Family Day - UPDATE October 20, 2017

It turned out to be a day that will make good memories. It happened so unexpectedly that I didn’t bring a camera. I ended up going for a walk with Donna, our daughter Colleen (35), her husband Nick, and my grandkids Heinrik (8) and Gabrielle (6). Lynn with Heinrik and Gabrielle on 11/2014Lynn with Heinrik and Gabrielle in 2014What a joy! Our family has always been nature-loving. Colleen is passing that on. We began the walk by watching Heinrik and Gabrielle jump off sand cliffs and slide down. Sand slides sometimes half buried them. Colleen and Kelly (36) did the same thing there when they were the grandkids’ age. (photos are from 2014)

Gabrielle in 11/2014Gabrielle in 2014But the main goal of the walk for the grandkids was to see a wolf. They heard them howling last night from our yard a couple blocks from the sand cliffs. They had seen a deer carcass on a walk yesterday afternoon. They wanted to visit the carcass to see if wolves were eating it. We took a forest trail toward the carcass, but the grandkids were so enthusiastic about everything they saw that we ended up looking at trees, needles, bark, bugs, woodpecker holes, and so much else that we never got to the carcass. The grandkids led. At one point, they took a deer trail into a cedar swamp with many cedars, huge white spruces, the occasional big white pine, and other trees to examine and learn. They already knew a lot. Gabrielle gave me samples to carry in my pocket for her—pieces of moss, bits of bark, etc. Watching them striding along confidently ahead of me, I imagined them as grown-ups feeling at home walking among trees and plants they knew since childhood. Colleen kept saying how good it felt to be back home and in the woods where she grew up.

For me, work could wait.

Thank you for all you do.

Lynn Rogers, Biologist, Wildlife Research Institute and North American Bear Center


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