Month: May 2012

Alex’s yellow lizard

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After a busy day planting flower beds and cleaning out our holiday trailer, I suggested that Richard and I spend the evening geocaching. One of the aspects of geocaching that I like best is the trackables; geocaching game pieces that are moved from cache to cache by geocachers like ourselves. These can be travel bugs, tags that are usually attached to other items known as hitchhikers, or geocoins, special coins or medallions created by individuals or groups. Both function in exactly the same way. Each trackable has a unique code that is used to log its movements on geocaching.com as it travels the world and most trackables have a goal or destination set by their owners. Some of them have travelled hundreds of thousands of miles! We have already found several trackables and moved them along.

On our way home from Winnipeg the week before last, we picked up a travel bug from a roadside cache in Manitoba. Alex’s Yellow Lizard began its journey in Minnesota last June. Its destination is Ireland and the owner asked that pictures be taken and posted along the way so that his seven-year-old son could watch his little yellow lizard as it travels around the world.

We wanted to find a special and interesting spot to leave Alex’s lizard. My first thought was the  world’s biggest pysanka or Easter egg at Vegreville, Alberta. Surely that would appeal to a seven-year-old boy. Alas, when we visited family in Vegreville last weekend we only had time for a quick search and didn’t find the cache located near the big egg. We’ll have to try again another time.

I’m very happy with the spot we finally chose, however; a cache hidden at a native ceremonial site on a high point of land about 24 km north of here. It’s one of nine places in Alberta where ribstone rocks have been found and the only one where the rocks remain in their original location. These rocks, carved by the Indians over 1000 years ago, are thought to depict the ribs of buffalo, the animal that provided for so many of their needs. Local natives still leave offerings of tobacco (cigarettes) and coins there. They have also hung many colourful prayer scarves in the trees at the site. Though I’d been there with a class of students quite a few years ago, Richard had never even heard of the place before. Isn’t it amazing how we can travel the world in search of interesting sights and yet sometimes miss fascinating ones on our own doorstep?

Ribstones

Prayer scarves

The site was a peaceful spot with a gorgeous view of the surrounding farmland, a perfect place to enjoy a few quiet moments on a sunny spring evening.

While we stood admiring the scene, this saucy little fellow popped out of his hole almost at our feet and proceeded to chirp at us!

Like Alex’s little lizard, we’ll soon be on the move again, hence the time spent cleaning the trailer today! I’m sure we’ll find plenty of geocaches along the way and hopefully there will be trackables in some of them.

Happy Rocks and Tomahawks

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We left Winnipeg yesterday morning and after spending two days on the road, we arrived home a few hours ago. Once again, we stopped to search for geocaches and again, I was surprised at all the interesting and unusual things we saw along the way.

When we passed through the town of Gladstone, Manitoba on our way east I spotted the Happy Rock and immediately thought that there must be a geocache hidden nearby. Sure enough, I checked online and discovered that I was right so we stopped to find it yesterday morning.

Glad stone… happy rock! What a cute idea. Imagine how surprised I was to walk around to the back side of the giant rock and discover two doors. In addition to being a tourist attraction, it houses public bathrooms!

We love the pretty little town of Neepawa and have fond memories of time spent there in the past but we didn’t know that it calls itself the Purple Martin Capital of Western Manitoba until we spotted this unusual tower of birdhouses. There’s a cache hidden in one of the trees nearby.

There are antique threshing machines like this one scattered across the prairie and many of them have geocaches hidden in, on or under them. We searched for quite awhile before we found the one that was tucked inside this one.

The Happy Rock is cute but this giant bull, standing outside the tourist information booth at Russell, Manitoba, didn’t do much for me. There was a cache hidden in one of the trees nearby though.

We’ve driven past the quaint little Ukrainian Greek Orthodox church at Insinger, Saskatchewan several times over the years. This time we stopped to take a closer look even though there are no caches hidden there. I really think there should be!

Though we’ve found 86 caches in all since we started hunting for them less than a month ago, we’ve also struck out a few times. This afternoon, we searched the trees around this much larger than life RCMP statue at North Battleford, Saskatchewan to no avail. If the cache was there, we certainly didn’t find it.

Apparently, there’s a brand new cache hidden near the world’s biggest tomahawk at Cut Knife, Saskatchewan but we couldn’t find that one either. If we had, we would have been the first to find it.

I thought the giant tomahawk was a bit strange until I learned a little of its history. Cut Knife was the site of several Indian uprisings in the 1880s. The Battle of Cut Knife Hill, between the Cree tribe led by Chief Poundmaker and the Northwest Mounted Police ended with the Mounties retreating. Poundmaker, who stopped his warriors from pursuing and ambushing the Mounties, later surrendered to the authorities to help restore peace between the Indians and the settlers. The giant tomahawk, with its 17 metre (57 feet) long handle, commemorates this.

Did you notice the Canada Goose on top of the head of the tomahawk? I didn’t either until it started honking at us! No, it’s not part of the statue. According to the neighbour who came out to chat with us when he noticed us carefully checking under and around the trees between his house and Tomahawk Park, there are seven goslings in the area and this was undoubtedly one of the parents warning us to keep our distance.

Winnipeg walk

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While Chrissy attended her first tae kwon do class this morning, I spent a couple of hours exploring downtown Winnipeg with my camera in hand. Located at the confluence of the Red and Assinboine Rivers, Winnipeg is the capital city of Manitoba and Canada’s seventh largest municipality.

The farther east one travels in Canada, the more history there is to be found. French traders built a fort here in 1738. The City of Winnipeg was incorporated 35 years later, long before anyone settled the area of Alberta that we call home.

My favourite part of this morning’s walk took me through the Exchange District National Historic Site, one of North America’s most colourful and cosmopolitan neighbourhoods. Home to the city’s arts district as well as fine cultural, dining and retail establishments, it showcases North America’s most extensive collection of turn-of-the-twentieth-century architecture.

Portage and Main, at the heart of downtown Winnipeg, is perhaps the most famous street corner in Canada. The hub of some of the city’s main transportation routes, it was once the centre of western Canada’s banking industry. The stately Bank of Monteal building, constructed in 1877, stands guard over the intersection.

I love the mixture of old architecture and new that I found as I walked Portage Avenue.


Reflections

There are so many photos that I’d love to share with you but here are just a few more.

            
Winnipeg may not be one of Canada’s prime tourist destinations, in fact it was the butt of a well-known and rather humourous 2005 Fountain Tire television ad, but it’s definitely worth a visit.

Chrissy, child of my heart

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I gave birth to three of our children, one we adopted at birth and one is the child of my heart. It was a spring day in 2002, when Christina came to Richard at school and asked if she could come live with us. We talked about it, prayed about it and decided that it was a perfect fit. Our youngest, Nathan, was about to finish high school and head off to college but I wasn’t ready for an empty nest. Ours was a home that needed a child and Christina was a child who needed a home.

Chrissy hadn’t seen or heard from her father since she was a preschooler. With her mother and younger brother, she’d spent her childhood moving from place to place as her mother moved in and out of one relationship after another. When it became obvious that that was about to happen again, Chrissy decided that this time she simply couldn’t go. She had recently become a Christian, had made a new circle of supportive friends that included our daughter, was involved in a youth group and wanted to finish high school in one place.

Though we reminded her that in spite of the fact that their relationship was in tatters at the time, she had only one mother who’s place we would never be able to fill, we welcomed her into our home and took on the role of surrogate parents. Like any parent/teen relationship, ours had its ups and downs, its good times and its bad but we bonded and became family.

There were funny moments, of course, but one stands out as being the most hilarious. Shortly after moving in with us, Christina accompanied Richard and I on a trip to Vancouver to meet my parents and our oldest son, Matt. My parents immediately accepted her as another grandchild. Rather than buying gifts at Christmastime, it was their habit to send each of their grandchildren a cheque. When December rolled around and it was time to write the cheques, my father realized that he didn’t know Chrissy’s last name. He asked Matt who couldn’t remember either. He, in turn, volunteered to phone our daugher, Melaina, at college to ask her. When Melaina got off the phone, her roommate (now her sister-in-law) asked who she’d been talking to. “That was my brother,” she replied. “He needed to know my sister’s last name.” It wasn’t until she realized that her roommate was looking at her quite oddly that she realized how strange that sounded! She had to go on to explain that our family really wasn’t as dysfunctional as that made us sound!

Eventually, Chrissy went off to college too and there she met a fine young man. We were delighted when she and Buck married and lived for a time in Sedgewick. They even moved into our house and took care of it for us for the year that we lived in Japan. Now they live in Winnipeg and have a darling 21-month-old daughter who calls us Gram and Grandpa.

Ten years have passed since Chrissy visited Richard’s classroom in search of a stable Christian home. How fitting that I should spend this Mother’s Day here in her home!

Chrissy, child of my heart

 

The interesting and the bizarre

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We spent most of the past two days on the road driving 1169 kilometres across the Canadian prairie from our home in Alberta to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Originally, we’d planned on doing the entire trip in one very long day but we decided that that would be foolish. After all, we’re retired. We have plenty of time and besides, there are geocaches to be found… lots of them!

We’ve discovered that geocaching gives us reason to stop and look at things that we might otherwise cruise right by. Some are interesting, others quite bizarre.

As many of you know, I love bits from the past. This wagon was no exception. A geocache was hidden nearby.

I love farm machinery too, especially combines, but what about one perched high in the sky? Yes, that’s a full sized combine way up there! It kind of reminded me of a giant insect!

The world’s largest bunnock had to be the most bizarre, however! What’s a bunnock, you ask?

Apparently Bunnock, also known as Glockenspiel or the Game of Bones, was created by Russian soldiers to pass the time while they were stationed in Siberia during the early 19th century. Bunnock was brought to Canada sometime in the early 20th century by Russian and German immigrants, many of whom settled in the province of Saskatchewan. The game pieces were made of horses’ anklebones, something the soldiers apparently had an abundance of! Players set up two parallel rows of bones, each row consisting of two guards and twenty bones. Two teams of four throwers each face off against one another. The object of the game is to knock down the other team’s bones beginning with the guards. The team that knocks down the opposition’s bones first, with the least number of throws, is declared the winner. Apparently the game became highly popular in and around the small town of Macklin, Saskatchewan, now the location of the world’s largest Bunnock. At 32 feet (9.8 m) high, the  giant anklebone constructed of steel pipes, chicken wire and fibreglass also acts as the town’s tourist information booth and yes, there is a geocache hidden close by.

As we crossed the prairies, stopping to view these and other unusual sights along the way, we found 20 geocaches. There are many more waiting to be found on our homeward journey next week!

The great t-shirt debate

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photo credit

I’ve been debating all weekend about whether or not to enter the great t-shirt debate that’s been raging across Canada for the past week. After reading the latest update in this morning’s news, I can’t hold back any longer.

First of all, a little background for my many non-Canadian readers. (I love the fact that WordPress now shows us where our readers come from. I can’t help checking the little map on my Stats page several times a day and I’m delighted every time a new country lights up!) Last Monday, William Swinimer, a grade 12 student in Nova Scotia who had repeatedly worn a bright yellow t-shirt  with the slogan “Life is wasted without Jesus” on it, was suspended from school for 5 days.

Christians across the country have been decrying the fact that William was suspended for wearing a t-shirt with the name of Jesus on it. Not so, folks! If we, as Christians, want to be listened to and taken seriously we need to get our facts straight. Swinimer was suspended from school for defying authority. After being told by the school principal that other students found the t-shirt offensive and asked not to wear it to school anymore, this young man who was apparently in the habit of telling his fellow students that they were going to burn in hell, chose to wear it to class every day for several weeks. (I hope he washed it in between!) His defiance earned him a series of in-school suspensions and ultimately the 5 day at-home suspension.

While I admire William’s desire to share his faith and his willingness to stand up for his beliefs and in no way support the principal’s initial request that he not wear the shirt to school again, the Bible clearly tells us “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.” Hebrews 13:17  Swinimer says that by continuing to wear the banned shirt to school, he was standing up for his rights as a Canadian citizen. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to freedom of religion, conscience and expression to all Canadians. Religious freedom does include the right to speak about our beliefs and to share them with other people but I cannot applaud a student for harassing his classmates or defying authority. If we truly hurt for the people we believe are lost, we won’t win them over to our way of thinking by being obnoxious, rude or confrontational.

While I was mildly annoyed with those who failed to look below the surface and immediately jumped to Swinimer’s defence hailing this as another example of a Christian being persecuted for his faith, it wasn’t until I read this morning’s news that my blood began to boil. Swinimer was due to return to school this morning. Rather than attempting to sweep the situation under the carpet and pretend that nothing untoward had happened, the school scheduled a series of forums to begin today that would encourage open dialogue on how students can express their beliefs in respectful and non-discriminatory ways in a multicultural public school environment. They tried to turn the fierce nationwide debate into a learning experience. Swinimer was invited to participate and was even told that that he could wear the bright yellow t-shirt. The pastor of his church agreed to take part in the discussions.

Then came this morning’s news. William Swinimer arrived at school with his father, John. Waving a New Testament at reporters, John Swinimer announced that he was pulling his son out of the school!

“The taxpayer is paying for him to learn his academics as well as the other students and I am not standing for any of this stuff,” he told reporters. “He will not attend this school unless they are having reading, writing and arithmetic, good old-fashioned academics. When they’re having forums, when they’re having other extra curricular activities, he will not attend that school.” When asked by reporters whether Swinimer will come back to the school when the talks are over, John responded, “I’m making a statement here, I’m not answering questions.”

Whoa!! What kind of parenting is that? Instead of supporting his defiant behaviour, William’s parents ought to be teaching him to show proper respect for authority and how to share his faith in appropriate and respectful ways. Unfortunately intolerance and rudeness breed intolerance and rudeness.

Today, having heard the rest of the story, I have sympathy for young William. Sadly, it’s easy to predict what the future holds for him. He lives in a town of little more than 2000 people. You can’t be anonymous in a place like that and a bad reputation is hard to shake. He’s still going to be “that boy” years down the road. Who wants to hire a young man who’s been taught that he doesn’t have to do what he’s told; that his rights are more important than anyone else’s?

I do hope his life isn’t wasted!

Drew’s big birthday adventure

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Our oldest grandson, Drew, was 4 years old today! How can that be? His Mommy’s Facebook status reads “And today my boy is 4. I want to hold him and squeeze him and make time slow down.”

Since Saturday was his little sister’s second birthday, we celebrated with a joint party that afternoon. It was a warm sunny day so the festivities were held in the yard. Children frolicked and adults visited. Gifts were opened and cake and ice cream consumed. A good time was had by all.

Today was Drew’s real birthday though so Grandpa and I wanted to do something special just for him. Drew is enamoured with fire trucks so what could be more fun than a visit to a fire station? Varsity Fire Station No. 17, one of Calgary’s largest, is a ten minute drive from here so I stopped in yesterday and made the arrangements.

We didn’t tell Drew where we were going, only that he was going on a birthday adventure with Gram and Grandpa. Imagine his excitement when we pulled to a stop in front of the station just in time to watch one of the enormous trucks back into its bay. We were invited inside by three firefighters who devoted the next little while to making a wide eyed little boy’s birthday a memorable one. He was invited to climb into the back of the truck to see all the levers that control the hoses and to sit in the drivers seat and turn on the flashing lights.

   

He was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer size of everything but he clearly enjoyed the opportunity to hold one of the hoses and to see some of the tools the firemen use.

Fireman Mike even put on all his gear for Drew to see.

After saying good bye, we stopped at the mall for a treat before heading home for lunch. It was pouring rain outside so we dubbed it a mall picnic!

Later in the afternoon when Drew was busy putting out pretend fires all over the house, Richard made the mistake of calling him Fireman Drew. I’m Fireman Mike Drewbie, he announced! Clearly the big adventure was a success!