LIMESTONE AND LIGHT

SCARLET'S FLOWER

PEREGRINE PEEK-A-BOO

PALEO BASE CAMP: ROCKY MOUNTAINS

TWILIGHT PADDLE: WIDGEON ESTUARY

Widgeon Estuary is a wonderful springtime jaunt either as a daytrip or overnight. The paddling is easy. You can do the trip via kayak or canoe and can stay for the night or do it as a day trip. I'll be planning to camp near the base of the trail to the falls and will likely go for three days.

There is nothing better than to cruise flat water with rippling reflections of big snowy mountains cascading off your bow.

The estuary of Widgeon Creek at the south end of Pitt Lake at Grant Narrows is the perfect place to enjoy this sensation.

If you like quiet peaceful waterways teaming with bird life this is the place to go for the whole estuary is a protected bird sanctuary. After making the 300m crossing of Grant Narrows, expect to see tons of waterfowl and other species from herons to harlequins that make this area their habitat. You might even see a fleeting glimpse of muskrat or beaver if you are lucky.

If Widgeon Creek is high in the spring or early summer you can paddle quite a distance up under lazy overhanging branches draped in moss and lichen. Huge lush ferns and skunk cabbage line the shoreline in the marshy areas and neat little gravel bars are gathered in the bends of the creek. When you are there you will be amazed that you can be so close to the city yet so far away.

A campsite is located near the west end of the estuary if you want to stay longer. This is probably best to do in the shoulder season when it isn't so busy. If the water is high more secluded sites are located up the river.

PTEROSAURS: CATCHING PREY ON THE WING

Pterosaurs, the mighty winged-lizards, soared ancient skies expertly hunting for prey. Because they evolved from reptiles prior to modern birds, it was once believed that pterosaurs were primitive, passive fliers. They were seen as gliders, rather than skillfull hunters. Being the earliest vertebrates to have evolved powered flight, we now recognize that they were powerful fliers, chasing and catching their prey on the wing. One clue to this revelation is a small bone at the front of the wing bone which curves back towards the shoulder, roughly like an elongated thumb on a spread hand.

Modern birds have a small but vital feather, the aula, in this position. It shifts, acting like the leading edge on some airplane wings, redirecting the airflow over the wing, and allowing major changes in speed and angle in the air for comparatively little effort. It seems clear the pterosaurs’ extended thumb would have held a flap of membrane in a similar position at the front of the wing, and for a similar purpose. Their skulls hold the other clue; they have much larger brain cases in relation to their size than their earth-bound contemporaries. Co-ordination of flight requires tremendous brainpower, and co-ordination of active flight, with the constant shift in the shape and location of massive wings, even more so. Nature is extremely parsimonious, not frittering away investment in any organ where it is not needed.

Given the engineering challenges and the energy costs of getting each additional gram of weight off the ground, pterosaurs would never have developed such large and heavy “on board computers” unless they clearly paid their own way in faster, more nimble flight that would have allowed their owners to catch more prey and outmaneuver competing aerial hunters and scavengers.

PADDLING PARADISE

Like most mountainous areas, Bowron makes its own weather system and it appears you get everything in a 24-hour period. In fact, whatever weather you are enjoying seems to change 40 minutes later; good for rain, bad for sun. Wisps of cloud that seemed light and airy only hours early have become dark. Careful to hug the shore, we are ready for a quick escape from lightening as thundershowers break.

PUPPY LOVE: KANE AND MEADOW

WOOLY MAMMOTH

Creating long extinct life through harvested genetic remains is closer than you think. After successful experiments at the Institute for Reproductive Studies in Scottsdale, Arizona, with frozen mice sperm, scientists are now experimenting with sperm from mammoths preserved in Siberian ice.

We may one day have wooly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius), extinct since the Pleistocene, roaming around zoos and colder climes. At least it looks that way. Because of their massive size and icy cold environment, many mammoths have been preserved as frozen carcasses instead of being turned to stone, thus they are prime candidates for genetic reproduction. We really can bring them back. When originally touted in the news as a possibility, most audiences took the science to be too farfetched.

Researchers harvesting DNA and deciphering their genome feel they are on the edge of doing just that. Science as we know it is sliding down the double helix to science fiction. DNA, long bits of genetic code that form the roadmap of how we are built, is relatively easy to harvest and remarkably hardy.

Even with the abuse of time, small amounts can be extracted and with that the genetic wizards are able to put the puzzle pieces back together. Frozen sperm is used in fertility clinics around the globe, the difference here is that the entire mammal is frozen before harvesting the sperm. Once harvested, the frozen sperm from long extinct male mammoths is injected into eggs from females of closely related species. While positive results have been made and papers published (see the National Academy of Sciences) a baby mammoth has yet to be conceived.

A return debut? Yes, it seems it is true. Geneticists have mastered the craft, mapping out the genetic code on species ranging from mice to men. So, start planning their "Welcome back" parties. Wooly's time has arrived!

Baleen

BOWEN ISLAND

CASTLE PEAK HELICOPTER FOSSIL FIELD TRIP

FOSSIL PLANT BOUNTY