instead of Uggs, mukluk boots

[shootingstar]

If I had more money, I would lust after...a beautiful pair of mukluks.

I've always wondered how suede-like leather would hold up in slushy snow. Some of those designs are so lovely. The snow in our region does tend to be drier..but not all the time. :confused: But there's a pair that full leather grain. :rolleyes: And they are lined for warmth. I would wear a dress coat to work with that too... (Really, I'm past walking with stylish higher boot heel in the winter among rocky ice and snow.)
And I didn't need to look to an off-shore company, for unique winter boots....
http://store.manitobah.ca/collections/mukluks

[TrekDianna]

Oh, how awful. Real fur. It looks much better on the animals.

[rebeccaC]

Oh, how awful. Real fur. It looks much better on the animals.

with so many animal free boots and shoes available now there isn't really a need to be personally part of animal cruelty.

[OakLeaf]

Whoa. I don't participate in the "what did you eat" threads ... is there that level of judgmentalism there, too, against those who eat meat and/or dairy products?!

If it makes a difference, according to the website, the furs and leathers are all byproduct. http://www.manitobah.ca/faq.php

[Owlie]

Whoa. I don't participate in the "what did you eat" threads ... is there that level of judgmentalism there, too, against those who eat meat and/or dairy products?!

I think it's less the shearling and more "fur from cute, non-domestic animals"

[shootingstar]

I really hope some people if you feel so strongly then write to the manufacturer --- it's in northern Manitoba...and they hire aboriginal artists for some of their designs.

Yup, I eat meat several times per month. I've never been vegetarian. I could be if I couldn't have meat for whatever reason. But I haven't done it.

I like finished leather hide shoes..particularily for dress shoes. My feet feels the difference in how leather shapes properly around the foot.

[OakLeaf]

I think it's less the shearling and more "fur from cute, non-domestic animals"

And the convenient forgetting of what happens to animals when you buy petroleum-derived clothing.

16842

[Owlie]

And the convenient forgetting of what happens to animals when you buy petroleum-derived clothing.

16842

Well, yes.

On the other hand, it's much harder to throw fur in the washing machine...

For shoes, leather all the way. There's a reason it's still being used. The fur...well, I dunno. If it's byproduct, and someone's eating the rabbit, I'm okay with it. Same with any hide or fur, really.

[shootingstar]

Hey, Oak good point but where I live..in a province that is so frickin' tied/in bed with to the oil production (which include tar sands), I probably wouldn't overfocus on that line of argument in my part of country....Alberta is also Canada's biggest beef producer. Lots of beef/large steak eaters in our area of country.

Not that I consider myself part of the pack..when I lived in Ontario for several decades of life plus B.C. where fish and seafood are plentiful.

There are limits for me..I was a bit horrified that sport fishing includes catching and throwing the fish back into water. Really? The fish is already hurt..and probably won't survive well thereafter.

When my present boss blithely told us and loud enough for other employees to hear, that her hubby taught her daughter how to shoot deer. They go on hunting trips --father-daughter. I really didn't want to hear that..she (boss) is born, grown up and lived in Alberta all her life. They do um...eat the deer.

But I honestly don't agree with urban folks hunting deer --as a sport. Better way up northern Canada, where it's so frickin' expensive to get fresh food. I hope people understand how flippin' expensive it is to have fresh veggies and fruits, shipped in the far Arctic. So people do have to hunt animals there.

Off topic: I have NEVER thrown shoes into the washing machine. I think the thought never entered my mother's head. I'm trying to envision washing running shoes for her 6 children in washing machine. Just after aload of sheets and cloth diapers? (Seriously?) We put the shoes in a bucket of water. But then we rarely washed shoes. We never walked around inside house with outdoor shoes. (And I ask guests to take off their shoes in our home.)

[lph]

Just curious - why do you have a problem with someone hunting for sport if they actually eat the meat? If you eat meat yourself (and I do, too, don't get me wrong) you "hunt" too, you just don't actually hold the gun. And especially if you eat regular chicken or pork, the total suffering involved is significantly higher in store-bought meat - in my opinion.

I don't hunt myself, but I try to buy game whenever I can, sometimes in stores, sometimes from colleagues who hunt deer and moose.

[shootingstar]

I seriously wonder how much people from big cities hunt...meanwhile with their gun collections.... (which shockingly was revealed after we had a river flood. The amount of guns kept for safety by the police when people were evacuated from a town south of our city. Not far from us.)

Lph, the issue of gun ownership and hunting is abit tied to my tendencies for gun control. If it's difficult and expensive to get the food, then hunting, fishing can be viable.

[lph]

I get the gun control bit. Gun ownership here is mainly hunting rifles and strictly controlled, hand guns are very rare. There's a strong traditional component to hunting here, to the extent that some rural counties will postpone all administrative meetings in September until after moose hunting season :-) And quite a few urbanites who have grown up in rural places will go home to hunt in the fall.

[ride4fun]

I hunt and I ride a bike, in fact we just bought Fat Bike's to help get us into hunting areas and pack out any game we get.
Sorry ,no wait I am not sorry I hunt for my food I am sorry other people get so worked up over someone else style of living or eating. LOL
Hunting and hunters do a lot for conservation.
I find the subject of hunting and fishing much like the debate of the best bike to ride. If you like it , it's legal and it works for you do it.
I would have a very hard time giving up my biking or my hunting and to be able to combine the two is great, I think we need to be carful about finger pointing over such things.

[Irulan]

.I was a bit horrified that sport fishing includes catching and throwing the fish back into water. Really? The fish is already hurt..and probably won't survive well thereafter.

An astute fisherman knows how to catch and release properly. You use a barbless hook, that is easily removed and then there a technique to place them back into the water with a minimum of shock. True sportsmen/women don't waste animals. Some people might be surprised to know how much conservation work and habitat/ecosystem work is done by hunters.
Sure there are unsportsmanlike like sportsmen/women out there - every subset of humanity has the good and bad guys. I wonder how many of you "oh don't kill the poor things" people actually know hunters who feed their families with the game they kill? Or know hunters than contribute time and money to conservation and habitat protection? Have ever seen how much work it is to hunt? Seen a bow hunter in action (amazing patience and skill - this is a real art) In the case of the mukluks, most native peoples have a hunting tradition that goes back thousands of years. Are you going to deny them their heritage? In the meantime, feral deer are overrunning my neighborhood. They are starving due to overpopulation.They get hit by cars all the time, eat everything in the front yard, obstruct traffic by standing in the road - and I live in the city. I only wish my bow hunting neighbor could take a few of them out.

[Irulan]

ride4fun,
When I first moved to the rocky mtns from California waaaay back in my errant youth, I was a naive young hippy. We moved to Wyoming, where my landlord there was rancher and elk hunter. I learned from him just how much conservation work hunters do, and what good stewards of the land most hunters are - and it blew my mind, in a good way. I had no idea.

[Crankin]

When I lived in Az all of the male teachers eagerly awaited hunting season.
I find the colder the climate, the less people are going to get upset about fur.
Yeah, and thank you Irulan about the deer. We have the same problem. One almost totaled DH's car a few years ago.
To each her own. I eat meat and dairy and almost everything else.

[rebeccaC]

I could throw a BIG rant into this :)…….but as Crankin wrote..to each her own….just living by example to those around me works for me.

[Pax]

If I had more money, I would lust after...a beautiful pair of mukluks.

I've always wondered how suede-like leather would hold up in slushy snow. Some of those designs are so lovely. The snow in our region does tend to be drier..but not all the time. :confused: But there's a pair that full leather grain. :rolleyes: And they are lined for warmth. I would wear a dress coat to work with that too... (Really, I'm past walking with stylish higher boot heel in the winter among rocky ice and snow.)
And I didn't need to look to an off-shore company, for unique winter boots....
http://store.manitobah.ca/collections/mukluks
My mom and I had matching mukluks when I was a kid. My grandparents lived in Alaska and sent them to us, SOOOOO warm!

[shootingstar]

It's great that over the past few decades that we have way more choice of man-made materials (some which are petroleum based) for clothing. And I take every advantage like everyone else here.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/northern-food-costs-focus-of-probe-217712141.html?story=Northern%20food%20costs%20focus%20of%20probe I personally had no clue about the cost of living in the Arctic/far north areas until I visited the area.

Alot of these people are low income and isolated. There are hardly any roads for safe driving/skidooing up in northern Canada.

They are setting up a greenhouse in Iqualuit...but of course, not every local is going to be in the arrangement (whatever it is).

It is true being vegetarian...it a privilege and choice...it really is if a region, has nearby sources of fresh local meat.

I know for certain my mother would have been furious at me, if I suggested as a family we went vegetarian or grow more garden produce. Would I burden someone with a big family of children with yet another requirement to figure it out? We, did grow something--kohl rabi. None of us at the time were gardeners to figure out better veggie growing conditions.

Whenever my partner goes cycling across rural parts of CAnada, I hear directly from him, his visits to the local corner store, etc. and lack of enough choice for fresh veggies, fruits. This is the 21st century. I guess people burn gas and drive 100-200 km. for their fresh groceries (including meat if they wish).

[rebeccaC]

shootingstar…do you know if the Nutrition North Canada program is helping much with the fresh and dried fruits and vegetables in those area’s? Do you know if the greenhouse is being funded by them?

[OakLeaf]

I guess people burn gas and drive 100-200 km. for their fresh groceries (including meat if they wish).

I'm not sure what the 21st century has to do with it, especially in rural areas. We haven't figured out how to teleport yet, or how to synthesize food from a machine in the wall!

Having lived in a rural area myself in the past ... people drive those distances for dry and canned goods, once a month or so. They grow their own vegetables and put back for the winter. They keep laying hens, and when a hen is past laying age, they have chicken stew. For meat, most people fish and hunt game birds, and typically a few people will raise feeder calves and sell freezer beef to the neighbors, whole or half, when they're butchered.

[shootingstar]

I'm sure there are people here in TE, like a good close friend I have who lives in a rural area..town of 2,000 people.

She is single, lives alone and has to manage a 4 bedroom house (inherited from her parents now dead). She doesn't grow much of a garden. She goes to regular grocery store to get her meat...just like us. Buys some produce from local farmers' stands. Not even a farmers' market. She lives in one of southern Ontario's veggie farming areas, near the U.S. border.

Meanwhile my partner does complain frequently of many small villages/towns that have lousy veggie, fruit choices..more often than not. CAnada IS so friggin' huge, like the U.S. ... yup, massive stockpiling when driving over such distances for food shopping.

[Owlie]

Just curious - why do you have a problem with someone hunting for sport if they actually eat the meat? If you eat meat yourself (and I do, too, don't get me wrong) you "hunt" too, you just don't actually hold the gun. And especially if you eat regular chicken or pork, the total suffering involved is significantly higher in store-bought meat - in my opinion.

I don't hunt myself, but I try to buy game whenever I can, sometimes in stores, sometimes from colleagues who hunt deer and moose.

I guess what I disagree with is the macho posturing part of hunting, but that's a very small subset and I think is played up by the media. If you kill it and eat it and happen to decide to have its head taxidermied, I have no problem with it. (Keeps the deer population down--my only concern would be chronic wasting disease!)

[OakLeaf]

What Owlie and Irulan said. Don't forget that since we wiped out all the other large predators in most of North America, humans are the only predators of deer.

Not that the game laws in most of the US encourage responsible culling of the herd. And not that they *don't* encourage macho posturing. I think that unfortunately, among gun hunters at least, that's way more common than Owlie suggests. If the gun season weren't so short, IMO there wouldn't be such a hoorah of people - yeah, mostly men - taking off work to "get their deer," having not aimed a firearm for the other 50 weeks of the year ...


(And as far as food shopping in rural areas ... I'm very surprised that a town of 2,000 is too small to have a full-service grocery store within 100 km. I was thinking about towns with populations of 100 to 500.)

[shootingstar]

Oak --you forgot the bears in North America --deer predators. There's enough of them in various parts of North America.

It's great a lot more people are vegetarians --meaning for years. That's real commitment which like cycling ...just becomes part of daily life.
I've scaled down a lot from having meat nearly every dinner to several times a month ...now like this for past 15 years or so. It was more just eating less meat for health reasons and just saving costs.

[OakLeaf]

When someone sights ONE black bear in most of the USA, it's a major event. Something like 120,000 white-tailed deer are harvested each year in each STATE. I'd be surprised if black bears hunt deer - are you sure of that? They're not much bigger than deer ...

Grizzlies, like wolves and large cats, not only are rare in modern times, but inhabit only a very small range.

[Irulan]

Some people hunt every season - upland game, duck, deer, elk, moose - each has its own season. For the hunters I know, and I know a lot of them, it's an ongoing activity, not something reserved for those two weeks out of the year that the not-real hunters go apesh*t about hunting.

In the west at least, bears are not a significant predator of deer, although they are known to take fawns.Cougars, coyotes and wolves are the main predators. I understand this may be different in the central/north central N America, as compared to the western states/provinces.

And no, I"m not a hunter. Many of my clients and people in my social circle and larger community are.

[TrekDianna]

What Owlie and Irulan said. Don't forget that since we wiped out all the other large predators in most of North America, humans are the only predators of deer.


Oh, not here. We have a cougar who kills deer on our property about once a week and I see cougar killed deer on my running/hiking trails just as often.

[lph]

I guess what I disagree with is the macho posturing part of hunting, but that's a very small subset and I think is played up by the media. If you kill it and eat it and happen to decide to have its head taxidermied, I have no problem with it. (Keeps the deer population down--my only concern would be chronic wasting disease!)

Ok, I just wanted to tell this - last winter a friend and I went halves on a third of a moose (these are BIG creatures) that a co-worker had shot. I wish I could post a photo, but this hunting co-worker is 24, petite, a little shy, cute as a button, has long glossy dark hair down to her waist, wears make-up, stylish clothes and boots with heels every day, and has guys falling over her wherever she goes. She's also a bureaucrat like me. She loves to hunt moose and is very skilled at it. I rather doubt she has the taxidermied head of anything anywhere.

I don't the like macho look-I-can-kill-things mindset either, but for many people it's really not about that at all :-)

[Crankin]

Great visual image, lph.
I know this will probably piss some people off, but my neighborhood decided to try to find a way to solve the increasing deer problem we have. There are about 30 homes on our hill, and all are far off the street, in the woods. Most people do not have yards in the traditional sense, i.e. little lawns. People do have gardens, shrubs, etc. The deer come down one side of the hill, where we have plants, cross our driveway, and down the other side of the hill, onto the street. On the way, they eat all of our hostas and other plants. We use deer scram (a mix of chili pepper, dried coyote blood) to keep them away. Anyway, the neighborhood decided to hire bow hunters, to come and cull the herd. Each individual landowner has to give permission. I didn't see the presentation they made, but DH did and we signed the permission. Based on the strong opinions of several of the people who live here, I was surprised by this, but it really has been an issue. As I said, DH's car had thousands of dollars of damage a few years ago, and was in the body shop for 2 months from a deer. I have narrowly missed being hit while on my bike, a very scary experience.

[lph]

Wow! How come a bow hunter? I don't know anything about bow hunting (vs gun hunting), but it's not legal here, and I thought it was for humane reasons, ie. you have to be a lot better at it to get a clean and fast kill. But as I said, I know nothing about bows.

[Becky]

Wow! How come a bow hunter? I don't know anything about bow hunting (vs gun hunting), but it's not legal here, and I thought it was for humane reasons, ie. you have to be a lot better at it to get a clean and fast kill. But as I said, I know nothing about bows.

My guess would be range and thus safety. An experienced, responsible bow hunter will generally not take a shot longer than 50 yards. Rifles, by comparison, can accurately kill a deer a few hundred yards away.

(I don't hunt, but my father hunts both archery and rifle.)

[OakLeaf]

Yep, it's the range of the projectile that's the issue. (Also that they still have to have a state license, and bow season here is four months long as opposed to the gun season, which is never more than two weeks plus special seasons.)

We don't allow deer hunting with rifles at all in Ohio. The range is too long. Shotguns only in the main deer gun season, then there at least used to be a weekend handgun season - not even sure if they do that any more. Small game can be hunted with small-caliber rifles in their seasons.

A lot of municipalities near us have licensed a handful of bowhunters to control deer. AFAIK though, there are few if any places near us that have both municipal hunting regulation *and* lot sizes large enough to require homeowner permission. As I understand it, they hunt only in parks.

Still, the patchwork of property lines and jurisdictions is an issue. There were a couple of incidents I've read about already this fall (not on our land), where a deer was wounded, either by a car strike or a less-than-perfect shot, and kept crossing political boundaries or property lines, making it exceedingly difficult for anyone to finally put it out of its misery. :( Even though our property is posted, I'm aware that it's pretty much inevitable that sooner or later, one of our neighbors will track a wounded deer across our property line, and we'll have no real choice but to let them finish it.

Which I still much prefer to our other, former neighbor's "target" shooting in random directions that used to have bullets bouncing off our roof ... thankfully they were at least far enough away that there wasn't enough velocity to penetrate ...



... this thread has drifted, hasn't it? <guilty> :o

[lph]

Oh, and I can get back on-topic. Sorta ;-)

I've lusted for kayaking mukluks for several years now. They're high waterproof boots with a soft low-profile foot, and are designed for kayaking in cold water. If you have to get out of your boat in the water and drag it up on land, even in summer the water can be cold enough to make it an unappealing prospect. Up north where the water is always frigid and the tide effects ensure a lot of boat dragging they're a huge bonus.

I googled the traditional dry-wear mukluks and was surprised by one thing, though. The calf is so much wider than the foot, which seems to have very little insulation. They're supposed to be for cold, dry weather, but to me they look like they would let the cold in through the sole.

[shootingstar]

The calf is so much wider than the foot, which seems to have very little insulation. They're supposed to be for cold, dry weather, but to me they look like they would let the cold in through the sole

There is a cyclist in Edmonton (which is 300 km. north of us), who has a pair. She has her own blog, "girls and bikes". So if no one asks from TE, I'll ask her. However I won't get to it for the next 12 hrs.

I agree boots look more suited for dry powdery snow which we do get in our area but then we get warm chinook winds for the slushy snow melts.

[TrekDianna]

I guess what I disagree with is the macho posturing part of hunting, but that's a very small subset and I think is played up by the media. If you kill it and eat it and happen to decide to have its head taxidermied, I have no problem with it. (Keeps the deer population down--my only concern would be chronic wasting disease!)

Agreed. Last year there were so many photos on FB of guys with their just killed deer etc that a few friends and I started posing with our kale, leeks and other things just hunted down at the grocery store. Posing with a photo of what you killed just irritates me. Yes, it's the posturing. You killed it with a weapon, you did not wrestle it to the ground in a feat of strength. I have nothing against hunting for food, I do not like trophy hunting.

[shootingstar]

Last year there were so many photos on FB of guys with their just killed deer etc that a few friends and I started posing with our kale, leeks and other things just hunted down at the grocery store.

:D It's a great parody TrekDianna.

lph- I got a response from the cyclist-blogger several hundred km. north of us. Her mukluks are made from real animal hide. They are fine in drier snow and temperatures as cold as -30degrees C. Not that I would be tramping around in them over an hr. under those temp. She's pretty hardy herself --she cycles often the winter on her studded tires. Brings her young children along.

[Pax]

Agreed. Last year there were so many photos on FB of guys with their just killed deer etc that a few friends and I started posing with our kale, leeks and other things just hunted down at the grocery store. Posing with a photo of what you killed just irritates me. Yes, it's the posturing. You killed it with a weapon, you did not wrestle it to the ground in a feat of strength. I have nothing against hunting for food, I do not like trophy hunting.
That is too funny! Next hunting season you could do a slide show, you in camo stalking the aisles or in a field of veggies. :D

[Irulan]

Wow! How come a bow hunter? I don't know anything about bow hunting (vs gun hunting), but it's not legal here, and I thought it was for humane reasons, ie. you have to be a lot better at it to get a clean and fast kill. But as I said, I know nothing about bows.

Something to keep in mind is that in in the US, you have 50 states with 50 different Fish & Game departments, plus the Federal Forest Service. The hunting regulations vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, as do game management policies.

[shootingstar]

shootingstar…do you know if the Nutrition North Canada program is helping much with the fresh and dried fruits and vegetables in those area’s? Do you know if the greenhouse is being funded by them?

I have no idea.

Here is a Canadian lawyer who lives in Iqualuit, capital city (town) for Nunavut on Baffin Island in the far Arctic on food pricing, both fair and gouging: http://sybaritica.me/2012/09/07/nunavut-northern-food-prices-and-kudos-to-leesee-papatsie/

(I like reading blogs of the lawyers who serve in legal aid for the locals in those communities....strong advocacy and passion for the locals and situation up there.)

[rebeccaC]

I have no idea.

Here is a Canadian lawyer who lives in Iqualuit, capital city (town) for Nunavut on Baffin Island in the far Arctic on food pricing, both fair and gouging: http://sybaritica.me/2012/09/07/nunavut-northern-food-prices-and-kudos-to-leesee-papatsie/

(I like reading blogs of the lawyers who serve in legal aid for the locals in those communities....strong advocacy and passion for the locals and situation up there.)

One of the focuses of the Nutrition North Canada program is to get fresh and dried fruits and fresh and frozen vegetables to the isolated northern communities at lower costs for the consumer. Your first linked article talked about a lower cost for those things now in those areas so I assume it’s helping. Hopefully the corporate greed in the subsided program (more about it in your first link than this link) can be corrected and costs lowered even more for the people of those isolated areas.

I looked into the Iqaluit greenhouse and it seems to be a community effort with help from the Nunavut government and the Cold Climate Innovation program at Yukon College. That greenhouse has been around for 6 years now and so far has been replicated in two other communities.

Hopefully this all will mean more nutritious and varied meals with produce most of the year for the people in those isolated areas.

[OakLeaf]

I guess I have a hard time understanding why that's any different from sucking water out of the Colorado River to irrigate the US desert.

Certain foods are in season in certain places. Certain places will support larger human population densities than others. When large human populations move to relatively barren areas and expect out-of-season foods to be shipped in, or grown locally at huge energy costs, that just isn't sustainable ... It's no more reasonable to expect asparagus in Ohio in August, than it is to expect broccoli in the Yukon in May...

[rebeccaC]

It’s not like a lot of people are moving to the Northern Canada area. :) Iqaluit is the capital of Nunavut and has 6000 or so people. The Nunavut territory is about the size of Western Europe and has around 30,000 people, mostly Inuit.

Btw…the greenhouses that the Cold Climate Innovation program are involved with in the territory are completely solar powered.

[OakLeaf]

But that's just what I meant. Sure, to someone who lives in fertile, water-rich Appalachia, that sounds like hardly any people at all. But if it's more than the land and climate will support, it's more than the land and climate will support, whether that's 600 or 6,000,000.

[roo4]

Oakleaf,

Here in PA, Black Bears and Coyotes are significant predators of fawns. They might not pull down an adult deer on a regular basis, but they do target fawns. And we have a lot of bears, last year's harvest was over 3500 statewide.

[lph]

But isn't what the Arctic can support based on traditional hunting lifestyles with a tremendous emphasis on meat? Hard to replicate these days.

If I were to base my intake of food on local produce it would be severely limited. Potatoes, onions, cabbage, beets. I'm not saying I couldn't, and I do try to keep my intake of off-season and greenhouse vegetables to a reasonable level.

[OakLeaf]

Here in PA, Black Bears and Coyotes are significant predators of fawns. They might not pull down an adult deer on a regular basis, but they do target fawns. And we have a lot of bears, last year's harvest was over 3500 statewide.

3500 bears vs 390,000 deer taken by human hunters in Pennsylvania last year? Sorry, I'm not seeing how that bear population is enough to balance the deer population without human predation.

And @lph - I know - I'm far, far from the ideal myself, but living where I do, it's just a different equation. Sustainable food is fairly easy, but sustainable transportation is hard. We all do our best as individuals, but I'm talking as a matter of policy, to what extent unsustainable lifestyles should be supported and encouraged.

The first chapter or so of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - the chapter(s) where Kingsolver talks about her motivations, first for moving out of the desert and second for her family's yearlong effort - are what I'm talking about.

I'm not expecting everyone to make that kind of effort; she herself did it only for a year. But for what our policymakers ought to be encouraging, I don't see it as any different from building more and more narrow, busy, sidewalk-free roads, instead of investing in public transit and bike/ped facilities.

[roo4]

Oakleaf,

I was responding to this post:

"Something like 120,000 white-tailed deer are harvested each year in each STATE. I'd be surprised if black bears hunt deer - are you sure of that? They're not much bigger than deer ..."


In fact, black bears do prey on deer and a significant amount of fawns are killed each year by bears.

As for this comment:

"3500 bears vs 390,000 deer taken by human hunters in Pennsylvania last year? Sorry, I'm not seeing how that bear population is enough to balance the deer population without human predation."

I never said that the bear population was enough to balance the deer population and in fact I agree that hunting is necessary to keep the deer numbers down to a sustainable level.

[Irulan]

I've been looking up a lot of hunting info as this thread goes along. In some areas back east, and UP MI, blacks bears ARE considered a deer predator, primarily of fawns but also others. Enough that it was noted in numerous places on the web: various state fish&game sites, university studies and so on. I was surprised also as that is not the case out West. It was consistently stated that bears don't run deer down, but they have other ways, especially the taking of fawns.

[Crankin]

We have had black bears running through people's yards in the summer, though not a huge amount. There were some seen on the trails in Estabrook Woods a few summers ago, which necessitated some of the local schools to change their training routes for the x country running teams.
It would be really hard for me to eat totally local in the winter, in terms of fruits and veggies. I eat a ton of fruit, out of season fruit, and I am not going to stop. I always have said it benefits my health and i would rather pay the prices than pay for medical bills. However, I know the carbon footprint aspect of it isn't good, but... as soon as the many local farms start selling their stuff, I only buy from them, and I guess that lasts about 5 months of the year. Been going to a winter farmer's market, but there isn't actually much there, in terms of veggies, except kale and potatoes. The other foods are unhealthy!

[Jolt]

We have had black bears running through people's yards in the summer, though not a huge amount. There were some seen on the trails in Estabrook Woods a few summers ago, which necessitated some of the local schools to change their training routes for the x country running teams.
It would be really hard for me to eat totally local in the winter, in terms of fruits and veggies. I eat a ton of fruit, out of season fruit, and I am not going to stop. I always have said it benefits my health and i would rather pay the prices than pay for medical bills. However, I know the carbon footprint aspect of it isn't good, but... as soon as the many local farms start selling their stuff, I only buy from them, and I guess that lasts about 5 months of the year. Been going to a winter farmer's market, but there isn't actually much there, in terms of veggies, except kale and potatoes. The other foods are unhealthy!

You might be surprised...here is a list of 20 local foods in Maine that the state can supposedly produce for its residents to have year round: http://www.mofga.org/Publications/MaineOrganicFarmerGardener/Summer2008/MaineLocalTwenty/tabid/970/Default.aspx. It's a pretty decent variety, and doesn't include the many other things that are readily available for part of the year. I'm sure a lot of the same would be true for MA. The only thing is that in the winter there would not be nearly the amount of fresh products available as in the summer--lots of frozen/canned.

[TrekDianna]

I've been looking up a lot of hunting info as this thread goes along. In some areas back east, and UP MI, blacks bears ARE considered a deer predator, primarily of fawns but also others. Enough that it was noted in numerous places on the web: various state fish&game sites, university studies and so on. I was surprised also as that is not the case out West. It was consistently stated that bears don't run deer down, but they have other ways, especially the taking of fawns.

Here in my part of Oregon it's the coyotes, cougars and bobcats that take down the fawns. Cougars also take the grown deer. We've only seen one bear locally so I would think there are more that we don't see. We do see evidence of them.

[Irulan]

We have had black bears running through people's yards in the summer, though not a huge amount. There were some seen on the trails in Estabrook Woods a few summers ago, which necessitated some of the local schools to change their training routes for the x country running teams.
It would be really hard for me to eat totally local in the winter, in terms of fruits and veggies. I eat a ton of fruit, out of season fruit, and I am not going to stop. I always have said it benefits my health and i would rather pay the prices than pay for medical bills. However, I know the carbon footprint aspect of it isn't good, but... as soon as the many local farms start selling their stuff, I only buy from them, and I guess that lasts about 5 months of the year. Been going to a winter farmer's market, but there isn't actually much there, in terms of veggies, except kale and potatoes. The other foods are unhealthy!

I'm not totally sold on the local concept. I heard a really interesting thing on NPR the other day that was talking about some of the nuances of localvorism. One example that was given was that it takes more of a carbon footprint to bring locally grown product into Manhattan, than it does to bring it it from farther away on more efficient transport than small trucks. Granted, that is a really narrow example but I thought it was a good one.

[shootingstar]

A difference between Inuit meat-based traditional diet and if they were to have it now (instead of more veggies), is that they used to burn their energy, hunting, fishing and ranging the land in the cold.

Not anymore. I was told a lot of the Inuit have lost skills in way finding on the snowy tundras even by snowmobiling, much less by husky dog sledding and kayaking. So more sedentary like other parts of very cold Canada. And going jogging even if you wanted: some the temperatures are the same as Calgary but they have less roads, paths and clear sidewalks. When I was Iqaluit I did see jogger...@-20 degrees C.

I was seriously looking at the cost of living...I was there for a job interview. Years ago.

Even Calgary, the middle of winter, a lot of our fresh veggies and fruits have to be shipped from outside of Alberta. In our region, doesn't seem have major greenhouse operations like B.C. or even Ontario. Yea, sure talk about preserved veggies: I guess for some veggies. But honest, I'm not really into canned veggies much at all nor flash frozen veggies often at all.

I guess there are frozen Chinese leafy veggies...but it is not the same. Let's see, once upon a time, my mother tried drying bok choy. Just too labour intensive for a family of 8 ...it would have to be ALOT of dried boy chok to satisfy a large family. Let's not get into salted veggies....kinda unhealthy.

I'm not going to kid myself: I am not a gardener/natural green thumb. It doesn't interest me. I've done other DIY stuff- sewing my clothing, cook from scratch all my dishes for most of my life so far. (Helps I have a mother who is like this also.) I rarely buy prepared frozen food from store.

[Catrin]

I buy locally where I can and when I can afford it. Am more concerned with helping to support the small local businesses rather than anything else. Also, I really like being able to visit the farm(s) where most of my meat and poultry come from so I KNOW how they were raised. I tend to know the farmers that provide my animal protein rather better than those who produce my vegetables. My food budget is only so large, and it is larger than it once was, but I prefer this approach.

[Crankin]

Jolt, I guess the point I was trying to make, is that I am eating fresh (and flown here) blueberries and oranges, etc. year round. I can't do frozen. I buy locally when I can. Like Shooting Star, I am not a gardner, in fact my thumb is brown. I find it frustrating as hell! So, I am lucky there are at least 5-7 small farms within 10 miles of my house. When I can't go there, I go to a gourmet farm market, which grows stuff that is local, but also ships stuff in. I have never gone there and not found what I wanted, in terms of weird ingredients. They started as a farm, and now they are a market that has baked goods from local bakeries, wine and beer, locally grown meats, and a selection of cheeses I could die for. Thankfully, when I moved, it was further away from this place.

[OakLeaf]

Well, leaving aside for the moment, repeating that I was talking about policy choices and NOT individual choices ...

you gotta love these industry-funded "studies" that compare half of one thing with all of another. Yeah, you know in California, vegetables just magically transport themselves from the farms onto the big trucks that take them to New York ... while vegetables that are going to the farmers' market instead of the industrial depot, have to rely on small trucks ...

[malkin]

Jolt, I guess the point I was trying to make, is that I am eating fresh (and flown here) blueberries and oranges, etc. year round. I can't do frozen...

Why not frozen?

[Crankin]

You mean fresh veggies that are canned and frozen, or the frozen packages?
If I grew my own, I guess I would can and freeze. But, I can't stand the frozen veggies you buy at the store.
I guess I'm spoiled.

[lph]

We tend to eat a mix. We have bags of frozen vegetables in the freezer, they're not like fresh but I'm told the the nutritional value is pretty good actually. They're easy to put into stews and stuff like that. I prefer fresh, but they're more hassle and time to prepare, keep for shorter time, and then there's the environmental impact. We stock up on local in-season vegetables when possible, but the season is short. There's absolutely nothing like fresh local ears of corn in september. Only canned corn available for the rest of the year.

It can be hard to know how to shop groceries sustainably. Apparently the carbon footprint of greenhouse-grown vegetables up here can rival that of air-transported stuff. I try to find a reasonable balance between a varied and healthy and enjoyable diet, and one that isn't based on an outrageous use of natural resources. The biggie when it comes to carbon footprint is of course reducing meat intake, from farmed animals.

I'm curious as to how gardening came into the discussion. There's no way I could garden more than a tiny fraction of the food I eat, not without giving up either my job or most of my free time in the growth season. I have friends who have small vegetable gardens, but it's mostly for fun. Even family who own a dairy farm and have plenty of land only produce their own potatoes.

[OakLeaf]

Heh. See, sweet corn is the one thing I won't even eat if I didn't grow it myself. The sugars start to convert to starches within 90 minutes of picking. Even at the farmers' market, sweet corn picked earlier the same day just tastes like cardboard to me.

I'm breakfasting right now on frozen blueberries I picked this July (at a farm, I don't have bushes of my own). :)

Of course I know that any home food preservation - freezing, canning, drying in non-arid climates - has substantial energy costs. There, far more than in transportation IMO, is where economies of scale really come into play. But I wasn't talking about personal choices ...

[Catrin]

I LOVE blueberries, but for some reason I just don't care for frozen. To me they taste like cardboard...I do need to get more berries in my diet. It is interesting to see how this discussion has morphed, and I am enjoying the different perspectives.

[lph]

Of course I know that any home food preservation - freezing, canning, drying in non-arid climates - has substantial energy costs. There, far more than in transportation IMO, is where economies of scale really come into play. But I wasn't talking about personal choices ...

Oh, I know :-) It's just interesting to discuss. Because even with stiffer prices for overseas vegetables and fruit, they're still affordable here, especially compared to meat - which is locally produced, and highly subsidized to keep the rural districts alive. But then, I don't live in the high Arctic.

[Crankin]

I am eating less and less meat. I could easily be a vegetarian, but I like the increased choices I get when I add a little meat and chicken into my diet. I love beans, but they don't love me. I still eat them, though, in small amounts.
I guess the good thing is, is that we are all aware of this, in some way. It all adds up. Ten years ago, I didn't really think about any of this. I think my current job, where I have to drive so much, over longer distances, really made me start thinking about how much energy I am wasting. Sure, I am helping people, some of whom would not be getting therapy, but it started bothering me a lot in the past year.

[malkin]

I'm all in favor of not eating any food that tastes like cardboard in pretty much the same way that I also reject wearing any fake fur that becomes a sticky cold soggy mess when it gets wet.

[lph]

So am I, but... cardboard? That bad? I can't really think of any food, frozen, fresh or dried, that I would describe that way.

With the notable exception of rice crackers. :eek:

[malkin]

Some of the widely available grocery store frozen veggies are pretty bad. Circa 1973 my dad compared some frozen veg. on our plates to the green paper napkins we were using at the dinner table, but that was a long time ago.

I am quite a fan of frozen blueberries. As for the rest, Brewer does almost all the cooking and makes it taste fabulous, so I don't care how it got here.

As for rice crackers, aren't they more like packing peanuts?

[OakLeaf]

Ever tasted those cornstarch packing peanuts? They're better than rice cakes. Especially with a little salt. :p

[goldfinch]

Picking bits from what others have posted. . .

In northern Minnesota black bears are common and I see them frequently. Even when I lived in the city come spring bears were everywhere. I had one friend who had a black bear come right into his screened porch when he was in the house. We have to be really careful with birdseed and garbage in all but the winter months. My understanding is that the farther north you go the more carnivorous the black bears become, because of lack of plant life.

One of my neighbors had a run in with a black bear over a deer she had killed. She and her husband ran off the bear. We have had a couple of black bear attacks on people, but no one has been killed.

I grew up eating venison and I still eat venison. I just had it in chili last weekend. My relatives all hunt. Our major deer predator besides humans is the timber wolf. Our deer hunt was down this year. One speculation is the high wolf population. Timber wolves are now a common sight. Our wolf population is high enough that locals who keep cattle or sheep now keep llamas to deter and fight off timber wolves and brush wolves. Our neighbor has not lost any sheep to wolves since he began keeping a couple of llamas. Not that it is a 100% solution, but it beats defenseless cattle or sheep. Data on success though is pretty good.

On the mukluk topic, I've worn mukluks for years. They are moose hide. I eat meat but I try to eat meat killed by those I know who kill animals as humanly as possible. I won't eat factory farmed animals.

My family home has a root cellar. Current temperature, 46 degrees. Good for keeping root vegetables and squash. This year, four wagons of squash:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/QO1UNMrrrutUGzITyO_mqyo0JsGOx_4jJoysIXB0zzA=w140-h187-p-no

FWIW

[malkin]

Llamas fight wolves?!

Cool, who knew?

[shootingstar]

I don't know my bears, but wild bears in city of North Vancouver and some of the suburbs do get a bear roaming near backyards. I know at the construction site where I worked, there was a bear spotted by construction workers about 5 km. away or less. This is out in the suburbs, but within 30 km. of a regional wilderness park. We were also located near salmon spawning river areas.

Bear warnings are taken seriously in any of the protected wilderness parks in British Columbia and Alberta. They are much more ie. plentiful than in Europe.. because Canada has huge tracts of wilderness.. it continues to amaze one how daunting our distances are and very much uninhabited just going north less than 300 km. of huge Canadian cities.

2 days ago while we were heading to the mountains in B.C., Greyhound bus had 2 suddenly slow down twice: 1. for a herd of bighorn sheep on the road 2. for a freshly hit deer lying on the road. I could see it twitching still on the road. I am certain that animal might get run over again by cars in other direction in the dark on this high speed highway.

In southern Ontario where I grew up, you never heard about bears..but when I moved out to B.C. and Alberta yes, of course.

This afternoon we went snowshoeing in a mountain area, where several skiers told us they saw a moose and her calf today. Unfortunately we didn't see them. There is an area in this marked x-country skiing area named "Moose Meadows".

I have encountered bears twice in the wild..both times in national parks --continental divide in Banff National Park and another one roaming through a parking lot at Waterton National Park. Latter was only less than 10 ft. away.

[lph]

Llamas are awesome creatures in the first place, and they just gained another ten points of awesomeness.

We don't have that many wolves, but some, and they cause a great deal of conflict, especially in rural sheep-farming areas. We now have a pair of wolves with pups in our next-door forest area, which is right outside Oslo. They've already had som run-ins with dogs, and have killed one, but so far the sentiment is still wolf-friendly.

[Crankin]

Geez, I have never seen a wolf...
I *did* see a moose when we were in the Maine Wilderness about 3 years ago. We were mountain biking back to Little Lyford Pond on a dirt road and one crossed right in front of us. It was scary and almost unreal, like peering down at the Grand Canyon and it looking like a picture.

[Irulan]

lol, I was wondering how long before Wolves entered the conversation. lph, I find your post interesting because in US North America, the reintroduction of wolves and the delisting of them from the endangered species list is a Really Big Deal and very controversial. We never hear much about what is going on in other countries in regards to this issue.

Shooting star, it might be beneficial to clarify the differences between black/ bears, and grizzlies. They can live in the same ecosystems, but they fill different niches and have different behaviors. Grizzlies are huge and very dangerous. They can be extremely aggressive and fill more of a predator role than its cousin the black bear. Black bears are much more numerous, smaller, less predatory and less aggressive. While you never want to provoke any bear, with black bears you can get away with scaring them off by throwing sticks and banging pots where you would never ever want to attempt this in the vicinity of a grizzly bear.

[malkin]

Were the Oslo suburban forest wolves (re)introduced by humans?

[lph]

The wolves weren't actively re-introduced, they wandered there on their own accord, but they are definitely still there due to human involvement. Østmarka ie. "the East woods" which we live right up against is very much used for recreational purposes, skiing, hiking etc, but there's a small nature reserve in the middle which is extraordinarily hard to get to or through. No roads, virtually no paths, thick forest and hard to navigate. In winter you can traverse it on skis over some small lakes, but the wooded parts are then even more inaccesible. The location of the wolves is kept a secret, but I'm pretty convinced they're in there.

Nationwide there's a big controversy over wolves. Norway has very few, but we have a policy of xx pups a year, I forget how many. Problem is that how many we have on our side of the border is rather random, we share a long border with Sweden which has lots of uninhabited forest and quite a lot of wolves. Our side is inhabited farmland, woodland and grazing land due to a determined policy of subsidizing the rural districts. Sheep farmers regularly have wolf attacks on their sheep (as well as lynx and eagles), but according to a farmer friend we just visited they can get a permit to shoot an aggressive wolf, but it takes too long. The most aggressive ones are often young males, loners who travel long distances, and by the time someone had got a permit the wolf is long gone.