A Freckle in Time: Switzerland!

Today was a productive day. I sorted through my pictures to put on Facebook and did a LOT of culling, as when it comes to mountain scenery, I go a bit crazy with my camera. I also went to downtown Bern and got myself a Halbtax card (1/2 price on all tram/train/bus tickets) and a 6 ride tram/bus pass. Then I finally got around to getting a SIM card for my cell phone, and now I'm writing a blog post! This productiveness should tide me over for another few weeks…

So, I am now in Bern, Switzerland, where I plan on staying until the spring or summer. Here's a little background on what I'm doing here:

This past summer, some friends of my parents, Christine and Urs Breitenmoser who are biologists from Switzerland, visited us in Nelson with their sons while traveling around Canada. My parents met them 18 years ago while in Switzerland for some reason of which I am not sure. They stayed with us for a few days, and, as usual, we at some point discussed what I was doing with my year after graduation. After I told them what I was interested in, and that I definitely wanted to go to Europe, they offered that I could come to Switzerland for the winter and spring and do an internship with KORA, (http://www.kora.ch/) their non-profit organization that coordinates research projects for conservation and management of carnivores in Switzerland: bears, lynx, wolf, etc. This seemed to be a perfect fit for me: experiencing a new country and language, working in the outdoors and in the Alps, no less, and having a chance to learn more about myself and what direction I want to take with my life. After a few days with us, the Breitenmoser's continued their travels around Canada, and I started about the task of figuring out what paperwork and other such annoying things I needed to stay in Switzerland for 6 months.

While everything did not go smoothly to get me here (huge overweight baggage charge from Norway to Switzerland, and quite a bit of trouble attaining my Swiss Visa, I am finally in Switzerland!

What a backdrop..

Swiss money! Such pretty colours. I wish I had a picture of all the bills together..

The first few days here were spent getting to know the other staff at KORA, and learning about what we (the interns: me, Liz (also from Canada), and Geri (northern Switzerland) ) would be doing. We had to become familiar with the camera traps, which are basically cameras in camouflage boxes with motion sensors that take pictures of passing animals, namely lynx in our case; as well as the computer programs for identifying lynx. It was a lot of information in a short amount of time, but all very interesting.

A camera trap

Bern is in the Swiss-German-speaking part of Switzerland, although right near the border with the French-speaking part. This had me a bit nervous before I arrived here, because I had never asked if I needed to have a certain level of proficiency in Swiss German, but it turns out that everyone at the office speaks English. Some also speak French, so I have had a few opportunities to practice my French skills. More opportunities for French practice will come in February when we set camera traps in the Jura Mountains, which are in the French speaking part of Switzerland.

On my first Friday here, a bunch of KORA staff and I headed to downtown Bern for a quick drink, as it was the last weekend in Bern for an intern who had been here since the spring. Most of the bars were packed, but we found a restaurant with a few empty tables and sat down for drinks and pizza. I'm legal here, unlike in BC, which is quite nice, although I made a huge fool of myself trying to order something in German. The drinking age is 16 here, although at that age you can only buy/drink beer and wine I think.

Even though I've only been here a short time, we have already jumped full speed into fieldwork. On Monday, at 6:30am (!) we loaded up 2 cars with the camera trap material and headed to Interlaken to set out the first of the camera traps. This week was the start of a 60 day period when the camera traps are out in the mountains and taking pictures of lynx. Every week they need to be checked, so that will occupy just over half of each week. This first day, I was working with Fridolin, who is basically the camera trap leader, and Liz. Geri, the other intern, was working with Mario, another camera trap regular, in a separate area. Since pictures describe these things better than words, here's some photos from the day:

Camera and other material in the back of Fridolin's car.

Most of the sites we could drive right to, but some required a little bit of walking to get to them.

From L-R: the local game warden, as he will be the one checking this particular site; Liz, and Fridolin.

Then we would set up the sites, and head on to the next one. The altitude of the sites ranged greatly, so for some we would be in foot deep snow while for others we would find ourselves in fall-coloured forests.

Beautiful mountain roads..

..as well as snowy ones.

On Tuesday, we drove for about 2 hours to Beckenried, a town that's pretty much right smack in the middle of Switzerland. After setting a bunch of sites out around there, we stayed overnight at a great little B&B there, then set up more sites the next day before heading home.

This weekend was sort of a catch up weekend for me, so nothing really exciting happened (besides my insane productiveness and the fact that there is a LOT of SNOW here!!! Oh, and one more thing, every Friday night here we have delicious cheese fondue for dinner! Something to look forward to at the end of every week. :)

To end off this post, here's a few more pictures of life in Switzerland so far:

The 350-year-old farm house that is my new home. Christine and family live on the first floor; the landlady, Frau Bärtschi, lives on the 2nd, and Liz and I live on the 3rd.