Carol Patterson

INSPIRING EVERYDAY EXPLORERS Through wildlife tales and trails

Carol Patterson

Is walking with wolves on your bucket list?

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Is walking with wolves on your bucket list? If it is, you will want to head to Girardville, Quebec where Gilles Granal has imprinted wolves on humans and offers visitors a chance to walk with wolves.

To read more about what you will experience while walking with wolves, check out my story at MyItchyTravelFeet.com. This blog is aimed at Boomer Travel but anyone will enjoy time with wolves. You may not feel like Kevin Costner but wouldn’t enjoy time walking on the wild side?

Walking with Wolves on a Canadian Adventure

Wolves are not the aggressive animals portrayed by Hollywood. Yes, I wouldn’t want to be an injured elk in the vicinity of a hungry wolf pack, but humans are not attacked by marauding wolves. The reality is humans are attacking wolves. Outside of national parks, most wolves don’t see their fourth birthday.

Wolves are often misunderstood

Wolves have a lot in common with introverts. Unlike domestic dogs, wolves are not friendly, attention-seeking critters. In the presence of humans they avert their gaze, looking furtively at the two-legged creatures in their vicinity.

Learn about wolves by walking with them Click to Tweet

There is lots to learn about animals from books or movies but I think one of the best ways is to get your feet (and sometimes your bottom) dirty by walking near animals or sitting on the ground and quietly observing them. At Aventuraid you may get the chance to walk among wolves but Granal makes it clear the adventure is for the animals’s benefit, not the humans. If it’s not a good day for the pack, people don’t get to go in. Not ideal if you are only able to stay for one day but when you consider it is for the well-being of the animals, it makes sense.

Wolves prefer to stay out of the limelight

 

Walking with wolves and getting to learn more about their true nature was one of my favourite wildlife experiences. Here’s hoping you get the chance to do it too and cross it off your bucket list!

 

Sandhill cranes one of North America’s greatest wildlife migrations

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Ever wonder what wildlife viewing was like when John Muir and Aldo Leopold were alive?

I have and wondered if it’s possible to see a fraction of what they witnessed before economic growth and urbanization destroyed many wild areas.

It turns out you can still get an inkling of what they felt when surrounded by a large biomass of living creatures. Each spring hundreds of thousands of Sandhill Cranes pass over Nebraska’s Platte River. By mid-March thousands of cranes are gathered along the river and in neighboring fields and photographers and birdwatchers flock to the area (pun intended).

Two years ago, I huddled on a wooden bench as the cold sunk into my bones, squinting through a small opening in a wildlife blind as cranes landed on the dark marsh. The guttural cries of several thousand Sandhill Cranes washed over me and made my birdwatcher’s heart smile. I wasn’t too late to see one of North America’s greatest migrations!

The cranes stay in Nebraska for several weeks to add much-needed body weight before flying north to breed. When they arrive in their nesting areas it may be weeks before the food becomes easily available.IMG_0673

The best places to see the cranes are between Kearney and Grand Island, Nebraska including:

To see how it feels to sit among thousands of cranes watch my video click here.

The migration usually lasts until mid April. If you are wondering if it is worth traveling all the way to Nebraska to see a bunch of birds, consider that Dr. Jane Goodall loves to watch the crane migration. If one of the greatest animal lovers on the planet considers it worth her time to visit Nebraska, perhaps you should too!

Carol

Reinventing Flat-Water Touring

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Whisper Charters, Inc. Of the Elkhorn Slough My favorite way to watch wildlife is from a boat. Perhaps I’m a bit lazy but I like letting the boat do the work while I do the viewing. Whisper Charters in Moss Landing, California has reinvented the nature touring experience with its electric boat. Ordered specifically for wildlife touring of California’s Elkhorn Slough, the Selkie II can motor ten hours on a single charge. As the company name implies, motoring is done as quietly as a whisper, letting you move among the wildlife with little disturbance. The smooth operation makes the boat a perfect platform for photography and video.
The boat has comfy seating for six and windows that roll up and down to keep you snug in cool winds and allow unobstructed viewing in nice weather. With a small number of passengers, customer service is excellent. Founder Brian Ackerman meets guests at the parking lot with a pass and escorts them to the launch where soft music plays and coffee or wine are waiting. I felt like a movie star as I embarked on some world-class wildlife viewing!

To learn why I love this reinvention of nature touring, take a virtual tour at http://youtu.be/BkLWiZP3Mvs or learn more at www.whispercharters.com

TWEETABLES

Discover how Whisper Charters has reinvented the nature touring experience with its electric boat. Click to Tweet.

Whisper Charters provides fabulous tours of @elkhornslough letting you move among the wildlife. Click to Tweet.

Learn why I love this reinvention of nature touring in California in my virtual tour. Click to Tweet.

Monkey Business in Borneo

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The world's third largest island has a remarkable past and a great tourism future. One of the reasons the future is so bright is that people like Albert Teo, founder of Borneo EcoTours and my co-author on Saving Paradise: The Story of Sukau Rainforest Lodge, jumped into ecotourism before it was well known and succeeded with little assistance.

Rescued Orangutans can be seen at Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary
As an ecotourism pioneer, Albert and his team have faced many challenges in establishing an ecolodge, but Sukau Rainforest Lodge is a wonderful place to stay and a great example of sustainability practices in action.

To read more, click here to a recent travel story I wrote.

To visit Sukua Rainforest Lodge go to http://sukau.com/