Odell, New Brunswick

Transcription

The temperature has changed from minus twenty at six AM this morning and has gone up to zero. We're going to go for a bit of a snowshoe and get some pictures. When you're back in Canada in the winter you've got one of two choices - you can embrace winter - or you can sit at home like a sissy. We're not being sissies today. We've got our snowshoes and we're heading off into the woods. Come follow along. One thing with snowshoeing is that it is very similar to dog sledding - if you're not the lead dog the view never changes. Here we are walking in the main O'Dell park through the bushes through the main trail. One of the most fascinating things about the snowshoe is that right at the front you've got this awesome grip that will help you when you're sliding down. You can be sliding down the hill and then suddenly you just dig in with these and it'll stop you right in your tracks. As a tip don't ever eat yellow snow. It is not cool aid or tang. We're getting off the trail a bit. We're going off the beaten path heading down and breaking trail with our snow shoes. Come follow. Here we have a hemlock tree and there is actually a hole inside of it. What started off as a bit of rot has actually turned into somewhat of a bird sanctuary. As you can see I'm zooming out here. There is a great big hole. When you're walking you've got to watch out for some of the hazards. As the snow accumulates and gets deeper all of a sudden you're up higher on the tree. You've got to watch out for these little limbs because they'll close line you. They'll smack you in the face. One of the things you have to watch out for when you're snowshoeing are the these big logs just on the trail. This actually is not even the trail. We're making our own trail but we've got a log to go over, so I'll show you how it is done. You get your boot up and go right over like that. Sam is now going to demonstrate how to break trail off of the main trail. He's going to go into the wilds of O'Dell park. You better believe it. In downtown Fredericton. Follow along. We're just going down to the creek here and following the creek bed back up towards the south end of the park. I've got to go down so if I want to get my snowshoe tips down so I don't fall. I'll walk a little bit and I'll be a little bit half skiing and half snowshoeing. Down he goes. We've found the creek here in the middle of the snow. I almost stepped right into it. That would have been a spectacular fail. There is nowhere to go but down so I'm going to jump. We're walking up the creek bed here and here is a hemlock tree. It is broken off near the stump and it has fallen across the creek. It is just about six feet up. The reason why it fell over is because it contracted some disease or whatever and so it just got weak in the knees way down near the stump. Look at that. Here is an example of some Old Man's beard that has fallen off one of the trees and it gives a good example of this lichen that grows on the trees. It is used for food for some of the animals. And we found a little squirrel stash here in the snow. This is what they feed off of in the winter.