News for the Canadian Chapter
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Far Afield NEWS FOR THE CANADIAN CHAPTER Spirit bear and pink salmon. Photo by Mary Morris FI’10. See pages 4-5 for story and caption. Vol. 6 No. 2 Winter 2015 The Explorers Club – Canadian Chapter 1 www.explorersclub.ca Table of Contents Message from the Chapter Chair .................................................................................................3 Communications ..........................................................................................................................4 Regional Report - BC/Yukon .......................................................................................................5 Regional Report - Prairie/NWT .....................................................................................................7 Regional Report - Ontario/Nunavut ............................................................................................10 Regional Report - Atlantic/Quebec .............................................................................................11 Membership Report ....................................................................................................................11 Student News and Updates ........................................................................................................12 Outstanding Canadian Members ................................................................................................14 Explorer Reports & Updates ......................................................................................................16 In Other News.............................................................................................................................30 Awards & Honours ......................................................................................................................34 Classified Ads .............................................................................................................................41 Explorer Resources ....................................................................................................................41 Far Afield and The Explorers Log Schedule ...............................................................................41 Far Afield is published bi-annually. Far Afield welcomes brief submissions from members, preferably in Microsoft Word format with high-resolution digital photographs files sent separately from the text. Photographs must include captions and a credit. Please send all materials to: [email protected]. Submissions may be edited for length. The authors are responsible for the content of their articles. Their views do not necessarily reflect the views of The Explorers Club Canadian Chapter and the Club is not responsible for the accuracy of the articles. The Explorers Club – Canadian Chapter 2 www.explorersclub.ca Message from the Chapter Chair Elaine Wyatt MI’05 I’d like to tell you about my Dad and Ron Craven ME’91. Ron had served with the Royal Canadian Air Force as a flying Warrant Officer from 1939 to 1945, completing 32 flight tours over Europe. My father served with the Royal Air Force, stationed in India from 1943 to 1945, flying out of Calcutta over Myanmar and Thailand. In 2006, soon after I became a member of The Explorers Club, my father and I spent an afternoon with Ron. We had driven out to Tillsonburg and the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Special in this edition Association where I had arranged for Dad to take a flight on I would like to thank Mary an old Harvard Mark 4, the plane that was used to train so Morris FI’05 for serving as many of the 130,000+ pilots, navigators, air gunners and flight regional director for BC/ engineers that Canada trained as part of the war effort. Yukon for the past four years. In this issue, she has On our way home we stopped to see Ron. He was a very given us a great parting gracious host. Our visit began with a tour of his office, more report in which she admits museum than working space, the walls covered with posters to being truly swept away by and memorabilia from the war and his long career in aviation the “charismatic megafauna” in Canada’s north. On one wall was a big poster of Vicky, the of the BC and Alaska coast. “vicious virgin” that was Ron’s Halifax bomber. Dad held Ron’s She sweeps us away with logbook in his hand, awed by the 27,000 hours in 52 different her words and images. aircraft that Ron had flown during 55 years as a pilot. Over lunch at Ron’s favourite hangout in Stratford, we – they – Congratulations must go to talked about airplanes. The unique sound and shake of each Austin Mardon CorMem’86 plane. The people they had flown with, so many already gone. on his induction into the Then it became quiet. And it was time to go home. My father Royal Society of Canada, passed away in April 2011. Ron passed away last October. Cory Trepanier MI’09 on the selection of his Glacierside A few weeks ago at our February dinner, Fred Gaskin FI’81 painting for the Arctic Room said farewell to another member of The Explorers Club and in Canada’s Embassy friend of the Canadian chapter, John Lentz FN’63. John was in Washington and the a member of the Washington D.C. chapter, but he had been winners of this year’s born in Toronto and attended the Wilderness and Canoe awards: George Kourounis Symposium in this city almost every year, sometimes as FI’09, Peter Rowe FI’08, Ed a speaker. Fred said that he and many other members of Reinhardt FI’04 and Clive this chapter had the pleasure of participating in canoeing Coy FI’14. We also named expeditions with John, who had paddled and explored rivers in 18 members to the inaugural the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Arctic Siberia for more Explorers Honour Roll. Lee than 50 years. In 2013, John launched his book Tales From Treloar MI’09 has captured The Paddle at the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough. the essence of these special In 2014, he donated half of his books on the Canadian north, individuals in an article that which Fred said filled a small van, to the museum. John starts on page 34. passed away in January. Good men, all three – and Fred, too. The Explorers Club – Canadian Chapter 3 www.explorersclub.ca Communications Maeve Gauthier FI’13 and Wilson West FI’08 Fellow explorers, for quite a few months now, we’ve been sending your monthly e-newsletter. We are starting to get more and more contributions, which is great! Sharing your news with the chapter is not only telling us what you’ve been up to: it’s building a community. Don’t be shy and send us your news. It’s ok if it’s brief. It’s great to connect with the rest of the group and hear what you’ve been up to. We’re worried that some members might not be getting the e-newsletter, it may be going under their spam folder. We also know that gmail puts it into a Group folder rather than your inbox. Could you ask other members you know if they receive the e-newsletter? Feel free to forward it too. Far Afield vs. monthly e-newsletter Far Afield now comes out twice a year. It’s a great opportunity to tell stories at length with photos, photo essays, etc. The e-newsletter, on the other hand, is published monthly. The call for news is sent to all members on the first Wednesday of the month, the deadline to submit news is the second Wednesday and the e-newsletter is sent to you on the third Wednesday. Items for the e-newsletter should be brief (100 words for news/50 words for events). Facebook page Join our Explorers Club Canadian Chapter Page and invite people who are interested! We tend to share most news you send us for the newsletter on our Facebook Page too, unless you specify otherwise. We are a few administrators on the page and we like to share your news, but sometimes posts don’t have public settings allowing us to share. In any case, feel free to send us your Facebook News to communications@ explorersclub.ca so we can post them on Facebook as well. We realize not everybody is on Facebook, but it is a great way to share explorers’ news on a regular basis and interact with non-members too who might be interested in joining the club. Looking forward to hearing from you! Have a great winter everyone, keep exploring and keep communicating! The Explorers Club – Canadian Chapter 4 www.explorersclub.ca Regional Director BC / Yukon Mary Morris FI’10 The New Year has come and gone and the dark days of winter have already started to gradually lengthen. I see the spring bulbs poking up through the front garden, and even a few snow drops are pointing to the season changing soon. Looking back over the year since last spring’s issue of Far Afield, I am still grinning from the amazing summer I had last year. I spent most of the summer cruising on the BC and Southeast Alaska coast, both on our own boat and working their prey, and then lunged as naturalist on wilderness trips by Maple Leaf Adventures. to the surface, mouths Usually I’m a person who always focuses on the little things, gaping. We marveled at a looking down on the moss in the forest or on the seaweed on river estuary where we saw the beach in the intertidal …but this was the year that I finally a mother black bear with her was truly swept away by seeing the charismatic megafauna. three cubs, all draped over Instead of the my usual fleeting momentary glimpses of the mossy branches of giant big critters, it seemed that last summer we were so lucky to Sitka spruce in the river have time to look and look. We watched grizzly bears eating valley meadow. How they fresh sedges and digging roots in coastal estuaries. We