Shooting Two Ways, Part One

Imagine spending 56 years of your life exploring the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland (Canada) to the Gulf shores of Vera Cruz (Mexico)!  This coastline is more than 6,000 miles!  George Shiras was both a sportsman with a gun and a photographer with a camera.  He begins his account with summarizing his study.  "The results of the occupation of the region by civilized man for centuries will show surprisingly small effects on the face of nature as a whole," Wild Life of the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts: A Field Naturalist's Photographic Record of Nearly Half a Century of Fruitful Exploration, National Geographic Magazine, September, 1932, p. 261.

Mr. Shiras mentions the disappearance of several animal and plant species, but states that the others have adapted to man. Also, "We have a marked renewal of forests in progress . . . white tailed deer is probably more numerous than at any previous time in history," p. 261.  I personally would conclude that we have even more deer in our urban areas than ever before as in the past several years two have ran into two different cars of mine (with extensive damage to the cars and the ultimate sacrifice for the deer).

FYI:  Hunters of ducks wait in blinds that hide them from the skittish birds.  The hunters build a little hut covered with green tree branches.  Sometimes they use a boat for a blind.  They position themselves upwind of where the ducks may feed.  The hunters may lure them with floating wooden decoys made in the image of the duck they're seeking.

Sandpiper, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, Atlantic coast, U.S.A., personal photos, February, 2014.

Egret in the swamp, City of Hilton Head, February, 2014.

In 1904, Mr. Shiras, as a U.S. Representative, introduced into Congress the original Migratory Bird Bill.  "This measure subsequently became a law and later on was merged in the bird treaty with Canada," (p. 271).  Prior to this protection, hunters shot an incredible number of birds for sport, depleting several species, among them the colorful parakeets and parrots.

Wild duck, Jacksonville, Florida, February, 2014.

Wild ducks on lake, Port St. Lucie, Florida, February, 2014.

My treasure, a live Starfish!  I felt compelled to throw it and the others I found back into the ocean.  Hilton Head Island, Feb. 2014.

THE most exciting wildlife sighting of February: baby alligators in a ditch in the city of Hilton Head, S.C.

Mama!  The Big Cahoona!  At least EIGHT feet long, I'm sure this Alligator was too large for the city of Hilton Head and would be captured & released in Florida's Everglades or somewhere far from people!  Looking back, it wasn't that far away from our car - I should have never opened the car door - these creatures can be fast when they need to!  There were about a half dozen more baby alligators in the shadows here but they're very hard to spot.  March, 2014.

In addition to birds and deer, the author details caribou, moose, raccoons, rats, America's only native marsupial, the opossum, swamp rabbits, and wildcats.  When he put out goose decoys, "the older swans eyed them with contempt," (p. 287).  The younger swans (called cygnets) sometimes attacked the decoys.  Next blog: more on Mr. Shiras' wildlife sightings.

The Bird Famlies

The next National Geographic Magazine article in the August, 1932, issue was of particular interest and enjoyment to me.  Yesterday, the Robin family left the nest in my front sidewalk's holly bush.  Every morning for the past several weeks, when I've gone out to retrieve my newspaper from the driveway, Mother Robin flew off in a huff and protested until I went back through my front door.  Then she jumped back onto the next.  Yesterday, I came out the door and the three nearly full-grown 'babies' jumped off the nest!  What a surprise!  Now I know none of them will return.  But I really enjoyed their spring show this year!

Captain C.W.R. Knight was visiting Scotland and found out that the last of the Osprey hawks had been wiped out by human egg thieves twenty years before 1932.  He went to an American nature preserve on Long Island, New York, U.S.A., in hopes of both photographing the Ospreys and possibly attempting to transplant them in Scotland.  He succeeded in both endeavors.

As hawks, Ospreys are much larger than Robins yet not as large as our Bald Eagles.  They are strict fish eaters, diving to get their live prey.  Captain Knight carefully built a 'blind' to photograph the birds.  He reported that east coast American farmers like having Ospreys build nests on their land because they never bother their chickens and chase away other hawks which would disturb them.  These farmers sometimes put wagon wheels on poles in  hopes of attracting the Ospreys.

The quality of Ospreys that most impressed Captain Knight was the tenderness with which the parent birds fed their young.  Even when the hatched birds were nearly full-grown, their parents would feed them until they were fully capable of diving into the nearby water, emerging with a fish, giving their feathers a quick shake-off of water, then majestically flying off.  Quite talented birds!

Edinburgh, The Very Old Scottish City

J. R. Hildebrand, the author of Edinburgh, Athens of the North: Romantic History of Cramped Medieval City Vies with Austere Beauty of Newer Wide Streets and Stately Squares, National Geographic Magazine, August, 1932, calls the city "singularly, if austerely beautiful," (p. 219).

In the center of the city rises a prominent five hundred foot tall hill: "For more than a thousand years Scottish history has swirled about Castle Rock; to it clings the driftwood of momentous events, the barnacles of glamorous and strange memories, until it seems that every stone has a story," (p. 227).  Once this rock was declared an official part of Canada and the decree was never revoked.  The intrigues of kings, queens and their retinues are properly lavish and murderous.

As to the activities of its citizens in 1932, "Edinburgh is a white collar-city, and besides insurance and banking, its chief functions are printing and publishing, law and medicine, and its "foremost industry" is education," (p. 235).  Manufacturing in those years included wool garments and beer breweries.

Scots in general flocked to the many courses to play games of golf.  In Edinburgh, they can even now be active later in the evening than in most places due to the city's geography "in the latitude of Labrador, and it does not get dark in midsummer until an hour or so before midnight," (p. 235).

There are quite a few references to America in Edinburgh in 1932.  "In the Carlton burial ground is a graceful statue of Abraham Lincoln, in memory of Scottish American soldiers who fell in our Civil War," (p. 237).  Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone was born there.  Also, for years, John James Audubon maintained a home in Edinburgh painting "The Birds of America," (p. 247).  It's a small world!

The Old Country of Roses and Sheep

The country of Bulgaria is almost as large as the American state of Ohio. Located on the western shore of the Black Sea, Bulgaria is north of Turkey and Greece/Macedonia, east of Yugoslavia, and south of Romania (formerly know as Rumania).  Its government in 1932 was a constitutional monarchy ruled by a tsar, Boris III.

Bulgaria, Farm Land without a Farmhouse: A Nation of Villagers Faces the Challenge of Modern Machinery and Urban Life, Maynard Owen Williams, Litt. D., National Geographic Magazine, August, 1932, is the account of the country as it presented itself to the world: "Bulgaria is an agricultural land, with peasant conservatism and thrift," (p. 185).  The capital city is Sofia.

The one unique agricultural product of Bulgaria in 1932 was Rose Oil, "Attar of Roses,' exporting three-fourths of the world's supply.  There was a Valley of Roses, 12,000 acres dedicated to growing roses.  "Rose fields are small and the bushes are planted about three feet apart. The flowers, still pinkish white and unpretentious in appearance, are picked before fully open and with the dew still on them, since exposure to the full strength of the sun results in a inferior quality of oil," (photo caption, p. 190).

"A ton of Rose blossoms yields less than a pound of pure oil . . . It sometimes commands a greater price than pure gold," (photo caption, p. 192).  The rose oil is obtained after several distillations of roses in water.  The final product is used as a base or fixative in perfumes.

"Bulgar" means man with a plow.  Eighty percent of Bulgarians are farmers.  The individual farms are 15 acres each.  "Not only is 15 acres the average farm, but it may be separated into 15 small fields, so that portability is an advantage in agricultural implements.  Wooden plows are common," (p. 216).

In addition to roses, a large quantity of tobacco is exported and silk in the form of cocoons.  "Bulgaria has two sheep or goats for each of its 6,000,000 people," (p. 198).

Although a poor country, considered extremely thrifty, the people in the town of "Gabrovo (in the central part of the country) have a reputation for thrift so calculating that legend says they cut off the tails of their cats, so that in passing through the door in winter, they won't let in much cold!" (p. 197).

The author traveled by motor car throughout the country and found the seaport of Varna to be particularly satisfying.  There were many bathhouses and seaside villas.  "Summer visitors now flock in from all over Central Europe to revel in sea and sun," (p. 195).

Historically, Bulgaria was occupied by Turkish forces until liberated by Alexander II of Russia in 1877.  Many Turks still choose to live in Bulgaria ( a half million in 1932) because Bulgaria was more conservative than Turkey. "Strangely enough, the old-style Moslems in faded fezzes look upon Christian Bulgaria as a welcome haven from the "godlessness of New Turkey," (p. 195).

Mr. Williams found the country to have many modern elements and ideas in the larger cities but refreshingly traditional in most of the rural areas.  Many of the farmers, who lived in villages because the small farms were divided into several sections, wore clothes hand-woven by their wives.  "It suddenly occurred to me that these peasant costumes, utensils and household furnishings seemed stranger to Bulgarian schoolchildren than they did to me.  . . Yet this colorful Bulgaria is only a day's glad flight from Paris or Berlin along a ribbon of changing beauty linking two civilizations," (p. 218).

North to Canada! Part Two

In more than 30 fields in Ontario, "78% of Canada's gold" was mined in 1932 with an output of approximately $73,000,000.  Previously, in 1883, nickel ore was accidentally found when a road worker noticed red mud. Soon thereafter, a process was perfected using nickel to harden steel.  This resulted in greatly increased nickel production.  The mines of Sudbury, Ontario, supplied over 85% of the world's supply in 1932.

In 1903 another accidental find was cobalt-silver deposits.  This was followed by yet another gold rush to Porcupine, Ontario in 1909 and then one in Kirkland Lake, Ontario in 1912.

The author, Frederick Simpich, took another train ride on the "Polar Bear," a "tri-weekly accomodation train . . . we call it tri-weekly . . . because it goes up one week and tries to get back the next."  On this train were "miners, cooks, hunters, guides, Indians, missionaries, trappers - but no tourists as yet," (p. 160).

All the tall tales are interesting.  One guide talked about eating moose meat.  "We've a saying up here that the only way to cook bull moose is to boil it with a few rocks in the pot.  When the rocks get soft, you can bite the meat," (p. 161).

In 1932 progress was coming to Ontario's northern-most reaches: the Indians were using "outboard motors on their canoes," (p. 164).  "Dogs are still used for inspection and mail trips," (p. 165).

One innovation was a schoolroom in a train car.  "Population is sparse, towns few and far between in parts of northwest Ontario; so those rolling schoolrooms, moved on schedule, visit points along the line most convenient to children," (photo caption, p. 166).The children come to the train on snowshoes.

In addition to mining, the wheat crop in Ontario is colossal.  It is sent to Europe by the trainload.  Ontario's University of Toronto was the site of one of the world's most important discoveries in that era, insulin. "In a daring experiment, young Dr. Lloyd, of the University of Western Ontario, stopped his own heartbeat by injection of a certain drug, in order to prove that calcium chloride would start the heart to working again," (p. 177).

For the highest money value, "the making of paper is Canada's chief trade . . . the top year for this was 1929,at the peak of newspaper advertising, Sunday papers often ran 100 pages or more," (p. 183). In the north were newspaper routes pulled by dogsleds.

Mr. Simpich holds an unbridled enthusiasm for the area: "Unfaltering Ontario - the heart of Canada, robust member in the British family of nations! . . . Walk, ride, or fly around it and talk with its people.  Nothing thwarts or baffles them.  Their motto might be "Ontario can do it."  That is your last thought, as you ride through the under-river tunnel dug from Canada to Detroit," (p. 183).

North to Canada! Part One

Once I almost visited Windsor, Ontario, Canada.  Daughter #8, Jeannie, and her husband lived in the Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A. area.  We visited the big city of Detroit, went downtown to the island park in the middle of the Detroit River, and had a grand time. It was December and I had never before seen ice floes in a river.  They pointed across the river and said, "There's Canada."  I had no idea it was so close!  We planned on visiting at another time but, alas, they moved south.  I never had the occasion to travel that far north since then.

Thus, I will make my first acquaintance with Ontario through the pages of the National Geographic Magazine.  A writer familiar to me, Frederick Simpich, writes in the August, 1932, issue, Ontario, Next Door: Alert, Energetic, and Resourceful, Its British Pluck and Skill in Arts and Trades Gain for This Province a High Place Under the Union Jack.

"Ontario. . . is the heart of Canada. Here lives a third of all the Dominion's people. Here is more than a third of all Canadian wealth," (p. 131).

In 1932, Canada was part of the British Commonwealth of Nations which also included Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, the Union of South Africa and the Irish Free State with representation from India.  The Province of Ontario is directly north of the American states of Michigan, Ohio and New York, with its southern boundary the Great Lakes.  In 2014, although Canada is independent, it is still a voluntary member of the British Commonwealth which includes 53 nations.

"Exceeded by other provinces in forestry and fisheries only, Ontario takes first place in farming, trapping, mining, electrical power, banking and manufacturing," (p. 133).  The British and the French were the most numerous settlers in Canada but the British system of Parliament rules the land.  Although much of Canada is bilingual, east of Ontario, French is the dominant language and in Ontario, English is commonly spoken.  There were other immigrants from many other European and Asian countries.  The primary impetus for the settling of Canada was the fur trade from trapping and the Christianizing of the Native Canadians.

The city of Ottawa in eastern Ontario is the capital of Canada.  "Ask any question you will about Canada's history, its people, or industries, and Ottawa can answer.  It is packed as thick as Washington with government offices," (p. 149).  As you can imagine, Canada's history is closely intertwined with our American history.

In the northern back country of Ontario in 1932, there were many areas inaccessible by roads.  "The canoe in summer and the dog sled in winter are the chief forms of transport in the wilder parts of Ontario," (photo caption, p. 153).

There  must have been an incredible array of wildlife in the open country of Ottawa, in 1932 and now.  Mr. Simpich reports a conversation he engaged in with two other passengers on a train.  "The first time I rode this line," said one of them, "the conductor stopped the train so passengers could watch three wolves chasing a moose across a frozen lake," (p. 155).

We will report on the rest of this long article in the next blog, beginning with "Minerals."

The Very Dismal Swamp

The "Dismal Swamp" is an actual area of "unbroken wilderness on the Virginia-North Carolina border."  Our first United States president, George Washington, was "attracted by the wealth of "juniper" (trees) in this region, obtained a grant of land, and organized the Dismal Swamp Land Company, Dismal Swamp in Legend and History: George Washington Owned Large Tracts in Region Which He Described as a "Glorious Paradise," John Francis Ariza, National Geographic Magazine, July, 1932, p. 121.

"To-day (1932), to all except a very few, the swamp's interior is . . . a mystery . . . Men are born, live, and die in towns that touch Dismal Swamp's very edges without ever having entered it" (p. 121).  Why was it originally dubbed "dismal?": tales of ghosts, poisonous snakes and plants, savage natives and runaway slaves, quicksands, criminals, moonshiners and other wild beasts.

Apparently, the swamp's bad reputation is well-deserved!  In addition to the above-mentioned pests, bears and ticks were a worse threat. Coupled with the lack of many roads, the swamp was best avoided.  Several logging companies alone managed to survive.

The author mentioned that once two intelligent New York novelists appeared in the swamp to experience it.  They were left at an abandoned camp building.  "Before they were rescued two days later, they had almost perished in a fierce March storm.  They were so terrified they had forgotten to eat the food they had brought" (p. 130).

Today (2014) the Dismal Swamp is a National Wildlife Refuge.  This area holds no attraction for me.  What about you?  Would you like to visit this place?  I don't even recall a lone sign from the interstate highways in that area.  I would like to end on a positive statement: wild life need refuges!