Death by Exposure (7 page)

But let's talk about our own mystery in
Death by Exposure.
As the coroner says in the story, the numbers at the bottom of the page in the photograph section may be a secret code that once cracked will reveal a message about who the man in the ice is. So, after you've made sure that those numbers don't have something to do with the latitude and longitude of the places in the photographs, see if the coroner's code key works. Remember, he thinks 35 stands for A, 36 for B, 37 for C, and so on, with Z being 60.

After you've done that and maybe found out who the iceman is and how he got there, you can discover more fun things about secret codes and spies by checking out the Web site
www.thunk.com
.
There you'll also find links to
CIA
for Kids,
FBI
for Kids, and a James Bond site. Another cool place on the Internet is 42explore (
www.42explore.com
).
It has a code page at
www.42explore.com/codes.htm
.
If you want to see what the real spies are up to on the Web, make sure you visit the main
CIA
(
www.odci.gov/cia
)
and Federal Bureau of Investigation or
FBI
(
www.fbi.gov
)
home pages. Britain's
SIS
or Ml6 doesn't have a Web site, but its sister organization, the Secret Service or Ml5, does at
www.mi5.gov.uk
.
As for Canada, take a look at
CSIS
(
www.csis-scrs.gc.ca
)
and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or
RCMP
(
www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca
).

Spirit bears, also known as Kermode bears
(Ursus americanus kermodei),
are a rare subspecies of the black bear. One in ten of these animals is born white, and the north coast of British Columbia (particularly on Princess Royal Island) is the only place they can be found. The spirit bear has been in the legends of the Kitasoo and Kitsquatoa people for years and is considered to be a reminder of a time when giant Douglas fir and cedar trees, coastal brown and black bears, wolves, eagles, and wild salmon were plentiful on the coast.

Princess Royal Island, 520 kilometres (323 miles) north of Vancouver and 200 kilometres (124 miles) south of Prince Rupert, is British Columbia's fourth-largest island and is in the heart of the world-famous Great Bear Rainforest. The island has sandy beaches, lowland old-growth rainforest, subalpine areas, and alpine tundra, interlaced with fjords, estuaries, and lakes. In recent times even more intensive logging of Princess Royal has led to growing concern for its future and pressure on provincial and federal governments to turn part or all of the island into a wilderness park.

WEB SITES

Kermode Bears:
www.schoolworld.asn.au
/species/kermbear.html

PBS
Online:
www.pbs.org/wnet
/nature/ghostbear/html/intro.html

Spirit Bear Youth Coalition:
www.spiritbearyouth.org

Valhalla Wilderness Society:
www.savespiritbear.org

Twenty thousand years ago, with the gradual cooling of the Earth, ice floes spread over North America, including the Mingan Archipelago. Because of the weight of the ice, the whole continent sank. Later the planet warmed up again and the glaciers began to melt. Two things happened because of that: the elevation in the level of the ocean and the gradual reemergence of the continent. After slowly rising for 2,800 years, the Mingan Islands broke the surface of the water, and nature started to fashion the first monoliths. Created from fragile rock more than 450 million years old, the weird formations are vulnerable to erosion. Sea waves, wind, and seasonal freezing and thawing all contribute to the bizarre sculptures. These limestone giants constitute the largest group of rock monoliths in Canada.

The photograph was difficult to take because the light was very flat and the sky blended with the rocks. In the end, the picture had to be snapped from the nonlit side of the monoliths to create a better silhouetted exposure.

WEB SITES

Canadian Parks:
www.canadianparks.com
/quebec/minganp/index.htm

Parks Canada:
www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/qc/mauricie/natcul/natcul1-3_e.asp

Grasslands National Park in southern Saskatchewan represents everything you never knew about the province. The region isn't flat. Instead it's filled with magnificent badland formations, coulees, buttes and, above all else, North America's last remaining grasslands. It's also the place where the last documented buffalo hunt occurred.

You need to watch where you step, though. Rattlesnakes may be hiding in the tall grass. Golden eagles, turkey vultures, peregrine falcons, burrowing owls, coyotes, red foxes, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, and black-tailed prairie dogs are also found in the park.

Some of Canada's colourful western history took place in Grasslands. The most famous incident was in 1876 when Sioux Chief Sitting Bull sought refuge here from the American army after the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the defeat of Colonel George Custer.

WEB SITES

Discovery Channel:
www.exn.ca/nationalparks/park.asp?park=Grasslands

Great Canadian Parks:
www.greatcanadianparks.com
/saskatchewan/grassnp/index.htm

Parks Canada:
www.pc.gcxa/pn-np/sk/grasslands/edu/edul_e.asp

Virtual Saskatchewan:
www.virtuahk.com/current_issue/grasslands.html

Nunavut (“Our Land” in Inuktitut) is Canada's newest territory and came into being on April 1, 1999. Originally it was the eastern part of a much larger Northwest Territories. The territory spans 2 million square kilometres (772,000 square miles) and has a population of about 29,000. Eighty-five percent of the people in Nunavut are Inuit, and it is their traditional knowledge, values, and wisdom that shape the government, business, and day-to-day life of the territory. The capital of Nunavut is Iqaluit on Baffin Island.

The Far North can be beautiful one moment under the pink summer sun, and in the next instant it can be terrifying as the ice cracks in a storm and the noise can be heard over a great distance. The photograph was taken at the edge of a crack or lead in the ice between Baffin Island (in the distance) and Bylot Island, near Pond Inlet.

WEB SITES

Baffin Island:
www.baffinisland.ca

Government of Nunavut:
www.gov.nu.ca/Nunavut

Nunavut Parks:
www.nunavutparks.com

Virtual Museum (Inuit History, Art, and Tradition):
www.virtualmuseum.ca/English/Teacher/inuit_history.html

Bonaventure Island is just off the Gaspé Peninsula shore in Quebec. The island is home to the world's second-largest northern gannet breeding colony (more than 200,000 birds). Since 1972 Bonaventure has been part of a provincial park that also includes the fabled Percé Rock. The din of the gannets is deafening, the sight unbelievable, and the smell awful.

WEB SITES

Gaspé Peninsula:
www.great-adventures.com/destinations/canada/gaspe.html

New England Seabirds:
www.neseabirds.com/gaspe.htm

and
http://membres.lycos.fr/revasse/wildlife.html

Cape Churchill is near Churchill, Manitoba, on Hudson Bay. The world's largest concentration of polar bears
(Ursus maritimus)
is found here. They come to wait for the water to freeze so they can go out hunting ring seals, their favourite food. Adult polar bears are big. Males can weigh 650 kilograms (1,430 pounds); females 350 kilograms (770 pounds).

WEB SITES

Heritage Canada:
www.heritagecanada.org
/eng/news/archived/churchill_e.pdf

Polar Bears Alive:
www.polarbearsalive.org

Wildlife Watcher:
http://wildlifewatcher.com/
wc/church.phtml

World Wildlife Fund (Polar Bear Central):
www.wwfcanada.org/en/
PolarBearCentral/default.asp

L'Anse aux Meadows, home to the only proven Viking settlement in North America, is a
UNESCO
World Heritage Site.
UNESCO
is a United Nations organization responsible for promoting collaboration among countries through education, science, culture, and communication. As of mid-2004, there were 754 properties on the World Heritage List (582 cultural, 149 natural, and twenty-three mixed). Eleven World Heritage Sites are in Canada. Besides L'Anse aux Meadows, they include the Haida village of Ninstints on Anthony Island in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii); Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Alberta; Quebec City; Lunenburg, Nova Scotia; Nahanni National Park, Northwest Territories; Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta; Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta/Northwest Territories; Canada's Rocky Mountain parks; Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland; and Miguasha Provincial Park, Quebec.

It is believed that just over 1,000 years ago Vikings landed at L'Anse aux Meadows and founded a temporary settlement, centuries before the coming of Christopher Columbus to the New World. As early as 1914, Newfoundlander William Munn suggested L'Anse aux Meadows might be the location of Vinland, one of the names Vikings gave in their sagas to the places they visited in North America. However, excavations didn't begin until after 1960 when the Norwegian explorer and writer Helge Ingstad searched the area. Helge's wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, eventually discovered the remains of sod dwellings and workshops. Viking artifacts such as a bronze pin, a spindle whorl, needlework tools, and broken wood objects have also been unearthed at the site.
Today, during the summer, a visitor centre features guides dressed as Vikings of the time.

WEB SITES

Canada History:
www.canadahistory.com/sections
/eras/Firstcontact/lanxameadows.htm

Parks Canada:
www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/index_e.asp

SchoolNet:
http://collections. ic.gc.ca/vikings

UNESCO
World Heritage Sites:
http://whc.unesco.org

New Brunswick's Kouchibouguac National Park is an intricate blend of coastal barrier islands and inland habitats where beaches, sand dunes, salt marshes, bogs, rivers, forests, and fields all come together. There are colonies of grey and harbour seals and sea lions, and in the interior there are black bears, moose, and coyotes. North America's second-largest colony of terns is found here, as well as other birds such as ospreys, bald eagles, and great blue herons.

WEB SITES

Discovery Channel:
www. exn.ca/NationalParks/park. asp ?park=Kouchibouguac

Great Canadian Parks:
www.canadianparks.com/
nbrunswick/kouchnp/index.htm

Parks Canada:
www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/nb/kouchibouguac/index_E.asp

Situated in Prince Edward Island National Park near Cavendish, Green Gables House was built in the mid-1800s. It was originally the home of cousins of the grandfather of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the creator of the spirited, lively, red-haired girl named Anne. The farm inspired the locale for Montgomery's novel
Anne of Green Gables.
The home, grounds, and farm outbuildings depict the Victorian era described in the novel.

WEB SITES

CBC
Documentary:
www.tv.cbc.ca/lifeandtimes
/bio1996/montgomery.htm

Green Gables:
www.gov.pe.ca/greengables

L. M. Montgomery Institute:
www.upei.ca/-lmmi

The Big Muddy Valley is located in a wide depression of eroded earth and sandstone along Big Muddy Creek in southern Saskatchewan. The badland formations in the valley are the result of flowing meltwater from glaciers that once extended all the way to Lake Superior about 11,000 years ago.

The valley also has a nifty outlaw reputation. It was known as Station No. 1 on the Outlaw Trail that began in southern Saskatchewan and snaked south through Montana, Colorado, and Arizona into Mexico. It's said that Butch Cassidy (the outlaw played by Paul Newman in the movie
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid)
organized the trail and that many other desperados hid there in caves over the years.

The picture was taken from high atop Castle Butte (70 metres/200 feet high), one of the more famous natural landmarks in Saskatchewan.

WEB SITES

BootsnAll.com:

www.bootsnall.com/namericatravelguides
/prairie/sep01prairie.shtml