LITTLE VALLEY: DAKOTA BLOMGREN

Reflections from a younger resident.

 

 

 

Hi, my name is Dakota Blomgren. I was born in the Comox Valley and I am nine years old. I am a proud member of the K’ómoks First Nation and I love to go camping, swimming, boating, hunting, and berry picking. My favourite people to hang out with are my siblings, my dogs, my family, and my friends. I absolutely love to read!

My favourite books to read are mystery books, especially ones that have detectives or spies. I have read all the Bad Guys series; I think the best character is Mr. Wolf, because he is so funny. I got to see the movie in the theatre, and it was awesome. We have all the Bad Guys books in our school library.

When I go on walks with my mom, sometimes we like to pretend we are spies or detectives. We go into the woods a lot and our favourite place to be spies is Mack Laing Park.

When we are in the woods, I am usually with my mom and stepdad, but sometimes my mom and I go on girls’ hunting and scouting trips. I have seen a lot of animals in the wild: bear, deer, elk, and even a cougar—that was scary. As we were coming down from Mount Washington, my stepdad yelled “COUGAR!” and then we stopped the truck so we could watch it run into the trees. I have always wanted to find a sasquatch, but I am not even sure they exist.

I love to watch animals in the wild and I am good at finding animal tracks. Someday I want to find a wolf track, but I haven’t seen one yet. My favourite animal to search for is the bear, because I am from the Bear Clan. Our family comes from the Salmon River in Sayward. We have really good luck finding bears there. To find bear prints, I look on the ground in muddy places where their tracks are clear. One fall, we watched a mama and baby bear climb up a gravel hill. The baby was so cute! I felt safe because we were pretty far away from the bears, and they didn’t see us because they were busy climbing. Luckily, we didn’t have our dogs, Bear and Khali, with us. Bear does NOT like bears. When he sees one, he barks and growls really loudly. I think he is scared of them.

When my dogs see elk or deer, I wonder if they are scared … or excited. We always know elk are close when we see Bear and Khali sniffing hard into the air. There is lots of mystery in the world, and I think it’s amazing to explore and find new places and wildlife. I really love animals and want to be a veterinarian one day.

BY DAKOTA BLOMGREN, AGE 9