Other Contributers

From the Ontario
Stewardship Rangers

Hello again from your hard-working 2011 Stewardship Rangers!
Last week, our skills and teamwork were pushed to the limits due to the extreme heat and humidity.

From the
Ontario Stewardship Rangers
Greetings from the new 2011 Stewardship Rangers!
We are a group of young individuals working for the Ministry of Natural Resources who are passionate about sustaining the environment for future generations.
Our team this year includes four Stewardship Rangers—Luc Desserre, Brandon Tupper, Zach Jolicoeur, and Kathryn Clifford.

After plenty of time now to reflect on the end of the 2010-11 season, and look back and evaluate how our team grew, it was a huge success.
Yes, many people will say, well, we ended the same way we did a year earlier—and that is very true. But you can’t take away a lot from this season and say our players improved as a team, individually, and became one unit.

By Rev. Jacob Quast
What’s Up With That?

Why do bad things happen to good people?
This question is one which, as a parish pastor for almost eight years, I’ve heard many, many times.
It seems so wrong—so unfair.
Why do good people like Aunt Margaret and Grandpa Joe get cancer, whereas the murderer in jail is healthy as a horse. It doesn’t seem to make any sense at all.

I recently visited a large mall and sat waiting for my daughter.
Across the walking aisle from where I was sitting was a pottery barn kids (no capital letters). A Pottery Barn for children? Really? I wanted to make a placard and march in front of the store with an indignant attitude.
“Stop the madness,” I might have shouted.

I walk. It has become a physical mantra for me—something I must do.
When I am in Fort Frances, I love to walk along the river, a most soothing and beautiful place to be. Fort Frances residents are so lucky to have such a landscape.
If I lived in Fort Frances, my feet would take me there every day, though I fear I would be distracted from exercise and my walk would become a stroll.

I’ve discovered paradise.
Paradise is an old Iranian term that refers to an existence that is positive, harmonious, and time-less. Most of us think of paradise as if we are in a state of supreme happiness—bliss if you will.
I call it Maui. There’s no other way to describe Maui than simply paradise, and I am here (or was when you read this).

I enjoy airports, and not necessarily because I am going somewhere since I really don’t like to fly.
I don’t fear falling out the sky, but I do struggle with confined spaces and lengthy obligations of sitting still.
I enjoy watching people. I find a spot and survey the crowd made up of every size, shape, colour, and age. Then I begin to imagine.

“The Sound of Music” celebrated its 45th anniversary last year.
Impossible, I thought. I very clearly remember the drive from our home to Winnipeg to see the movie. I was 10.

I like to think I’m technologically connected. I have a cellphone, and I’m somewhat computer savvy.
My children have iPods, iPhones, Blackberries, Mac computers, and they expose me to the wizardry of said devices as though they’re trying to draw me into their techno-cult and I pretend to oblige.