“Virtually each fowl or mammal on the market,” Kenny Swale favored to say, gesturing out the window, “has a ghost at its shoulder. A household ghost. The razorbill has the good auk, the harlequin duck has the Labrador duck, the waders have an extinct curlew, the mourning dove has the passenger pigeon, the American mink has the ocean mink… all gone now. However right here in my museum, the ghosts are alive. Folks can mingle with them and marvel and study. And I cost peanuts for it.”
A house for ghosts — that was Kenny Swale’s Museum of Misplaced Creatures, a ramshackle wood home, bleached by time and the salt air, that missed the internal Bay of Fundy. For 2 generations, the museum had instructed the story of wildlife that had gone extinct inside historic occasions in Atlantic Canada. Now, Kenny was trying ahead to the museum’s fortieth anniversary celebration. He had organized a shoreline cleanup, and a cake, and a speech by the colorful mayor, Waterproof coat Jensen — Mac the Untamed, because the native newspaper referred to as him. However then one thing occurred that threatened to upset all his plans: the museum was burglarized.
“They stole my nice auk!” lamented Kenny to Carys Michaelson, the younger RCMP officer who had come to research. “And my nice auk egg.”
Artist: Robin Clugston
The 2 of them stood in the back of the museum, eyeing a small window that had been compelled open. On the cabinets beside them have been dried sea urchins, a shell necklace, driftglass of assorted colors, a shark’s tooth, and a carved walrus six inches lengthy (its tusks have been made from toothpicks). The place smelled pleasantly of previous wooden and the ocean.
“A stuffed specimen of the extinct nice auk,” mentioned Carys, writing in her pocket book, “and a preserved egg of the identical species. Anything?”
“Sure. A feather duster.”
Carys seemed up. “A feather duster?”
“It’s not a part of a show or something — I used to be simply dusting the reveals final evening. I don’t know why they’d need that previous factor.”
Artist: Robin Clugston
“They didn’t do a lot injury in breaking in,” remarked Carys. The window had been expertly compelled open, however with no breakage.
“Professionals,” mentioned Kenny glumly. “However right here’s an odd factor: they left plenty of different invaluable stuff, like my pair of tusks from the Atlantic walrus. Do you know, Carys, that Atlantic Canada used to have its personal inhabitants of —”
“Sure, Kenny, you’ve instructed me. Do you could have images of the good auk and the egg?”
“I’ll dig ‘em up for you.” He sighed and gazed out the window to the seashore. “Properly, I’m not going to let this get me down. The celebration goes forward!”
That night, Carys went on-line to study extra in regards to the nice auk. A big flightless fowl with a smooth, satiny plumage, it was twice as large as fashionable auks and murres. It had a big lobster-claw of a beak, grooved to let water run off, and a white eye-patch. Colored like a penguin, it additionally walked like one… with a wobble. However within the sea, it may out-porpoise a porpoise, swooping and darting after fish like a nighthawk round a streetlight. It may dive to depths of a number of hundred toes—some specialists believed as deep as six or seven hundred toes, the place a passing blue whale would simply be an enormous roiling of the twilight, and glass squid would weave needle-points of golden-yellow mild. You can say it was a sky-seeking creature like a swift, besides that it sought the sky past the seabed, on the opposite aspect of the planet. It was hunted to extinction for its plumage and oil. In Scotland, townspeople as soon as clubbed an important auk to demise for being a witch; a sailor reported that it made no sound when it died.
Artist: Robin Clugston
Carys closed her laptop computer and sat looking the window. She had spent all her life on the Prairies and moved right here lately for this job, however she had at all times been fascinated by the ocean—the truth is, she used to dream of it as a child. She cherished residing proper beside the Bay of Fundy and respiration within the salt air.
I’m going to get that nice auk again, she thought. And the egg. And the feather duster…. although she was certain Kenny may decide one up for nothing on the Greenback Retailer.
Later, asleep beside an open window, she dreamed of diving into the Bay and swimming far out into the open sea. She was excited — after twenty years, she was dreaming of the ocean once more! However surprisingly, she noticed nothing: no whales, no fish, no streams of blue-green bioluminescence that slid and eddied just like the circulate patterns in a lava lamp. She floated alone in a hazed void that was as empty of life because the moon.
To be continued…
Nature Canada and different environmental teams have recognized the internal Bay of Fundy (Nova Scotia/New Brunswick) as certainly one of 4 precedence marine areas needing safety. Discover out how one can assist shield these and different ocean websites by turning into a Nature Canada Ocean Defender!
Particular because of Ottawa artist Robin Clugston for illustrating this unique Nature Canada eco-mystery.
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