Why parting with Canada geese caused sorrow for one Ontario woman

"The slight nip in the air in these late August evenings already has Canada geese gabbling wildly about their travel plans."

Or so The National's host George McLean concluded from the Canada geese featured in this August 1982 report by Wally Jackson, from near Bergland, Ont.

It seemed that one farmer there, Anneliese Gallatin, had learned a surprising lesson when she raised a gaggle of goslings on the farm she shared with her husband, Lloyd.

'Mother Goose'

"She thinks of herself as Mother Goose," reported Jackson. The couple had been granted the go-ahead from the Ontario government for a nesting project. 

The goose eggs came from Toronto Island, they hatched in Thunder Bay, and the goslings had spent the summer on the Gallatin farm in the Rainy River District in the northwestern part of the province.

The project had proved successful and Gallatin had only one regret about her care of the birds  — she had become attached to them.

A lesson learned

Although some would be expected to return to the site over the years, Jackson noted that "some will of course be shot by hunters."

"I'll know better next year," Gallatin explained.  "Next year when I'm getting the goslings ... I'll not put the feed in my hand." 

"Not like a mama handles babies like I did this year," she added.