Ontario, no moose yet

We have spent the past couple of days in Ontario, getting very excited about the field work we will hopefully be starting next week. The lab facilities here at the Dorset Environmental Science Centre are fantastic, and everyone has been very friendly and accommodating for us. I just finished building the lab circulator component of our LOPC and we can start conditioning the water tomorrow, ready to put some animals through and see what we can detect! Yay! Will probably head out tomorrow to set up the met stations on the lake too, so fingers crossed the nice weather we have had all day will hold out for us. It's a little suspicious actually that the weather is so nice today, as we are doing inside work for most of this week, and hopefully field work for the next two weeks, so I am sure it will be pissing down while we're out there. We are planning to do one or two 24 hour sampling periods in our sampling plan, so I hope we can get our hands on a thermos and maybe learn some local folk songs to keep our spirits up :s

Anyway, enough about the science... though to be honest, that is mostly what my brain has been full of ever since I arrived in Canada. I am staying in a town called Bracebridge at the moment, and the lab is a ~40 minute drive away in the middle of nowhere, near a town called Dorset. Driving anywhere here is pretty impressive, with the giant trees and rocks and rivers and lakes to look at, and the variety of roadkill is a bit different to home. Smelt my first dead skunk last night, though luckily only caught a little whiff. Haven't seen any deer/moose despite the road signs warning of them, given the size of moose I'm kinda glad we haven't come across any while driving yet.

Driving from Montreal out to here is said to take around 6 hours but it took us much longer as we stayed multiple times for leg stretching and eating and drinking. First we stopped for bagels to bring out to Norm and Sandy (our gracious hosts), then we stopped for a second breakfast (I had a delicious crepe with fresh fruit and maple syrup), then later we stopped for coffee and timbits, then we stopped for lunch at a schnitzel haus, then finally we made it there and went out for Chinese dinner.

Speaking of Chinese, I really haven't had a chance to watch any of the Olympics but I guess there is always 2012 for that... At any rate the broadcast here unsurprisingly focuses primarily on the Canadian team, who apparently suck, and there is no Bruce McAvaney so what's the point? I've also totally forgot to put my footy tips in the last two rounds, and consequently ended up with 1 point last round, so I'm probably now a lost cause for the remainder of the H&A matches.

I am happy to report that my sleeping patterns have completely sorted themselves out, and I managed to get through it all without becoming hopelessly addicted to temazepam.

The food here has been so good so far, and my jeans have become mysteriously snug. It's just too hard to have any self control when you are eating out as often as we have been, though now we are based at the lab for the next few weeks we have bought a pile of bread/meats/cheeses/salads to make lunches here which should help matters. I also sussed out a nice jogging route this morning along Muskoka River, so hopefully the weather holds out for me. Anyway, I will be hauling around 30 kilos of equipment up and down the water column of Harp Lake using a pedal powered winch for the next two weeks so I should be safe to enjoy another timbit or two.

(I have a funny photo of our dessert from last night but don't have my camera cable handy so you'll have to wait for the hilarity)