Nancy's Notes

Updates On The Pulse Of Pinawa

by Nancy Bremner Pinawa CDO, Volunteer, And Resident Of Pinawa

Notes On Work

October finished with a bang for me as I was in Winnipeg at the Convention Centre for the last weekend in October. The big event was the 8th Annual Mid-Canada Snowmobile & ATV Show. Some of the larger Exhibitors were Polaris, Skidoo, Yamaha, and Arctic Cat. This type of show is a chance for Tourism Associations, Community Development Corp. (CDCs), and the Service Industry providers to advertise their availability for providing food, accommodations, and other items for winter fun. Trails for the sledders and hot winter fishing spots are all actively promoted. The latest in clothing and machines were all there for the eager sledheads. Manitoba Snowmobile Industry Association Inc. and others were also there to spread the word about the Sno passes as well as environmental messages to keep nature beautiful.

We had a draw at our booth with a variety of prizes. Congratulations goes out to Lorraine Tessier of Winnipeg who won our prize pack. The most exciting part of the whole show was that I used our new backdrop for the first time. Our combined Marketing Strategy which is “Imagine yourself in a place…. then Discover the secret in Pinawa” was beautifully displayed. It is very impressive. 

At the time of the show it was unseasonably warm but the blizzard on November 15th has put the zing back into the sledders' steps.  The next show I will be at will be the RV Camping Show at the Convention Centre in Winnipeg in March (16th -19th I believe). Shortly after that the Canad Inn at Polo Park will host the two day Discover Manitoba Show April 8th and 9th. This show is really fun as groups from the different regions of Manitoba try to outdo each other with their displays, activities, and food.

November has been a very busy month. We are catching up on all projects and evaluating them by looking at their budgets and projecting costs for next years festivities. Some projects were done this past summer such as the Elite Communications Cruisin' Manitoba Show ‘N Shine we had in June.  Pinawa CDC is assessing our year and how effective we were with our Marketing Strategy and Goals. New projects are being developed in partnership with the Regional Economic Development Officer Jimm Simon and the largest one for organizational time and immediate one for Pinawa CDC is the New Pinawa Winter Town Market. The intent for this market is to highlight all our volunteer organizations and give them a chance to recruit volunteers as well as to raise funds for their worthy projects. We also have over 60 home-based businesses and a portion of these folks have chosen to highlight their business and registered for table space.  We have entertainment (Shannon Shewchuk), a food court (featuring wild rice soup, assorted sandwiches, chicken wraps, hot chocolate and coffee) as well as all the potential Christmas gifts and baking being sold.  I'll report on this new event in my next Newsletter.

Notes On Nature

In my other life as a Park Interpreter winter was a very busy time of year with various age levels of children.  Winter is a fascinating subject when it comes to how animals cope and how it affects our total surroundings and habitat.  Last month I spoke a "wee" bit on migration - trust me I could go on and on.  We of course wear layers of warm clothes but animals depend on their fur or feathers.  In the case of snakes they don't have either so they must den below the frost line and they "huddle" to prevent freezing.  Many creatures huddle or cuddle such as bees, bats, humans, mice, and fish but fish do it for a different reason.  Besides migration other creatures cope with the stresses of weather by hibernating, going into torpor, and diapause.  There are few true hibernators, a true hibernator must have a heartbeat as low as15 beats per minute.  A few true hibernators are ground squirrels and woodchucks.  What isn't understood is that this is not a permanent condition, periodically they wake up and move around and then go into hibernation again.  Torpor is a state where an animal's heart beat drops but not as low as the true hibernator and their body usually has a special mechanism to deal with urea.  A bear is an animal that goes into torpor.  They sleep but not heavily and females deliver their babies in January so are aware enough to take care of them.  Diapause is a condition that will hold an insect through the winter.  If you have seen members of Nymphalinae, specifically Commas or Satyr Anglewings fluttering around in our area when there is still snow and wondered how that came about it is because they can chemically alter their bodies to prevent ice crystals from forming.  The usually overwinter in bark crevasses and under leaves.   If you would like to learn more about wildlife in winter check out WILD Education - Below Zero sponsored by Canadian Wildlife Federation.  This is an educational program based on project WILD. 

Notes On Gardening

I was lucky enough to be able to plant beets, carrots and peas on November 12th before the big dump of snow on the 15th.  Now my garden looks like 5 twin beds with big cozy down quilts peacefully waiting for spring.  I was also able to spread out the last of the 60 bags of leaves that I had collected.  Interestingly they have an odour of tea bags and that was enough to bring a big buck and some does down the forest path to investigate the aroma of food.

Even though you can't get out and garden in our area at this time of year there are still garden things to keep you busy either mentally or physically.  Being on the cheap side I didn't have the heart to kill the plants in the hanging baskets.  The Wave petunias were still blooming in November so I cut them all back and stuck them under the grow lights.  They are now sending out thick green leaves along with licorice plants and new lobelia shoots.   The poinsettia plant that is 4 years old is setting red leaves so I am thrilled that it is doing well and will once again look great in the living room.  Next month I will let you know how to take care of your poinsettia plants to keep them colouring up every year.  My crazy Amaryllis bulb is going to bloom as it started sending out one stalk a week ago.  They appear to be going dormant again even though the flower is appearing which will be the 3rd time for flowering and dormancy this year.  I am also pleased to say each one of my bulbs had a baby.  I divided all my house violets as they were climbing out of the pots and repotted houseplants that were pot bound. 

Guess what appeared in the mail to stimulate the gray matter?  Stokes has sent out their seed catalogue with all the 2006 Flowers of Merit and the 2006 AAS Winners such as the Zowie Yellow Flame Zinnia.  I know I haven't seen everything BUT Purple Haze carrots really puts the word unique to the test.  Check out this All American Selection winner at T&T Seeds.

Two very interesting sites that Gardeners can participate in are the following:  Going Beyond The Zones and Northscaping.  Going Beyond the Zones is a Canadian Government site that is all about gathering data from gardeners to provide information about what can grow where.  The plant hardiness zones map was developed in the 1960s for trees and shrubs and over time it is now being used as a general guide for perennial plants.  The aim of this site is to develop a climatic profile for each plant.  Check out the project and sign up to provide information about plants in your area.  I know I had better get involved as there isn't much info on Pinawa.  Northscaping is a brand new site this year and provides extensive resources such as a landscaping guide and a searchable data base on least 2000 plants, shrubs, trees, vines and groundcovers for Zones 1-5 which is Canadian Zones 1-6a.  They have a newsletter as well as a forum so that you may participate on this site.  I notice there are very few towns registered for Manitoba so Manitobans get crackin' and get that info out there. 

Happy Gardening!

Nancy

November Pinawa Photo Gallery.

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