Aerial View of Northern SK

Here's a change from the usual terrestrial photos on my blog. I took my camera along with me on my "drive to work" on Tuesday, May 13. I flew to Southend, a community 220 km north of La Ronge. There's still snow on the ground there, but the edges of the lakes are thawing.
Lakes just north of La Ronge:

Southend is know for dog sled sprint racing, though I heard on this trip that there are some serious issues of animal neglect currently in the community. This is not an uncommon issue in northern Canadian reserves, where it is not uncommon to have "dog shooting days" to deal with packs of stray dogs.

I also heard about the local spring clean-up. At first, I was excited to hear that there was concern for the aesthetic appeal of yards, until I heard that this entails setting fire to the brush in a yard and letting it burn (while moving the propane tanks out of the general area). Perhaps this is why the fire control people put out another bulletin about the multitude of human-caused wildfires every spring.
The ice road, south of Southend:

Pilots expertly landing the plane on the dirt airstrip in Southend. It is apparently one of the shortest airstrips in the world, with a drop-off into the lake on the far end of the airstrip.

Community of Southend, Saskatchewan:

Scilla sibirica and Species Tulips

Spring is definitely slow this year, with these bulbs blooming a few weeks late. However, the weather is warming and the lake is finally thawing. Unbelievably, some foolish soul on a snowmobile actually crossed the lake on May 10. If you go fast enough, you can cross areas of open water for brief distances. Sounds stupid to me.

Scilla siberica is a spring bulb that grows these petite plants with beautiful deep blue blooms. Like many members of the lily family, the plant is poisonous. Scilla contain cardiac glycosides, particularly scilla-dienolides, which act like digitalis to slow the heart rate.

I really like these pink species/botanical tulips which I bought in BC last year. These are Tulipa humilis and they seem to be the brightest and showiest of the species tulips in my yard. I grow them in my sloped rock garden.

Dimorphotheca "African Sun" blooming like mad in a sunny window. These poor plants need to be outside soon. They're quickly outgrowing their pots.

Welcome Sign and Guerilla Gardening

Welcome to La Ronge, in the future sometime, perhaps. I'm not alone in wondering when our town's welcome sign will be finished.

The sign itself is quite attractive, having been put up last year. It seems that a local committee was given the task of landscaping around the sign, starting last summer. However, the landscaping seems to have come to a standstill. I notice some fresh-looking wood-chip mulch sitting to one side of the sign, which makes me hopeful. What is the plan with the rows of rocks, though?

With only a few minutes and a good computer program, I can transform this welcome sign into something that represents the effects of global warming on the Canadian subarctic...click on the picture to see the high-resolution larger picture. Do you like the bougainvillea, banana tree and bromeliads?

In an attempt to add some greenery to the dusty mess at the side of the highway, I threw some poppy seeds on the heap of garbage and dirt left at a snow dump site.

Good luck, little seeds. If just a few of these seeds grow to flowering plants, they might have a hope of naturalizing, as poppies self-seed. This was my act of "guerilla gardening" for the year. RLM thinks I am crazy. To read more about this social trend, there is a UK website that documents guerilla gardening moments and "weapons of mass beautification".