Good news or bad?

Page 23

I walked off the plane at the Chibougamau airport in northern Quebec and heard Paul Dixon's familiar greeting: "Welcome to James Bay!"

But waiting in his truck was an unfamiliar sight... a turtle! The Dixons, a trapping family from the Cree community of Waswanipi, had found the critter hitchhiking on Highway 113, about 100 kilometres away from their community.

"I could clearly see the turtle (on the road), but I couldn't believe it. There was this huge turtle going across the highway. It was like winning the Loto 6/49," said Dixon, who is the local fur officer for the Cree Trappers' Association.

With his alert hunter's instincts, Dixon knew this was no ordinary turtle. For one thing, the pet turtles common in Waswanipi are only a few inches long. The turtle out for a stroll on the road was much bigger, 11 inches long and eight inches wide.

Waswanipi Elders later told Dixon they had seen turtles in the wild many years ago, but never one close to that size.

The turtle isn't the only misplaced critter seen in Quebec First Nations communities of late. In September, a large moose was spotted and killed in Kahnawake, a Mohawk community near Montreal. A moose hadn't been killed there in more than 100 years.

The Eastern Door, the local newspaper, reported that lots of other peculiar animals are suddenly turning up near Kahnawake and elsewhere across the country. Kahnawake has seen more bear sightings, deer tracks and a colony of Peregrine falcons nesting under the nearby Mercier Bridge. The newspaper also said black bear incursions are increasingly reported in urban areas in the Canadian Prairies, while cougars are seen more in northern Ontario.

The newspaper quoted an Elder who saw it all as a hopeful sign:

"When the animals begin returning it means you are doing something right." But reporter Ross Montour worried the sightings may be an "ominous" sign.

"There are signs all around that suggest that we are standing on a precipice," he wrote. "What we see in the animals, what we see in the changing weather patterns, increases in disasters such as earthquakes suggests to me that the truth, on the larger world scale, may be quite the opposite."

Dixon agreed. He said unusual animals are getting more common in Cree territory, too - like eagles and raccoons.

"To me that's weird. They're not supposed to be here. To me it's not a good sign, for sure," he said. "We're pushing wildlife out. When we push wildlife out, we push people who depend on wildlife out, too."

However, Dixon said that before the Europeans came, such animal sighting would have been a good sign. He added with a laugh, "Maybe we're making a tradeoff. They're getting our moose, we're getting their turtle."

Unusual or not, the Dixon family and their community gave the turtle a warm welcome.

"We just let it walk around the house. It was living like a king. Automatically it was part of the family," said Dixon.

The turtle was showered with all sorts of nicknames; one that stuck was Whopper.

"He reminded us of a burger," explained Dixon. "People would stop me on the road and ask when were we going to cook it. I was tempted when someone said there are seven kinds of meats inside a turtle," he quipped.

But there was no way anyone was going to eat the little guy. Everyone was in love with him. People of all ages came by the house to check out Whopper.

"It was like a zoo," said Dixon.

If dogs are a man's best friend, Whopper's best friend was the family dog. "Actually it was the dog that was the owner of the turtle. He loved it," said Dixon. "When we came around, he would pull his head in. But he would let the dog flip him upside down, and he would leave his head out so the dog would lick his head," he said.

The main question with Whopper was what to feed him. The family got him three types of pet turtle food, including one jar that cost $22. He wouldn't eat it. They tried goldfish food, walleye, worms, carrots, lettuce, too. No luck.

Whopper didn't eem hungry, but he also kept up his excretions.

It dawned on Dixon that the turtle was cleaning himself out in preparation for winter hibernation, like a bear. Curious to find out more about what kind of turtle he was and where he was normally found, Dixon decided to take Whopper to the Chibougamau wildlife office.

A biologist there, Sylvie Beaudet, was very excited to see the animal. She conferred with colleagues in Quebec City and said a small population of this rare species, known as the Blanding's Turtle, lives in the Hull area. Others are found around the Great Lakes, New England and Nova Scotia. It's highly unusual to find them so far north.

We also found out Whopper was a female, but her age wasn't determined. Blanding's Turtles can live to be more than 70 years old. They live in lakes, ponds and wetlands with clean shallow water and mucky bottoms. Adults can reach two feet in length.

It was decided that the best course for Whopper was to put her back in the bush where she was found. A wildlife officer agreed to take her back to the highway near Senneterre.

The day after they left it with the wildlife office, the Dixon family had the good fortune of shooting two moose near their hunting camp. Dixon saw the moose as a good sign. He had been worried that the turtle would survive the winter, what with its strange adventure.

"I got the feeling the turtle will be fine after this gift we had," he said.