Ontario — On Oct. 10, about 50 Bigfoot believers — many avid outdoors-people who also spend their time camping, hunting and trapping — gathered at a church in North Bay, Ont., to discuss their experiences looking for Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch. It was a good turnout for a small northern city on Thanksgiving weekend. The energy was lively but focused and, at times, even emotional. Some were sharing their stories for the first time; this felt like a safe space to discuss their beliefs, one person said, as others agreed that they felt likely to be ridiculed elsewhere. Creating a welcoming environment was the goal of the conference’s organizer, Andrew MacKellar, who has searched for the creature for nearly 15 years, and is a well-known “sqautcher,” or Bigfoot investigator. “Most humans do find things fascinating that they don’t fully understand,” MacKellar told The Narwhal after the event, the first of its kind in North Bay. 

I spent a couple days last week attending the 50th Forest Health Review conference, an annual gathering of the best and brightest of researchers who care passionately about maintaining a healthy forest. Their presentations revealed both good news and bad news about the state of Ontario’s forests. Overall, the bad news is that there are numerous pests, both insects and fungus, that are having a noticeable negative impact, both commercially and residentially, on the trees within our province. The good news is that there are many organizations (national, provincial, municipal and private) who are seeking out evidence of these threats and supplying options to combat or mitigate them. …So how can forest managers anticipate and adapt to the rapid changes from the ‘good old ways’ of forest management? By applying active research and the sharing of discoveries … which is exactly what this conference provided.

Additional coverage by the Canadian Tree Nursery Association in LinkedIn