Got home from the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup around 3:30...after stopping four lunch. Our small yet fierce team learned a great deal, and many lessons were learned for next year and duly recorded.

Also recorded aprox 40kg of garbage and two full clear bags of recycling (left by that same Tim Hortons as Anneke and I walked back to my place around 1:30ish) Water bottles seem to be the biggest problem, with busted styrofoam being a close second. Plastic bags and bits of synthetic string, excellently designed for choking birds, were also in abundance. We likely cleared only about 1km of shoreline on the east side (and about 20 paces from the shoreline toward the road) but after 3 hrs and 7 bags (plus two ungainly items that didn't fit in bags, we called it a day and staggered off to find food. Wildlife spotted included 1 swan, 8 ducks, 12 geese, 2 snakes, innumerable copulating dragonflies (shameless things) and crickets and grasshoppers for as far as they eye could see. Buffy references? Two. Great piles of laughs.






(more photo's later if you want em, takes a while to upload and me tired now)

The main challenge with cleaning Tommy Thompson was identifying invasive from selected shoreline materials, since the shoreline is effectively made from huge slopes of construction debris. Arcs and angles of rusted re-bar jut out from bits of concrete, brick and mortar wall, foundation. Wet concrete had been poured over it here and there, rendering much of the metal scraps immovable and merging one destroyed building to another. At times it looked like a post apocalyptic view at individual lives in the form of failed homes. In a weird way, shockingly beautiful. Some of the material was being overtaken by moss, some brick and mortar walls had trees growing through them; plants at work reclaiming what had been discarded, nature reclaiming it's own. Some parts had obviously become home to wildlife. In accordance with the directions by the clean up kit, if it was somethings house or being returned to the earth in some way, we left it alone. Also two women against 100km of half buried re-bar? No. Nu-uh.



Of the actual shoreline, being with 5 ft of water, the biggest problem seemed to be balloons. I now hate balloons. When below the waters surface they are burst and flaccidly waving, looking like another planet's jellyfish, and bloody hard to reach. When above water, their strings were inconveniently tangled on difficult to access things. And the best part? When on re-bar which heated in the sun, they burst and melted onto the metal, gaining a consistency exactly like that of (worked in hospitals, this is how I know) phlegm. The kind that comes out of the old sort of tracheal tubes. I do not ever, not never, want a fucking balloon.

The staff of Tommy Thompson graciously offered to pick up garbage neatly stacked along the road, and we did the best we could. Anneke had a great idea for prizes next year - garbage bingo. Since the whole point (besides cleaning the area and making it safe for little wee things) is collecting data on how shorelines are uses coast to coast, there are data cards that come in kits for registered sites. Arranged as score cards, they could equal sponsored (again, with more time to put this together next year) prizes, with special note given to strange items sometimes found.

It was a great experience that I'll totally do again next year. I highly recommend anyone who still wants to be involved to seek out a site on the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean up's website that's in their area to clean. Thanks to Anneke for being and early morning trooper, and Greg and Angel for encouraging me to set up a site.