The shape of water

I first truly noticed the Hudson Bay Lowlands while I was creating a map that was focused on North America’s land cover. I was choosing colours for each land cover type — adding various greens for forests and yellows for cropland. But this time, instead of colouring wetlands green, I chose turquoise, a hue that reflected the space they occupy between aquatic and terrestrial environments. A turquoise that really popped. And then: bam! It appeared. A massive swath of wetlands in northern Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba, the like of which exists nowhere else in North America. I had found the Hudson Bay Lowlands.

Except the term “lowlands” really doesn’t do this region justice. I think the area should be called the Hudson Bay Wetlands. “Lowlands” simply describes the elevation of a landscape; “wetlands” describes its nature. We all have a sense of wetlands: they are flat, mucky, green places teeming with wildlife. And, increasingly, we are beginning to understand that while they may sometimes be buggy and stinky and sloppy, they are also critically important environments for supporting biodiversity and for capturing and sequestering carbon.
While so many of the world’s wetlands have been drained to make way for development, the Hudson Bay Lowlands remain intact. And yet, it is a region and habitat that few Canadians know much about. I thought it was high time to bring the world’s third largest wetland (and second largest peatland) to our collective attention.

As a conservation educator, DeJong believes in connecting people to the natural world and says that efforts need to go beyond captivating photos and videos. Under the guidance of the North America Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA), the Toronto Zoo has been engaged with the Species Survival Plan® (SSP) which is working to secure genetically viable individuals that may be needed in the future if red panda populations decline is not reversed. In an exclusive interview with Canadian Geographic, DeJong shares his joy of welcoming a new red panda cub to the Toronto Zoo and explains how individual animals born in captivity can help their wild counterparts in Asia.

On the status of the red panda

First of all, I will start with their status in the wild. Estimates point to 2,500 to 10,000 red pandas left in the wild, and their range is being consistently reduced. I wish we had a better narrative around what’s going on in the wild, but habitat loss is still a major issue, as it has been in other cases.

On safeguarding the species

In North America, the AZA collaborates with accredited zoos and aquariums to manage species populations within the SSP. This program keeps track of each individual animal’s genetics, so we literally know their bloodlines, and this allows us to picture all of them working together as a larger population. Historically speaking, there were no connections between the animals in your zoo and the ones in the wild. We need to make sure that we have viable populations for decades to come, and if needed in the future, they may help repopulate wild red panda populations, but this is not the case yet.

For nearly 80 years, a Second World War-era B-24 Liberator Bomber has rested at the bottom of Gander Lake, Newfoundland, where it crashed upon takeoff on Sept. 4, 1943, taking with it the four souls aboard. Seventy-nine years and one day later, an international team of divers supported by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the Shipwreck Preservation Society of Newfoundland and Labrador and Ocean Quest Adventures located and positively identified the wreck.

Dubbed “Liberator 589D,” the aircraft lies on a steep ledge nearly 50 metres below the surface in near-freezing temperatures (six degrees Celsius). At the time of the crash in 1943, search and salvage missions were conducted by military divers in hard hats but abandoned after the wreck slipped into deeper water.

“This is a very technical scuba dive because it’s deep and it’s in very dark water,” says Jill Heinerth, a diver on the expedition team and Explorer-in-Residence with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. “We went down with cameras in really tough conditions to see if we could find anything that would give us positive confirmation.”

“More Canadians saw Paul Henderson’s winning goal with 34 seconds left in game eight than saw the moon landing three years earlier. And they watched the moon landing, it’s not like they didn’t care about it. I pointed this out to Wayne Gretzky, and he said, ‘This was more important.'”
– Author John U. Bacon – The Greatest Comeback

Fifty years ago this month, Canada’s best NHL players met the Russian national hockey team for the first time ever in the Summit Series. An eight-game series, set against the peak of the Cold War nuclear standoff.

Canadians were confident we would sweep the series, we invented the game after all. What unfolded was anything but. After four games at home, Team Canada had lost two games, tied one, and won only one. They were booed by fans during game four in Vancouver.

The Soviets had introduced a number of innovations that made them a far more formidable foe than anyone expected, like conditioning, emphasis on speed and tic-tac-toe passing around the net instead of booming slap shots and the dump and chase hockey favoured by the Canadians.

Based on his interviews with most of the remaining Team Canada members, author John U Bacon contends that the way the Canadians radically reworked how they played their game and win the series in Moscow changed the game more in the space of one month than it had in the fifty years previous, setting the template for hockey dynasties like the run and gun Edmonton Oilers in the 1980s and the hybrid game played around the world today.

John is a Canadian and American author and journalist. Raised in Michigan, he has deep Maritimes roots. His best-selling books include The Great Halifax Explosion, The Spark, about Cirque du Soleil and Let Them Lead: Unexpected Lessons in Leadership from America’s Worst High School Hockey Team.

For The Greatest Comeback, he interviewed 17 of the remaining 22 Team Canada members at length.

Note: The organ rendition of “Oh, Canada” played at the end of this episode is from game 3 of the Summit Series in Winnipeg. Played by the late Barry Anderson.

across the road. We look for boat-billed and agami herons, sungrebe and jabiru and take boat rides for potoos and pauraques as well as Morelet’s crocodile and hickatee-a large river turtle.
Tikal National Park boasts over 200 species, including woodcreepers, tanagers, cotingas, manakins, toucans, trogons, and much more. Imagine sitting atop a magnificent Mayan pyramid with king vultures and white hawks circling close by, orange-breasted falcons in sight, and tropical forest canopy stretching as far the eye can see! This tour is what dreams are made of.

Meet your RCGS Travel Ambassador: Myrna Pearman

Check out these other upcoming trips:

- Salish Sea Expedition with Emily Choy
- Grizzly Bears of Toba Inlet with Wilson and Charlene Bearhead
- Saskatchewan Whooping Cranes with Myrna Pearman