THE BEAUTY OF CHANGE
Gilbert Mcintaggart holds one of 17 indoor-raised butterflies released at the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre (WRC) as part of a craft class.
Colourful butterflies filled the air around the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre (WRC) Tuesday morning as residents and staff watched them take flight.
Seventeen butterflies were set free as part of an annual butterfly release organized by the Canadian Red Cross craft room in the centre’s veterans’ unit. Craft room staff brought in the butterflies, which started off as tiny caterpillars, about a month ago and looked after them until they were ready to fly.
Heather Dash, the craft room’s program co-ordinator, said this is the event’s fourth year. The project started after Dash learned a veteran’s daughter-in-law raises butterflies in Ontario. She decided to get some shipped in.
“They’re very representative of natural change in people’s lives,” Dash said. “I think on the veterans’ unit that really is something that is very noticeable. Things can change naturally very quickly for them. It’s a beautiful representation of that change.”
The process to raise the creatures requires a certain amount of co-ordination.
“The butterflies arrive by mail, and it has to be couriered overnight,” Dash said. “When we get them, they’re like little tiny pieces of yarn.”
Kept on a steady diet of oranges, or orange Gatorade-soaked cotton balls, they begin to grow quickly.
“Every (year) it takes a different amount of time,” Dash said. “We’ve had some times where they ’ve taken way longer than they were supposed to to emerge.”
They’re very representative of natural change in people’s lives.
This time, however, they were impatient and started emerging last week.
For the veterans, the project is a chance to observe the life cycle of the butterflies and enjoy their beauty as they fly off. Dash planned to give each veteran a butterfly to release in the courtyard, but some of the insects were too eager to be held and flew away. Others stayed put and sat on the veterans’ fingers.
Gilbert Mcintaggart was one veteran who let a speckled butterfly sit on his thumb before it took off.
“You couldn’t even feel it because he’s not very heavy,” he said. “And then he flew away. I said, ‘Come back here!’”
He’s not unfamiliar with the insects.
“I’m from northern Ontario and there’s lots of butterflies up there.”
Veteran and WRC resident Donald Johnson also got a chance to enjoy the event. This was the first time he’d seen a release and said it was exciting to see them set free.
“I’ve seen lots of different things but this one thing I haven’t seen at all,” Johnson said with a laugh.
“It’s like anything that’s been caged up for a while,” he said. “You hope that they make it a bit longer in their lives.”