Best of the Bruce - Ontario's Bruce Peninsula
Spectacular scenery and a high natural diversity make the Bruce Peninsula a nature lovers dream! The rugged eastern shore of the peninsula is rimmed by
the towering cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment, which plunge into Caribbean-blue waters of Georgian Bay. Expansive forests, wetlands, shorelines and alvars create a wild mosaic, which is home to black bears, orchids and hundreds of bird species. In this program, Ethan  share his favourite images and adventures from the Bruce Peninsula, his home for many years.

Ethan is a self-taught photographer, published all over the world in books, calendars, brochures, magazines and corporate ads. Credits include: National Geographic books, Ranger Rick books, Forbes Magazine, Canadian Geographic, Wyman Calendars, Lonely Planet books, Cottage Life, Birder's World, Wildbird, National Wildlife, Nature Canada, ON Nature, Canoe & Kayak and many more. He is the humour columnist and a regular contributor for Outdoor Photography Canada magazine. At only 37 years of age, Ethan is well established as one of Canada's leading nature photographers.

7pm-9pm

Wine & Cheese at 7pm - Proudly serving Pelee Island Wines
Presentation starts at 7:30

Admission - $20 per person, at the door

Botanical voyeurism: The sex lives of plants in Ontario by Brendan Larson

Many plants can only reproduce if pollinating insects transfer pollen among their flowers, so the decline of pollinators has turned them into media stars. You can even help to document their status by watching them in your backyard and collecting data for Pollination Canada’s “pollinator watch” program, yet the plant side of the pollination equation is less often appreciated. This presentation will survey the sex lives of plants in Ontario, including orchids, to demonstrate the myriad ways they control how pollinators move their pollen, including not only modes of self-pollination when pollinators are absent but diverse means of avoiding it through the
separation of male and female flowers in space and time when they’re present (including sex change). You’ll be amazed at the intrigue of plant sexuality – the esteemed Swede Carl Linnaeus, father of plant taxonomy, referred to the flower as a “conjugal bed” – yet may also begin to wonder about the extent to which we understand pollination by personifying in terms of human sexuality.

Brendon Larson is an assistant professor in the Department of Environment and Resource Studies, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo. He has been a naturalist since his childhood in Carolinian Canada, and has obtained degrees from the University of Guelph (biology), the University of Toronto (pollination ecology), and the University of California at Santa Barbara (science and society). He has also taught at UC-Davis, Oregon State University, and Linköping University (Sweden), currently advises several graduate students, and teaches a field natural history course at Cabot Head at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula each spring. He has been invited to present his research at conferences and workshops around the world and has published it many times in international refereed journals across the spectrum of the natural and social sciences, ranging from pollination ecology to the role of metaphors in communication about biodiversity. His
book, Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability: Redefining Our Relationship with Nature, will be published by Yale University Press this spring. He has served on the Board of Directors of World Wildlife Fund – Canada and is currently President of Ontario Nature  (http://www.ontarionature.org.). For more information, please visit http://www.environment.uwaterloo.ca/ers/faculty/blarson/index.html.