The water's like glass and the sun is setting...What an evening!
May Newsletter 2012
The BWCA Season is Here!
Wilderness Journey will set off on the 2012 maiden voyage at the end of this month. I am chomping at the bit! We have a full season ahead of us and the expectations are high. Every year it seems like it gets better and better. I am setting the bar high for some groups who want to put some distance in their trip. Other groups are looking for the trophy fish that they’ve been after their entire life! Other groups are setting out with the intent to get deep into nature and enjoy the serenity. Great scenery, great wildlife encounters and then there are some who will be lucky enough to experience it all!
I am really looking forward to our many return clients. They know the drills: paddling, portaging, exploring, fishing and on and on. They’ve seen the best and the worst the boundary waters has to offer. After all, that is why they keep coming back. After last year’s lightening strike, wind blown trees in camp and the forest fire, I expect a pretty laid back year this year.
With the new website and a quick post we’ll be able to send out up-to-date information between each trip. We will tell our followers about the hot lures, wildlife encounters, weather and all other pertinent information. So make sure you sign up on our website and you won’t miss any great stories. Sign -up to follow our website posts
2012 Trip Reports Begin!
Starting next month the trip reports, we will be able to share new, never been told, stories and trip reports. I really look forward to these newsletters
Don with his first Monster Northern in the boundary waters
We can’t predict it… you never know what’s going to happen in the Boundary Waters. One of the reasons I love my job is the “unknown”. Personally, I am the type of person who likes change. I like a challenge and I like the unknown! What great wildlife encounter will it be? Will it be a wolf running along the shoreline or all night howls. Will it be a 300 plus pound bear swimming across a lake like Michael Phelps. OR will it be an eagle going down for a goose or even worse one of our lures like when Don and I saw the eagle go down and grab his pop’r~! I guess the pop’r can fool just about anything. Or will it be an encounter as simple as a loon swimming under the canoe, or like the time a 6 point buck came strolling through camp in the middle of the day when the Stefko’s and I were exchanging stories and he acted like we were in his territory. What great sunrises and sunsets will we see? What celestial events will occur? The perseids meteor shower, a full moon so bright you could travel at night or will it be the incredible Aurora Borealis? What monster fish will be caught…and lost, there have been hundreds of times I hooked onto a monster and never saw them and it always seems like they get off just before I can see them. I catch so many fish that it doesn’t really bother me but its when I know it’s a monster and I never get to see it, that takes me down a notch. But that’s also the reason I keep fishing because one day I will get her to the canoe and then I’ll think to myself now what am I going to do? Just a few more weeks… just a few more weeks.
There is still time and we still have a few weeks open so if you really want a trip where you can hardly wait to get back to tell your friends and family about your wilderness adventure then call us now! We will get the ball rolling. Start planning your Boundary Waters adventure!
My BWCA Beginnings
I consider one of my biggest mistakes in my life was not going to the boundary waters until I was 33 years old. Of course I made the best of it and the first 8 years I spent 4 to 6 weeks a year there. Then 9 years ago, I came to my senses and started Wilderness Journey. It’s been the best experience of my life. Of course, I could say “what if had I started earlier?” but life is too short to think about the things we didn’t do. I consider myself lucky that I made the right decision and went for it! Life is to be experienced not to sit at home watching the TV or sitting in front of that computer. We have many people that write us and tell us that they place a photo on their wall or computer and it keeps them going until their next trip. John Stefko booked a trip this year with his son and a friend, when he sent his first email he included this little note.
Trip of the broken paddle
“Thanks again for the great 2009 trip. I have a map with stopping point notes framed on our den wall with the broken paddle that Josh repaired hanging next to it”
Notes, emails and phone calls like this give me a great feeling and let us know that we’re doing a great job.
So it’s your choice. You can have an experience of a lifetime or you can sit at home watching the TV with all of the disappointing news and sit at the computer reading all the facts that bring you down and when there’s nothing you can do about it. Or you can change your life and go into the wilderness for a week and put some vitality back into your families or friends existence.
The CHOICE is yours!
The last cast of the evening
Want to join a group?
In bookings this year, we are going to try something a little different. We have a few small groups of people who are interested in joining other small groups. In doing so, we will be able to give the show discount to the entire group. We will try to match the groups to be compatible with each other. This is something that we are really interested in…getting new people with similar interests to meet each other on a wilderness adventure. After all, variety is the spice of life.
All interested people please contact us. If there is anything hindering you from taking a trip, call and see if we can help you find a way around it. We have already combined a few groups together but still have a few more people that want to go on a trip of a lifetime.
Mink
January 10, 2011 by Fact Master
Filed under: Animal Facts
Common Names: mink
Order: Carnivora
Family: Mustelidae
Species: Mustela vison
General Description: The North American Mink is characterized by a long, sleek body and short legs; a structure that is highly comparable to its close relative, the weasel. Its head is small (not much larger in diameter than its thin, long neck) with a pointed nose and muzzle and short whiskers that are only minutely visible. It has small beady eyes, as well as short ears that are barely longer than the fur that surrounds them. A mink’s fur, which is highly valuable and sought after, can have great color variation depending on the area it is found in. For the most part, the wild strain has a chocolate to almost black pelage that is short, thick and, soft, with black areas around the feet and tail tip and a white patch on the underside of the chin. The fur also contains long, black, oily guard hairs that protrude from the soft undercoat. Some members of the species may have more irregular white patches on the throat, chest, and stomach area or there are even cases of “cotton” pelts that consist of a light colored under fur. As a courtship aid, and less often a mode of defense, the mink has anal glands just below the surface of the skin in the rectal area which can spray a noticeably unpleasant musk, similar to that of a skunk. Indications that a mink has been in the area are more prominent in the winter and may include such signs as holes in the snow from plunging after prey or even troughs like that of an otter slide.
The size of the mink is around that of a small house cat with males (body length of 491-620mm) being slightly larger than their female counterparts (body length between 420-597mm). The mink also has a long, bushy tail which constitutes about 1/3 of the total body length (158-210mm in males and 128-180mm in females). The weight range of this species is between 1.68 and 2.31kg in males and 0.79-1.20kg in females.
The dentition pattern found in mink is like that of many other carnivorous animals with 34 teeth, including 4 prominent canines ideal for catching and killing prey. Worn teeth are often used as a sign of old age and mink are usually considered old after the age of seven. The life span of this animal however, ranges up to as much as ten years of age.
Geographical Distribution and Habitat Requirements: The North American mink has quite a large distribution, inhabiting almost any temporal region available. It is located throughout New Brunswick, as well as the majority of the North American continent. The mink is found in regions containing any water source (even lakes and large rivers) but prefers small streams, ponds, and marshes. The marshland inhabitants are, for the most part, larger in size than mink found in other areas. All mink species tend to stick within a days distance of water. It is an excellent swimmer, utilizing all four of its partially webbed feet, and is also a quick land predator and tree climber. In general, it tends to move to areas that harbor the greatest concentration of prey for increased ease in hunting. They may hunt more on land or in water depending on the area and time of year. Males tend to have a larger home range than females do, often covering several miles in a single day while occupying multiple dens. Females usually stick to a range within 100 yards up or down river of their den (they do not often acquire more than one living place).
General Biology: Mustela vison feeds on quite a large variety of preys including fish, frogs, crayfish, snakes, birds, rabbits, mice, muskrats and other rodents. It will also eat insects and carrion if readily available but not in excess and may even invade a nearby poultry house. The quantity of each prey type eaten depends mainly on season and densities. Mink have fairly poor vision and rely more on their sense of smell when hunting. Males tend to prey upon larger animals than females do and may take on animals larger than themselves. The mink does have the ability to stalk its prey by slinking along the ground but is most often found to be an opportunistic hunter, scaring its prey first and then chasing it down. This species often acquires more food from a single kill than it can eat in one sitting. As a result, it has been known to drag its prey back to its den for later feeding.
The mink is a mainly nocturnal animal, an adaption learned mainly in practicing avoidance from humans and other predators. Mustela vison’s main predators are larger carnivorous mammals including foxes, bobcats, great-horned owls, coyotes, dogs, wolves, hawks, lynx, and even river otters. It usually lives in a burrow about 3 meters deep and only about 10 cm
in width. The den is usually located within 200 meters of water and may be found under the roots of trees or beneath dead logs. It doesn’t normally dig its own den but rather seeks out an abandoned muskrat or beaver hole, digging new entrances if necessary. Although the mink does not hibernate, the den becomes a frequent shelter from the cold during the harsh winter months when it may actually sleep for several days at a time.
Mink are polygamous animals. Males, who are sexually viable as early as 10-12 months of age, will mate with a number of females during the breeding season which lasts from February to March, and tend not to form any lasting bonds. Females may also take more than one partner in a single breeding season. The gestation period for this species is usually around 50 days but due to delayed implantation, can be as short as 40 days or as long as 70. Delayed implantation is a phenomenon common to the weasel family where the egg lays dormant for a variable period of time (7 to 30 days) after fertilization and before initiation of development, which itself only takes 27-33 days. The young (often referred to as kits) are born somewhere around the first of May with anywhere from 1-10 in a single litter (four being the average). Newborns are blind and covered with fine white hair. After a couple of weeks they develop a fine coat of red hair and are weened at 5-6 weeks of age. By late summer they are experienced hunters and ready to leave the den.
Conservation: The North American species of mink is not listed as endangered by the IUCN, despite consistent interest in its valuable fur. The mink is a native species to New Brunswick and to most of the country except for Newfoundland, where it has been introduced. Although the mink is not endangered, it is still protected from over hunting with a declared hunting season of only two months during a time when it is insured that no babies or mothers are taken. There are also some habitat protection programs being installed in some areas in North America to aid in maintaining mink populations including wetland protection and restoration, managed grazing, conservation tillage, and filter strips and grass waterways. For more information on these techniques visit the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and view the section on conservation of Mustela vison.
Mink are also raised in large numbers on farms in order to support the high demand for their fur. This practice is quite controversial and has stirred up angry animal rights activists from all over. This domestic mink tends to be larger in size and has a greater variety in coat colour than its wild counterpart. In fact, it has become so different in some ways from its wild relative that it is often given the species name Mustela vison f. dom.
Wilderness Journey Clinic May 5th 11:00 am
SAVE THE DATE!
Wilderness Journey Client Clinics
Be prepared for your BWCA trip. Wilderness Journey invites you to a special clinic. We will display the equipment, review the camp materials and setup. We will talk about what to bring (and what not to bring) and answer questions about personal gear. We will review basic paddling skills and provide maps to see the different routes.
Last chance!
Join Wilderness Journey at the Ann Arbor REI
Saturday, May 12th 11am
Ramsey will give a BWCA presentation
Address: 970 West Eisenhower Parkway
Ann Arbor, MI 48103
Phone: (734) 827-1938
Fax: (734) 827-1945
Contact Wilderness Journey with questions: (734) 664-0353
info@gowildernessjourney.com Reminder and more information to follow.
