U.S. since 2005 but kill 1,000 annually in Mexico! Wow!
Animals and other creatures aren't the only hazard out there, of course. The weather also poses risks, both summer and winter.
Readers of this blog and anyone who also followed my previous Bow Narrows Camp blog should pay attention to author Timothy Sprinkle's facts about drowning and lightning.
Ten people drown each day in the U.S., however only 300 a year drown in boating accidents. I have long preached about making wearing a PFD (personal floatation device) a habit any time you are in a small vessel like a fishing boat or canoe.
Guess who are the most likely sportsmen to be hit by lightning. Golfers, right? Wrong; four times more fishermen are hit each year. I once gave my own advice to fishermen on this subject in What to Do When there is Thunder and Lightning in the old blog and the book backs this up.
Sprinkle also gives you the facts on frostbite, altitude sickness, carbon monoxide poisoning and dehydration/heat stroke as well as starvation, dysentery and hypothermia. Then there are risks posed by terrain like rockslides and avalanches.
I won't give the whole book away here but just recommend you get a copy.
One criticism I have is about the book's title Lost and Stranded. There are only a couple of mentions about people who are lost or stranded.
And while there is advice from experts about the various pitfalls out there, the subtitle Expert Advice on How to Survive Being Alone in the Wilderness isn't exactly accurate either since such advice pertains to everybody whether they are alone or in a group.
Lost and Stranded is published by Skyhorse Publishing Inc.

Plenty of activity on this trail camera

One of many deer photographed Jan. 11

Pack of wolves shows up two days later

Wolves come back after a couple of days

I clear trail with snowblower

Deer crosses newly-cleared road

On my way today to pick up camera card

There have been very few wolves showing up on my trail cameras most of this winter until today. The first wolf, photographed Jan. 13, was part of a pack of four to five. I had a hunch that wolves were about because there were lots of deer tracks in the field in front of the house as if they had been "pushed' out into the open.
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Star-nosed mole is a winter surprise

 Chubby guy was about eight inches in length

Put this under the "Things You Never Expect To Find" category. I discovered this large star-nosed mole on the shoulder of our road here in Nolalu today. He had not been run-over but rather seems to have died of hypothermia.
The temperature today is near 0 C (32 F) but just a few days ago it was -40 with the windchill. Not the kind of weather that makes moles scurry about.
Moles are fairly uncommon in the Boreal Forest. This is only the second one I have ever seen.
He certainly didn't die of starvation as he was one plump individual. He was eight inches, nose to tail.
Moles are insectivores and while they spend most of their time below ground star-nosed moles are known to also come to the surface in search of insects. In the winter they are said to stay below the frost line which I would suspect after the recent spate of cold temperatures and lack of snow depth is probably three feet down right now.
It looked to me like the mole simply got lost as he tried to cross the road. His tracks went back and forth from one side of the snow-packed gravel road to the other. He must have been dead for only a few hours when Cork and I came along since he wasn't frozen and no fox or raven had found him yet.

Cold snap has broken

Cork and I walking one of our trails that I have cleared by snowblower to cut firewood later

We are experiencing beautiful winter temperatures here now after two weeks of bitter cold.
We also picked up about five inches of fluffy snow. We could use another six inches to insulate the ground better. There was only about five inches on the ground during the cold spell and that probably means the frost has gone deep. A foot of snow is fair insulation but 16 inches would be better.

Check out temperature on this trail photo

It finally warmed up and snowed a bit so Cork and I beat it to the back 40 to pick up our trail camera cards. We hadn't checked them in two weeks. The most interesting thing was that the trail cameras worked at all during the bitter cold. In the case of the Bushnell Trophy Cam shot above, I believe the manufacturer says it will work as low as -20 C. Obviously, it worked in far colder conditions. I use lithium batteries in all my cameras.

Sometimes it is best to hunker down

It has been in the -30s C at night and -20s C in the day here at our house in Nolalu

It was embarrassing that most Canadian cities cancelled their New Year's celebrations because it was too cold. This is Canada. It gets cold, every winter. No big surprise.
Canadians used to be a much tougher breed. We were famous for it.
"Sure, it's a bit nippy but it's a dry cold, eh?"
I blame cell phones. I think the reason the New Year's shindigs were axed was because people's smart phones might freeze. No selfies. No texts. It would have been like the Stone Age. We must protect our digital devices at all costs.
Anyway, the deep cold has persisted throughout much of the nation and even the continent. And although I don't even own a smart phone I have also been staying inside, beavering away on the sunroom.
I am itching to go for some walks and I certainly have the clothes for the weather, even if the windchill is -43 C. It's just that I would need to leave my dog behind and I'm afraid that would break his heart. Although I can dress for the cold Cork just has the one fur suit and it seems only good enough for about five minutes before he is lifting one paw after the other off the snow. So our usual 45-minute walks will just have to wait a spell.
 I have the luxury of waiting because I'm retired but working people are out there every day in some of the coldest, windiest places like construction sites and on the highways. We don't cancel work because it is cold out.
Still, it is just common sense to do jobs inside if there any. A week from now the daytime highs are expected to be in the minus single digits which is quite pleasant.

Can animals spot trail cameras?

These deer knew exactly where the trail camera was located

Same camera doesn't pass the sniff test by this buck

In a word, yes.