More Animal Prints and Imaginary Friends of Science

I haven't kept up with my own prints during this weird time, so today I'm going to share a bunch of recent prints!

Adélie Penguins linocut by Ele Willoughby

Orca linocut by Ele Willoughby

Black Bear linocut by Ele Willoughby

Beaver linocut by Ele Willoughby

Moose linocut by Ele Willoughby

 

 

Yeti crab linocut by Ele Willoughby

Rosy Maple Moth linocut by Ele Willoughby

Occam's Razor linocut by Ele Willoughby

That last one probably needs some explantions. This print "Occam's Razor" is about the Law of Economy or Parsimony postulated by Scholastic philosopher William of Ockham (1287–1347), "pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" or entities should not be needlessly multiplied. More simply this law, or really, rule of thumb is that the simplest explanation is usually right. The print should Ockham himself, inspired by an image of him from a stained glass window in Surrey, the proverbial razor and many unlikely things (aliens, ghosts, cryptozoological creatures) it would cut away.

 This is my most recent "Imaginary Friend" of science, along with demons (Maxwell's, Descartes' and Laplace's), Schroedinger's cat, and the Spherical Cow. If you have another charismatic thought-experiment/imaginary friend of science to suggest, please let me know!

Trip photos: More New Brunswick

I was tempted to call this "the rest of New Brunswick, but I know that's not fair. There are places we didn't visit or drive through. But, we did visit Saint John, Saint Andrew, camp on Deer Island, and visit Frederictor, and then drive from Woodstock to Québec, passing through a lot of the province. It was pretty thorough for a short trip. All my photos of Saint John are of people you don't know, and their kids, so I'll skip to Deer Island (near Campobello).






Seals!

Bunny rabbit!

We drove down to the ferry to Deer Island, after visiting friends in Saint John. RJH had camped there two years previous, and had wanted to bring me there. We found a site in the woods, where we could watch the tidal whirlpool, the seals and even a passing minke whale while sitting by our campfire. It was a beautiful place. In the morning we explored a little and then drove to Fredericton, to visit so more friends. On the way, we stopped briefly in St. Andrews, which is a very pretty (if touristy) seaside town.







Deer, outside Fredericton.

We spent a couple more nights at the camp and visiting RJH's family and then we headed northeast through NB towards Québec. I love the moose signs in NB. Unlike the simple 'MOOSE' signs south of the border, in New Brunswick they want to ensure you understand the scale of the issue.



They aren't kidding. That isn't even an especially large moose. They have special moose fences lining hundreds of kilometers of highways, with one way exits for stray moose. I was trying to explain to our young 8 year old friend in Saint John about the fences around Osgoode Hall, here in Toronto (home of his aunt's employer, the Law Society of Upper Canada). I explained that the fences were built to keep the cows from harassing the law students, 150 years ago, when there were apparently, random wandering cows in downtown Toronto, menacing law students. The gate has two corners, which evidently is too much for the bovine brain to manage. I explained that the fence was like the NB moose fences, except for Ontario cows, designed to allow animals out, but not in. His 3 year old brother, without missing a beat, asked, "If moose can get out, but not in, why do they need the gates at all? How do they get there in the first place?" That really impressed me. I was always pleased if I could get an undergraduate to display deductive reasoning and critical thinking. Though, I wonder sometimes if it's common at 3 and we scare it out 'em.

Trip photos: New Brunswick - The Camp

We stayed at the cottage for a few days, which was a nice escape. In New Brunswick, as in Northern Ontario, they call it the camp, not the cottage. We couldn't even get cell service there (which was, frankly, a treat grumble, grumble, newspapers which call or email journalists at all hours grumble), though we did have a weird assortment of satellite TV, when it was too cold in the evenings, even by a campfire. There was a channel which appeared to play strictly reruns of The Littlest Hobo, complete with vintage ads, for instance.* We went canoeing and took photos on the lake. Let me tell you that trying to position a canoe for a photographer who insists on sitting in the stern and stalking loons is no mean feat. RJH sorted through his old things (photographic equipment, archery supplies and old photos) while I followed a frog around taking his photo.



We went out of a hike in the woods to a place where RJH had found a waterfall. We pulled down an abandoned logging road and - in a very successful instance of animal spotting and identifying - I said, "Bear!" A full grown black bear was in the middle of the road, less than 10 m ahead. RJH stopped the car and said, "Don't get out." It was my turn to think he was crazy. "Of course not. Do you think I'm crazy?" I said, as he got out the drivers' side so he could grab the appropriate camera and lens from the back seat. The bear did not like the looks of this and reluctantly sauntered off before RJH could get a photo. We waited a bit and pulled forward. RJH found the vole that the bear had been eating (and the apparent reason for his reluctance to leave). He asked (RJH, not the bear or dead vole) whether it was such a good idea to go for a hike, since we saw the bear. I said I thought it was fine. Bears don't like people and he knew we were there. Plus he went right and we were headed to the left. So we entered the woods, making sure we weren't too quiet. I shot more photos of frogs, while RJH took long exposures of the small waterfall.

 

When we repeated the story about the bear, everyone seemed surprised I agreed to go in the woods. I think they suspected a city girl would be afraid of a bear. But, it was a black bear, which are pretty common in Ontario - it's not like it was a brown bear (Ursus arctos horribilis, the Grizzly bear) or a polar bear, neither of which I would like to meet in the wild**. I mean, I wouldn't like to get within a couple of metres of a black bear, or find one in my home, but when I was a kid, we used to go to the dump, in cottage country, simply to go watch the bears. It's not like it was a moose, I joked to RJH. We had dinner at his sister's place, which is basically in the woods. On our way home, in the dark, we saw five deer, a fox and of course, a moose. I was pretty good with the animal spotting. I said, "Deer!" and "Fox!" on cue (and, for that matter, "Cat!"), but mostly I said, "There!" and pointed. We we ended up on a narrow gravel road and came across the moose, what I actually said was "Whoa, whoa!" which was pretty inarticulate, but RJH saw it as soon as I did and we weren't driving very fast. The moose was pretty surprised to see us, in the middle of nowhere, after dark. She looked over her shoulder incredulously and took off. We told his family how we had seen the bear, the moose, five deer, the fox and four frogs, all in one day. RJH seemed to think it was hilarious I included the frogs on this list. I don't know why. Small amphibians are animals too. Though, I suppose I didn't list all the birds. Like ducks and woodpeckers are a given.

 *For non-Canadian readers, this was a show of my youth, about a stray German Shepherd who wandered around saving lives and solving problems (low-risk 80's TV show type problems). I'm not even kidding. "Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down... until tomorrow, I'll just keep going on..."

 **Yes, I do know that the chances of meeting either in New Brunswick are essentially nil.

Trip photos: Adirondacks to Maine

We left late, delayed by our roofers, and only made it to the border near Gananoque the first night. We crossed first thing in the morning and drove on smaller roads, through northern New York state and the Adirondacks, to Mount Placid. We stopped to take ironic photos with giant wooden lobsters, mysteriously far from the coast, and of pretty roadside look-outs. Mount Placid itself is pretty, if touristy, but I found the golf carts driving around town streets hilarious. The licence plates read "limited use vehicle", but they were golf carts. I regret being unable to catch the ridiculous-looking police golf cart, because it was too astonishing.








We took the ferry across Lake Champlain to Burlington, Vermont. We did not see Champ. We did like the old photos of the grand old days of Lake Champlain ferries, which included bridal and presidential suites.









We drove across Vermont, and through Montpellier. Knowing several people from Montpellier, France, I was more than a little surprised at the American pronunciation, and don't think I could bring myself to say that. It sounds wrong. But, it's really quite pretty. You could miss the Capitol building though, if you didn't know where it was. A polite local paused in his truck so I could snap a pic out the window of the car.







In New Hampshire we had to stop at Santa's Village. I commented, "Oh, another Santa's village. I know of one in Ontario and another in Norway..." RJH corrected me and said this was THE Santa's village. Apparently proximity to New Brunswick trumps all. The animatronic, talking Rudolf was creepy, but apparently, no one told the children this.







We continued across New Hampshire, stopping only for dinner. I was on animal-spotting duty. At dusk this became somewhat nerve-wracking. I've spent enough time driving around northern Ontario to have a healthy fear of moose. If you've never met a moose, they are much larger, crazier, more hard-headed, and less predictable than say, a horse (though, also tastier)*. RJH finds it hilarious that I say moose kill, as he points out that it isn't voluntary on their part. I, on the other hand, find their motivation for destroying cars (or lack thereof) largely irrelevant. Up ahead I saw a large bird on the road and thought it might be a raven, but as we approached, it seemed much too large. Peacock?! Why on earth would there be peacocks on the road in the middle of nowhere, I thought. Then, I got it. "Turkey! Lots of them," I said. "Yes," said RJH, "I noticed since we were practically on top of them." When I explained that I was paying attention but hadn't wanted to misidentify the birds, and in fairness, I had never previously seen wild turkey, he looked at me like I was crazy. "So you waited until you could identify the species? Why didn't you just say 'Bird'?" I didn't have a good answer for that one. So, I amused myself by pointing out all animals, real and fake. There are an extremely large number of fake moose lining roads in New England. They are even more popular than fake lobster.







We made it to Maine that evening and stopped at the first motel we found. The clerk seemed to want to dissuade us from staying there, practically apologizing for the price and warning that the phone did not work. But it was 11 pm and we really wanted to get off the road, and it was fine. RJH had been aiming for Bangor**, but after I accidentally said Bar Harbor (as my sense of the geography of Maine is vague, at best), we decided we should made a detour to the coast. He's from the part of the Maritimes which basically ignores the existence of the Atlantic. Everyone here always assumes a trip to New Brunswick involves seeing the ocean, but it isn't necessarily so. We made a conscious decision to make sure our trip did include the ocean.



*I don't actually know this. I would never eat horse.


**This seemed to be an excuse to sign 'King of the Road', or vice versa.