#aspen parkland

[hikayaking]

As you wander through the boreal forest in an Aspen Parkland, one of the cool features you can find are pairs of trees not quite side by side, but close enough to seem to be two sides to an opening. (See them here?). They are remarkable similar and look somewhat like twin trees. I like to pretend that they are two sides of a portal to another world and make a point of walking through them ... just in case!

[ribzinc]

[battle-of-alberta]

silly idea i had forever ago i never visualized that Jo did have the oil family eyebrows but she made questionable decisions in the 80s and they have Not come back

[abirddogmoment]

A morning walk in the aspen parkland

[allbeendonebefore]

What's the most unnerving thing about southern Alberta to me

It's not that there's rattlesnakes or that there's cacti or canals or the occasional pr*life billboard or anything it's that

there's No

Trees

Like I know why there's no trees I'm just feeling very exposed right now and Im usually the one who considers the mountains too claustrophobic lol. I don't consider that I live in the boreal forest / aspen parkland zone of the province until 1. I leave it 2. It's on fire 3. Both

Anyway hi from Dino park! There's Sediments!

[wishingwalrus]

Unknown mushrooms growing in garden mulch. Aspen Parkland eco region in Alberta, Canada

[kagrenacs]

ty for what's going on in ur mind about loz. im not privy to full details but I know some incredibly sick processes are going on in there. you are wizard 👍cast grass knowledge on the zelda I belief you

Thank you <3 !! I'll make an exception for you because you seem polite:

Short grasses occur in areas of less precipitation, in the rain shadow of the Hebra mountains, Blue Grama and Buffalo Grass make up the majority of species found here.

Fescue grasslands occurs in areas of black soils. The thunder area magically produces a continuous stream of precipitation, and I put some at the Great Plateau, representing a biogeographic island. The Plateau is clearly from an earlier age, and remains untouched by flood and glaciation. Fescue, Parry oat, June and Wheat grasses.

Mixed Grass is a transition zone between little precipitation in the west and a large quantity of it to the East, allocating for more energy for taller grasses to grow. Tall grasses are to the east, in Necluda and would see Big Bluestem, switchgrass and others.

To the North is Aspen parkland, a transition zone between the Great Forest and Hyrule field. Aspens are common here, with Cottonwoods along the waterways.

[rabbitcruiser]

Edmonton, AB (No. 4)

Edmonton is on the North Saskatchewan River, at an elevation of 671 m (2,201 ft). It is North America's northernmost city with a population over one million. It is south of Alberta's geographic centre, which is near the Hamlet of Fort Assiniboine. The terrain in and around Edmonton is generally flat to gently rolling, with ravines and deep river valleys, such as the North Saskatchewan River valley. The Canadian Rockies are west of Edmonton and about 220 km (140 mi) to the southwest.

The North Saskatchewan River originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and bisects the city. It sometimes floods Edmonton's river valley, most notably in the North Saskatchewan River flood of 1915. It empties via the Saskatchewan River, Lake Winnipeg, and the Nelson River into Hudson Bay. It runs from the southwest to the northeast and is fed by numerous creeks throughout the city, including Mill Creek, Whitemud Creek and Blackmud Creek; these creeks have created ravines, some of which are used for urban parkland. Edmonton is within the Canadian Prairies Ecozone.

Aspen parkland surrounds the city and is a transitional area from the prairies to the south and boreal forest in the north. The aspen woods and forests in and around Edmonton have long since been reduced by farming and residential and commercial developments including oil and natural gas exploration.

Source: Wikipedia

[ringneckedpheasant]

1) the largest boreal-grassland transition zone in the world is the aspen parkland, which stretches from northern minnesota into north dakota and saskatchewan and manitoba and alberta. it is home to 72 species of mammals and 206 species of birds, and its conservation status is critical/endangered. due to colonization less than 10% of the original habitat remains. there are many tree species there but quaking aspens dominate it.

2) quaking aspens grow in clone colonies that share massive root systems. all trees in a clonal colony are considered one organism, making a single aspen colony the oldest and heaviest organism in the world—pando, in south-central utah, is around 6000 tons, covers 108 acres, and is likely more than 10,000 years old. what’s up with that.

foaming at the mouth I need to get a tattoo of quaking aspens but I’m too broke

[delicatelysublimeforester]

  Trembling Aspen grove Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CA

Trembling Aspen grove Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, CA

Native species, Trembling Aspen or Populus tremuloides, quaking aspen, trembling aspen, American aspen, Quakies, mountain or golden aspen, trembling poplar, white poplar,, Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area. Saskatoon, SK, CA

“No two forests are alike.  They are like art galleries: they all have pictures, but they don’t have the same pictures….So the first question is Why?”  We would expect each region to contain plants that are adapted to it – for if they were not, then they would soon be ousted by those that are.  But why does each region have its own characteristic suite of native species?” ~Tudge, Colin. Page 278

“There’s another kind of puzzle, too.  …The farther you travel from the equator, the more the variety falls off.” ~Tudge, Colin. Page 279

Saskatchewan has a native ecosystem called the Aspen parkland.  Why the Aspen?  Fire, especially grassland fires have been known by the first nations, and the pioneer homesteaders.  Grassland fires can be carried by the wind, and the range of the fire can spread out in front of the wind for hundreds of miles and miles.

Well, according to Colin Tudge, :The Aspen has long lateral roots, which, at intervals, send up suckers that grow into entire new trees.  …if it [fire] occurs in spring or summer it will kill the aspens along with everything else, because it burns the organic matter within the ground, including the aspen’s trailing roots.  But if fire strikes in winter when the ground is frozen, or in spring when it is still wet, the roots survive.  Then the suckers rapidly grow up to form new trees-rapidly because they already have a fast, established root system to draw on. “~Tudge, Colin. Page 309

  Bibliography.

Read more Tudge, Colin.  The Tree.  A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter.  Crown Publishers.  New York.  ISBN 13:978-1-4000-5036-9  ISBN 10:1-4000-5036-7  2006.

  Read more: Do Trees Talk to Each Other? https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/#0tof3RLaXxD0CsYu.99  Richard Grant  Smithsonian Magazine March 2018

  For directions as to how to drive to “George Genereux” Urban Regional Park

For directions on how to drive to Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

For more information:

Blairmore Sector Plan Report; planning for the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area,  George Genereux Urban Regional Park and West Swale and areas around them inside of Saskatoon city limits

P4G Saskatoon North Partnership for Growth The P4G consists of the Cities of Saskatoon, Warman, and Martensville, the Town of Osler and the Rural Municipality of Corman Park; planning for areas around the afforestation area and West Swale outside of Saskatoon city limits

Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area is located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada north of Cedar Villa Road, within city limits, in the furthest south west area of the city. 52° 06′ 106° 45′ Addresses: Part SE 23-36-6 – Afforestation Area – 241 Township Road 362-A Part SW 23-36-6 – SW Off-Leash Recreation Area (Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area ) – 355 Township Road 362-A S ½ 22-36-6 Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area (West of SW OLRA) – 467 Township Road 362-A NE 21-36-6 “George Genereux” Afforestation Area – 133 Range Road 3063 Wikimapia Map: type in Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area Google Maps South West Off Leash area location pin at parking lot Web page: https://stbarbebaker.wordpress.com Where is the Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area? with map Where is the George Genereux Urban Regional Park (Afforestation Area)? with map

Pinterest richardstbarbeb

Facebook Group Page: Users of the George Genereux Urban Regional Park

Facebook: StBarbeBaker

Facebook group page : Users of the St Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

Facebook: South West OLRA

Twitter: StBarbeBaker

You Tube Richard St. Barbe Baker Afforestation Area

You Tube George Genereux Urban Regional Park

Should you wish to help protect / enhance the afforestation areas, please contact the Friends of the Saskatoon Afforestation Areas Inc. (e-mail)  Support the afforestation areas with your donation or membership ($20.00/year).  Please donate by paypal using the e-mail friendsafforestation AT gmail.com, or by using e-transfers  Please and thank you!  Your donation and membership is greatly appreciated.  Members e-mail your contact information to be kept up to date!

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  “St. Barbe’s unique capacity to pass on his enthusiasm to others. . . Many foresters all over the world found their vocations as a result of hearing ‘The Man of the Trees’ speak. I certainly did, but his impact has been much wider than that. Through his global lecture tours, St. Barbe has made millions of people aware of the importance of trees and forests to our planet.” Allan Grainger

“The science of forestry arose from the recognition of a universal need. It embodies the spirit of service to mankind in attempting to provide a means of supplying forever a necessity of life and, in addition, ministering to man’s aesthetic tastes and recreational interests. Besides, the spiritual side of human nature needs the refreshing inspiration which comes from trees and woodlands. If a nation saves its trees, the trees will save the nation. And nations as well as tribes may be brought together in this great movement, based on the ideal of beautifying the world by the cultivation of one of God’s loveliest creatures – the tree.” ~ Richard St. Barbe Baker.

“I believe in the Oneness of Mankind and all living things and the interdependence of each and all.” Richard St. Barbe Baker

“I believed that God has lent us the Earth. It belongs as much to those who come after us as to us, and it ill behooves us by anything we do or neglect, to deprive them of benefits which are in our power to bequeath.” Richard St. Barbe Baker

    Grasslands and the Aspen "No two forests are alike.  They are like art galleries: they all have pictures, but they don't have the same pictures....So the first question is Why?"  We would expect each region to contain plants that are adapted to it - for if they were not, then they would soon be ousted by those that are. 

[hikayaking]

It's surprising how comfortable you can make yourself while nestled in the forest, surrounded by snow, with a hot chocolate on a makeshift bench.

[more-orless-bien]

[enchantedtigress]

Northern Saw-whet Owl by Gerry Via Flickr: Northern Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus) owlet perched outside an artificial nest box on a friends proper on the edge of the boreal woods in the area near Thorhild, Alberta, Canada. The rodent population must have been high in the area as the pair of owls produced seven young which fledged this week. It was a joy to see so many healthy young owls. 12 June, 2017. Slide # GWB_20170612_2920.CR2

[abirddogmoment]

Now that’s a “WTF” face if I ever saw one

[queenlua]

while in Alaska, i found myself wondering why Alaskans are Like That TM, and proceeded to go read a phd thesis on the topic

and oh my gosh this had SO many fun little history tidbits in it:

* Project Chariot: in 1958 some nuclear science guy was so jazzed about the possibility of using nukes for radical terraforming projects that he was like “yo let’s blow up part of Alaska so hard it makes an entire new harbor.”  said project honestly had a lot of traction behind it until a nearby Alaska Native village caught wind of the project and went “uh excuse me what the fuck.”  i always forget how weirdly nuke-happy that time period was (there is also a British version of this plan)

* apparently, Katmai National Park was originally created to preserve the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, which is exactly as badass as it sounds: after a 1912 volcano erruption, thousands of fumaroles were just continuously venting steam into the air for years and years.  however, the venting was mostly over by the time it got monument/park status, alas

* this Joe Vogler guy, omg.  what a kooky-and-then-bizarre narrative.  basically, Vogler’s some Fairbanks developer who’s really into building subdivisions and then forcing everyone in those subdivisions to kill every single aspen tree in sight because he hates aspen trees so much.  he goes to court over this (and loses, which makes him salty as hell)

anyway

in parallel, he founds a goofy Alaskan successionist party, runs for some elections, and eventually stirs up enough shit that, in 1993, Iran agrees to sponsor a Vogler speech on Alaskan independence in front of the United Nations

(would love to be a fly on the wall when they decided on this political gambit, lol)

anyway, he never gets to give the speech because he turns up... murdered?  due to “an illegal plastic explosive sale gone bad”??  dude’s found wrapped in a blue tarp and buried in a gravel pit like a year later.  weird as shit ending for a weird dude

* “[Wilderness activist Robert Marshall’s] donations to unions and socialist organizations during the 1930s caught the attention of conservative congressmen who accused him of being a communist before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Marshall responded to his accusers: ‘Because I’ve been out in the woods and up in the Arctic a good part of the past five years, it may be that the Bill of Rights was repealed without my hearing about it.’ “ #burn #pwnt etc

* our modern bajillionaires are extremely Extra, of course, but it’s hard to compete with how Extra gilded-age billionaires were.  imagine being a railroad magnate and your doctor says “you need a vacation��� so you fund an entire contingent of scientists to join you on a two-month journey to Alaska so that you have some company while you’re hunting bears???

* Godwin’s Law clearly predates the internet, lol.  when National Park Rangers started enforcing laws on parklands in the 70s, multiple Alaskan newspapers independently compared them to gestapo and/or Nazis.  (even funnier: this comparison understandably pissed off the readership of the more urban newspapers, so the editorial board had to put out an apology, which only made more angry people write in with other extremely choice metaphors, etc)

* “three members of the newly formed Alaskan Alpine Club, a splinter faction of the more law-abiding Alaska Alpine Club” --> not confusing at all!

[fatehbaz]

In mid-2020, during p@ndemic, the province of Alberta changed regulations to vastly expand the area where open-pit coal mining will be allowed. The region affected: the Rocky Mountain Front foothills, critical habitat of caribou and grizzlies, on the periphery of Banff and Jasper. Coal-mining had previously been banned for decades in this region.

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With the price of Western Canadian oil languishing around $35 a barrel and Canadian oil sands companies hemorrhaging both workers and money, the province of Alberta sees its future in another fossil fuel: coal.

A “coal rush” in the province could see at least six new or expanded open-pit coal mines built up and down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, mostly by Australian companies. Together, these projects could industrialize as much as 1,000 sq km of forests, waterways and grasslands, an area the size of Vancouver Island.

Alberta has eight operating coal mines and more than 91bn tonnes of mineable coal, but until recently, Alberta had a restrictive coal-mining policy that’s been in place for 44 years to protect drinking water for millions of people. [...] In 2015 the previous Alberta government announced a plan to eliminate coal-fired electricity by 2030, a goal Canada’s federal government embraced three years later [...]. Yet despite the commitment to eliminate coal-fired electricity, the new conservative provincial government has pulled out all the stops to increase coal production for export.

It [the province of Alberta] rescinded the 1976 coal mining policy without public consultation, after spending months wooing Australian coal companies. It also reduced the corporate tax rate from 10 to 8%, axed provincial parks in coal-rich areas, offered one percent royalties (Australia’s is a minimum of seven), and passed legislation to fast-track project approvals. [...]

First in line is the Grassy Mountain mine, which is undergoing an impact assessment to determine if it can proceed. Australia’s Riverdale Resources hopes the open-pit mine will supercharge the state’s output and produce 93 million tonnes of steelmaking coal over the 23-year life of the mine. [...] Located seven kilometers from the historic mining town of Crowsnest Pass, the controversial project involves removing the top of Grassy Mountain and digging a pit near the sources of two major tributaries of the Crowsnest River. [...]

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Headlines and text published by: Jeff Gailus. “As oil prices languish, Alberta sees its future in a ‘coal rush’.” The Guardian. 15 December 2020.

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More about the Alberta coal regulations changes, from earlier in 2020.

First Nations leaders and environmentalists in Alberta are concerned after the provincial government announced updates to open-pit coal mining regulations. Open-pit coal mining has been banned in some parts of Alberta since 1976, when the province introduced regulations to protect the Rocky Mountains and foothills. On May 15, Energy Minister Sonya Savage announced changes to those regulations. But Jesse Cardinal, interim director of Keepers of the Water, says open-pit coal mining will cause a lot of harm. “The Athabasca River flows all the way to the Arctic Ocean,” she said. “So all of those communities depend on that access to the fresh water to feed into that river. Same with the South Saskatchewan River. That goes all the way to Hudson Bay, so that goes all the way to eastern Canada. You think about fresh water that is giving life to these rivers, to keep them clean, so this is a huge, huge concern.” The regulations protected four areas. Most of the Mountains themselves were category one. The foothills were category two. Categories three and four were further east.

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Headline and text from: Chris Stewart. “Regional chief says First Nations not consulted as Alberta loosens open-pit coal mining rules.” APTN News. 25 May 2020.

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Map of affected areas:

This includes sensitive aspen parkland ecosystems, and critical foothills habitat for caribou and grizzlies. The coal-mining region will border Banff and Jasper.