Northern WI wolf attack

[Glenn MacGrady]

Summary of canoetripping.net's latest fascination:
Marauding moose
Killer coyotes
Wicked wolves
Paranoid primates of the Homo Sapiens species

By far, bears have been the hottest animal topic—even when not described with adroit alliteration—for the entire 13 years of this forum and its predecessor, Solotripping.com.

But let's not forget our perhaps most prevalent and practical puny peril: TICKS!!! . . . in chronological order:

wood ticks

I hate coming home from canoeing and finding wood ticks buried in my skin 2 days later. What happens if you never found them? Do they stay there? I heard you can catch lyme disease from them. Anyway to keep them off?

www.canoetripping.net

Tick, Tick, Tick

This was to potentially be our only longer term trip this season just due to a planned trip home to visit our respective families in Southern Ontario. It would have been an exploratory trip into a new lake which had kept us at bay over the past few years due to low water conditions. I had...

www.canoetripping.net

Tick removal

I've never removed a tick properly, only in a panic. Hastily brushing them off is no way to deal with them if they've started feeding with mouth parts inserted into your skin. Thankfully I haven't encountered that yet, so I browsed through the tick treatment section of a local outdoor store, in...

www.canoetripping.net

Tips To Deal With The Great Tick Invasion

"I discovered a tick embedded in my crotch." — Kevin Callan https://paddlingmag.com/stories/columns/butt-end/ticks-invasion/ So did I, discovering it during this run of Rock Springs in Florida in April 2006: Three months later I came down with a debilitating fever of tick disease while...

www.canoetripping.net

The 2016 Tick-Tick-Tick thread unfortunately illustrates the increasingly disappearing fate of photos that are linked to transitory third party photo sites instead of being uploaded to this site's servers.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Oh, ticks......what - no blackfly thread?

 

[Gamma1214]

...what - no blackfly thread?

shh... that's shortly after ice-out.

 

[scoutergriz]

"I could tell it was our neighbour from up the block by the conspiracy paranoid stickers all over their bumper. And tailgate" there WAS one of those on the way to my daughter's house, then all of a sudden his pickup was gone, the lights were out and the grass was uncut- apparently putting a picture of your favourite politician's name in a noose or hanging from a gallows, is considered by the local popo and court to be a "credible threat of death", even if it is misspelled....

 

[Black_Fly]

Martin Litton, Jacque Cousteau, Edward Abbey, Richard Atonborough and others, all lamented on the inevitable encroachment humanity and our fascination with monetizing resources. Wolves will be a growing “problem” until they are eventually removed to make way for people. While we talk about preservation now, if population growth is not curbed, no amount of earth-friendly intentions will prevail. Ultimately, there’s really only room for one species.

And Canadians shouldn’t think they’re
immune, which is what I hear a lot of on the topic. We are fortunate to live in a shoulder era, when many species still exist outside of zoos or preserves. Even the great herds of the Serengeti have declined precipitously in my lifetime. Every park in Africa is precariously clinging to its role these days. My granddaughter is working on a sanctuary in South Africa right now. It’s all just industrial tourism for the masses, really, although I’d never tell her that. Let the illusion last a while longer for her.

 

[FloridaJohn]

Ultimately, there’s really only room for one species.

I assume you mean cockroaches.

 

[ppine]

In North America, ecosystems are becoming more complete all the time. Wilderness areas are growing not diminishing.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

In North America, ecosystems are becoming more complete all the time. Wilderness areas are growing not diminishing.

I think that is correct for the US lower 48 over the last four decades, but I'm not sure about Canada or Alaska.

 

[memaquay]

I suppose it depends on your definition of wilderness. Is a vast area in the middle of nowhere that has been clear-cut but sees very little human activity afterwards still counted as wilderness? That describes huge tracts of Northern Ontario. It does grow back, but if close to transportation corridors, it can be cut again in as little as 30 years. In my opinion, wilderness in Northern Ontario is shrinking at a steady rate.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

I suppose it depends on your definition of wilderness. Is a vast area in the middle of nowhere that has been clear-cut but sees very little human activity afterwards still counted as wilderness? That describes huge tracts of Northern Ontario. It does grow back, but if close to transportation corridors, it can be cut again in as little as 30 years. In my opinion, wilderness in Northern Ontario is shrinking at a steady rate.

That explains where most our lumber has been coming from the last few decades since most of our mills shut down. Gotta rebuild after all these earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods.

It's not a happy thought.

 

[Black_Fly]

I’m a lifelong wilderness buff. From New Mexico, Arizona, Minnesota, Florida, Wyoming, Wisconsin, there’s a wide variation in what is considered “wilderness.” Furthermore, designated wilderness areas are more crowded, more surrounded by development, more impacted by human activity. With population doubling every 50 years, protecting more wild land is crucial, but those areas can’t be considered wilderness, including that outside my back door in WI, which is logged, hunted, ATV’d (illegally) and is surrounded by roads and cabins. Furthermore, many areas considered wilderness are so developed for industrial tourism that their inclusion in the wilderness category, while once valid, is now laughable. Ed Abbey complained that preservation takes a back seat to making national parks and forests accessible, for human visitors AND their machines. It’s a business, just like building dams was a century ago.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

I think we may be confusing what is thought of unofficially as wilderness with designated wilderness. It is true that designated wilderness - in which no development, logging , nor motorized use is allowed - has been expanding in the US over the last few decades. It is also true that during the same time, unprotected "wild" places have been shrinking. I'm unsure of what the net effect is.

 

[memaquay]

We have an interesting project in the works up here. It's called "The Ring Of Fire", it's not a seismic earthquake area, but an area where extensive mineral development has been identified. One off the biggest in the world apparently. Negotiations are ongoing about building a road north of Nakina all the way past Martin Falls and beyond.
I have sat on the Forestry advisory committees for years, and although old style robber baron capitalism rules the day with those fellas, there is at least a process where one can attempt to save canoe routes.
Not so with the Mining Act. They have Carte Blanche to do whatever they want, and destruction of the environment is a given.
Martin Falls reserve has hired a consultation firm to handle the road building, and they have contacted me twice for input on the effects the road will have on canoe routes. The very nice lady wrote down my suggestions, but there are no requirements that they have to follow them.
I expect this to get much worse inn the near future. If you ever had a bucket list to paddle the Albany River, I suggest you do it soon.

 

[jdeerfoot]

I expect this to get much worse inn the near future. If you ever had a bucket list to paddle the Albany River, I suggest you do it soon.

Sorry to hear this. I really enjoyed my time on the Albany. We paddled it for 3-4 years starting in 2009 with Wabakimi Project. I have always thought it would nice to go back for another trip.

 

[Black_Fly]

Only Federally designated wilderness areas or national parks are exempt from logging, mining, etc. State “wilderness” is often managed forest. Also, look at the development plans for national parks. More and more pavement, accommodations for RVs, paved trails to features. Then, consider the development outside parks, like that in Florida. We can call it “wilderness,” but it resembles the native landscape, flora and fauna, less and less. True wilderness is a thing of the past, and no matter how we redefine the term, it will decline in quality and continue to serve more cars, more people, more commercial interests, and be surrounded by more activity that is incompatible with the term.

Sorry for the buzz kill, but delusions only promote the destruction.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

Only Federally designated wilderness areas or national parks are exempt from logging, mining, etc. State “wilderness” is often managed forest. Also, look at the development plans for national parks. More and more pavement, accommodations for RVs, paved trails to features. Then, consider the development outside parks, like that in Florida. We can call it “wilderness,” but it resembles the native landscape, flora and fauna, less and less. True wilderness is a thing of the past, and no matter how we redefine the term, it will decline in quality and continue to serve more cars, more people, more commercial interests, and be surrounded by more activity that is incompatible with the term.

Sorry for the buzz kill, but delusions only promote the destruction.

Thing of the past? Hardly. Come to Idaho. Prepare to walk. Part of the legal wilderness designation includes "roadless". In fact, in the amount of time I've lived here, many former roads and trails have been reclaimed by designated wilderness - some to the point that they are no longer even evident without knowing where to look real close. Walk two miles from any mechanized access point, and you won't see many people. You can often go days or longer without sight of another human or human artifact.

The central Idaho Frank Church wilderness, for one, has even gotten more difficult to travel by horse. Since no motor of any kind can be used there - including chainsaws - much of the former trail system is overgrown and littered with deadfall. And it's vast country. Yes, there are grandfathered dispersed back country airstrips and remnant access roads. But few people ever venture more than a couple miles from those.

Since I've been an adult, numerous large tracts of land have been added to the Idaho wilderness collection. Gospel Hump, Jerry Peak, White Clouds, Hemingway-Boulders, Owyhee Canyonlands, and some others I can't think of right now. And more areas are being studied for further wilderness designation. And this is just Idaho. I know that there have been areas added also in Utah, Wyoming, and other states in that time frame.

To quote an Idaho Conservation League article....

Wilderness designation is the gold standard for preservation of America’s public lands. These special areas are managed for their wilderness character: natural, untrammeled, undeveloped, solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation. Wilderness areas are open to hunting, fishing, hiking, berry picking, camping, horseback riding, and paddling. These areas are closed to motorized and mechanized vehicles and activities such as mining and timber harvest that would interfere with wilderness characters.

I'm not complaining about any of that.

 

[clemency]

Thing of the past? Hardly.

I think the point is that what we call "wilderness" today does not look like the natural forests or ecosystems of pre-European North America. For example, most of New England was clearcut in the early 19th century. All the trees you see now are decidedly not old growth.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

I think the point is that what we call "wilderness" today does not look like the natural forests or ecosystems of pre-European North America. For example, most of New England was clearcut in the early 19th century. All the trees you see now are decidedly not old growth.

Give it time.

How do we know what was known as wilderness 300 or 400 years ago was not what recovered from past cataclysmic changes - like, perhaps, an ice age?

But yeah, there is precious little on the eastern seaboard that I would call wilderness.

 

[Steve in Idaho]

I like to use the example of Mt. St. Helens. The mountain and surrounding land look nothing like before 1980. Trees, lakes, and pretty much everything were obliterated in just minutes - along with everything man made. Go there now and tell me if you think it's now wilderness - or why not? Doesn't look the same as 1979, and doesn't look the same as 1981.

 

[Alan Gage]

Give it time.

My last big trip north in 2016 covered a lot of the territory mentioned in Sleeping Island during Downes' travels. During that summer he mentioned much of the country was being burned up by forest fires and that there was a lot of desolation. Fast forward 75 years to when I was traveling through and you'd never know it. Most of the trees I sawed and counted rings were around 70 years old.

What was here before was not permanent or created over night. None of us will ever know what that looked like and no one alive will ever see the potential of land that's being set aside now. But we can see what we have now and complain about it.

Alan