John Edwards Rebuilding at Lonesome Lake

Thanks to Chris Czajkowski for this update.

"All I know about John Edwards is that he's definitely rebuilding at Lonesome Lake. Supplies have been flown in and he has a helper. As far as I know this will simply be a small cabin to give him shelter while he continues to feed the animals he's come to know over the years. I'll see if I can get a bit more info when I go to Nimpo in a few days.

"The story about the fox coming back is all well and good, but as Trudy Turner (John's sister) pointed out to me in a recent letter, the fire happened before the cone crop was harvested. It was all destroyed over a huge area so the surviving squirrels will have very little to eat for the winter. Squirrels maintain their old middens (storage places) for hundreds of years. Squirrels are the main prey of martins, which are the other animals John has fed for years - no doubt his tamer ones will survive on John's largesse, and martins are more mobile than squirrels. There was in fact a big squirrel population here this year so I may see more martins moving in. The squirrels increase is no doubt a reaction to the increasingly large cone crops of the recent drought years (plants always produce more seed when stressed - providing they survive at all). It was interesting to note that birds which eat pine seeds have been commoner than usual here this fall, although the trend for other bird species has declined quite dramatically over the last five years. Presumably I'm getting a lot of flocks that were displaced from the fire.

"In this gorgeous fall weather we've been having, I hiked up to the north ridge behind my place (the ridge over which I saw the orange smoke). The valley immediately to the north was largely untouched, but both north and south I could see where the fire was halted. In both directions it stopped about 8 kms away."

Comments

[Mr & Mrs. Richard Atkinson]

Hello
We flew into the Edwards place with Floyd (Nimpo Air 1999)we also tried to follow the fire the best we could from Ontario.Tragic,a part of History lost for ever.We have been wondering how John is doing.We spoke to Trudy in 99.We hope everybody is well.
Richard & Shirley Atkinson.