The Firearms Mess

 

I didn’t think it would ever happen under a minority Conservative government; but happen it did, at least in part. In my December Alberta Outdoorsmen column, I discuss the passage through second reading of Bill C-391 in the Canadian House of Commons. The private member’s bill would abolish the controversial registration of non-restricted firearms (rifles and shotguns normally used by hunters and sport shooters, etc.). As I have written in various columns since 1998, the odious gun registration was never designed to reduce crime, but was poorly crafted, grossly mismanaged and a colossal waste of tax-payers money (an estimated $2 billion).

Why didn’t I think this bill would pass? Because all the opposition parties were in favor of the registration despite its waste, mismanagement and ineffectiveness. Although the Conservatives promised to abolish the registry, I didn’t think they could do it until they were able to seat a majority government. So, why did a majority (164-137) of Members of Parliament vote in favor of the bill at second reading? Because each MP was allowed to vote freely, not subject to party discipline. Thus, several Liberals and New Democrats voted with the government and the wishes of their constituencies to abolish the registry.

But what caused these MPs not to side with their parties? I think a lot had to do with the actions of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair. Like many urban police agencies, his was having trouble controlling the illegal guns that were being used in crime in his city. Instead of addressing the actual weapons being used (unregistered, restricted or prohibited hand guns illegally smuggled from the States), he decided to go after law abiding gun owners. He raided the homes of some owners whose gun licences had expired and confiscated their firearms. (Many of these owners had not been notified by the registration system that their licences were about to expire, or their renewal paperwork had been lost in the system—a common occurrence.) The police home invasions confirmed the suspicions of many conspiracy theorists among firearms owners, and the resultant outrage generated in print, on blogs and in letter writing campaigns to politicians of all stripes pushed many to reconsider their position on the issue. Thanks Bill Blair for demonstrating what many have been saying for years.

The bill still has a long way to go. It is now before a committee, where amendments can be recommended. It then must pass a third reading before the House, after which it goes to the Senate for its consideration. This will take months, and the government could fall before royal assent, in which case the process would have to start all over again. But a milestone has been reached. For once, a majority of MPs finally understand what firearms owners have been telling them for 14 years—a firearms registration system is a colossal waste of money and effort that should be directed at actually fighting gun crime.

www.donmeredith.ca

Holiday Book Sale

Installing Snow Leopard

Well, I did it. I took the bit in my teeth and installed Apple’s latest version of its operating system, Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6), this last week. I wish to report that I was pleasantly surprised with how well it went. You see, having used Microsoft Windows for nearly 25 years, I knew better than to install a new version of that operation system (OS) on an older machine. If I was buying a new machine, sure, the latest OS was worth it because I would be installing the applications etc. from scratch. However, to install an updated version (major revision) on an older machine on top of already installed applications was just asking for trouble for which new versions of Windows were notorious.

So, it was with some trepidation that I approached installing Snow Leopard on my 1 1/2 year-old iMac. I read all the reviews and understood that Apple was not Microsoft; that because they had better control over their computers, they could better handle an OS upgrade. Thus, with some time available to handle any problems that might pop up, I gritted my teeth and purchased an upgrade copy of Snow Leopard.

The sales guy at the Apple store confirmed the install should be relatively painless but did caution me to backup all my data etc. just in case. After all, stuff does happen, like power failures during the install, and occasionally a bug in a specific configuration does appear. I backed up my data to both my external hard drive and a DVD, and then popped the Snow Leopard DVD into the machine and let Apple take over.

Installing an OS upgrade is not like installing the latest version of a favorite application program. It takes time as configurations must be copied, stored and reestablished, and documents and files swapped back and forth. As long as my computer screen didn’t go blank, blue or otherwise indicate a serious problem, I let it proceed for the 20 or 30 minutes it took to make the change. After the perfunctory reboot, my familiar desktop came back up on the screen with little noticeable change.

The first thing my new system wanted to do was check for updates via the Internet. That revealed the first problem: my system couldn’t find my Telus 3G card which serves as my “high-speed” Internet connection (we don’t have regular high speed here in the country, despite the “Alberta Advantage”). Upon checking my System Preferences, I found I had a new Internet connection using the Telus card through a Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN). Once I activated it in Preferences, I found a new icon on the menu bar at the top of my screen. Connecting to the Internet was now just a click away. So off I went to the Apple site to download the latest update for Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6.2). That’s a 500+ Mb download that took the better part of five hours.

Next to check was the connections with my peripherals. My HP photo-quality ink jet printer passed with flying colors. However, my HP laser jet printer did not. Although, the system recognized the printer, the printer would not accept print jobs. What to do?

After double checking all physical and software connections and double checking with the HP web site about a revised print driver (where I was informed it was included with Snow Leopard), I phoned Apple technical support. Now, over the years I’ve also learned not to expect much satisfaction from telephone technical support. Of course, Microsoft was the worst for this because if you had the temerity to obtain your Windows already installed on your PC, Microsoft washed its hands of any support and referred you to the computer manufacturer. In my case, that meant talking to somebody in a heavily accented English who quickly dismissed my problem as a Microsoft one (I so love “Catch-22”).

However with Apple, I found myself talking to someone who actually attempted to understand my problem and seek a solution. She confirmed what actions I had already taken and then stepped me through some others. Unfortunately, she could not figure out why the printer would not print. She then put me on hold while she sought her supervisor. He quickly came on line, apologized for my problem, and reviewed the steps that had already been taken. Soon, he was stepping me into the inner workings of the OS where we deleted some files. I rebooted the machine and voila, my printer worked. Apparently, and old configuration had to be deleted before the system built a new one. Thank you Apple for providing the support I needed. You are an example of what customer service should be about!

Next I tried my Nikon slide and film scanner. No problem, it worked like a charm like it always has. Next, came my HP flatbed photo scanner. Problem! Snow Leopard didn’t know it existed. Before calling Apple again I decided to do some research. Using Google I soon found myself at the Apple and HP support forums where I learned HP had stopped supplying upgraded print drivers for this particular scanner for several years, and Apple confirmed this scanner was not supported. As a result, I joined the throng of dissatisfied HP customers on these forums pledging not to buy another HP scanner.

Fortunately, I still have a Windows laptop (XP) that will drive the scanner. Since I bought my Nikon scanner, I have little use for the flatbed other than photocopying. However, I do need one for other purposes from time to time. So, I will let the laptop fill the gap until I find a suitable replacement.

Thus, if you use a Mac, I recommend upgrading to Snow Leopard. It has a smaller footprint and several other enhancements that improves your experience. However, as with any OS upgrade, be prepared to take some time to fine tune; and don’t fear approaching Apple Support. They will indeed help you!

So, what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca

Signed Books for Christmas-Dec. 1

I will be joining over 20 other Alberta book authors and illustrators selling signed books at the Stony Plain Public Library on December 1, 2009 from 5:00 to 7:30 p.m. in Stony Plain (4613 52 Avenue) just west of Edmonton. Come have a look at all the great books that will be available for sale, and talk with the authors.

I will be selling copies of my two award-winning, young-adult, adventure novels for the low sale price of $10.00 each. If you have a young person (or an adult for that matter) on your gift list who might be interested in outdoor adventure stories, come give my books a look.

The Search for Grizzly One, is about a teenager searching for his lost grandfather in northern Alberta.

“…a cracking good adventure story set in Canada’s North…some of the best writing about northern flying and wilderness life that I have ever encountered” — Merna Summers, Amazon.ca review.

Dog Runner is about a teenager torn between two cultures in northern Alberta. In order to save his dog team, Jim must enter a grueling sled dog race.

“Each of the dogs has a distinct, believable personality, and human and animal interactions ring true to life. Dog Runner is a special book.” — Calgary Herald

So, what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca

On Rubs, Scrapes and Footsteps

2009 Hunting Diary—Day 7

There are many reasons I enjoy hunting as much as I do. But perhaps the most important, in terms of being addicted, is the adrenalin rush I receive when my techniques and tactics actually work. Such was the case Monday when I was once again challenged by the conditions I found that early morning.

It was the first day of my November deer hunt that annually occurs not too far from my home. I had tags for both mule deer and white-tails, but with meat already in the freezer I was hunting for a quality buck. So, I was prepared to turn down some younger ones in search of a wall-hanger and genuinely enjoy the hunt in the process. There was very little snow on the ground and what was there was crunchy, as were the fallen leaves that littered the forest floor. So, I was going to make noise, noise that would give me away. As a confirmed still hunter, that is an important concept to get into my head, that is, I would be heard by my quarry. My challenge was ensuring that the noise I made did not give me away as a hunter.

Like the animals hunted, we still hunters must use all our senses to the best of our abilities. This can be a challenge coming from an urban environment. Fortunately for me, over the years I have been able to quickly shed my urban ways and fall into my still hunting mode within a few minutes of leaving my truck. That is what happened before dawn just at legal shooting time when I entered the woods heading into a southeast breeze. Smell is the number one sense that game uses to detect a predator, so a hunter must ever be aware of the wind and where his scent is going.

I eased my way into the noisy bush taking two steps, pausing, listening and looking; then taking another two steps, pausing, listening and looking, and so on. The hard part of still hunting is the discipline of holding to this strict practice. It is much too easy for our urban minds to tell us to move more quickly that we are not getting to our destination fast enough. The still hunter must ignore these entreaties if he or she is to be consistently successful. In reality, if you are hunting, you are at your destination.

In the rut, buck deer paw the ground and scrape the bark off trees.

As the morning progressed I began seeing buck rubs and scrapes that told me there was at least one active buck in this particular area of the forest. Bucks waiting for the ladies to come into season take out their frustration on the vegetation and ground. They scrape the bark off trees and shrubbery with their antlers and paw the ground with their hooves, leaving large patches of bear ground where leaves used to lie. I was admiring a particularly well rubbed tree when I heard footsteps behind me. That’s when the adrenalin started pouring into my veins. I wasn’t expecting to hear anything from behind as it was both downwind of me and territory I had already passed through. However, there he was slowly moving through the trees, about 30 metres away, crossing my trail and oblivious to it. Like me he was taking two steps at a time, pausing, looking about and taking another two steps, followed by another, etc.

He was a small mule deer buck, with a forked antler. I had the drop on him. Now, if there wasn’t already meat in the freezer, I would have taken him; and indeed I raised my rifle and put the cross-hairs on him just for drill. But I did not want this hunt to end so soon. So I let the adrenalin rush subside as I waited for him to either see me or catch my scent. He did neither. For some reason the morning breeze must have carried my scent on high above the buck because he never spooked nor snorted.

The fresh mark where a buck rubbed the bark off an alder.

Once he passed out of sight, I continued on my way confident my techniques were working well. Over the next few hours I walked up on a couple of does with fawns and a small white-tailed deer buck. Several of these animals did eventually see me or catch my scent and they snorted as they dashed through the trees. The white-tail buck, however, wasn’t exactly sure what I was and circled me trying to get a better look. I confused him with my deer grunt that kept him interested. However, he eventually got my scent and was gone.

So, it was pretty successful day of deer hunting. Although I did not bag an animal, I got close to many and further honed my skills and techniques. And there are more hunting days to come.

So, what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca

Holiday Book Sale

It’s the Habitat!

In my November Alberta Outdoorsmen column, I discuss how much energy has been expended on debating the suspension of a very small grizzly bear hunt in Alberta while little public attention has been paid to the real issue: conserving grizzly bear habitat! The recently released information on the grizzly bear population north of highway 16 provides a look at what prime grizzly bear habitat may just be in this province. However, if our resource exploitation continues at the pace it has south of highway 16, human access to prime bear habitat will degrade that habitat and reduce the number of bears. So, whether you are in favor of the grizzly bear hunt or not, if you value the bear as I do, then you must support better habitat protection throughout its range.

So, what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca

Holiday Book Sale!

Holiday Book Sale!

Yes, it’s that time of year again, and I’m offering signed copies of my two award-winning young-adult, adventure novels for the low sale price  of $10.00 (Cdn$ or US$) each. If you have a young person (or an adult for that matter) on your gift list who might be interested in outdoor adventure stories, please consider The Search for Grizzly One and Dog Runner.

“The Search for Grizzly One is a cracking good adventure story set in Canada’s North,” wrote Merna Summers on Amazon.ca. “It was originally intended for young readers, but it contains some of the best writing about northern flying and wilderness life that I have ever encountered. This novel, which deals with the search for a downed plane in bush country, has unexpected twists and turns of plot, and also reverently-rendered links with Native spirituality and mysticism. Adults, as well as young people, should find reading it a rich and rewarding experience. Highly recommended.”

With regard to Dog Runner, the Canadian Book Review Annual (1989) stated, “Throughout this well-written adventure story, Native legends are skilfully interwoven, and Jim’s relationship with his dogs is poignantly portrayed.” And the Calgary Herald (1989) wrote, “Each of the dogs has a distinct, believable personality, and human and animal interactions ring true to life. Dog Runner is a special book.”

To buy these books at the sale price, go to the Signed Books page on my web site. Or if you are in the Stony Plain, Alberta area, I will be selling books (along with other Alberta authors) at the Stony Plain Public Library on December 1, 2009, from 5 to 7:30 p.m.

www.donmeredith.ca

The Hunt

2009 Hunting Diary—Days 4 to 6

It was time to get down to serious hunting—actually picking an area and walking it, spending time to get a feeling for what was going on. With no particular places in mind, we again split up, each pair heading in different directions.

Hunting can immerse the hunter in the environment and open new ways to see.

As I have written before (e.g., “Zen and the Art of Hunting”), for me hunting is a process of immersion into the environment. It is where I slough off urban attitudes and practices, and slow my walking, change my thinking and hone my hunting skills—including sharpening my hearing, eyesight and my relationship to the wind, the sun, the woods and the trail.

Thus immersed, I soon find myself in sort of a “free-fall” of information I try not to process too much: the wet-dog scent of cranberry, the moulding of discarded leaves, the chattering of a red squirrel, the breaking of a branch not too far away. I adjust myself to the sun and the wind, to reduce my visibility and ensure my scent does not give me away.

Using these techniques my hunting partner, Keith Kivett, and I found where a herd of about a dozen cow and calf elk had made beds in an open area in the forest; but the beds were days old. However, as we moved through some particularly difficult bush and made more noise than we wanted, we heard something large crash through the bush not too far away and bark at us like a dog. At first, I thought it was a bear, as bears will bark when alarmed, but this animal was making too much noise as it ran from us to be a bear, busting apparently large branches and trees as it went. Keith used his cow-elk call to see if the animal would stop and maybe come back for a look (it ran upwind of us, and we figured we had disturbed it out of its bed). Although it appeared to be circling us, it did not come closer and eventually left the area. It was very possible this was a bull elk. When disturbed and alarmed, elk will bark like a dog.

If allowed, the senses can tell you much.

If that was an elk it was the only one we got close to. The other pair of hunting partners, Wayne and Colin Wilson, also had their adventures. For example, Colin walked up on a large bull moose who refused to give up the trail. Unfortunately, none of us had been drawn for a moose licence this year, and Colin was forced to retreat.

All was not lost, however, as in total we shot four white-tailed deer, one a nice four-point buck taken by Keith. So, we now have meat in the freezer, and I can now look forward to a quality November deer hunt closer to home.

So, what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca

Action on Climate

Today (2009 October 24) is the International Day of Climate Action where over 5200 events world-wide will take place to lobby governments to stop their dithering and come up with an effective and realistic agreement on climate change at the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December. Now, I’m not one who automatically responds to calls for action for one cause or another. As a writer, I prefer to do my research and take my time judging what causes I should and can afford to support.

However, on climate change, I have been doing my homework for quite a few years now; and as I wrote in my Alberta Outdoorsmen column in February of 2007, “The Politically Correct Climate Debate” , the evidence supporting human-caused climate change is overwhelming. We are in a crisis and we need to get our acts together quickly to stop the deterioration of our environment. (If you doubt the validity of these statements, I strongly recommend you read The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery, followed by Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer.)

What is sad is how many people are allowing themselves be duped by professional climate-change deniers, who are judging the issue not on the merits of the evidence presented but on their political bias and greed. Addressing climate change is going to require governments and large corporations to make difficult decisions they had rather not make (this all despite the many opportunities finding solutions to climate change should bring the economy). It’s much easier to deny than to take responsibility and do something positive for the environment, community and yes, our grandchildren. However, there is no time or room for political bias and dogma to direct what opinion you should have about climate change and global warming. Denying without doing the proper research, helps no one.

Yes, there was a debate over just how much industrialization is responsible for the changes we are seeing every day. Governments rightly questioned what some people were saying. That is why the United Nations struck the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), composed of prominent climate change scientists from around the world, to evaluate the evidence, determine what is valid and come up with recommendations. After long deliberations, where all arguments were heard and evaluated, the panel determined (among others) that 1) climate change is real and is and will have huge effects on the global environment; and 2) much of the change has been caused by the release of so-called greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels for over the past 100 years.

I don’t know how you would be able to convene a more august body of experts than the IPCC. So, despite what you may have heard, the debate is over. Climate change is real, it is here, and it will affect how we will live in the next decades. If we as a world community do not properly address this issue at the Copenhagen conference this December, then we will lose a crucial opportunity to turn the future of the planet in our favor.

It must be remembered that climate change is nothing new. Climate has changed many times over the 3.5 billion+ year history of our planet. However, most climate change has not occurred as fast as it is occurring now. Climate change, whether fast or slow, often means the extinction of many species of both plants and animals that could not cope with that change. The faster the change, the more species that do not adapt in time. Do we really want to risk our future when we have the capability of doing something about this change?

That is why I urge you to take this International Day of Climate Action seriously. If you feel like I do, and want a bright and prosperous future for your children and grandchildren, then contact your government and demand they do all that they can to come to an effective agreement in Copenhagen this December to reduce our carbon emissions and get on with the work that needs to be done.

So, what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca

Reluctant Fall Leaves

Instead of turning their normal yellows and oranges, the leaves of many of the deciduous trees in Alberta were caught in a freeze and died, turning them brown.

It has been a strange autumn here in central Alberta. The leaves that normally turn colors and fall to the ground have been reluctant to do so. Now, Alberta is not especially noted for its fall colors but we do have them, mostly yellows and oranges with some red and purple thrown in. Of course, these come from our deciduous trees, mostly balsam (Populus balsamifera) and aspen poplar (Populus tremuloides); but also birch (Betula spp.), as well as shrubs such as willow (Salix spp.) and alder (Alnus spp.) among many others.

Because we are in the northern half of the northern hemisphere, we have short growing seasons, and normally trees start to turn to their fall colors beginning in late August to perhaps mid-September (central Alberta). The turning of the leaves is when the trees shut down the physiological processes that turn sunlight energy into food energy. This process, called photosynthesis, is accomplished via the green compound, chlorophyll, which dominates the color of most leaves during the growing season. Unlike most coniferous trees (spruce, pine) that maintain their green color and photosynthetic properties year around, deciduous trees shut these process down during the cold and short days of winter. The leaves (needles) on coniferous trees are able to protect themselves from freezing using an anti-freeze-like chemical, those of deciduous trees are not. So, the chlorophyll is allowed to degrade, revealing the other colors in the leaves before the leaves are dropped. But why are our deciduous trees so late in turning color this year?

I put that question to Dr. Janice Cooke of the University of Alberta’s Department of Biological Sciences. She reminded me that the change of color in trees is determined by day length and temperature. In other words, as the day length shortens, the trees begin to prepare to abandon their leaves. However, if the weather continues to be warm, the abandonment processes are suspended, which if you think about it, is a good strategy. Why shut down making food when you are not under the threat of freezing? Of course, temperatures do eventually fall and the colors change and the leaves drop. However, this year the delay in the drop is the longest in the memory of most people.

As described by Dr. Cooke, “We had a particularly warm September, right up to about Sept. 27. The warm days, but especially the warm overnight temperatures of mid-September, caused a delay in senescence (aging) and leaf color changing. Mainly, the trees were continuing to photosynthesize, and so they needed their chlorophyll. As such, the chlorophyll was not degraded, thus not revealing the colors of the other pigments.”

“Unfortunately for the deciduous trees,” she continued, “we had a wild swing in temperatures in a short time span.” In a nutshell, daytime temperatures in the 30s (C, 80s F) in late September suddenly dropped to -10°C and below on October 1. “This rapid change in conditions did not allow the plants much time to begin the autumn senescence process or even begin the cold acclimation process correctly. As a result, the hard freeze of 
-10°C and colder that we experienced in the first couple of weeks of October actually froze many of the leaves before they had assumed their fall colors.”

As a result, we have a situation where some of the trees have turned color and started dropping leaves, while others remained green until the freeze. Since that freeze, the leaves have thawed in more moderate weather and instead of turning yellow or orange, have turned brown and the autumn forest looks a lot duller than we are used to. Unfortunately for these trees, they were not able to recycle the nutrients in the leaves that they normally do during the color change process. Thus, in the coming spring, these trees will have less nutrients to begin their spring leaf production and other life processes, and could become quite stressed. To compound the situation according to Dr. Cooke, the drought that we have been experiencing has caused the trees to produce and store a lot less energy over the summer than they normally do.

The bottom line is that we have a lot of stressed trees overwintering this year and there could be some significant changes in the forest come spring.

So, what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca

Bush Elk

2009 Hunting Diary—Day 3

Bush elk can be difficult to find, let alone hunt.

Once camp was set up, it was time to try to find the main object of our hunt: bush elk (wapiti, Cervus elaphus). Now, bush elk have always been conundrum for us. Unlike elk found further south that live in large herds and regularly frequent large open areas to graze on grass, the bush elk of northern Alberta live in dense bush in smaller herds that are only occasionally found in small open areas. Although these elk have been increasing their numbers in the last few decades and indeed have expanded into new areas, they are difficult to hunt.

For us, the first order of business was to get oriented in a region we had not hunted before. Using both our vehicles we split up, two of us going one way and two of us going another to get a handle on the landscape and hopefully find some evidence of where the elk might be. This was difficult because it was warm and dry and tracks were at a premium. However, we did our share of driving and walking but the few elk tracks we found were old.

We did see a lot of white-tailed deer, and before our first day was done, we had one hanging up on the game poll.

So what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca