A Sunday Walk

We arrived safely in Fort McMurray and on Sunday (arrived late Friday) we decided that other than exploring the 50 TV channels that seem to be available to us (the kids have never had cartoons available 24 hours a day before and I can assure you its not a good thing to have) we should go out for a walk in some of the country that surrounds the town of Fort Mac. We saw our first deer yesterday on our way into town and so Caroline suggested that we might see one on our way to the golf course, which I of course poo-pooed as being bloody unlikely as at the time we were on the road that runs alongside the housing development that we’re in.



Mother nature has a sense of humour though, so of course there was indeed a deer just across the road as we drove down towards the golf course.



There’s a golf course down the end of the road from where we live and so we thought that there might be a walking trail down there as well. We thought we’d found one and set off down the trail but the only thing that we managed to find was bugs; so many and large enough that we retreated home for the rid before venturing out again.



With the bugs taken care of, we had a little more time to spend looking at our surroundings and it was then that we discovered wild strawberries and raspberries growing alongside the path. It is amazing what a little free food can do for a little girl who’s complaining that her legs don’t work and the hill’s too steep and “I can’t walk anymore Daddy!”

It was enough to get us to the top of the hill where we discovered that we were actually just on a maintenance path for the golf course. So we walked back down to the car, got in and went off somewhere else.



Somewhere else turned out to be McDonald Island which sits between the Clearwater and Athabasca Rivers There’s massive redevelopment going on there and so there wasn’t much for us to do, but we did get out of the car and go for a bit of a walk. We enjoyed the wildlife that we did see, even if it was just a bumble bee, a couple of butterflies and a small bird.




They were probably common to the area, but of course, we’re not and so it was nice for us. The highlight though had to be when Thomas shouted excitedly for us all to look up. We saw our first little squirrel running through the trees. Extremely cute, but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera to capture it for you.



It was a great couple of hours that we spent out and I can see that we’ll look forward to seeing more of the local wildlife as we enjoy our time up here.