Why I welcome a conservation plan for the Great Sand Hills
A tree sunken into the sand and snow at the Great Sand Hills, SK (Photo by Bill Armstrong)
Fifteen years ago, I signed up for a photography workshop at Saskatchewan’s Great Sand Hills, a place I’d heard about from other photographers but had never visited. I remember the first morning of the workshop, watching the rising sun...
A peak experience at Buffalo Pound
Buffalo Pound Lake, SK (Photo by Bill Armstrong)
Many Canadians, I think, perceive Saskatchewan to be one billiard table-flat, never-ending field of wheat. Not so. To prove my point, I recently made a second visit to a property at Buffalo Pound Lake, where the Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC) is...
A breezy hike at Buffalo Pound
Buffalo Pound property, SK (Photo by Bill Armstrong)
What a delight it was to watch a wary coyote cross the trail in front of me, sizing me up before continuing on its way into a nearby coulee. This encounter may not seem like much, but after three months of staying at home to help stop the spread...
Out in the woods at Nebo
Pond at Nebo (Photo by Bill Armstrong)
Having experienced several Conservation Volunteers (CV) events on Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) properties over several years, spending part of a day at the end of September on the 178-hectare (439-acre) Nebo property in Saskatchewan was a...
Wideview revisited
Fence lined with vinyl clips stretch across the prairie at NCC's Wideview property in Saskatchewan. (Photo by Bill Armstrong)
I experienced an unexpected moment of satisfaction at the beginning of a recent Conservation Volunteers (CV) event at Wideview, a Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) property in Saskatchewan. As the truck I was riding in topped another rise in this...
Connecting with shorebirds at a unique Conservation Volunteers event
Naomi Derksen (Photo by Bill Armstrong)
While attending the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s) shorebird tour Conservation Volunteers (CV) event in June, I met first-time CV Naomi Derksen. Naomi found her way to the event through a roundabout internet route. She was...
Puttin’ the boots to junk at Shoe Lake
Conservation Volunteers at the Shoe Lake West property (Photo by Bill Armstrong)
Sometimes the best way to show your appreciation for critters and their habitat is to clean up what us humans have left lying around. That about sums up the purpose of a late-August Conservation Volunteers (CV) event at a Nature Conservancy of...
Vinyl siding and the greater sage-grouse (really!)
Greater sage-grouse (Photo by Gordon Sherman © Audubon Canyon Ranch)
I expect that most of us are aware of the hazards that office towers and other large buildings in urban areas pose to birds. Buildings are not much of a problem in rural Saskatchewan, but fences are. Those barely visible wires can be hazardous to...
The blitz of the burdock brigade
Conservation Volunteers with bags of invasive common burdock. (Photo by NCC)
Thanks to the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), I can now cross off my bucket list my long-nurtured desire to hack away at invasive burdock plants with a machete. In truth, I’d never entertained the idea before signing up as a Conservation...
One volunteer's view of Wideview
Conservation Volunteer Peter at Wideview (Photo by Bill Armstrong)
During a lunch break at a Conservation Volunteers event at the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s) recently acquired Wideview property, I asked another volunteer, Peter Tucker, what attracted him to the event. Peter told me he had...
