Last night before the program, Megan and I were sitting on the waterfront deck outside the Pukaskwa Visitor's Centre. I was thinking about the canoe trip that Stu Saunders, Glen Doyle, Trish Dingle, and I did up here in 1994.
We paddled the White River from White Lake Provincial Park down to that very deck, ~80 km of whitewater river over 5 days. A trip I would highly recommend, by the way. I imagined the group of us arriving at the Visitor's Centre, what we would have bee like back then. I bet if someone had told me then that 12 years later I'd be sitting there waiting to begin a reptile program for the park visitors, I would have thought they were crazy!
Amazing how life changes along the way- in 1994 I was running a summer day camp for kids, which we'd just gotten accredited, and I figured I'd be doing that for the forseeable future. Little did I know that a complaint a month later from a neighbour would begin a 14 month municipal process that would cause the end of our camp after one more operating season.
More significantly, at the time Jenny and I had only been together for six months. Though we may have had some inklings that we'd be together for a while, I doubt either of us would have predicted that we'd be together 12 years later!
And, later that year, Sciensational Sssnakes!! was born! We started charging money for the programs that Jenny had been doing voluntarily, basically because the job prospects for biologists were very poor at the time. We probably do more programs in a busy week now than we did in a year back then. It sure is amazing to think that we have five full time staff this summer, and nearing the completion of a public facility as well!