Feeling Conflicted As A Tour Guide

Published on January 25, 2022January 25, 2022 by Rick Searle

Why am I feeling conflicted as a tour guide? On one hand, I absolutely love the work. Not every moment, for sure. But over all, well, I pinch myself that I kind of stumbled into it.

Take this year, I’ve committed to lead tours for every month, except August, from mid-May to end of Oct. Each and every trip I very excited to be leading. My calendar looks like this:

May: across Canada from Vancouver to Halifax by VIA Rail;
June: a tour of Alberta’s Badlands, including Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park/ Áísínai’pi, pictured above;
July: another coach tour, this time in Saskatchewan, taking in both Prince Albert National Park and Batoche National Historic Site;
August: My wife and driving back to Manitoba, camping along the way in some of our favourite parks;
Sept: this is a busy month as I’ll be leading two trips: one to Haida Gwaii via the Inside Passage and the other to the Western Arctic via Whitehorse, Dawson City and Inuvik; and
Oct.: Another busy month with me leading two trips to places and experiences that have been on my bucket list for decades: to the Seal River to witness and photograph the Northern Lights and to Churchill to observe and photograph Polar Bears. In case you’re not familiar with these places, they’re both in Manitoba’s high north.

Note: I’ll provide more details on each of these tours along with links on the calendar page soon.

Not only do I get to see and experience these fabulous places; but I get to travel in a style I could never afford and with interesting, fun-loving people eager to learn. And I’m paid very well for my services. Bonus!

But I’m also acutely aware of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with each of these trips and all the others offered within the travel industry. I suppose it’s the trip to see Polar Bears at Churchill that cause the strongest pangs of guilt. See them before they’re gone, right?

It’s not too late for me to change my mind and let the tour operator to find someone else. I know this would be terribly disappointing for them, particularly for their representative. She and I have formed a really nice working relationship even though we’ve never met. I’ve led other tours for them in the past, pre-COVID. I also know that this tour will go ahead whether I lead it or not. Another important consideration is whether my replacement would have as strong of an environmental perspective as I do.

And yes, I’ll admit I’d really like to see and experience polar bears in their natural habitat. I’ve only seen them in a large tank at the Winnipeg Zoo a number of years ago.

Sure, watching these two individuals roughhousing it under water over my head was a thrilling experience. But it has only fueled my desire to see them on the barren lands around Churchill. Where they are free to roam at will.

And so I arrive back on the horns of my dilemma. Should I go or should I stay?

One Map, Many Adventures!

Published on November 9, 2021November 9, 2021 by Rick Searle

Tomorrow night will be exciting! I’ll be attending the Ecostar Awards Gala as the coordinator of the Greater Victoria NatureHood. We’ve been nominated for an award for innovation. This award: ” Recognizes an organization that has demonstrated innovative sustainability practices, products, services, and/or technology in their industry.”

What got us nominated is our Greater Victoria NatureHood map and brochure.Therefore, it’s only fitting that I’ll be joined by my friend and colleague, Kathleen Burton. The map is almost entirely her creation.

We’re up against some serious competition in the two other nominees in this category. To tell the truth, I’ll be surprised if we win the award. But you never know, right. And that would be simply awesome!

The map has already attracted a lot of attention and accolades. In June we received a conservation partner award from Nature Canada for it, as well as for the tribute exhibit of Fenwick Lansdowne, an internationally acclaimed Canadian wildlife artiist. Because his subjects were almost always birds, his paintings were was often compared with those of John James Audubon.

The map was also finalist in this year’s Charity Village Awards. It will also be featured at this years International Cartographical Association’s conference next month in Florence, Italy.

On the ground, we’ve gone through print runs for a total of 15,000 copies in just a few months. The second run of 8000 copies was only made possible by the generosity of an anonymous donor.

Our focus now is to take the map from being a static downloadable PDF on our website to being something much more innovative and interactive. We certainly don’t have the expertise to pull this off ourselves, so we’re about to enter into a partnership with an organization that can provide state-of-the art technology in this kind of project along with a large cadre of highly trained people who know what to do with it.

The Greater Victoria NatureHood is also embarking on two other exciting projects. We’ll be producing three short (1 – 1.5 min) videos about each of the region’s migratory bird sanctuaries. We’re also reaching out to some local indigenous educators to bring in their nation’s knowledge and practices to the Migratory Bird Activity Booklet we produced and released last spring.

Honestly, it would be very easy for me to carry on about all the great things the partners of the Greater Victoria NatureHood have done over the past four years, while I’ve been their coordinator. It truly is a great honour to be working with these organizations and to be able to contribute to the realization of our shared vision: “a deep and long-standing connection with the natural world of Greater Victoria” among residents and visitors alike.

So What Have I Been Up To?

Published on November 4, 2021November 4, 2021 by Rick Searle

I have a busy life. And, for the most part, I like it that way, especially given that everything I’m doing perfectly aligns with my passions.

Being the part-time coordinator of the Greater Victoria NatureHood keeps me hopping. It is a remarkable collaboration among 16 organizations ( two businesses, four municipal departments and ten not-for-profits) sharing the mission of instilling and deepening the connection with nature through what can be found nearby in one’s backyard, neighbourhood and region.

The Greater Victoria NatureHood initiative is made possible by funding provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada through the Canadian Wildlife Service and is administered by Nature Canada.

Over the past few years, we used some of our allotted funding to offer free cruises through the Victoria Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary and by the Esquimalt Lagoon Migratory Bird Sanctuary for children, youth and families, made possible by the generosity of Eagle Wing Tours, one of the current partners.

Last year, we reached out to the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria and invited them to send the 25 youth enrolled in their youth program on an all-expense, 2 hour cruise to experience and learn about the ocean surrounding much of the region with the assurance that the current COVID protocols would be followed,

The cruise was part of the All Bufflehead Day celebration which happens every year on or near Oct. 15th. There’s a fascinating story here, but it will have to wait till a later post.

The program manager was over the moon with excitement. Her organization could not afford such an amazing experience. Many of the youth, she said, had never been on a boat, other than maybe a BC Ferry.

So you can well imagine the excitement among the youth when they walked down the wharf and gathered around one of Eagle Wing’s excellent naturalists. Even though some were more busy trying to look and act cool, most listened intently to what she had to say.

Once on board and on the way, most of them braved the cold and rainy weather to spend much of their time on the decks, watching for wildlife. No more than maybe a half an hour on the water, we encountered the first of not two, three, or four humpback whales. Two of which swam under our vessel. They surfaced and gave out a mighty blow. Now these young people know what a whale’s breath smells like.

They also saw, heard, and smelled the sea lions hauled out at Race Rocks, and they witnessed a large female surface only a few metres from the boat with an octopus in its mouth which it then proceeded to tear apart and eat.

You may be able to imagine the excited squeals, shrieks, shouts and laughter that prevailed on the vessel after the first sighting and throughout the rest of the cruise.

According to one of the ICA staff on the cruise, one of the students told him: “I feel like we are like a family. Being on the trip and seeing friends again to see these ocean animals is really refreshing for my spirit. It’s really calming and healing for those of us stuck at home.”

In a blog post for the association’s website, he wrote:

“Getting to share these experiences with our youth is an incredible opportunity to learn, for staff and youth alike. Our group enjoyed teaching one another words and phrases in our home languages to help point out interesting sights along the way – with “Look over there!” and “Whale, whale, whale!” in Arabic being particularly useful to our group. Getting to appreciate something bigger than yourself is a great way to put things in perspective, particularly during these tumultuous times. For our youth, it was a welcome chance to celebrate their ICA community and learn about their marine neighbours.”

Knowing that I played an important role in making this experience possible for these youth fills my heart and energizes my spirit. It keeps me going, wanting to do more with the Greater Victoria NatureHood to connect people with the nature found nearby as well as with nature more generally. The more we can touch people the way we did on this cruise, the more we can foster the development of a public ready to protect and restore nature.