After months of hard work, attempting to study in the middle of fairs, and harrowing searches for wi-fi, today was finally the day I finish my online psychology course!
Lethbridge University, picturesquely sitting upon the hillside.
This morning I awoke bright and early (7am) to head across Lethbridge and over the amusingly named Old Man River, to the university of Lethbridge, where my exam was taking place. Unlike any normal exam though, since this was my final one, I decided I’d reward myself afterward with a hike through the stunning scenery near the university.
A hazy morning leads to a cool and exciting hike!
After a successful exam (80%), it was time for ADVENTURE.
While I may not appear to be especially physically fit, when I get to hiking, I can surmount surprising heights!
The river is a delightful home to pelicans of all things!
It feels like the “wild west” here!
After spotting some Pelicans (which I was confused to see so far from an ocean), and doing my share of hiking, I was feeling so high on my exercise (and ballsy), I decided I’d walk all the way back [about a 2 hour endeavour, all uphill]. Quite the tiring trek.
Upon finally returning we had three incredibly successful shows, with some of the most fun and enthusiastic audiences I’ve had yet.
McKenzie and Skootles giving their “best smiles”.
Tomorrows weather forecast doesn’t look promising, so we will see if some of our FINAL 6 shows get cancelled.
Have I mentioned, only about a week until we’re home?! I can’t wait.
Logan
I will be entirely honest with whomever may be reading this. We have faced our share of difficult and challenging obstacles over the past 2ish months, but any inclination to believe that the worst was in the past dissipated upon setting up shop in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. I really have tried my best to never “knock” a city, or speak-ill of it, but I am having a tough time thinking of redeeming qualities of North Battleford. The first startling feature was the fairgrounds themselves, which were “shabby” to say the least, sticking us on pavement right up against a looming building. One optimistic thing I can think of ,I suppose, is that the shade from the building was appreciated on the days we nearly hit 40 degrees. Yeah. Those days sucked. Besides being constantly drenched in sweat, another real bummer about the heat was that the attendance to the fair was minimal. And Boots the cat was too hot and bothered to want to move. I identified with his feelings immensely.
Dirk doing his best to keep us cool in the sweltering heat.
To add on to the fun we were having in our new locale, a “boil-water” advisory was issued for the entire city. Just what you want to see when you’ve been drinking straight from the hose for two days… If the tics in Moose Jaw didn’t give us lyme disease, and the mosquitoes in Red Deer didn’t give us west nile, then what were the chances the water in North Battleford would give us dysentery?? Also… What’s the deal with all these western cities having two-part names? “Bowmanville” is so much simpler. Like most of our other stops, I did want to sample the local cuisine… [Of course, no fountain drinks though… With the advisory and all]…
The finest cuisine in North Battleford.
Maddy & I were also out of a room, because the truck where we slept was in being serviced… Again… That just meant the four of us got to share one room, hooray! At least it was cooler at night…
There is nothing like waking up in the morning to a beautiful face watching you sleep…
Luckily, we all made it through our time in NB alive, and relatively unscathed! Take that poison water and heatstroke! Our next stop was our final stop, and we all knew once thing for certain… It couldn’t be worse than this.
Just in case you weren’t already squeamish about fair rides… Here is how they take down the drop-tower…
Monday, August 10th, 2015
Today was supposed to be an easy day driving only a couple hours from Saskatoon to North Battleford… Knowing us though, we can break down on even the simplest of drives.
Just another stop on the side of the road.
I decided since today would be another day filled with waiting roadside for mechanical help, and not much else, I’d do an interview with everyone’s favourite upright-bass playing animal trainer, McKenzie!
At least it was another picturesque place to lose a tire.
Here is the interview of the century!
How long have you been working at the Bowmanville Zoo?
“Since I was 12”.
Since you were 12?
“Yeah”.
Who is the most rewarding animal you’ve got to work with during your time with the zoo?
“Ummmmmmmm… How would you describe rewarding?”
It’s been a good learning experience, you’ve had fun doing it, generally pleasant..!
“Aslan [the African lion] has been pretty good.”
What has been your favourite stop on the tour so far?
“Either Moose Jaw or here [Lethbridge] I think… Moose Jaw was pretty nice, but Lethrbidge is our last stop”.
Whats one thing you miss the most about being back at home?
“Doing nothing… Not having to worry if an animal is doing something.”
What would be your one message to people back at home who might be reading this, like your dad who I’ve heard is a fan, be?
“Hi mom… If my dad is reading it.”
Not ‘hi dad’..?
“No, he’ll tell her”.
Eventually we did end up at our destination, and started preparing for what would be the most gruelling fair to date.
Logan
The best way to explain how quickly the next few days in Saskatoon went, is by the constant flow of balls into our cat’s mouths.
Some balls made it back in one piece… Others didn’t make it back at all.
Due to how close we were to many of the midway attractions, including the classic “knock the blocks over with a green soft-ball”. Since a lot of people’s strategies involved throwing it as hard as physocally possible, there were a lot of rebounded balls rolling towards our animals (much to the delight of Aslan & Uno)…
Best Buddies!
The rest of the shows went exceptionally well, with the four of us finding somewhat of a groove, that worked very well between shows and camel rides.
Who’s that handsome host?
Soon enough though, Sunday night rolled around, and it was time to pack up once again. Not before seeing HEDLEY though!
Overall, I would say Saskatoon is a fun city, but I wouldn’t want to spend much more than the 14+ days I’ve already been here.
We are leaving to North Battleford, SK, tomorrow morning! It’s only a couple hour drive, so nothing could go wrong, right?
Logan
Today was another exceptionally ordinary day at the fair (thank-goodness). It finally dried up outside, and we got to see a very fun marching band during camel rides!
I also did a carnival food run today for the crew, picking up funnel cake, candy apples, and some spiral fries for me! The shows have been gaining traction, probably due to our excessively “extreme” show title:
The “X-treme Wild Fangtastic Animal Show”
Skootles the camel even got in on the musical daily fun!
Skootles checks out the entertainment.
You might be wondering why there is SO much Skootles on my blog recently, and it is for two reasons:
Even though the only animals that we have two proper pairs of are wolves and lions [and the wolves are mother/son (yikes)], today still felt very reminiscent of Noah’s Ark. Much like the ark, the animals stayed dry and cozy all day. It was us who got wet.
Since we were anticipating a bit of rain today, we covered our sound equipment with plastic bags.. Unfortunately that doesn’t protect them from when the water rises up from below..!
At one point the water was nearly knee high.All the wood shavings from our show arena floated towards and subsequently clogged the storm drain in the middle of our set-up, soaking our equipment, and our feet in the futile attempt we made fighting it.
The rest of the day was spent watching True Detective indoors, and hoping tomorrow is drier, and has no cancelled shows.
Logan
After an extensive break between Medicine Hat and Saskatoon’s exhibitions, it was finally time for the beginning of our largest fair yet: The Saskatoon Exhibition. The start of any new fair is always an exciting and hectic one, often starting with the cleaning up of the prior break’s accumulated facial hair.
No bathroom mirrors? That’s what phones are for.
Just to add to the chaos of the day, I also had to taxi into the Saskatoon Polytechnic Institute to write my second psychology exam [which went very well]!
Exam time!
I wasn’t the only one getting all ready to go, as Skootles was also preparing herself, with the help of McKenzie! Skootles and her beauty team.
The days shows went well, despite our proximity to the loud and distracting midway. A couple problems with being so close to all the rides and hustle are as follows:
Boots the house-cat is VERY afraid of the 1001 Nachts ride.
The sounds of people screaming on the Drop Tower sounds an awful lot like people screaming if a tiger were to be mauling them. Luckily Uno behaved all day.
Midway on the left, us on the right. Slowly the lines between zoo crew and carnies are being blurred.
I also had the pleasure today of speaking to a very friendly girl about the animals, what I’m going to school for, and even our favourite foods, all just on my way to the truck to head to get groceries. It’s a little surreally meeting so many people across the country, while knowing you might never see or hear from them ever again. I’ll just remember her as my fair lady.
Weather for tomorrow looks ominous, fingers crossed nothing bad happens…
Before this blog post begins, let’s first discuss the elephant in the room. I’d like to remind everyone however we have no elephant on tour with us, so I am speaking proverbially. Unfortunately due to a severe lack of wifi, a busy schedule, and good ole’ absent-mindedness, I am rather behind on my blog posts… But I am aiming to catch up as soon as I can..! Maddy and Uno relax alongside the midway.
Since there are still a solid few days before the excitement of the fair begins, I have abbreviated the remaining into this one wild blog, filled with crazy antics and fun Saskatoon happenings.
Maddy in her natural habitat.
While some of us had fun during our time before the opening of the fair, I was hard at work studying for my next Psych exam on the 4th. Except when I joined in on the fun..
Finally, the eve before the fair (my exam) was upon us, and we prepared for all matter of chaos.
By now, I am sure that many of you have read/heard the news on the illegal hunting of beloved African Lion: Cecil. While this event was deeply saddening to thousands around the world, including my zoo crew and I, feeling sorry is not going to change what happened to Cecil…But we can make sure it doesn’t happen again! Cecil, the African Lion.
At one point in history, Lions could be found ALL ACROSS THE PLANET. Only 10,000 or so years ago, there were nearly as many lions on the planet as humans. Over the years due to excessive hunting, poaching, and habitat destruction, African Lion populations in the wild have decreased substantially, to today’s numbers, approximately 30,000. Aslan the African Lion finds a nice “natural” scratching post.
To give you an idea of just how few 30,000 lions is… There are over 62,000 hotel rooms in Las Vegas alone, which means every lion could have their own room, with thousands still left over. Las Vegas, Nevada.
I am fortunate to be travelling with Aslan & Athena, the lions, helping to spread the word about the troubles they’re currently facing in the wild. Something everyone who reads this should check out is the National Geographic’s Big Cat Initiative: http://buildaboma.org. The building of Bomas in Africa are saving hundreds of lions, and are ridiculously cheap to build/maintain.
Aslan, lounging around in Saskatoon.
I understand that it is easy to become passionate about the death of one animal, but I encourage you to become passionate towards all those who still live and need our help.
After a brief stroll by the river this morning, I got to come back to clean cages…
The mighty South Sascatchewan River.
While it doesn’t sound outwardly very exciting, there are some fun perks involved. My personal new favourite is preparing the baboon’s treat balls while they are out on their walk!
Dirk doin some training with Kiki on their daily walk.
While Sammy and Kiki are out and about, I start my primate-chef Magic.
It all starts with a little something sweet! Whether they are jujubes, or what I’ve been using recently, delicious raisins.
The baboons also get a good amount of their regular dietary food, the aptly named: Monkey Chow.
To add another interesting texture, we also throw in some Horse Crunch. While it is usually the camel’s treat of choice, the baboons love it too.
If you didn’t know already it should be notes, baboons eat almost everything!
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Logan Robins 