Scales - beginning and end

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It's 11.08 on the 7th of May. I think I left off on Sunday night, leaving Ottawa - something that already feels a world away.
We got up earlyish, 6.45, on Monday morning, and Tim gave us a lift into Ottawa to catch the 10.30 bus to Barrie, via Toronto. It was sad to leave The Winchelsea as we had settled in there, but we were also ready to move on. The journey was uneventful, and we made the connection to Barrie (just), and arriving in the city's bus terminal at 5.30. We then waited for someone to come pick us up, though we had no idea who. Half the other people in the bus station were peculiar looking hill billy type people - clearly residents of Barrie and the surrounding area - and half what I assume we're city dwellers who looked uncomfortable and awkwardly out of place in the presence of the former.
After about half an hour, a relatively normal looking young guy walked in, and started looking round the room. He looked enough like a turtle researcher for us to be reasonably certain he was from Scales - which he indeed was. The guy, Adam, walked with us to the van to load our bags, where a girl, Katie was sitting in the passenger seat. On the half an hour journey to the house, both told us that currently the place was rammed with staff, volunteers and turtle techs doing research and training out in the field - around 25 in total. Even now I'm not entirely sure who did what, and lives where.
We arrived at met the co-ordinator, Jeff, who was the only person over 30 in the entire place. He left one of the girls that worked in the office, Ashley, to show us around - and interrupted by dinner being called, which was a stodgy chickpea curry.
We ate chatted with some of the volunteers, notably another Brit called Ollie who was also on his gap year.
That night we were told that, just for a night or two, we were to stay on pullout sofas in the living and kitchen area, until one of the bedrooms was cleared. No one seemed to have a clear idea who was leaving when, so it was difficult to say where we may end up staying.
In the morning we were woken by everyone flooding into our room to make breakfast before we headed out to the field to hunt turtles. This was something we were really excited to do, and we wetsuited up and found some old boots to where, and crammed into the vans to head out to the Ontario marshes and swamps.
Once there we split into groups and each took a different 'beaver pond', which were actually lakes which areas of marsh around the edge. From there we fanned out and waded, sometimes up to the chest, in murky water, looking for turtles basking in the morning sun. This was good fun for the first 45 or so, but as we got deeper, and started spending longer slowing down, waiting and watching for swimming turtles, we had time to notice more about the surroundings.
The water was alive with water-boatmen and other insects, which were fine, but was also thick with water walking spiders, which were less welcome. Most were small, about the size of a 10-50 pence piece - but every now and then one came along that was uncomfortably big.
Then there were the leeches. At one point Matt clambered onto land and told us, fairly calmly he had at least 8 leeches on his leg. I assumed these we the little centimetre long black 'leeches' I'd seen when swimming in British lakes, so imagine my surprise when I climbed onto the shore and found three 4+ inch leeches on the back of the knee of my right leg, and 2 more down my left shin. They knocked off fairly easily, and I couldn't feel them bite - bit this somewhat put us off the water for a little while.
Instead we walked along the bank and scouted for the turtles from there, something most of the more sensible others did. By this point our legs were covered in scratches, and the anti-coagulant in leech saliva meant that Matt looked as if he'd been shot in the knee, and the blood from the back of my knee matted the hear on my leg all the way down to the top of my boots. Of course the wounds themselves were not deep, but they just wouldn't stop bleeding.
Our group caught a mating pair of snappers which they then processed, taking measurements and tagging them before returning them to the water, then we headed back to the van for lunch. The next site we went to was, thankfully, less of a lake and more of a massive expanse of marsh lands, so we spent less time submerged - but we were still plagued by hordes of black fly that take chunks of your skin unless you were the bug jackets with full hoods and face masks.
By the time we returned to Scales we were damp and exhausted - but it was none-the-less an incredible experience. Dinner consisted of pasta and a tomato sauce, and the rest of the evening was spent reading and playing with the pet rats and snakes (not the two together) until everyone vacated our room to go either to bed, or down to the campsite where most of the turtle techs were camped.
In the morning we were woken again by people getting breakfast, which was a little more irritating this morning as we didn't need to be up so early as we were not heading out to the field that day, and the was no mention of us leaving the sitting room anytime soon. Once I was up, it didn't help that there was no milk, no bread, no coffee and no sugar. I had dry cereal for breakfast. We spent the day splitting wood with a pneumatic hammer and stacking it - not a difficult task, and we were pretty good at getting it down quickly; but it did get both exhausting and tedious towards the end of the 6 hours. Once the work was finished we crashed in the living room/on our beds, before Ashley, who was one of the friendliest of the group, came up and asked if anyone wanted to go for a walk. Since we hadn't yet seen the trails Matt and I agreed to go, and we walked down wooded trails over bridges and along small streams down to the 'Hanger'. This was a derelict airstrip and hangars at the far end of the nature park, and where the turtle techs camped.
Ashley showed us round the renovation that Jeff was currently orchestrating, having built a small bunk house and small kitchenette in the woods to be used instead of tents - then explained that one of the hangers was to be turned into a turtle hospital, equipped with operating rooms, a reception, a kitchen and a bed room. This is a good as any example of the hapless optimism and lack of clear organisation that was prevalent at Scales. When Jeff emailed earlier in the year he said the hospital should be up and running by the time we arrived. In actuality when we got there the hanger was just a shell, filled with miscellaneous and useless junk.
We went on a walk that evening, and decided that, although everyone was very friendly and welcoming, we wanted to move on to Scales before the end of our scheduled two and a half weeks. Our lack of a bedroom played a good factor in this, but there was also a sense that if you weren't too concerned with the plight of the humble Ontario turtle, a lot of the work was not really for you. Hence we agreed we were to leave for a HI Hostel in Toronto on Friday, then find a host for Monday 11th through Thursday 21st.
We were awoken early again Thursday morning, but this time it was a little more palatable as knew it was our last. Our first job was to head down to the lab and start disinfecting some of the dirty equipment and make the food up for the animals - but before long Adam came down and asked for one of us to help Josh, another member of staff, down at the hangar. I said I would, and we drove down to the bunkhouse.
Josh was one of my favourite people at Scales. Probably early twenties, tall, lean and with short dreads - he also looked like the kind of guy you'd expect to work at a turtle research facility. He told me he spent half of time there, and half of the time planting trees in Alberta. We spent the day with Josh putting shingles up on the roof of the bunkie, while I sealed up the cracks between the plywood walls of the house (that evidently was not built by a professional) with 2 by 4s and strips of plywood cut to measure with the circular saws Josh showed me how to use. I feel as if I'll pretty much been qualified in construction by the time I get back. This took us all morning and most of the afternoon, before we headed back by 4pm, the sky still cloudless and the temperature still up at 24•C.
That evening I went for a run down the beautiful trails running through the area, before Kate, Rosie and I headed out for a walk to discuss which host we would stay with (Matt wasn't feeling so hot so entrusted us with the decision) - deciding on a family animal and crop farm 20 minutes North East of Toronto. As we walked back the stars began to come out. They weren't desperately spectacular, but Venus and Mars seemed particularly beautiful. It was lights out by 12 midnight on our last night at Scales.
So that was our stay at Scales Nature Park. The people were friendly, the surroundings were beautiful and the weather was perfect. But, as I guess it sometimes happens, it wasn't quite right for us.

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Comments

[Dr John HW]

Put It Down To Experience
What a model of epistolary restraint! To be greeted at Scales by creepy older men, leeches, horseflies and a bedroom resembling Oxford St on a December Saturday would for most of us mere mortals call forth a heartfelt outpouring of wrath upon the architects of such misery! Instead, you seem to have taken it all in your stride. You were saying earlier on that being away has given you time and space to reflect on life, experience and your own personal journey to date. These are profound days for you. Toronto (Tararno in the local dialect) sounds incredible and I'm not surprised that Canada has taken you all by storm. By common consent it seems to be a highly favoured place to live with a lot going for it. I'm afraid we can't say the same at present about Cameron's Britain after his unexpected and (to 63% of the population) unwelcome victory. Riven by the rise of Scottish and English nationalism which are fissile forces and the possibility of exit from the EU in 2 years time, the UK is a barren and bleak place for all of us on the centre-left who believe in progressive, humanist and inclusive politics. The collapse of the Lib Dems and the poor showing of Labour leave a lot of thinking to be done - should there be further moves to merge the parties of the centre-left to present a united front to the Tories next time? The tribal nature of British politics makes such an outcome unlikely, sadly. Looking forward to your next blog - your usual excellent levels of description allowed me to almost visualise and hear the flies buzzing in for attack across the stagnant waters of the turtle lake.