Showing posts with label Moose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moose. Show all posts

Sunday, June 30, 2013

“Yukon Ho!” Roadtrip, Total Animal Sightings

..Banff Main Street
Back to the "Yukon Ho!" Adventure...
 
Here's the thing: Before we actually made it home, we also went into Banff, had lunch, went to the Candy Store, ate fudge...etc.. and I planned to write about Banff and Canmore now... but I don't feel like it. Right now, when I think of Banff and Canmore, I can only think "flood" and "mudslide" and so I'm going to save that segment for another time. We go there all the time, anyway, so it's not like this is my only time to talk about that VERY BEAUTIFUL area.
 
And, so ends the great Yukon Adventure.
 
As I’ve mentioned throughout this particular trip off and on – we saw TONS of animals! TONS!!
 
I didn’t show any pictures because I decided to wait till the conclusion. There’s not a lot to say about them, but here there are, “without further ado” :
 
Black Bear, the Ursus Americanus, native to North America (we saw 10).
Black Bear 2 Black Bear 1 SONY DSC SONY DSC
MooseMoose, the Alces alces (apparently, the Alces alces in Europe is an Elk, but in North America, a Moose)…we saw 4, including the baby moose.
Moose family
Elk, the Cervus canadensis… THIS is an Elk. (We only saw 1. This one doesn’t have antlers, but if you want to see a picture with antlers, either Google, or check out my Jasper blog…it’s a dark picture but may be the biggest elk I’ve ever seen…)
Elk 1 Elk 2
Found another elk picture from another Jasper trip:
Elk
Deer, the Mule (Odocoileus hemionus) and the White tail (Odocoileus virginianus). We saw 8, but I can’t remember how many of each…
Deer 1 Deer 2
CoyoteCoyote (pronounced “Kai-o-tee”), the Canis latrans, is also called an American Jackal (I didn’t know this!). We saw 3.

SONY DSCCaribou, the Rangifer tarandus… is also called a Reindeer… I didn’t know this either… We saw 7.
Caribou
Buffalo, the Bison bison…we saw 14 adults and 1 baby.
Buffalo 1 Buffalo 2 SONY DSC Buffalo and baby SONY DSC
Mountain Goat, the Oreamnos americanus. We saw 4.
Goats 1 SONY DSC SONY DSC SONY DSC
 
Dall Sheep, the Ovis dalli (or maybe they are Bighorn Sheep, the Ovis canadensis?).. Technically, the Dall Sheep are northern, and the Bighorn Sheep are southern, but “southern” includes parts of middle British Columbia… Anyway, we saw 4.


Sheep 1 Sheep 2 Sheep 3 SONY DSC
Golden Eagle, the Aquila chrysaetos. We saw a bunch of birds – ravens, hawks and tons of the little ones, too, but I’m just including the Eagle. We only saw one. In fact, in my whole life, I’ve never seen a Golden Eagle. This is my first one. And, actually … until a few minutes ago, I thought I had taken a picture of a Bald Eagle, the Haliaeetus leucocephalus. Huh.

Sheep 1 Sheep 2 Sheep 3 SONY DSC
Golden Eagle, the Aquila chrysaetos. We saw a bunch of birds – ravens, hawks and tons of the little ones, too, but I’m just including the Eagle. We only saw one. In fact, in my whole life, I’ve never seen a Golden Eagle. This is my first one. And, actually … until a few minutes ago, I thought I had taken a picture of a Bald Eagle, the Haliaeetus leucocephalus. Huh.
Eagle
We also saw 2 Grizzly Bears, the Ursus arctos horribilis.. It seems a bit harsh, don’t you think, to call them “horribilis”?… My pictures of them are terrible (horrible :D ), since I didn’t want to roll down the window to take the pictures, and I just got blur and smudge. But, if you haven’t seen an actual Grizzly or a picture of one before, I have a blog about them ~ Montana Grizzly Encounters.

The horizon, and beyondWell! That’s it! so concludes this particular road trip. We were safely home in Calgary, and Richard & Shannan and crew continued on to Michigan.
 
You may recall that before I started writing about the Yukon to Calgary Roadtrip, I was writing about a tour around the Big Island of Hawaii, but had a complication with my Hawaii photos. Complication resolved. Back to Hawaii next time.
 

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Moose Jaw SK...home of Mac the World's Largest Moose

 
You don’t really get a name like "Big Ball of String Girl" if you aren’t interested in roadside attractions. Also, HAVING the label actually makes me feel entitled to stop and see every little thing. Like, it’s my responsibility to stop and see if it’s worth a picture.

Which is why between Outlook and Fargo ND we saw the World’s Tallest Wheat, the World’s Largest Moose and the World’s Largest Buffalo.

In fact, we had to reroute just to go to Moose Jaw to see the World’s Largest Moose - "Mac". Mac is 32 feet tall, and is still (at the moment) the Tallest/Largest. (There seems to be something in the works in Sweden, but nothing completed as far as I could confirm...)
(Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/Tjlnd).
 
I assumed that that was about all Moose Jaw had to offer.
 
HOWEVER, it turns out that it has a fascinating history which we didn’t get to explore, so NEXT time (might as well accept the fact that we will be coming back to Saskatchewan) we come visit our friends in Outlook, we plan to take a field trip to Moose Jaw.

The kids in Outlook were very excited to tell us that: There are underground tunnels in Moose Jaw which you can tour. I don’t know much about it yet - but if you Google it, one the tours is called, "Passage to Fortune" which is about the Chinese immigration, when the Chinese people were forced to live, work and sleep in the tunnels, 100 or so years ago..and how they made that lifestyle work for them, and prospered.

The other tour is "The Chicago Connection" which is all about smuggling during the Prohibition, bootlegging and gangsters - and specifically their lives in the "underground"...literally...At a time when Al Capone was running the show in Chicago, it seems that he was frequenting Moose Jaw SK... It seems that the train ran directly from Moose Jaw, to Minneapolis, to Chicago. I don’t know anything - that’s just what I’ve heard...
 The quote on Moose Jaw’s tourist website says
"A wise man once said, "Everything a man could possibly want, he will find it in Moose Jaw" (Anonymous)"
.... I’m not completely convinced of that, BUT it is far more interesting than I originally imagined, and I am curious enough to come back...
 
Cliffhanger: I think I’ll wait till Wednesday to talk about the Biggest Stalks of Wheat and the World’s Largest Buffalo...

(In other news - I can't figure out how to put a "follow" button on here, so if anyone could tell me that, that'd be great! Also, I can't figure out how to allow people who aren't members of "blogspot" to comment, either... I'm certain it's an easy fix, but I don't know what it is... In the meantime, I'm also blogging on http://biggestballofstring.wordpress.com, which has a "follow" button right there and anyone can comment...)