The fabulous fauna of Canada attest to the nation’s vastness and diversity.
BEARLY LEGAL
In the spring and summer in the far northern reaches of Manitoba, the ice starts to melt and the polar bears head into Churchill. The town calls itself the “Polar Bear Capital of the World,” and tourists travel there to view bears as they roam the nearby tundra. When their usual food supply of seal starts running low, some hungry bears search for a meal in town. Some break into homes and cars. “In 2011, they were all over the place like rats,” said one local. Because the townspeople don’t really want bears roaming the streets, wildlife conservation officers try to capture the bears and put them in the “polar bear pokey”. If someone spots a bear causing trouble, they just call 675-BEAR. The furry giants—some weighing 700 pounds—are locked in tiny cells in a warehouse with nothing but water for months. A worker at the holding facility says that they try to make the bears’ stay there as unpleasant as possible so they won’t want to come back. Officials say that the treatment isn’t cruel—polar bears usually fast during the summer months. When the bay freezes up, these bears are released and go back out on the ice.
CHARMING CHIRPERS
Churchill also gets overrun with whales. One of the largest populations of beluga whales in the Arctic summers in the Churchill River estuary. About 3,000 of these relatively small white whales socialize there. Measuring about 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet) and weighing from 300 to 500 kilograms (657 to 1,095 pounds), these big dolphin-esque creatures with globular heads are often called the “canaries of the sea.” They are the most vocal of all whales—chirping, whistling, clicking, and clanging. These whales have a few other distinct traits—they can change the shape of their melon-like foreheads by blowing air around their sinuses, and they can even swim backwards.
Leslie McFarlane of Ontario wrote the first 20 Hardy Boy books as Franklin W. Dixon He received no royalties.
If you’re a true polar bear fanatic, you might want to pay a visit to the Polar Bear Habitat and Heritage Village in Cochrane Ontario, where you can swim with the polar bears. How do you do that without getting attacked? The Village has a human wading pool next to a polar bear pool separated by a thick protective glass divider. You are able to not only swim with him but buy some of his artwork as well. Ganuk enjoys sticking his paws in paint and making original paw prints. They sell for $50 to $130.
FISH OIL
The early British Columbian pioneers did not always use candles to see at night. Sometimes they lit a fish. The eulachon is a smelt found off the Pacific coast. This fish also goes by the names oolichan, hooligan, ooligan, and candlefish. The small fry (15–25 centimeters, or 6–10 inches, long) got the nickname candlefish because it is so fatty that it can be dried, strung on a wick, and burned like a candle. Lewis and Clark encountered the fish in the early 1800s, and they noted in their journal, “By inserting a wick into the mouth of these oil-rich fish, the dried fish could be used as candles.”
SNOW CAMELS
Within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on Ellesmere Island, Canadian paleontologists in 2013 found the bone of an animal that would seem to have strayed quite far from his home—a camel. But according to researchers, the humped quadrupeds roamed the area about 3.5 million years ago. This ancient version of the camel was covered in thick hair, stood about a third taller than today’s modern dromedaries, and weighed about 1,000 kliograms (over a ton). In the Pilocene epoch, the Arctic was a very different place, covered in forests and having a much higher temperature. Vertebrate paleontologist Natalia Rybczynski from the Canadian Museum of Nature has posed that camels look the way they do today because of the time they spent in the Arctic. She theorizes that the wide flat feet, large eyes, and humps for fat may be adaptations derived from living in a polar environment.
BUSY BEAVERS
In 2010, Jean Thie, a member of the Google Earth Community, spotted a massive beaver dam that stretches 850 meters (2,790 feet)—almost a kilometer (more than half a mile). It’s estimated to be twice the size of the Hoover Dam. Average beaver dams in Canada are 10 to 100 meters (33 to 330 feet) long, and only rarely do they reach 500 meters (1,640 feet). Located in Northern Alberta in Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park, it holds the record for being the biggest beaver dam ever. A 652-meter (2,139-foot) structure in Three Forks, Montana, previously held the record for world’s largest beaver dam. Scientists now say that it has existed for more than 25 years and that several generations have worked on the major project. Apparently, researchers have known about the dam since 2007, but Thie was the first to spy the structure from outer space images. The dam is located in a nearly inaccessible part of the park, and park rangers had to fly over the heavily forested marshlands to have a look.
SLITHERING LUNGLESS CREATURES
Fundy National Park is one of the world’s great havens for salamanders. Seven species reside there, including the yellow-spotted, red-backed, and two-lined. The red-backed, two-lined, dusky, and four-toed are all considered “lungless.” These amphibians undergo a process called cutaneous respiration. They take oxygen in through their skin, which acts like gills; their skin then releases carbon dioxide.
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LAST WORDS OF FAMOUS CANADIANS
“C’est fini.”
—Wilfrid Laurier
“Did I behave well? Was I a good boy?”
—Stephen Leacock
“No.”
—Alexander Graham Bell, in sign language, to his deaf wife, who pleaded, “Don’t leave me.”
A ploye is an Acadian pancake.