Sunday, October 8, 2006

3:55 PM

FINAL ENTRY

Woah, the final entry, I honestly cannot believe it's here already. The camp is nearing end and it feels as if all the time that passed and all the things I've learned happened withing 24 hours. I can't believe in LESS than 24 hours that I will be away from the camp and this experience will be a thing of the past.

That is to say, a big mark in my past - a very very big mark, and a good one at that. I am happy with the outcome of this whole deal.

"I met this really really cool chick called Tamara!" (says Tamara randomly typing in something during a heavy thought period) But the statement is true, and I also met a whole bunch of other awesome people that I will never forget. Both mentors and peers. You have no idea how much I have changed because of them. My mental perspective of the world has changed to a more intense level. I am now more educated in the domain of environment, people, the way people think, the way people act, and ways to appeal to to them through conversations, presentations and inspiration from all the amazing leaders we had taking care of us at camp.

I am now inspired from all that I have seen, heard, felt, experienced and learned, and feel the need to spread the word about global warming, impacts and what we can do to help.

This camp was amazing and I wish I could do it again. I will miss everyone I've met and hope to see them and stay in contact with them for the rest of my life. It was definitly the people here that made this camp. I will greatly miss all the excellent friends I`ve made and the good times I've had. I hope to see them soon. They've inspired me in so many ways I could write a 10 page list about it but I want to keep you awake.

Thanks to all that have helped make this possible. I will never forget this experience, ever. Rock on.

And thank you for reading. I hope you learned something as I have, if not taken something from this whole ordeal, just remember to take all the information you can and help everyone around you as much as possible. The world is many, but at the same time it is one. One persons actions are an immense impact even though it does not seem so. Keep that in mind, and stay true to yourself.

Signing off. Joseph Peloquin-Hopfner

Friday, October 6, 2006

5:27 PM

Hey everybody,

I would like to announce that today was the absolute best day so far. We started the day off with an extremely exciting (and first) helicopter ride out to a maternal den. This was so exhillerating. We got super dressed up and headed out to some Taïga(sub-arctic vegetation), where there were loads of fluffy and pillowy lichen (moss) was the floor. When we got there, we jumped around and celebrated the awesomeness of the trip over, and then went and checked out a polar bear s maternal den. We learned some interesting facts about the Taïga with Hendrik (one of the teachers here) whom is quite knowledgable and has loads of information to tell.

It was hard to leave, but eventually, we had to. When we got back, we ate, then started do discuss a mission statement for our group. It went alright, there were several interesting debates and made some progress, but never ended up with a final statement. After a while, we shifted to another subject : future action plans...

Here are a few action plans I have that I am going to do when I get home :
- Change daily habits to be more energy conserving and environmentally friendly (change lightbulbs to energy efficient ones, turn off lights when not using them, avoid using vehicles as much as possible when there is a biking or walking distance alternative, carpooling, not using aerosol cans, etc...)
- Encourage family members to do the same.
- Give presentations on global warming and it s effects.
- Eventually writing more songs about this subject.
- Talking to media
- Hook up with other Manitoba students and make osome wicked fun activities
- Using energy efficient band equipment.

Those are just a few...and I am planning to add to this list as I go. Everyone already has excellent forward action plans that are inspiring to me and I hope everyone else here.

So all this to say that I am pleasantly pleased with todays results....and I don t want to go home too soon because this is SO AWESOME.

(pas d accents)
Aujourd hui etait la meuilleure de tout. Nous sommes partit en helicoptere (!!!!) pour voir un terrain fabuleux de mousse qui etait tres comfortable. Nous avons aussi vu un maison maternel d un ours polaire. On a meme rentre dedans! Toute la journee etait incroyable.

Well before this gets too long, I should go check out the amazing full rainbow that s just outside (that s right). So see you later I guess...
Salut!

Thursday, October 5, 2006

6:48 PM

Alrighty, so this is approximately entry number seven I believe.

Instead of going out on the Tundra today, we worked pretty hardcore and did more presentations that all ended up pretty wicked and fun. We also had some presentations today on leadership skills and had some deep discussions about the way people perceive global warming and little things we can do to help slow it down.

Not only that, but we proceeded to use all the info we learned in a web conference with Mapleton school in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada. This web conference basically consisted of a grade 4, 5 and 6 asking us questions they thought of about polar bears. It was quite fun, we prepared a little in advance, but winged some parts of it. I was assigned a question, but it never got asked by the kids, so I thought it was funny, but was a little disappointed that I didn t get to inform the kids that the longest a polar bear can go without food is about 9 months (pregnant female), which is quite the piece of information to know.

There was one bear sighting today - a lone bear. It was cool to watch and climbed up against the side of the buggy (this was half way between one of our presentations that we paused for a second to check this bear out).

(pas d accents encore)
Nous avons passé une bonne journee dans le loge aujourd hui. Nous avons apprit plusieurs aspects interessantes sur le leadership . Aussi, nous avons discute les petites affaires qu on pourrait faire une grande difference dans le monde (comme conduire moins, changer nos lumieres aux lumieres meilleure pour l environement..etc ).

Toodles

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

9:11 PM

Ok, so last night was like...the greatest. Reason being : we had an excellent supper, that also included visitors (bears, yeah that's right, and curious bears at that). After this, we had an excellent presentation from a man called Devin, whom also worked with my father, and told us some wicked-awesome stories. After that we went to bed and had a litteraly rocking sleep with the big wind shaking the buggy. There were also some amazing northern lights we spotted.

And now it is today, and what a good day it is. We woke up to Robert signing quite loudly, and it was the best wake up call I ever received. We spent most of the day in the Buggy, and in the morning we did our presentations. We did a game show as our presentation and it ended up going real well. We just asked a bunch of questions and made relations between them and the whole ordeal ended up way awesomer than we thought it would.

Afterwards, we got to watch the two other groups do their presentations. One groups presentation was my favourite part of the day because it was outrageously hilarious and so creative. It was a news report, that included Tamara as the news host person, an interwview with John the local farmer and Rashaad the interviewer (so hilarious) and Angela the fire reporter that ended up catching on fire. It was absolutely great.

After that we got back and prepared another presentation and ate some good food to a breathtaking sunset. I am quite happy. Everyone here is sooooo cool and we are all having a great time.

...
(pas d'accents encore)
Hier soir etait magnifique, on a bien mange, on a vu des ours polaire dans la lumiere du soleil qui couchait, et on s'est endormi au sons du vent fort qui poussait notre loge. Aujourd'hui nous avons fait des presentations avec toutes sortent de variete, c'etait drole, interactif et informatif. Tout le monde ici est aussi super que tout. Nous avons toujours beaucoup de plaisir.

We are about to have a presentation about trappers and we are scheduled to see an elder, so I must depart this realm...cheerio lads and lasses.

bonne soiree

Tuesday, October 3, 2006

5:19 PM

Today is Tuesday, a day of many, if you will. In a nutshell, today was pretty sweet. Why you ask? well...we finally rode the famous Tundra Buggy number 15! In case you are wondering, a Tundra Buggy is the huge buggy that is specially designed (it's huge) to be able to overcome the intense terrain of the Tundra, get a good view of the tundra, and allow the tourists to be at a safe height from the bears when they stand up high and test the strength of the buggy. I have actually been on one before, but vaguely remember it, so it was awesome to be able to come back into it.

We got to see some breathtaking scenery of the Hudson Bay and the horizon as the sky finally started to clear up and the sun shone upon the wavy water. Along with this, we got to see our first bear! I think it was a He. He was well placed in a bed of lichen and just over a piece of land and out of the wind - he looked quite cozy. While he was there, we took several snapshots and chilled (literally) for a while.

We also saw a couple arctic hares, foxes and several birds that really blended into rocks and made for a cool tour.

Now we are assigned to teams and are to be as creative as possible to explain a segment of Impacts of a Warming Arctic (book we were assigned to read) and I think it'll be loads of fun.

On a vu notre premier ours polaire aujourd'hui, c'etait beau et il avait l'air d'etre tres comfortable. Demain nous allons faire des presentations en equipe - en etant aussi creatif que possible - sur les effets du rechauffement de la terre. Je suis excite a commencer ca et je sais que ce sera tres plaisant.

I will let you know tommorow what we will have done as presentations.

Peace out. - Paix dehors...

Monday, October 2, 2006

8:32 PM

This morning was pretty insane...reason being: I only had about 4 hours of actual sleep last night. Even though I went to bed fairly early I guess I just really couldn t fall asleep. Apart from that the day was groovy with a capital G.

Today was the day we started really touring Churchill. We embarked on an endeavor with a man named Kelsey who I learned is an awesome dude very informative, and a friend of my father. Our endeavor took place in a bus that took us to some awesomely wicked scenery of Hudson Bay. We also went to the Wapusk National Park building where we had several presentations and played a survivor of the Arctic game where I was on the old and skinny team and we owned everyone.

The last presentation was on the Churchill bear patrol. This was quite an interesting presentation because it made me realize that the people of Churchill basically respect they bears as they would humans, that is to say, on an emotional level so that was cool.

The other thing that was awesome about today was a debate we had with Robert on if pollution was our friend or not, where we were against. And I assume that we won because it got to the point where Robert responded to an argument by calling us poopy heads ( all in good humour of course ).

J ai juste besoin de dire que je suis tellement fatigue, mais les journees sont tellement excellent et inspirants que ca ne me derange pas

Oh yeah, and Lisa Joy learned that de rien is not derien, and two words :P

See you guys later.
Aurevoir.

Sunday, October 1, 2006

5:17 PM

Ok, so today was quite the good time, and for many a reason. After waking up in the morning, it usually takes a couple of hours for me to fully get over my sleep, but this morning was different. John, my previous roommate at the Four Points stubbed his toe majorly on my luggage that was on the floor at 6:30 in the morning. He hit the wheel I guess and his pinky toe was opened up and full of blood. So I ran downstairs to get some band-aids and brought them back as quickly as possible. He got it wrapped up and said it was fine crazy things happen in hotels I tell you. That was the first time I was wide awake at 6:45 in the morning

Something else that never happened to me was me going the flying experience I had never been on a plane before until today. As our leader dude Robert Buchanan would say: this was far out stuff . Mikkeleine and Patrick helped out make the new experience super they are a rad crew I tell you.

Now we re all in Churchill, and it s pretty groovy. We have been touring the Churchill area in little bits since we have arrived; it seems to be a pretty cool and welcoming place. I am now sharing a room with Patrick from BC, he s a wicked dude. I m looking forward to tomorrow when the real deal starts to go down.

Alors je suis maintenant a Churchill, et c est pettit et unique, juste comme mon Ecole!

So that is all for today, I am off for supper!
A la prochaine!

Saturday, September 30, 2006

5:27 PM

After a fair sleep, everything started off pretty smoothly and continued to be so throughout the day. The morning consisted of three cool presentations. One of them was about the artic and and pollution affecting the environment, it helped understand more in depth some information I had read before I arrived. The second presentation was by a man called Robert Taylor, whom I had heard heard of through my dad since he helped put together the book my dad wrote(Tales of the tundra). His presentation was interesting and full of inspirational stories and pictures. The third presentation was by Heidi Cook, about indigeneous folk, and how they are affected by the environment.

Now this was just the morning, and the best was was still to come. The part I liked the most about today was seeing where everyone stands\their points of view in a debate we had between if polar bears should be kept in captivity or not that (interestingly) never really had a conclusion.

It was also cool seeing how the group as individuals acted in the debate (i.e. Angela bringing up interesting points and questions, Mikkel's ( I hope I spelled this right) arguments about captivity, etc...) and even just spending some quality time together.

(encore pas d'accents)
J'ai ecoute plusieurs presentation inspirants ce matin et appris plusieurs points interessantes sur l'environement et l'arctique et des histoires exceptionnels. Tout va bien, j'aime tout le monde de plus en plus et je commence a voir des cotes personnels et des opinions des autres ici. On part pour churchill demain, je suis tellements excite.

Heading to Churchill tommorow, I am super excited and will be filling you in sooner than soon. Have a good until-next-time.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

5:01 PM

(journal entry for yesterday - the 29th of september)

So this was the first day, it was amazing, and it was just a half day. I went to two interviews, one of which was scheduled - they were both in French. It was a good time, I got to visit with Robert on the way there and back and found out some pretty cool stuff about polar bears and technology (which i won't mention in case I give away uncopyrighted ideas), and all that was in the first two hours of the experience.

From then on was the best part of the day, when I got back, I was pleased to meet an new awesome person every five or so minutes (but it stopped at 13 people), and proceded to get to know them better throughout the night. I am more than pleased to announce that they are all uniquely awesome people with great senses of humour.

I'm looking forward to get to know everyone better to the square, I also cannot wait to see everyone's opinions and start to discuss topics such as global warming and such.

I decided i would put a portion of this in French for sake of more people being able understand me.

(Il n'y a pas d'accents sur cet ordinateur alors j'essayeras mon mieu de faire du sens, utilisez vos abiletes)
Tout le monde ici est extraordinaire. Je suis tres excite pour demain, car ce sera le point ou je commencerai vraiment connaitre les opinions et les personnalites du monde ici. Jusqu'a maintenant, chaque personne est de differente mode de vie et histoire alors c'est tout interessant...bein, c'est tout pour maintenant, a demain!

until next time, keep on keepin on.