Canadian Wildlife

Canadian Wildlife

(All the pictures have been made by Elena)

The bear that was eaten with its own teeth: Nimrod Robertson, who had lost all his teeth to scurvy arrived over the dangerous Chilkoot pass to prospect during the Yukon gold rush. With him he had specially prepared food and one day a bear broke into his cache and ate it all up. Not wanting to re-cross the Chilkoot pass for more food, Robertson set traps and caught “one of the Biggest black bears ever seen in the Yukon”, then he set to work. After firing up a forge he extracted the bear’s teeth. Then he melted his tin cup, and using clay and spruce resin for molds he poured in the molten metal and set the bear’s teeth in to fashion a set of false teeth. During the remainder of the winter he ate the bear with own teeth.

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Oolikan fish were used by native people and early settlers of British Columbia as candles.

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In the middle of the 20th Century more than 3,000,000 horses were being used on Canadian farms.

Canadian Wildlife. Photo by Elena

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Wild turkey could be bought in 1800 for 6 cents.

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Because of conservation there are more beavers now than when Europeans first arrived in Canada.

A stone with an image of an elk made by Indians.

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A bee in gathering one pound of honey flies a distance that is equivalent to twice around the world at the equator – 80 000 km.

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The Harvester ant can easily push aside stones that outweigh it 50 times over.

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Tree stumps up to two meters in height surprise newcomers to the forests. The reason they are there is simple: beavers standing on deep snowdrifts cut the trees down during the winter months.

An elk on Bishop street. Photo by Elena

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Holes were provided in closet doors in the famous Uniacke house in Nova Scotia to admit cats in pursuit of mice.

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A dead shark sinks so slowly that its body is literally dissolved by the salt in the water before it reaches the floor of the ocean. The only part of the shark that is impermeable to the action of the salt is its teeth.

Another elk, on a Sherbourne street.

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Another Human caused tragedy in our forests: Something is happening in Canada today that is relatively new. Frequently in has sad consequences. People on camping trips or just plain picnicking, cook food in full wrappers, then leave the foil lying about or bury it two shallowly. Wild animals finding food residue in this manner eat foil, and all naturally the foil remains in their stomachs and causes slow agonizing deaths.

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The pheasant can live for a month without eating.

Canadian Nature. Photo by Elena

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Perilous pairs: Killer whales sometimes work as a team and two of them will gang up on a narwhal and crush it between them.

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A turtle can live a year without food.

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Lynx skins were legal tender at various times during the French Regime in Canada.

A deer on a Church street.

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A salmon stopper: Only something formidable can prevent salmon from traveling up rivers to spawn. Hell’s Gate Canyon at the mouth of the Fraser in British Columbia did. So many salmon here pounded to death trying to overcome this obstacle that conservationists finally built fishways to carry the salmon around the rapids to their spawning grounds.

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Art tippet in Windsor, Ontario while looking for bird’s nests to make color slides found a $5 bill in one in the 1970ies.

Bambi as a grafitti.

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The Cricket s nature’s thermometer: If you subtract 40 from the number of cricket chips a minute and divide the result by 4, and add 50 to the result, you can tell the temperature in Fahrenheit.

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A tenacious tuna: the longest contest on any records, between men and a tuna fish, occurred near Liverpool, Nova Scotia, in 1934. Six men taking turns fought the 358 kg tuna in a terrific battle that lasted 62 hours.

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The swan has more feathers than any other type of bird. One was found by actual count to have over 25.000 feathers.

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Passenger pigeons were once so plentiful that huge flocks would hide the sun for an hour at a time. They are now extinct because they were ruthlessly slaughtered for food. The last known passenger pigeon died in 1914.

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A deer can leap a 2.4 m high fence from a standing start.

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A cool bruin. When it gets hot in the Mountain Valleys and flies and sun become unbearable, bears that live in mountain regions heat to heights where snowdrifts give cool comfort.

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The groundhog, when it is excited, take 100 breaths a minute – yet when hibernating it breathes only once in 5 minutes.

Coat of Arms - deer and a bear.

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Myriads of itchy buffaloes found welcome relief at many natural rubbing posts situated in the Valley of the Milk River in Southern Alberta. The rubbings of countless bison caused the stone to assume a Mushroom shape.

Canadian Wolf.

Canadian Fox.