Wildlife encounters in rural Saskatchewan
My co-worker and I comparing our feet to prints left by a bear in rural BC.(Photo by Matthew Braun/NCC staff)
Wildlife encounters during my rural Saskatchewan childhood were rare, and you’d have to include cats and dogs and the numerous coyotes surrounding our farm to really pump my numbers up. And while coyotes arguing with dogs during the quiet...
The making of a bison song
Bison and a sunset at OMB, SK (Photo by Jason Bantle)
Matthew Braun is program director for the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s) Working Landscapes Program in Saskatchewan, and Simon Neufeld is director of research and development for Earth Alive Clean Technologies in Quebec, a...
Re-wilding myself
Conservation Volunteers planting trees at at the Meeting Lake 03 property, SK (Photo by NCC)
Field work, one of the highlights for many Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC) staff, was a little harder to come by this year because of COVID-19, but thanks to hard work by engagement staff and with all the safety protocols in place, we were able...
International Beaver Day
Beaver (Photo by Jason Bantle)
Emily Little is leaving Saskatchewan. In fact, by the time you read this, she will have left already. As part of the tidying up at work that happens when someone winds down their stay and moves on, Emily and I talked about things that should be...
Ode to a coworker
Emily Little (Photo by NCC)
After four years of working for the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC) Saskatchewan Region, my friend and colleague Emily Little has left our rectangular province, and I’m trying to come to terms with our failure to make her fall in...
Bossing the burn: Part two
Morgan Kanak, Emily Little, Michael Burak, Dale Gross and Gabriel Foley admiring the black line we established using the tools of the trade, including flappers and a drip torch. (Photo by NCC)
This is part two of “Bossing the burn.” Click here to read part one. Have you heard the Tragically Hip song, “Lonely End of the Rink”? I’m pretty sure it is a love song that also describes the toughest position in...
Bossing the burn: Part one
Prescribed burn at OMB (Photo by NCC)
Those of you who have met me know that I’m a pretty big, intimidating guy. Braggadocios, people have said. Bold, even. I mean, you know if you’ve seen me that I’ve got what you’d call a bit of swagger when I walk across the...
Close encounters of a furry kind
Plains bison (Photo by NCC)
Confession time: I am not a cowboy. There, I said it! My Carhartts have a lot more house paint on them than cow manure. My farming background is in grains (I am a proud agro and I used to be able to unload on the fly, sort of like these guys), and...
If you’re Batman then I must be Robin, right?
Joe Poissant's (a.k.a. Batman's) office in the country (Photo by NCC)
I feel like there might be some real merit in an ecologist superhero movie. Hear me out before you rate me on Rotten Tomatoes. This summer I spent a couple of nights trying my best to help the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s)...
Travels with Cary
Cary Hamel (Photo by NCC)
I really don’t remember many of the specifics from reading John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. I’m pretty sure Charley was John’s large, curly-haired poodle, which I guess is somewhat similar to my Manitoba counterpart,...
