Sorting it out: Moose, elk and caribou

Moose, elk, caribou – prior to this ride, if one of each walked across the road I would not have been able to tell you for sure which was which. I live in the suburbs - I'm lucky if I see an occasional mule deer. The road signs of Canada helped me to be able to distinguish the antlers, and wikipedia filled in the rest.

Moose road sign

Elk road sign

Caribou sign

1. All the same family

Moose, elk and caribou are all species of the deer family (Cervidae).

2. Critter Names

What you call them depends on where you come from. From Leolupus, a zookeeper, on http://answers.yahoo.com

It depends on where you are in the world. In Europe, “elk” refers to Alces alces, which is known as the “moose” in North America. In North America, “elk” refers to Cervus canadensis, which is called the “wapiti” in Europe. “Reindeer” and “caribou” are the same animal, Rangifer tarandus, but “reindeer” is generally used in Europe whilst “caribou” is used in North America.

3. Antlers

Who has the antlers? Among moose and elk, only the males have antlers. Both female and male caribou have antlers. Leolupus believes the females keep theirs year round to help with digging out lichens (which they eat) from under the deep snow. Moose antlers are called palmate, the elk and caribou antlers are twig-like.

Alces alces (moose/elk)

Cervus canadensis (elk/wapiti)

Rangifer tarandus (caribou / reindeer) [This is the woodland caribou of Newfoundland]

4. Size matters

The moose (Alces alces) is the largest of the deer family, then the elk (Cervus canadensis), then the caribou. The caribou in Newfoundland are called woodland caribou and are the largest of the caribou species.

5. Loners vs. Herds

Caribou / reindeer and elk are herd animals. Moose are loners.

Interesting factoids

• Moose have very long legs to get through very deep snow. Caribou have very wide hooves to 'float' on the surface of the snow.
• Caribou hairs have a 'honey-comb' structure. This traps hot air from the body much better than human hair.

Side note: My cat sitter asked for a t-shirt depicting "moose and squirrel", as in Rocky and Bullwinkle.

I found plenty of moose t-shirts, and some t-shirts with chipmunks somewhere in the scene but nothing with both a moose and a squirrel. Take note, t-shirt marketers of Canada - there is a niche market here!

Just a peek at Newfoundland

The first challenge to the six-months-in-the-making plan for the ride across Canada came from a formidable monopoly, Maritime Atlantic. If you want to get from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland by water on public transport, this is the only game in town. I give them credit for refunding the cost of passage to the island, but the result of the change of our landing from Argentia to Port aux Basques was that we kissed goodbye our objective to start the trip west from St. Johns. Be forewarned about Maritime Atlantic - your plans and the reality of their schedule may not align.

The ferry crossing takes several hours, plenty of time to visit the ship's lounge to trythe local Quidi Vici beer, and a local rum called Screech. A friend had suggested that we try Screech but he had a twinkle in his eye so I Googled it - Screech is local hooch offered to tourists so that locals can screech with laughter when the tourist's tongue registers "paint thinner". If Simple Green could not remove the dead bugs off my bike, I suspected Screech would do the job.

On the ferry we did find dark chocolate in the Belgian style from the Newfoundland Chocolate Company - good stuff!

The queue for the ferry is a gaggle of trucks, RVs, passenger cars, motorcycles and "walk-ons". You are asked to queue two hours early so micro communities form - people tell stories about how long they had to wait the last time there was a ferry schedule breakdown. Dogs on vacation alleviate the boredom of being stuck an an RV by taking their restless humans for walks.

We modified our stay on the island to take advantage of Gros Morne national park, a UNESCO heritage site. [link to a site with good pictures of the park] The park has an excellent Discovery Center and there is lots of tent camping in the park. We chose the Lommand site because it had hot showers. As we were setting up camp, we were greeted by a black-backed woodpecker and received frequent progress checks from the chipmunks. Our campsite  was a bit wet and cold, but beautiful nonetheless.

As we had been traveling for several days since leaving Kingston, New York, we had begun to take the forested eastern region for granted. Did you know that Newfoundland is part of the Appalachian mountain range? Between Trout River and Woody Point are the Tablelands which look like arid desert. The rock you see in this picture is ultramafic rock - peridotite. This area is a geologist's nirvana because the rock is thought to originate in the earth's mantle. Peridotite lacks the usual nutrients required to sustain most plant life, so the forest you'll find everywhere else on the island can't form here. The rock is very low in calcium, very high in magnesium, and has toxic amounts of heavy metals. Peridotite is also high in iron, which accounts for its brownish color.

photo by Trevor Bell, © 1998

We would have liked to visit the Viking landing site at L'Anse aux Meadows which is on the west side but "vacation mind" had taken over and we just couldn't roust ourselves, there was plenty to explore in Gros Morne.

Packing up - squishing the air out of the sleeping bag pad

Among the bikes in the early morning queue for the ferry back to Nova Scotia was a Harley with a remarkable paint job.

The bike was riderless so I couldn't find out more about the artwork. Say what you will about motorcycle riders having a death wish. For me, the art was a beautiful reminder that there's a big difference between a long life and a life well-lived.

Bugs in the Bonnet and the Teeth

No bugs in my teeth - that's one of the reasons for the visor - no protein-on-the-wing for me. I feel badly for the bugs - at least they die quickly. This dragon fly died on my bike's air intake - can you imagine something this big smacking you in the face?


One of the many reasons to wipe down your bike at the end of the day is that an accumulation of dead bugs attracts the live ones who are hoping for a morsel or two for lunch. This little fellow didn't find anything of interest on my bike, but he found something on my helmet. Now I know that I'm not just imagining things when I feel the brush of a wing on my face - I watched this guy crawl into and inspect each of my helmet's intakes.



My saddle-up-and-go routine now includes a helmet check before I put it on - you never know what you might be bringing along with you for the next hundred miles.

Reflections on Trans-Canada ride

We arrived home (San Francisco bay area) on Friday the 13th. Now that I'm writing that date I understand why we had such a difficult ride through Marin into San Francisco. You don't really appreciate all the road camber changes and steep camber angles until you are riding a fully-loaded motorcycle in a heavy wind in stop and go traffic on the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge. The travel and weather gods were demanding our obeisance just prior to the bridge authority powers extracting the relatively new $6 bridge toll.

The entire day of Saturday was spent in a bike-cleaning orgy - I can't write until the bikes are unpacked, washed, polished, Armor-all'd. For a 6,818 mile trip Peter's bike chain was not as grimy as I expected. I'm keeping a close eye on my bike's shaft and final drive - I've heard two stories about GS bikes blowing out their final drive, one at 44,000 miles, one at 47,000 miles and my friend Dennis' GS, also in the 40k range, has a small leak in one of the shaft drive connections. My bike had no troubles on this trip - the bike goes in for service and new tires (the rear is square) on Tuesday - when my GS is happy I am happy.

I have to go to work on Monday so my brain is shifting back into information technology geek mode - let's examine this trip from a project management perspective and set up the stories that I'll try to crank out over the next few weeks.

From a planning perspective this trip was a success. Minor oversight - maps for Washington, Oregon and California. The original plan was to burn up Highway 5 going home. Instead, we decided to avoid the inland heat and head for the coast (Grants Pass to Crescent City) which we have done in the past so I should have been prepared. Fortunately, AAA has lots of branch offices - love those free maps!

From an execution perspective this trip was a success.

• We stayed on schedule and arrived home on schedule - there were days built in to the schedule for bike repair (used for Peter's front tire replacement) and "do nothing" days which we used.
  
• As for scope, well, the ferry gods are a tough bunch to keep happy. We did make it to the island of Newfoundland, we did not make it to St. Johns. Our "re-entry" to west coast civilization was difficult. I was overwhelmed in Vancouver and really didn't want to brave more crowds and tempt the ferry gods so we decided not to go to Victoria. Still, we went from the Atlantic ocean to the Pacific ocean so I declare a success.
  
• As for budget - the money for this trip was put away a while back. We travel modestly so for the moment, until the next credit card bill comes in, I'll say we stayed on budget.
  
• Customer Satisfaction - Peter says he is "very" satisfied with the trip. I agree. St. Johns to Victoria would have been the best outcome, and, had we been willing to sacrifice the "vacation" aspect of the trip, we could have done it. We both needed this vacation so Atlantic to Pacific across southern Canada is more than good enough.
  
• Daily operations - here's where some of the stories will come from. An SOP is a "standard operating procedure" - a good day is where nothing happens that you aren't prepared to handle and, routine stuff is handled in a routine manner. Like, finding your keys in the morning, or, knowing where your wallet is. Trouble is, at the end of a long day, there's noise in connection between your brain and your hands. I swear that while I sleep, little legs emerge from my key ring and my wallet has the ability to dematerialize and re-materialize from one pocket to another. Because we had modest mileage goals and a month to do this trip, I was not as strict with myself as I normally am - a new SOP emerged, the intermittent "Cecilie's morning freak out - code red - panic attack - where are my keys?!!!" (yes I had a spare key for each bike).
  

I know you want pictures. We are digging out of a month's worth of snail mail and we had to clean out the refrigerator - some new organic compounds formed and were off-gassing. I'm changing the resolution on the pictures now and FTPing to this site.

Successful traversal of Canada

On Tuesday the 10th of August, we stood in Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia and breathed in the sweet saltly of the Pacific ocean. We have ridden across Canada. We are punting on taking the ferry to Victoria - we were tuckered out from 30 minutes of stop and go on the Port Mann bridge - under construction until 2013. My clutch hand was so tired that I had trouble undoing the tie downs for the luggage that is strapped to the bike. The Garmin UPS took us through downtown Vancouver to get to the park - Vancouver city is a cross between Hong Kong, New York, and Seattle. After so much rural riding I was overwhelmed by the population density. After crossing through customs we celebrated with horchata (a Mexican drink of rice, cinnamon and sugar) at a restaurant in Ferndale, WA.

Note to travellors coming through US customs at the Peace Arch location - if you don't have Nexus, anticipate a long wait.

Our cat sitter is telling us that one of our cats is starting to freak out from our absence so we may not delay in getting home.

Many stories to tell - stay tuned.

Two days from Vancouver

We have been riding a succession of mountain passes along the Crowsnest highway (Highway 3) as we head towards the Pacific coast. I'll fact check when we get home, I think we crossed over the Macdonald range first, then the Rockies, now we are in the Cascades. If you want breath-taking scenery, as in jaw-dropping (figuratively - my jaw is buckled up by my helmet's chin strap) gorgeous, then you need to take the rural highway, not the fast highway 1.

The highway down into Osoyoos, BC is one of those times that you are grateful to be in a long line of cars which forces you to go slowly so that you can watch the lake land unfold as you descend into the valley.

I'll call out Creston and Cranbrook as two other examples of towns that bask in the grace of the Rocky Mountains.

My brain is going blank - it must be time for dinner.

farewell to the prairies

The prairie winds rule in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Having grown up in California near the ocean, I find it difficult to relate to the prairies. The open land of the prairie - few trees, no elevations is rather frightening to me. It isn't the huge open sky that I find strange - in fact, that is one of major draws away from cities. It is the lack of contrast in the land - I'm more comfortable in the high desert, in the mountains or near the ocean. Of course there is contrast in prairie land - for example we saw groups of cows cooling off in the small ponds that are scattered about - it is just a different type of beauty in the land than I'm accustomed to.

Hence my delight to discover that Alberta has "bad lands" (mauvaise terres a traverser) - and a Dinosaur Provincial Park in Brooks, Alberta. I should say "the" Dinosaur park - this is the site of the great Canadian dinosaur rush of the famous dinosaur skeleton rush in the early 1900's. Best to do the walking tours early in the day - it gets hot. Be sure to take the "bus" tour - to protect the fossils and the formations and the plant life, humans are kept under control by allowing them to visit the park from the confines of a little bus driven by a well-informed park guide.

Heard in the parking lot where we shucked our riding costumes for civilian clothes to walk around and take the bus tour: (the speaker is a hot, tired mom responding to a whiny, cranky kid) "When you go to Dinosaur Provincial Park, you don't just sit on your ass...(you hike the trails)". The interpretive center is an excellent place for kids (and adults) - lots of interactive displays and things to touch (beaver pelt feels much nicer than pronghorn pelt).

The tour takes you to formations (hoo doos, spires, and partially excavated fossil remains) you won't see on the walking trails. When we finished the bus tour I was melt-down hot. Standing next to the bikes getting ready to suit up again, I poured a bottle of water on my head to cool down. Why is it that when men see me do this they smile and watch but non-rider women always look away?

We are staying in Brooks, Alberta tonight - it was a full day trip to visit the park. If the gods of travel continue to be kind to us, we will reach Victoria island, British Columbia in a few days. We are mindful of the BC forest fires and are hoping that the smoke won't force us south of the border earlier than we planned.