Alan Skeoch

Year: 2021

  • Fwd: special NOTE APRIL 2, 2021



    Begin forwarded message:


    From: ALAN SKEOCH <alan.skeoch@rogers.com>
    Subject: special NOTE APRIL 2, 2021
    Date: April 3, 2021 at 9:30:11 AM EDT
    To: John Wardle <john.t.wardle@gmail.com>


    I made a big mistake and pushed  delete…lost whole story.   
    So I will begin again tonight.   I managed to find my speech  of Feb. 29,2020
    which will rescue much of the story.  TiTled “LIFE AND DEATH IN THE GREATEST FISH BOWL IN OUR WORLD: THE GREAT LAKES “

    Sorry about the error…trying to rush too fast…new  story will come tonight

    alan


  • EPISODE 298 THE OLD ICE HOUSE…PORT CREDIT FISHERY….AND A QUOTE BY ALVERT EINSEIN

    EPISODE 299    THE GREAT LAKES FISHERY…and a  quote by ALBERT EINSTEIN

    alan skeoch
    March 2021


    Where did tis fish come from?  


    Andrew, Jackson and Olivia are holding large Coho salmon caught in the spring
    of 2021 or the fall of 2020 about two kilometres from Port Credit.

    Look at the mouth of this salmon.  Mean mouth.  This  is a top predator
    feeding on something in Lake Ontario waters.  


    Change is the  only sure  thing in life. Everything else cannot be  depended upon.
    While these comments seem overblown when applied to the Great Lakes Fishery
    just a casual  look seems to confirm that these huge bodies  of water…the largest
    containers of fresh  water in the world…have undergone radical change in the short
    time we human beings have had a chance to tinker with the water.  We, you and I, have tinkered
    too much  with
    the fish populations.  Early settlers believed Great Lakes  fish were inexhaustible.

    I am not a fisherman.  One of our two sons, however, is an avid 
    fisherman.  He even bought a large power  launch to get him out
    to the prime fishing ground just a  mile or so off the Port Credit coast of Lake
    Ontario.   He drops his spinners down a hundred feet or so and often hauls in
    huge 30 pound Coho salmon.   Fish  so big even Andrew has trouble holding
    some of them up for photographic  proof that these creatures who race up
    the rest coast rivers  of  North America have become established in the Great Lakes.

    Snaps  a picture then carefully slide the ugly monster back into the lake.
    “Catch  snd  Release “ fishermen.  Sport fishermen like  Andrew motor their way out
    of Port credit harbour in great numbers.  A Trawler fleet is neatly tied up along
    the west bank of the Credit River renting space on board for those who will never
    have money to buy a boat themselves.  Some tiny outboard motor fishermen 
    work their way to the rising grounds as well. 

     “Some of these small boats
    break down or run out of gas and have to towed back  to the harbour.  I’ve done
    that too many times.  Lose patience especially if a fishing boat has run out of gas.
    Takes ages to town a boat back to safety.  Means  I cannot fish as much I\as  I would
    like.”
    “Andrew, are there any commercial fishermen around?”
    “Never met one.”
    “Port Credit once  harboured a whole fleet of fish boats.  Are
    you sure you have never seen one?”
    “What do  their boats look like?
    “Like a huge jelly bean with a flap like gate on the side.”
    “Jelly bean?”
    “Yes…the commercial fishing fleet looked like a bag of white jelly beans
    as they motored out to the fishing grounds in Lake Ontario.  It was a
    good business that supported many of the people living in Port Credit
    through the 10th and 20th centuries.  But it is gone today.”
    “What happened>”
    “Answering that question is very difficult…super complicated.  Yet simple
    to understand.  Too many people in the 19th and early 20th century were commercial
    fishermen and there were precious few regulations.”
    “Can you tell me why in short form.  I do not have time to listen to a long
    lecture.”



    LAKE STURGEON…A SAD STORY

    “One illustration.  A fish that nobody seemed to want.  The lake sturgeon.  An ancient fish that lived
    a long life under normal  circumstances.  The most ancient of the fish in the Great lakes, And also one
    of the largest. Some sturgeon were ten feet long and weighed up to 190 kilograms.  And there were lots
    of them.   Five million pounds of sturgeon were caught in Lake Erie in a single ear.   That is one great 
    load of fish.   The sturgeon was considered a pest fish and there was no market for their meat.  But they
    were caught in large numbers just to try and clear them out of Lake  Erie.  What happened to them once caught?\
    GOOd question with a terrible answer.  Some were dried and  stacked  as firewood for the steamships.
    Others were fed to pigs….and  others were simply used as fertilizer.  Millions of Sturgeon
    were taken in the 19th century.  By 1900 they were extinct except for tiny populations in the Upper Great Lakes.
    Killing big Lake Sturgeon for no good reason endangered the survival the species.   It took 14 to 33 years
    for a female Lake Sturgeon to reach sexual maturity,  Males took from 12 to 17 years.  They were not 
    wildly sexual.  Females only spawn once  every three to seven years.  Males are only interested in sex every
    from one to four years.   Once fertilized   a female Lake Sturgeon can lay from 4,000 to 7,000 eggs for every
    point of the weight  of females.  These old ladies of the lakes made up for lost time big time.  But not after
    we humans got here.

    Giant sturgeon caught in Fraser River, B.C.  Caught and released by Michael Snell.

    Once  the biggest and oldest Lake Sturgeon were stacked as cordwood
    or ground  up as fertilizer the survival of Lake Sturgeon was doomed.

    NOTE:  THERE ARE 27 SPECIES OF STURGEON (ACIPENSERIDAE) which  can be traced back in fossils to the Late Cretaceous – and even more ancient in the Triassic period  some
    245 million years ago.  Found in Eurasia and North  America.  The largest ever found was in the Volga estuary in 1827 which was 24 feet long, and wished 2,571 kilograms (3,463 pounds).
    Overharvestng  for caviar today has put sturgeon on the edge of extinction.

    Sturgeon

    Temporal range: Upper Cretaceous–Holocene[1] 70.6–Present Ma 
    Sturgeon.jpg
    Scientific classificatione
    Kingdom: Animalia
    Phylum: Chordata
    Class: Actinopterygii
    Order: Acipenseriformes
    Family: Acipenseridae
    Bonaparte, 1831
    Subfamilies
    See text for genera and species.
    So most Canadians  will never see a Lake Sturgeon.  

    The sad tale of the Lake Sturgeon is only one of the tragic events in the aquatic history of the Great Lakes.  More are coming.


    A PUZZLE THAT YOU CAN SOLVE…OR WAIT FOR ME TO SOLVE FOR YOU

    Here is  a puzzle.   Perhaps you can answer.  Take a look at those salmon that Andrew and Jackson
    are holding.  They were caught tis year…1021.   And they were not far off the coast of Port Credit.
    But they are Coho salmon…a Pacific Ocean  fish that breeds in the rivers  of  the North American west
    coast.   What are they doing in the Great Lakes?  They should not be here?   How did they get here?
    In the next few Episodes I can answer that question and in the process raise a lot of other questions
    whose answers  may startle you.

    But first let me take you back to an historic event on Feb. 29, 2020 at the Stonehooker Brewery
    in Port Credit.  The day before Covid 19 changed our world.

    HOW  DID SKEOCH GET INTERESTED IN THE WATERS OF THE GREAT LAKES?



    On February 29, 2020, I was asked to give a lecture on the Great Lakes Water to 100 dinner guests
    at the Stonehooker Brewery in Port Credit.   I prepared the lecture for two months and figured the audience
    would only be able to listen to 45 minutes  at the most.  Part of  our time at the Stonehooker Brewery
    would be spent tasting beer and socializing.  Given a choice which would you prefer listening or drinking?

    Marjorie Skeoch approached the lectern.  She was nervous but well prepared to introduce the speaker (her
    husband).  She opened her speech with a quotation from Albert Einstein.   The quotation was found
    on a wine bottle table from the Niagara district.

    “Good evening, before I introduce Alan let me give you something to think about…

    “THE MIND THAT OPENS TO A NEW IDEA NEVER RETURNS TO ITS  ORIGINAL  SIZE”
       (ALBERT EINSTEIN, as quoted  on the wine called OPEN, a Niagara Merlot)


    When  MARJORIE gave her 20.5 minute introduction to her husband as speaker…she closed her eyes  and pushed
    that wine bottle off the lectern to smash on the cement floor below.  She knew how to get attention.


    Unfortunately or fortunately I never gave the lecture I had planned.  Marjorie, my wife, stole the
    show because she was charged with the job of introducing the guest speaker…i.e. her husband.
    Normal introductions might take 3 to 4 minutes  at the outset.  Marjorie took 20.5 minutes, “And  even then
    I only got as far as 1995”.   She was great.  Made us laugh and cry. She had practiced her speech  for
    two months as well.   She  got some information from the label on a wine bottle.  She took the bottle
    to the lecture…read the label not attributed to Albert Einstein…and then dropped the bottle to the
    cement floor of the brewery.   Shattered.   One member, Shaymus Stokes, jumped up to gather
    the glass shards at Marjorie’s feet.  Was she upset?  Not in the least.  She continued to speak
    about her husband in spite of the fact that her son Andrew kept tapping his watch along with other
    gestures.  

    So by the time I got to the lectern, I was an anticlimax.   So the speech wa never given.

    Then one day later, March 1, 2020, we all became aware that millions of creatures so small
    that they were invisible were sickening and killing people around the world.  Covid 19 took
    centre stage.   My lecture that was never given was the last lecture in Port Credit.
    We have been in lockdown  ever since.

    alan skeoch
    April 1, 2021


  • EPISODE 299 DAMAGE RAVENS DO TO ME

    EPISODE 299   DAMAGE RAVENS DO TO ME


    alan skeoch
    March 30 2021

    It is enough to make me cry.   The ravens.   A pair of them have built
    their huge nest of corse sticks high above my  fanning mills.  Sort of hidden but
    I knew they were there.   Having a pair of nesting ravens  return
    year after year to set, hatch and rear their young seemed  quite an
    honour.     

    I hardly know they are up there.  Just the odd bit of scratching.
    No hoarse raven calls.  that will come later when the babies are
    near full grown.  Right now all is quiet.  Our so I thought.

    Today I discovered  why they are so  quiet.  They have spent the winter
    and spring months dropping great slurry turds on my prize fanning mills.
    which  were hidden behind some crates  I never really looked behind
    the crates  lest I disturb the ravens.   I believed ravens were intelligent
    creatures…most intelligent creatures.   Wonderful  stories are 
    written about ravens.  First Nations people on our west coach
    consider ravens very smart…but also very wily.



    “They are tricksters,” so the legends say.
    “How true!”
    “They have spent the winter dropping their turds  straight down
    on my best fanning mills.”

    They  have been quiet.  Not because they are embarrassed at their toilet functions.
    They have been quietly laughing at me.  “Every time Alan comes into the drive shed
    he looks up at our nest.  He never looks behind the crates.  His prize fanning mills
    are steadily being filled with our crap.  And  he doesn’t know…doesn’t even suspect.
    He thinks he is such a nice guy.  Giving us a place to nest.   Patronizing us.  We will
    make a fool of him.  Drop another load.   Our dung looks like whitewash.  those
    red fanning mills are now festooned in streaks of white…piles of white.
    We have tricked him …made a fool of him.



    Woody  was  quite relaxed about the situation.  He had an “It told you so” look
    as he watched me me use a scraper to get the big lumps of excrement removed.
    And then the  water and brush to get the steaks of white excrement from everything else.
    “Alan, the ravens do not want you as a friend.  
    They are bullies…they want to make you look like a fool.
    And that they have achieved.”   




    It took all afternoon to clean just one fanning mill.   I have five or six sitting under the raven nest.
    Now I know what the First Nations people mean when they say Ravens are tricksters.  

    “Never trust a raven, Alan”
    Why not?”
    “Because they will treat you like dirt.”

    alan

  • EPISODE 297 LITTLE IRON BRIDGE ON FIFTH LINEAT STEELES AVENE….FORGOTTEN

    EPISODE  297    FORGOTTEN LITTLE IRON BRIDGE ….FIFTH LINE AND STEELES  AVENUE, NEAR MILTON… MARCH  27, 2021


    alan skeoch
    March 27, 2021



    THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A LITTLE IRON BRIDGE…DOOMED I SUPPOSE
    (but on the other side there may be a yellow brick road anD the tin man)

    Which  picture do you find more interesting.?  The new bridge under the 401 or the LITTLE IRON BRIDGE…Both of images  are within a few
    hundred feet of  each other on the Fifth Line of Halton County and
    Steeles  Avenue.  



    CREATING A WORLD  CLASS DISTRIBUTING CENTRE 

    Great Euclid gravel truck and  a squadron of D 9 Caterpillar bulldozers  have been levelling the land
    for months.  Results  are apparent driving south
    of Steeles  on the Fifth line of Halton.  

    Immense warehouses have been erected.  Most of them are larger than our whole farm.  Imagine 25 acres
    covered cement upon which are mounted structural steel be beams 30 feet high… sheathed… with
    a few very austere windows and  doors.  This is a haven for hundreds of 18 wheelers unloading, sorting
    an reloading the bits And pieces of things we really need and think we think we really need.
    One warehouse is so large that I cannot even get a picture of it..at a distance it seems to cover 
    100 acres … entrance only allows 18 wheelers.  But they cannot get there because of the
    little iron bridge.

    Let me tell you the site of these huge windowless warehouses is very disconcerting.  Especially for
    those of us who remember the farms that once were here.  

    One farm on this site I remember so 
    clearly.  Auction sale of everything.  A cold spring day like today. And Marjorie trusted me with Andrew
    who was just a little tike…maybe 6 years old.  “Look after yourself, Andrew, I am busy bidding.”
    He disappeared into the threshing floor of the big bank barn.  Escaped my notice until an hour or so
    later when my parental duty started to get to me.  

    “Andrew, where are you?”
    “UP here, Dad…look up.”

    And there he was walking along a barn beam 30 or 40 feet above me.  I forget that all barns had
    access ladders built into the structures.  Andrew found the ladder.  And he came down  without
    trouble.  The trouble occurred when I came home and told Marjorie about Andrew’s climbing skills.




    At this moment there is a bend in the fifth line where the little iron bridge
    sits clothed in trees and shrubs but no foliage.  With leaves the bridge disappears.  I bet the
    plans include the demolition of this last vestige of a bygone era.   Road is narrow
    so very hard to stop … best to park a little distant.   Marjorie would not let me cross the
    iron bridge…fear I would fall through.  If I was alone I would have taken my chances.
    Why?  Because on the other side in the deep bruh there may well be ‘a yellow brick road’…and
    maybe  the tin man, straw man and Judy Garland.!!   

    You think not?  Take a second look…there is a big yellow sign.


    alan skeoch
    Mach  2021



  • EPISODE 295 “HONK! HONK! WE ARE BACK!” our two wild geese came in for a landing March 25, 2021

    EPISODE 295   “HONK! HONK! WE ARE BACK!”… our two wild Canada geese landed on the pond March 25, 2021

    alan skeoch
    March 27, 2021

    Today….March 27, 2021, the ponds are dark and grey and all around the ponds is black and brown.  The ice still is present but
    melting fast.  In a  month the whole landscape will change.  The Caanads Geese love this time of year.  They feel safe
    and get ready for family time.


    They arrived while I was rolling barrels  into the barn.  They knew I was  concentrating on the barrels and not the sky so
    they flew lower and  honked. HONK! HONK!  Then flew lower still with flaps down, like  huge747’s they did a smooth pond  landing in tandem.
    Our Canada geese have arrived as they do every year.  The same pair for they mate for life.

    NESTING IS A SEMI SECRET TIME OF YEAR

    We see them more in the sky than in the pond.  Somehow they manage to flatten themselves and meld into the 
    pond scrub bushes and patches of old plants that are now black and grey just like them.  On some occasions
    we have found their nesting sites … more  by accident than  design.   Procreation among Canada Geese is much
    like human procreation.  It is a private event….hidden from sight.

    Actually they get quite angry when we circle the big pond.  One will take off and circle overhead like
    some kind of fighter aircraft looking for an enemy to strafe.  And, once found, the enemy is strafed with Canada Goose
    words…Honking frenetically.   Telling us to “Get the hell back to the house or to the barn or to the road”  From the closing
    days of March to mid April this is no longer our pond.  It is theirs.  We know that.  The dog Woody knows that and
    even when he detects the nest he stays clear.  He never bothers the lovers.

    When the eggs hatch and are mobile,  mom and pop…goose and  gander…change their behaviour.  They show off
    their progeny.  Strut around the ponds…waddle around the daffodils with those little balls of fluff tucked close behind
    them.  They show us what has happened.  

    The showing off phase is short.  Once they do the proud thing for a couple of days they just disappear.  I have
    no idea where they go with those little balls of fluff.  They must have another pond somewhere close by because they
    disappear long before the goslings are ready to fly.

    One reason for their departure makes himself or herself known to us in late April or May might
    be the reason our geese do not stay around.  We have always had a  big snapping turtle in the pond….with
    a moss covered casing as big as a Thanksgiving dinner plate.  The big snapper is a rather omnivorous
    fellow.  Eats just about everything from pond weeds, to carrion to little baby geese.  Mom and pop must
    know that.   So our ponds…we have four of them covering out 20% of our farm…our ponds are  wetlands
    supporting all kinds of wild life.   And  each creature has a special  time.

    Right now, however, the ponds belong to our  Canada geese.  

    I have stopped rolling my barrels today.
    I looked up from my labour as the geese lowered their landing gear and settled on the pond surface so gently that 
    there was hardly a ripple.  Why so quiet on landing?  In such contrast to their behaviour above my head?
    You guessed it.   They do not want the big snapper to wake up too early.

    alan skeoch
    March 26, 2021