Come on, Montreal Canadians.

I didn't think I was going to have many pictures from the past few days, but things started happening when I arrived back at Squirrel Camp. It poured rain for the night and a lot of our snow is gone. The next day, we had this fabulous sunrise over the Ruby Range. Lindsey and I accidentally got up at 4:30 am because our alarm clock is ridiculous. It has 5 buttons on the back and they are the most sensitive buttons you could ever make. If the alarm clock gets bumped by anything it will do something crazy like change time zones.


Also, a lot of the lichen is out now. The snow is all washed off the dead stumps and really interesting things have popped up. I search for these everywhere on Chitty.



I think they look particularly interesting beside the snow.





And an exciting thing happened while I was out trapping this week. I caught the first ground squirrel of the year. Apparently, Chitty has the largest population of these squirrels. They are remnants of the Ice Age. Ground squirrels go into the deepest hibernation of any animal. They have to double their body weight over the course of the summer. This is a juvenile squirrel trap and this little guy won't even be able to turn around in there come September.


At first I thought he was a red squirrel, but his tail is different and his ears are tiny, so then I had no idea what he was. Then they told me about ground squirrels.


Also, here are the socks I started knitting in Whitehorse. Almost finished. I've determined it takes me about 5 hours per sock at this gauge.


This morning, for a day off activity we went up to Sheep Mountain or Tachal Dhal, in the local native language. This is where the Dall Sheep live. They are also a remnant of the Ice Age. We have determined that they live on this particular mountain because it melt so early. It is the only mountain around that looks brown. There is probably a lot of lichen growing up there. We watched them though our binoculars, and I took some pictures, but the sheep look very very small. That's okay. I'm really glad we went up there because it was one thing that I really wanted to see before I leave and the drive was definitely worth it.


The crew looking at the sheep.


We also stopped by the Arctic Research Institute. It's on Kluane Lake. The lake is still mostly frozen over, but it's opened a little around the edge. Today is an absolutely beautiful day and we didn't have to bundle up. We just sort of ran around to stay warm. I did sit and knit for a bit though.


We played a rock throwing game where we tried to throw a rock into a tiny rock-sized hole that's way out there. I hit the hole first. It's very satisfying to plunk a rock into the ice and watch it disappear.



This is one of the ice caves we found in the ice heaves along the shore.


More ice melt.



Dried flowers from last season on the beach. Maybe an aster?


Now we're at the KPI. I didn't have soup. I thought they might not have any because we arrived here late after our hike, so I bought a sandwich at Madley's. It was pretty good. There is one minute left in the Montreal game and Ovechkin just picked up the puck! And Montreal held it together!!!!! On to game 6. Amy has downloaded an NHL info application for her phone because she can pick up a signal at camp. Also the CBC keeps us up to date! Let's go, Habs! (Amy has Ovechkin in a pool and is cheering for Washington. I tell her that he just has more games to score points in now).

I received my picture with the Stanley Cup from Scotiabank this week. Unfortunately, it's in pdf format and I can't post it here right now. I'll try to figure it out this week and post it next Friday. It turned out really well.

Also, today I received a package from one of my knitter friends. It's an Alice in Wonderland themed package full of wool and a necklace and hedgehog patterns! I'll have to take some pictures of all the nice things you've sent and put them up here in a giant virtual thank-you note one of these days.

Till next Friday, Cass