Saskatchewan Community Pastures video
Here is a short video that I prepared for the Public Pastures – Public Interest group, a citizen-based organization devoted to maintaining Saskatchewan’s public grasslands as healthy prairie ecosystems and working landscapes. The idea was to raise awareness about the plight of former PFRA community pastures that will no longer be manged through the 70-year old Community Pasture Program, and transferred from federal control to the prairie provinces. The Saskatchewan government is not interested in managing these large tracts of native prairie and plans to sell or lase the...
Read MoreMargaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson visit PFRA Community Pastures
Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson, two of Canada’s most acclaimed writers and lifelong conservationists will be in Saskatchewan from June 24 to 28, 2013 for the Prairie Passages Tour. The two writers are Joint Honorary Presidents of BirdLife International’s Rare Bird Club. During the tour, Atwood and Gibson will visit PFRA community pastures and Grasslands National Park. The purpose of this tour is to raise public awareness of the national and international significance of the PFRA heritage rangelands for plant and animals that live on them – natural prairie and the 32 species at...
Read MoreNature in the City – art exhibit at the Centre & Eight Galleries
The Nature in the City art exhibit of nature photographs and paintings featuring works of five Saskatoon artists will be on display at the Centre at Circle and Eight Galley in Saskatoon until July 7, 2013. Three of my plant images from the Meet Your Neighbours project are on display, together with works by Louise Cook, Robin and Arlene Karpan, May Haga and Nick Saunders. This exhibit was set up to coincide with the week-long festival Wild About Saskatoon, to celebrate nature and culture in the City of Saskatoon. We set up the art exhibit in a heavily visited area, in a shopping mall right...
Read MoreGrasslands National Park after the 2013 wildfire
The Grasslands National Park photo tour went well. The weather was relatively cooperative and we managed to capture a few great images. I will post a few samples later this week. Prairie in the Park is recovering very fast after the massive wildfire that swept through the Park in April of this year. Early May was drier than normal, but heavy rains arrived at the end of the month. Temperatures were below average and rainfall was well above average over the first two weeks of June; many areas of Saskatchewan have received more than 150% of normal amount of rain. This might explain why the...
Read MoreHappy Summer Solstice
Happy summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Summer will officially begin this week, although if residents of Saskatoon looked out of the window, it definitely did not feel like summer. We have had unusually wet and cold June. For the first half of the month temperatures were below average and rainfall is already well above average. Many areas in Saskatchewan have received more than 150% of normal rainfall. The old saying goes “April showers bring May flowers”. Well, wildflowers are a bit late this year. The 2013 summer solstice falls in early morning hours on Friday,...
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