A Tour Of The Mysterious Manitou Islands & A Sharp-shinned Hawk Of The Vermilon River.

 The Manitou Islands are in Lake Nipissing. You need to know a few things first. First a little Indian, or Aboriginal lore. Roughly speaking the bands of the Northern Ontario are of the Algonquin group, while the southern aboriginals are members of the Iroquois Confederacy. The Iroquois would support the English, and the Algonquins the French in the struggle over the fur trade. The Iroquois Confederacy was every bit to quote one historian as sophisticated, and advanced as the Roman Empire,even in its quest of empire. The local Algonquin band was the Nippissing.Aboriginal religion was/is more spiritual than say Christianity, in fact, more akin to Japanese Shintoism. It lacked, if that is the word, the people traits, and the add ons of other earlier religions that characterize Christianity, for instance, resurrection from the Egyptians, or Christmas from the pagans.Manitou is then the "Great Spirit", and several places are sacred to him, here and in other eastern areas.The previous post was a tour of the Manitoulin Islands, another sacred place. There are other spirits and totems in the culture,but that's enough for now. The Manitou Islands have the reputation of ghost Islands.

 There are two videos in one here. That's because under the free plan of vimeo, I'm only allowed one post per week. The second video was an accident. As you know I virtually live in the wilderness, and yesterday this hawk came to visit my feeders. A pet cat knocked her out of the tree and was chased away by a neighbour,although she started to defend herself. I was out by then, so we put her on my picnic table where she decided to sleep. She didn't move, so after a couple of hours, we put her in a cat cage up high,and let her sleep. This morning we released her to the forest. She's a juvenile, maybe female, Sharp-Shinned Hawk. I knew you'd enjoy these close ups. It was again difficult to identify her, but a series of shots on Utah birds courtesy of Paul Higgins confirmed the ID.

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