Nature Inquiries

by Carl Strang

 

Though my trip to Canada had as its primary goal an exploration of the route of the Lake Michigan lobe of the Wisconsin glacier, an old wildlifer like me was not going to ignore the vegetative communities and wildlife along the way. I was especially interested in what I would find in the highway loop through Timmins and Hearst, Ontario, as I had never been in that area before. It’s far enough north that I passed a sign marking the watershed for rivers flowing north to the Arctic Ocean and those flowing south.

 

 

Potholes Provincial Park along Highway 101 had a little trail going to some beautiful places. The trees along the edge of this photo are black spruces, a tree of special interest because we found a couple cones of this species in the mastodon dig this summer (more on that in future posts). Black spruce was the dominant tree in many places this far north, though it no longer occurs closer to Illinois than central Wisconsin.

 

 

Kettle Lakes Provincial Park has a great trail system. Here are some photos showing a segment through paper birch,

 

 

another past savanna-spaced pines,

 

 

a closeup of lichens and a club moss.

 

 

There were edible blueberries,

 

 

beautiful bunchberries,

 

 

asters still flowering in September

 

 

but the changing colors of plants such as these honeysuckles revealing the season.

 

 

Signs of animal life included a beaver lodge in every little lake,

 

 

dew-highlighted spider webs,

 

 

and a spruce grouse.

 

 

Tomorrow I’ll conclude with wildlife at Nagagamisis Provincial Park.