CBC Igalaaq - May 12, 2025
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CBC
4 hours ago
- CBC
Stopping wildfires with trees: How thousands of aspen seedlings could help protect Whitehorse
Crystal To walked through a barren, burnt landscape — over ash, dirt and the soot-black remains of small charred stumps. She slammed a small shovel into the ground, wiggled it back and forth to create a hole, and placed a small aspen seedling into the blackened earth. "It's not easy," she said. "But it's kind of relaxing." To is part of a small crew of tree planters who are slowly filling the Whitehorse South fuel break with aspen. It's her first time doing the job. The goal of the fuel break is to protect the capital city from wildfires by creating a natural barrier, removing all the highly flammable conifers in an 800-hectare area and replacing them with more fire-resistant aspens. The Yukon government began work on the fuel break in 2020, near the Mary Lake subdivision. It's one of the first such projects in Canada, and the goal is to have it finished by 2032. The aspens are being planted by the thousands every summer. This year, 232,000 seedlings will be planted. For tree-planters like To, each seedling that goes into the ground translates into a paycheque. "What's interesting about [tree-planting] is that you get paid by the tree, so if you're faster, you get paid more," she said. The most trees To has planted in an eight-hour shift is 1,620. She says she won't think of herself as a true tree-planter until she tops 2,000 seedlings in one day. Under her current contract, To is making 16 cents per tree. The pay rate can change, however, depending on how well the trees are planted. Planters try to plant as many trees as possible, but they also have to pass a quality check — also known as pay plots. Kate McDonald and Dakota Crawford, fuel management technicians with Yukon Wildland Fire Management, are partly responsible for pay plotting. Wearing high-visibility red vests, they walk through parts of the burnt land that have already been planted. "We're checking that the density is correct and that the trees have been planted well. We give them a score and then these plots determine how much they're paid — so it's a pretty important part of the plant," said McDonald. Plots are measured using two-metre cord to trace a circle in the land. All the trees in that circle are then counted and checked for quality. Crawford threw the plot cord into the air, watching where it landed several metres away from him. "That's how we pick the plot," he said, chuckling. "Sometimes they'll use mapping software, but this is easier because you don't have to find exact co-ordinates." McDonald and Crawford traced the plot and counted 19 trees. "We're aiming for 20 here, they got 19, and 19 to 21 is within the acceptable range. So it looks great," said McDonald. They check each tree individually, to make sure they're not planted too deep, too shallow or on too much of an angle. They also look for any air pockets in the soil around the seedling — without soil contact, the roots won't be able to grow. Another common problem is the "j-root," which happens when the soil plug of a seedling is jammed into the ground and it bends to make the roots look like the letter J. Those seedlings won't survive. Out of the 19 trees in the plot, they found one j-root. McDonald took a photo of it before they moved on to randomly select another plot to check. "That's the first j-root we've found so far. The checks we've done in this block have been really good," McDonald said. She inspected another plot of seedlings — plants that may one day help protect Whitehorse from a major wildfire. "I want them to do well," she said.
CBC
5 hours ago
- CBC
Unfair end for fowl friend: Newfoundland town mascot Freda the Goose dies
Residents in Humber Arm South, N.L. could not have predicted what a visitor to their shores in 2018 would come to mean to them, but they're honouring her memory. Freda the Goose died in late May, after what appears to have been an attack by an eagle while she sat on her nest, protecting her eggs. Freda was a snow goose that the community took under its wing for the past seven years, feeding it, looking out for it, and enjoying its company. She was a frequent guest outside of the local fish plant, and was even known to show up at the nearby Saltbox restaurant, insistently knocking at its door. "She'd walk up the steps, and she'd tap her beak on the door, and they'd let her in," said Gloria O'Connell, a resident and fish plant worker who took a liking to Freda early on. "She got to trust us, and she became like our little family member." Now, O'Connell said, everyone is missing Freda, who was seen most mornings at the fish plant parking lot when workers went on their break. "She would just amble on in between all the cars, and people would throw her little snacks. She'd come over, and she'd have her snack, and she'd squawk at us, and then she'd go on again," said O'Connell. "She was a well-loved bird." Feathers ruffled over misnamed goose Initially, or so the story goes, people in Humber Arm South assumed that their downy visitor was a male, and they called her Fred. The following spring, in 2019, the goose hadn't been seen for a few days, so people went looking and discovered he was actually a she, sitting in a nest with eggs in it. From that day onward, after being correctly identified, the goose named Freda found a special place in the hearts of fish plant workers, restaurant staff, customers and more. She became a year-round resident of the municipality, overwintering on the shoreline under the watchful care of a few workers in particular who ensured she was fed, kept warm with blankets when needed, and who would check on her often. Friend to all School children at St. Peter's Academy in Benoit's Cove, in particular, had a fondness for Freda. Leah Michelin, now in Grade 9, remembers the school bus driver pointing out the goose when it first showed up in town. "We would be on the bus home from school, and we would pass the fish plant every day, and we'd see Freda, or we thought he was Fred at the time," said Michelin. "We loved it. We got to see him every day, and everyone would get excited." Cherry Harbin, vice-principal of St. Peter's Academy, says the town's resident goose was often the focus of a story or visual art when the students were given the opportunity. "We would see it sometimes, if students were doing drawings or pictures about their community, she would pop up in the pictures," said Harbin. Harbin said students even co-wrote a song about Freda during a visit to the school by Phil Churchill and Geraldine Hollett of musical trio The Once under the ArtsSmarts program. Freda was immortalized in song and entrenched as a part of community folklore. A goose's swan song So it was inevitable that word of Freda's passing in late May spread quickly through the area. "We're all quite upset about it," said O'Connell. "Everybody here is in a sombre mood." "A lot of the kids are really shocked," said Michelin. "Some of the little kids were sad." Freda was buried on the beach where she spent most of the past seven years, along with some corn and bread, two of the things she loved the most. On the shoreline, people have erected a metal cross with a plaque in Freda's memory, to let passersby know that she lived there and that her spirit has now taken flight.
Globe and Mail
5 hours ago
- Globe and Mail
If I'm on a trail and I hear a cyclist's bell, should I get out of the way?
If I'm walking on a multi-use path and I hear a bell from a cyclist approaching from behind, what am I supposed to do? Usually, the bikes are coming really fast. Often, it will be two bikes riding side by side. It seems like they expect me to leap out of the way (especially when they ring the bell incessantly) even if I'm on the rightmost side of the trail. I find it's getting worse now with so many people on e-bikes – especially people around my age (I'm in my 60s). My guess is some of them haven't cycled in years and think like entitled drivers. – Erin, Ontario Despite what some cyclists think, ringing a bell doesn't mean 'Scram, pedestrians!' If you're walking or running on a trail, cyclists should warn you that they're coming, but you don't have to get out of their way, experts said. 'You may want to move if you can to stay safe, but it's not a legal requirement,' said Sean Shapiro, a traffic safety consultant and former Toronto traffic cop. 'If I'm walking with my kids and I hear a bell, I'm going to look but I'm not going to leap, because I could leap into the cyclist's path and cause a collision.' In Ontario, the Highway Traffic Act (HTA) requires cyclists, like drivers, to have 'a bell, gong or horn' and use it 'whenever is reasonably necessary to notify pedestrians' or face a $110 fine. That bell is just supposed to let you know that a cyclist is there, but you still generally have the right of way, Shapiro said. 'You're a pedestrian – it's a pedestrian path or sidewalk," he said. 'Everyone else is visiting.' While the HTA generally doesn't apply on paths and trails, municipalities have their own bylaws around multi-use paths. Toronto's, for instance, includes a 20-kilometre-an-hour speed limit and a requirement to yield to pedestrians. While the law varies by province and city, pedestrians usually have the right of way. But cyclists should, generally, be yielding to pedestrians on trails even when it's not specifically required by local laws, said Patrick Brown, a Toronto-based personal injury lawyer who handles cycling-related cases. 'Shared respect should be maintained on all shared trails,' he said. 'Cyclists have an added responsibility to pedestrians because they are heavier, faster and (can) cause serious injury to a pedestrian if struck.' Civil discourse? If you're seriously injured by a cyclist while you were walking or running, you could sue them for damages, Brown said. '[The court] would look at whether or not the cyclist's actions were reasonable in the circumstance,' he said. Damages, including pain and suffering, loss of income and care costs awarded by a court could be 'a very substantial amount,' he said. If the cyclist has home insurance, which includes personal liability insurance, it will cover the damages. 'But if you didn't have home insurance, and a lot of people don't, especially in the city, that's a problem because you would be responsible for paying it,' he said, adding that if the collision is fatal and the cyclist is at fault, the amount of money could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. While incidents of pedestrians being seriously injured and killed by cyclists are relatively rare – especially compared to the number of cyclists and pedestrians seriously injured and killed by cars – they do happen, Brown said. But a pedestrian could also be found at fault, civilly, in a collision if, for instance, they ran out onto a trail in front of a bike without looking first and the bike had no way to stop in time, he said. 'If you [try to avoid them] but peel off the trail into a ditch and fracture your neck, that pedestrian could be civilly responsible for what happened to you' as a cyclist, Brown said. 'And that has happened, too.' But if cyclists are coming up on somebody already on the trail, they should be slowing down and be ready to either stop or to go off the trail, if possible, to pass slowly, he said. That's because pedestrians may not hear you, they may not be able to move out of your way or, especially if they're with small kids, they could move unpredictably. 'If you're driving a car in a school zone, you better slow down and you better be wary that kids could run out in front of your car and you better drive accordingly,' he said. 'It's the exact same thing with cyclists. You're riding through trails in park areas [with] families having picnics. So you should be going at a very low speed [so]… when the unexpected happens, you'll be able to brake and avoid it.' That's especially true for e-bikes, which are heavier and need more distance to stop, he said. Generally, then, it's smartest for walkers and runners to keep calm and carry on when they hear that bell, Brown said. 'If you step out to the left or you step out to the right, how do you know what the bike will do?' he said. 'Just keep going at your same pace and be conscious that there's a bike coming up from behind.' While it's not a bad idea for pedestrians to stick to the right side of a trail, they don't have to unless there's a local bylaw requiring it (Toronto's doesn't), he said. That's true even when there's a painted centre line on the trail. 'If there's a family taking up a whole path, then the expectation is for the cyclist to slow down and stop until there's an opportunity to go around them or until they move,' he said. 'There's no right at all to barrel through that, even if you think you have the right of way.' Have a driving question? Send it to globedrive@ and put 'Driving Concerns' in your subject line. Emails without the correct subject line may not be answered. Canada's a big place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.
