Northern Saskatchewan 2014 - May

I ranged far on snowshoes throughout May.
  


















Like me, migratory waterfowl were waiting for lake ice to melt in order to move on.
















Even in winter time I make sure to extinguish my fireplace.  This was driven home to me years ago when I accidentally caused a forest fire well into winter.  I was hunting in heavy poplar bush in north-central Saskatchewan with about a foot of snow on the ground.  There were many pockets of muskeg and spruce trees.  I left my lunch fire to burn itself out after I returned to camp.  I can still picture seeing a huge whitetail deer buck walking through the bush nearby, heavy antlered head low to the ground, in a dense snowfall.  I was seated on a bed of boughs sheltered beneath a spruce tree eating my lunch.  He did not detect me but disappeared as quickly and silently as he appeared, fading into the falling snow.  The next summer I was in the same area.  By chance, I walked into a spot where the ground was sunken about a foot below the surface about 30 metres across.  It was puzzling until I realized there had been a ground fire that burned into the soil, but in this spot in the middle of nowhere.  Then I realized, "Damn, this is exactly where I had the lunch fire where I saw the nice buck.  I caused this to happen."  The fireplace had burned down into the humus and slowly spread out until being extinguished by the winter snows.