2013 Retrospective

As the new year approaches, it is around this time that many people reflect on the year just passed and look forward to a fresh start, I am no exception.

There is a lot of sentiment going around at the moment that 2013 would be a year best forgot. For the wildlife shelter and sister trail riding business I am currently working at especially. The combined efforts of a fatal liver disease in black bears and multiple, expensive and damaging horse injuries, means that this year has been pretty rough for the people here. For the rest of the world it has not fared much better. The devastating effects of Typhoon Haiyan, the ice storm that has ravaged eastern Canada, ruining Christmas for thousands, and a frankly indescribable attack on a soldier in my home town of London are just a few of the atrocities that have left the world shaken and full of negativity.

However so much has happened this year to be happy or to be proud about, that has gone unreported on international news, and thus unnoticed by millions of people who don't actively search out this information. For example a 3 year old girl born with HIV has been functionally cured of the virus, speed limits have been put in place for boats travelling along migratory routes of whales in order to protect them, dozens of new species have been discovered all over the globe and the world has a pope that doesn't support the judgement of homosexuality, questions the church for it's outrageous spending and even sneaks out at night to feed the homeless. Despite being an atheist, and generally opposed to the church, I think this is at least a step in the right direction, therefore a positive on my list.

Finally a little closer to home for me, you may remember that a few weeks ago I made a post about a fundraiser at the shelter that had the potential to raise CAN$20,000 thanks to an anonymous donator. Well thanks to the generosity and support of people all across the world we hit our goal, and the Christmas tree in Smithers, B.C is glowing with the light of 800 bulbs that were bought to raise the money. The Christmas period not only gave us a beautiful tree here at the shelter but the arrival of a new little bear, aptly named Tinsel. It was found living harmoniously with a bunch of chickens in a coop, around 30-50lbs underweight and sent to us on Christmas eve. It is so small that the chickens it was sharing food with were bigger than the bear itself.

In some ways 2013 was a difficult year but no-one said life was easy and that bad things wouldn't happen. The key is to embrace it and know that there is always good news out there, even if you have to do a little searching.

Traditions

Christmas traditions don't seem to be a big thing in my family. At least not compared to others. Every Boxing day we gather at my aunts house to exchange presents, eat good food, play cards and generally catch up with family members we don't necessarily see all the time, but this is about as far as yearly Christmas traditions go for me.

Here it is a completely different story altogether. Christmas for my host family is a BIG thing. The family I'm staying with are originally from Germany so for us Christmas actually started way back on December 6th. I went up to the main house to have breakfast only to open the door and find my boot filled with chocolate and presents. Having no idea what this was about I stared for a few minutes with a mixture of joy and confusion on my face that I can only assume looked quite silly from the laughter I heard in front of me. It was later explained that on December 6th each year Saint Nicholas visits houses and leaves presents in your boot if you've been good and coal if you've been bad. Needless to say I was very grateful to receive presents!

While at home Christmas Day and Boxing Day are the main days of celebration, here Christmas Eve is actually the main day. I've been told that the living room is shut off all day while Peter decorates the tree. No one is allowed to peek so the room is off limits to everyone. In the evening we will all get dressed up to have a big dinner and afterwards the tree is unveiled. This is very different to back at home where for me the tree would have been up since early December and Christmas Eve would have usually been spent frantically looking for or making last minute gifts.

I am very excited to spend Christmas here, by the sounds of it, it will be something completely different to what i'm used to at home. I will however be calling home on December 26th keeping up with the one tradition I do have of speaking to and spending time with my family on Boxing Day.

Dawson's Lights

Fundraising is extremely important here at the shelter. The whole organisation is run off the donations of generous people and companies, and without them it is likely that NLWS wouldn't exist and the animals that we care for wouldn't have a place to go when they needed help.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, this has been a very slow year for the shelter. We didn't get our first bear until September and the lack of  animals sadly means that donations have been at an all time low. Despite having fewer animals than in previous years, costs are still high as general maintenance of the site and enclosures as well as the feeding and caring of the animals we do have and the permanent residents is not cheap.

Every year, in December, NLWS holds a special fundraiser called Dawson's Lights. We have a large Christmas tree in town and we sell coloured light bulbs for CAN$25 each. The idea is to light up the Christmas tree by December 24th, Christmas Eve, through the sales of bulbs. However this year something truly incredible has happened. An anonymous donor has pledged that if we can raise CAN$10,000 through selling light bulbs, they will match it meaning we have the potential to raise CAN$20,000 in one month. There are no words to describe just how much this money would mean to everyone at the shelter. So much can be done with this amount, and we are all incredibly thankful to this donor and to everyone who buys bulbs.

If anyone reading this would like to buy a light bulb you can donate here https://www.canadahelps.org/dn/10649. If you can't buy a bulb, which I completely understand as most people reading this are students after all, you could always share it and tell others. Every bulb counts.

Thank you!

Meet (some of) the animals

As I have limited internet access at the shelter, and limited time in town to devote hours to uploading photos, I haven't yet been able to deliver on my promise, made four months ago, of having lots of pictures of cute animal on this blog. This, however, is all about to change. I had some spare time today and the other volunteer was nice enough to drive me into town and I had a little bit of time to upload some pictures of the animals I am currently looking after. This is only a selection of those animals, hopefully in the future I will be able to share with you the rest of them.

First off Belle and Baby, the seven month old moose that I have been helping to raise since my first day here. They are now much bigger than in this photo. So much so that I struggle to give them their milk bottles now as I'm not the tallest of people.

Belle and Baby when they were still small enough to feed without standing on tippy toes

Belle being silly

Baby striking a pose

 Next up is one of my favourite animals at the shelter so far, Igor the European lynx. I have talked about him in a previous post. He was rescued by the SPCA (Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals) from a woman who was a collector of big cats. He arrived five years ago, extremely skinny and with sores on his paws. But he has since been tamed (as he is not releasable, being a non-native species) and is as playful as a young kitten.

Waiting for his daily scratch behind the ears

Patrolling his territory

 When I first arrived here there were two, unnamed, foxes. This one and an adorable black fox, who I couldn't get a picture of unfortunately. They were extremely shy and wary of people, which was ideal really as we didn't want them approaching anyone once they were released. They were both released a few months ago and I got the pleasure of opening the cage door to let this one go as the volunteers had been taking sole care of them.

Just a little camera shy

 As well as rehabilitating wild animals, there are a number of domestic pets that live here which I also look after and care for. This is Jasper, or Shapper as he is affectionately known, a Burmese mountain dog. He is extremely silly, loves cuddles and likes to think he is a lap dog, despite being the size of a small horse (Maybe a slight exaggeration, but you get the picture).

Am I beautiful?

Looking like the saddest dog in the world in the first snowfall

 There is also another dog, Tina, that we are currently looking after. She belongs to the father of the owner of the shelter, and while he is away, she has been moved to the shelter so we can take her for walks and feed her without having to drive over to her house.

In the kitchen lives Felix. A previously feral cat that the shelter took in after finding him at the vets surgery, Whilst he normally looks sullen and moody, he is actually quite playful and loves toys. His claws are pretty sharp though, as I have found out on many occasions.

The shelter also has a sister company in the form of a trail riding and summer camp business. They have approximately forty horses used for trail rides and horse summer camps for kids and teenagers. As well as volunteering for the shelter I also help with the trail riding side. During the summer I would help walk horses in, groom and get them prepared for the rides. I also feed the horses that need extra food every day. Here are just a few of the horses that I have come to know, however with forty on site, learning their names is proving to be quite a challenge.

This is Tonka who is, in my opinion, one of the prettiest horses here. I also got to ride him on my second trail ride.

Do I blend in?

Tonka and Ghost

 This horse is Ibis, a yearling, who along with Raven, another yearling, get fed every day. They are very sweet and gentle, however not the cleverest of horses. Raven especially likes to try and fit her foot in the food bucket, only for it to get stuck, meaning she has to try and eat her food around her foot as she is impatient and doesn't wait for use to help.

Pixi and Orion (another one of my favourites)

Pixi 

Now onto the bears. This past week we had another new bear arrive at the shelter from the island of Haida Gwaii. The island bears are known for being slightly larger than the mainland bears, so I am expecting her to grow up to be very big, as right now she is pretty tiny. She was found roaming around the airport with no mama bear in sight, so was caught and eventually sent to us. While she was waiting for the ferry over she managed to escape four times, earning her the name Zippy. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of her to upload, or of Trouble, Berwyn or Karhu. However I do have some rather cute pictures, all taken from the NLWS facebook page, of the other five

This is Benny, the first black bear of the season who arrived back in September. We gave the bears a bunch of cardboard as enrichment and they went crazy for it!

Polaris, a brown black bear, was rescued after getting stuck up a twenty five foot hydro pole for 2 days. She was a famous bear for a while, appearing in local news as people desperately tried to help, fearful that she might electrocute herself on the wires on the pole. Thankfully the power company shut of all the electricity and the conservation officer was able to get her down.

The next three are Pumpkin, Rascal and Shawn, triplets from Kamloops. Shawn was named before we had time to assess their genders, it turned out she was a girl, but we decided to keep the name as we thought it was kind of funny. As can be seen from the photos they each have quite a personality and love to have fun, however they, along with Benny, are hibernating right now so won't require our care again until they wake up next year.