Parc Omega - Day 2

My early morning wake up was actually fairly ideal as we had tickets for a guided pre-park-opening tour this am that boarded at 7:15 and we needed to check out of our teepee before then.   We ate the cinnamon buns I’d brought for breakfast then packed up and headed down to the shower station and then checked out and just hung out for a bit till the bus was loading.

Deer traffic - not an issue on pre-park tour

This tour - 💯 worth it.  Partially cause the naturalist guide was amazing - tons of knowledge, passion, and enthusiasm.  And partially cause the bus was tall enough for both views and photos often unrestricted by fencing.  And definitely cause there were no other cars on the road ;)

Bison are not allowed to wander wherever.  Probably for the best ;)

The animals that are low-risk of endangering people or other animals are allowed to wander freely - multiple types of deer (squirrel note: we learned the odd-coloured deer, seemingly dark brown or conversely albino - like the pic from last night, are actually all just normal - but because natural selection isn’t at work here, the camouflage colour has no advantage and so more colours appear).  

Boars are amongst those allowed to wander as they see fit

So freely walking deer, boars, ducks, Canada geese (which are wild and not intentionally in the park but come for the easy food), squirrels, chipmunks, etc just wander around.   Feeding the deer carrots is actively encouraged and has made for some very pushy deer and interesting traffic challenges.  But also for some great photo ops.   

I didn't get a great photo of the moose, but I did at least get to see them :)

Also learned moose are actually deer?   The largest species of.  Logically that does make sense but is definitely not a thing I clued into before today.  The moose do not wander freely because apparently they are the opposite of social creatures.  The moose in this park were orphaned as babies that the park was called to rescue and raise, not moose obtained in the wild.   Most of the animals throughout are apparently bred there or rescued as orphans.   All seemed to be in very good condition and not showing signs of stress you so often see at these kinds of places.  So credit to them for doing something right.

Mama with two of her three cubs

Had so much fun taking photos of all the animals - I’m still horrendously bad at finding them (I’d 💯 trip over a bear for sure).  The white wolf was about the only one I found easily 🤦‍♀️.    Loved the wolves and the bears - no surprise there.  Even a mama bear w 3 cubs!    

Wolverine

(Squirrel!   What did surprise me was the Wolverines - which to me seemed like little bears.  Apparently fierce and scrappy little creatures that can take down a moose if they need to?!?!   They’re the Tiny Dog of wild animals.   We didn’t see them till after the tour though so back to that later).

One of the few areas that you can get out of your car and walk around

The park is broken into sections w different animals in different sections.  The areas w mostly “safe” animals you can get out and walk around.  The others are in-vehicle only.  Although windows open and feeding deer highly encouraged.    

We paused to let these guys cross the road

The only area we didn’t see anything was the otters - apparently they’ve only just moved in and are mostly hiding.   The guide did stress at every section that it’s up to the animals if they wish to be seen or not, and some days they choose not to come out.   She did have tasty treats w her though to encourage appearing ;)

 

The deer’s velvety antlers were something to see up close.  That was very cool.  Also enjoyed watching them swim.  And saw at least one nursing.  Boar apparently are not actually native, so the park staff have built them huts so they can stay warm in the winter and not freeze to death.   Those, one species of deer (red = very big, imported originally for hunting), and the Preswalski’s horses (Russian, imported because they were going extinct in the wild and live in a similar climate) were pretty much the only non native animals.  

Red?!?! Fox ;)

The red foxes were actually grey 😂 apparently the same reason as the randomly coloured deer.  I really enjoyed watching them, although we didn’t stay there super long.  Also, I think they were in w either bears or wolves so it was almost an extra rather than the main attraction, but they could’ve rated primary ;)

Lots of goats, ibexes, and various other climbing mountain creatures.  I tend to enjoy them as long as I’m not responsible for caring for them ;)

Seen from the wolf viewing centre;
these guys were quite far away, I was lucky to have a long lens.

There was a whole wolf viewing centre where you could see at ground level behind glass or up on a platform looking down.   A couple wolves came to visit during the guide’s talk, and others were within camera range if you looked away from the primary area.   I really enjoyed that part.   

Some great carvings

After the bus tour we had access to the park, so we drove back up to the top end where the walking trails were - it was there that we found the Wolverine section and stayed to listen to the naturalist talk.   As w the bears last night, this was way better than just looking ourselves.   I’m disappointed we missed the birds of prey both days but at least those we’ve seen before elsewhere.   We took the time to follow most of the walking trails, which was really nice out-of-vehicle break.  Wandering around we also saw prairie dogs (which I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen before?) and walked over to the “old farm” which had more normal farm animals and some random llamas cause why not?

Trying to think of what else we saw today but my phone is about to die, so that'll do for now ;)

Parc Omega - very early Tues am

Wow.  So - the frog serenaded us all night - mildly annoying but credit for commitment lol.  More interesting though is the wolves!   Once in the middle of the night and then starting about 5am they sang the song of their people at top volume.   Some of it was almost…. Musical?    Different tones and pitches and many of them together.   Some of it sounded like what Hollywood has led me to believe ghosts sound like - long, mournful, wailing.   And some of it was just impressive volume - like definitely didn’t feel the need to go for a late night stroll;).  And through all of it, our neighbourhood frog 😂 

No internet or cell service and solar lights that died fairly early encouraged an early bedtime lol. The teepee did cool down significantly.  I suspect not to temps C would be comfortable with - his preferred sleeping temp is roughly igloo ;-P. But I was fine and comfy.   I was surprised that it never got truly dark.  We are in the middle of nowhere w very little light pollution but still every time I woke up I could clearly see the skylight at the top of the teepee and the door to the outside.

So I stand corrected - it is, in fact, two frogs talking to each other in what I can only assume is either a nocturnal courtship or two married frogs bickering ;)

A whole herd of deer just came galloping through!!!   Did not manage to get any good photos but still what an amazing thing to see.  It’s about 5:30 am and I feel like the only human on the planet.

The deer were at our site grazing shortly after sunset as well - I only saw them for the few moments of ambient light before the outhouse light turned out :)

I’m tempted to take my camera for a walk and see if the bears are awake but the boardwalk is closed until 9 😂. Guessing they’re not morning bears.   I can appreciate that.  Def just heard something big go in the water.

Mini-vaca Day 1 - Amazing park experience before ever entering the park!

Dinner view :)

I am currently writing this to the sound of frogs croaking near by, after having dinner on a patio w a view of black bears and an arctic fox.   Not my usual Monday.

Let me back up….  We left the house a little before 8am.  For some reason I had in my head it was supposed to be 5.5h drive.   So I figured we’d get there between 2 and 3.  Theoretically.  😂   Suffice to say it was not.

We detoured the first time - very briefly - to drop Sasha off at my parents’ house since they’re kindly dog sitting while we’re away.

Classic road stop decoration ;)

When we left there, Google was saying arrival time of 3:00.  Okay, fair enough - maybe my original calculations were from my parents' house, not ours ;)  Adding in traffic, that math almost works.   Started on 407 and got redirected down to 401 - no real traffic issues thankfully.  2 short gas and bio break stops on the way.  The 2nd of which was in Kemptville - which turns out was about half an hour from somewhere C had wanted to stop on the way home.  So I did some googling and decided that since the park closed at 5 we may as well take the detour and not pay the park fee for the day; instead we’d spend the whole day there tomorrow and bump the waterpark to the next day.  All good.

Random but entertaining combination

So the detour C was after was to Gather Brewery - a shop that has the unique distinction of being the only glass blowing studio and brewery in the country 😂.  I’m not really sure how it came to be, but we each picked up some glass and C stocked up on some different beers.

The town of Merrickville was super cute and we drove around there for a bit before Google gave us a random but pretty route back to the highway.  We ended up going through Ottawa (somewhat unexpectedly) before crossing into Quebec (where we learned it is now legal to turn right on red as long as you’re not in Montreal or is otherwise signed ;).  Shortly after crossing into Hull we stopped for last gas refill and good to go.

The drive from there was fairly stunning scenery although some sections not safe to pass resulting in trucks w long lines of cars stuck behind them.   Eventually, about 4:30 after leaving shortly before 8am, we arrived at Parc Omega.   

I didn’t really know what to expect tbh.  I knew there was an info session about bears at 5:30 and that we were staying in a teepee w beds.  Beyond that?  🤷‍♀️ 

Signage was a little overwhelming on first entrance but we got sorted pretty quickly and found our way to reception - where we were redirected to another reception just for checkin lol.  All good.   

Only watched a few seconds of this, partially cause we wanted to find our way around
and partially cause the presentation was in French ;)

All the staff seem to be fluently bilingual (win! - for those not from Canada who may be reading this, Quebec is French.  Dramatically so.  And the more rural you go, the less likely you are to find English.  Even road signs are all in French).   And since starting to learn Spanish, all my minimal public-school French has vanished entirely.  So we got checked in, got directions to our teepee and to where the various info sessions were (birds of prey was going on as we were doing this just outside that building).  We also learned there are showers and washrooms - win!  I really wasn’t sure given the whole teepee situation.

Our home for the night - much nicer than I'd expected!

So we find the teepee and then the bear boardwalk - which doesn’t take more than a min or two to walk from one end to the other.  Sat for a few mins waiting for the bear talk to begin - everyone around us was speaking French, so I was thrilled when the guide’s first question was “anybody here prefer English?” ;).  

The Bear Boardwalk
Bears can normally go on both sides of it, but we learned later
the staff can lock them in one section or another if needed

So - it turns out this wasn’t just a conversation- he led us down about half way through the boardwalk and then called the bears!   He also handed out carrots (despite the please don’t feed the bears signs and multiple warnings about getting kicked out if you do lol).   He was giving us lots of info - in both languages - when he realized a tree had fallen onto the boardwalk - providing a handy escape route for the bears should they choose to take it.     

My day was completely made taking pics of the bears.

I was impressed by how he handled it.  He called for backup and then distracted the bears from the opportunity by throwing carrots the opposite direction.   When his backup came, they tried to get the branch down and couldn’t, so they lured the bears into a different area and closed off the section w the escape tree.   All done smoothly and w very little obvious concern.   

Mama Bear and Teenager hanging out

Although the down side is, we never did get the rest of the speech, which I was really enjoying (including that they had black bears and cinnamon bears - black bears with limited melanin).  And the little bear was a “teenager” at two years old - and definitely behaving like one ;).  We did, however, have lots of time to take pics.  I had started w only my phone, but ran back to the car to get my big camera, which took me longer than I like to remember how to use, but then was awesome.   The baby bear swimming w his whole head under water was funnier than I’d expected. 

AND - Chris noticed wolves in an adjacent area.  A mom and her three babies.   Got some good shots there too but also just really enjoyed watching them play.   Extra win.

Not bad for a park we got to after closing time!   We had dinner reservations for 6:45 so we made our way over there - chose to sit on the patio (of course!).  Well the patio was raised over an area that black bears and arctic foxes had access to.  I watched a couple bears, only saw one fox - who appeared older and a little scruffy and who was definitely keeping an eye on the bears.  But still very cool.  Food was pricy (not shocking) but good.

On the way back we stopped by the showers.  lol better than I was afraid they might be but still a bit of an adventure.  The shower didn’t have any temperature controls and only gave short bursts of water at a time.  And, at least the one I was in, the temp varied wildly on those bursts 😂.   But it was well stocked, clean, and efficient so deemed that another win.

Shared shower and toilet space but clean and functional

Heading back to the teepee we met 3 deer, who are clearly very used to collecting carrots from humans (signs everywhere that it’s permissible to feed them carrots) - and then a bit further, one that appeared to be albino of some sort.  That one was alone and not as eager to come visit but def accustomed to people as it didn’t run away and we weren’t being super quiet.

Definitely accustomed to humans

Our teepee setup is lovely but alas while the temp is lovely outside, it is a furnace inside.  So that’s less lovely.  But other than that it’s all good.   We have a “before the park opens” guided tour tomorrow am that I’m really looking forward to.  More tomorrow :)

The teepee came with two beds, a table, and a wood stove