Tag Archives: The Big Wild

Theodora Lamb – Redhead

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Who are you?

My name is Theodora Lamb I manage The Big Wild, an online community dedicated to protecting half of Canada’s Wild Spaces. Space is a good thing. Especially when it’s wild. I also work with Children’s Hospital working with them to develop their social media presence online.

What do you do for fun?

Anything that involves my friends and food.

What’s your favourite community and why?

When friends and family meet and merge into a personal, micro-community, you get a clan. That’s why I think we’re here on this planet: to form clans, take care of each other, learn from one and other, and become better human beings.

What is your superpower?

My ability to recognize when something important is happening immediately and act or speak with clarity. You know how sometimes a person will look back on a situation or event and think “Wow, that’s when my life changed” or “If I had only known, I would have done this or said that.” That doesn’t happen to me. I know when something big is going down before it hits the floor. Change is a good thing – sometimes it just takes a little while to realize it.

How does your power help you build community?

Anticipating a problem or an epiphany means I can help the people around me transition with ease and confidence. A confident and relaxed community allows the movers and the shakers (like my fellow contributors) to come in and get things done for the better!

My Three Favourite Things About Theodora Lamb Are…

1. Unbridled positivity and fiery drama. Theo’s the type of person who lights up a room when she’s happy. Her mood is infectious and her enthusiasm – boundless.

2. Her chameleon nature. Like the performing arts? So does Theo. Think cooking is really fun? Theo does too and she’d love to help you whip up a great meal and has some groovy tips to make the duck you’re cooking caramelize just right. Think redheads are interesting? Check out gingerailing.com and join her passion. Do you like putting up drywall? Pretty sure Theo will find something about that particular activity that’ll engage the two of you. The greatest thing of all is you have a companion who is game for pretty much anything.

3. Creativity. Theo has more creativity in her tiny little redheaded pinky than I have in my entire Germano-Canadian body. She oozes it. You see it in her presence when acting in one act plays or in her ability to pull together the revolutionary professional story and turn it into the ultimate resume/cover letter/portfolio. You see it in her work online or in her drawings on paper. It’s everywhere, surrounding her like dark energy theoretically surrounds us all. And it’s awesome.

- As told by Kurt Heinrich

It Would Take a Really Long Time to Walk Around Canada

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If you don’t believe me, check out these numbers I came across on the Government of Canada’s website. I did the math myself.

If you started to walk the length of Canada’s coastlines from the Strait of Juan du Fuca on the West Coast to the Bay of Fundy on the east coast, covering 20 kilometres** a day at a moderate walking pace, you would complete your journey in approximately 33 years.  That seems like a remarkably long time to cover the whole of Canada’s coastlines, especially when you compare it to how long it takes to cross the country on foot. At 5000 kilometres from coast to coast, you could walk across Canada in a little under a year. Then again, when you consider how many fjords, bays, inlets, and ice packs you’d have to cover along our country’s coastlines, 33 years sounds a little more believable. Now consider the time and effort it would take to keep these coastlines clean from human litter.

From September 18th to 26th, Canadians across the country will organize clean-ups along Canada’s ocean, lake and river shorelines in what is known as the Great Canadian Cleanup.  Last year during the cleanup, organizers covered 2, 457 km and picked up a total of 160, 914 kg of trash.

Cigarette butts take the cake as the number one item picked up by organizers with over 367, 010 found on our country’s shores. Food wrappers, plastic bags, bottles and dishes follow as the next most popular litter items on the list.

As a program, the shoreline cleanup originated in Vancouver in 1994. Over the last 16 years, it’s grown to become national in scope. Over 1,000 different cleanup sites have been registered across the country. Another 600 sites and it will smash last year’s record-breaker of over 1,500 sites.

You can join a clean-up or organize one yourself.  If you would like to read more about the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-up, visit their website here.
It’s time to clean house, gumboot-style.

**Gumboots may, in fact, slow you down. They’re known for their sexy good-looks and H2O protection, but they’re not the best at long distances.

(A similar version of this post also appears on TheBigWild.org. The Big Wild is an online partnership between Mountain Equipment Co-op and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. With the help of Canadians, it’s dedicated to protecting large areas of wilderness across the country.)

Day of Blog Action 2009: Climate Change

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This blog can also be read at thebigwild.org under Making Contact – Finding Farley. Gotta love the link love – especially when more than 8000 blogs join forces! Actually, I think it’s closer to 10 000 now – Enjoy!

Today is Blog Action Day. This year, over 8500 bloggers all around the world are writing about climate change. That’s more than 8000 stories that reflect the personal impact climate change has had on over 8000 people and their friends and family. It’s a real wake-up call as we approach December 7th, the kick-off date to the Climate Talks in Copenhagen.

I can’t help but think reaching out to world leaders and the decision makers behind the policy that will shape the future of our planet is best done with a story. Make like a writer – tell them what you know.

Well, here’s what I know – I just watched a film called Finding Farley, the story of a Canadian family that sets out in a canoe from Calgary, Alberta in the hopes of reaching Cape Breton, Nova Scotia where they will meet Canadian author and activist Farley Mowat.

What I love most about Finding Farley is how the film uses different storytelling techniques to weave the journey together. It follows filmmaker Leanne Allison, her husband and biologist Karsten Heuer, their toddler-son Zev and their dog, a border-collie named Willow. The family uses Mowat’s books as their guide, a literary compass of sorts – from paper to foot. They bring a video camera with them so they can document their journey – from reel to real. Both Leanne and Karsten keep an on-going correspondence with Mowat as they traverse Canada’s landscape – from eyes and ears to paper. That paper reaches Mowat in Nova Scotia in the form of a letter and settles into his memory and imagination. The film presents a lovely cycle of storytelling – one that happens in the Canadian wilderness.

What I find extraordinary about this journey is the story that comes from a dedication to mimic and follow a storyteller on a path already taken. Leanne and Karsten show us what’s changed and what’s stayed the same. I don’t want to give too much more away. It’s a lovely film and I think you should see it.

On this Day of Action, when the power of the web and it’s engineers is harnessed to reach out and engage, Finding Farley is a reminder that the movement to protect our vulnerable planet and the wildlife that depends on it from climate change is sometimes best told through the stories of our own lives. Well done Leanne, Karsten, Zev and Willow!