Take A Ride On The Wild Side (35-4)
Story and Photos by Jim Couper |
When
your RV abandons the asphalt of large urban centres and reaches
wide-open spaces, Canada becomes a natural zoo with an amazing
array of wildlife.
Anytime
you leave the city behind, go prepared with camera, binoculars
and identification guides. Natural inhabitants range from opossum
in Niagara to polar bears around James Bay, and from golden
marmots on Vancouver Island to immense moose in Newfoundland.
Between the geographic extremes, one can encounter elk in Banff,
wild horses in British Columbia’s Cariboo, buffalo on
the prairies, and bear and deer nearly everywhere.
Once I even spotted two snow monkeys playing in an old fruit
tree near St. Catharines, Ontario. I was quite excited about
these newcomers to the mild Niagara Peninsula until I heard,
on the radio, that they had escaped from a private zoo!
Generally wild beasts that are bigger than man attract the most
roadside attention. A line-up of cars will stop for a bear or
moose sighting, yet skunk and mink will duck and slink without
much motorist interest.
On a recent trip to the Yukon along Highway 97 (which becomes
the Alaska Highway), I was immeasurably impressed with the size
and number of animals that inhabit that land. Within a 400-kilometre
stretch, my wife and I saw wild sheep, moose, caribou, black
bear, bison, deer, fox and a grizzly. And, just past the middle
of Nowhere, two huge horses wandered out of the woods, crossed
the road and disappeared into the forest on the other side.
At other times I’ve seen such interesting critters as
porcupine, groundhogs, wolves, coyote, skunk, fox, otter, beaver,
mountain goats, and cougar. This list of what I have not spotted
is much longer.
There are few places in rural Canada where deer can’t
be seen at dawn and dusk. Other deer family members such as
caribou, elk and moose are spread from coast to coast. It was
once the custom to stop and feed roadside deer in Ontario’s
Algonquin Park, until it was realized that this is basically
a death sentence for wild animals. Banff National Park has always
been famous for the huge elk (wapiti) that not only wander the
countryside, but also march right through the middle of the
town of Banff. The presence of these sometimes-aggressive animals,
with huge racks of antlers, has become so intimidating that
an elk management strategy has been implemented to reduce their
urban numbers.
Bison are the weightiest and most impressive of the animals
you may have the good fortune of seeing from the safety of your
RV. Standing up to two metres tall with a length of four metres
and weight of as much as 800 kilograms, they can be found in
selected prairies and wooded areas from Manitoba to British
Columbia. From near extinction, the largest land animal on this
continent has grown to a population of near 100,000 in Canada.
 While
the large land creatures are the most impressive, the ground
at and beneath our feet hosts a far greater diversity. Venomous
villains such as the black widow spider, scorpion and rattlesnake
can be spotted by the eagle-eyed in the pocket desert of southern
British Columbia, and there are even some tarantulas in the
west. Ontario hosts the elusive, 20-cm., five-lined skink, the
only lizard in that province and one of just six in Canada.
Others are the alligator lizard, two types of horned lizards,
and two other skinks.
The huge snapping turtle with a shell up to a half-metre wide
is found in waterways east of Manitoba. One could not imagine
that a slow, lowly turtle could do much harm on a roadway, but
in 2002, on the Trans-Canada highway near Truro, Nova Scotia,
two drivers crashed into each other as they observed a 40-cm
turtle cross the road.
Looking skyward, one could devote a lifetime to checking off
names in a birder’s handbook. The ones that draw gasps
from novices are the biggies – eagles, osprey, trumpeter
swans, white pelicans, owls, hawks, eider and puffins, to name
a few. And of course, anywhere there is grass to be eaten, the
ubiquitous Canada goose, with its insidious, squishy poop, is
sure to be found.
Birds that spend more time on the ground than in the air are
most likely to be seen up close by RVers. These include grouse
(prairie chicken), quail, pheasants, turkeys and partridge.
No inventory of interesting vertebrates is complete without
a mention of our aquatic friends. Travels along the salty coasts
of the Maritime Provinces provide the best opportunities to
stop at a scenic overview, grab the binoculars and sight some
whales such as humpback, right, finback and minke. Seals, harbour
porpoise, white-sided dolphins and basking sharks might also
come into view.
We’ve driven extensively throughout the world and encountered
camels on the roads of Afghanistan, elephants in India, guanaco
in Argentina and reindeer in Finland, but never has such a diverse
group of animals appeared at the roadside as in Canada.
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