Strange creatures come out of hibernation during an Atlantic Canada spring. It starts with the arrival of a bevy of animal rights crusaders to protest the seal hunt.   Some are quite exotic by East Coast standards. This year’s flock included Pamela Anderson, Brigitte Bardot and Paul and Heather McCartney – all oblivious to the complexities of the issue, lacking information, even “geographically challenged.”

Bardot called this year’s hunt “a stain on the character of the Canadian people.” On CNN’s Larry King Live, McCartney said he was speaking from Newfoundland, when in fact he was in P.E.I. His wife wailed about the horrors of those awful men clubbing the baby seals to death, even though clubbing was outlawed years ago and “whitecoats” are no longer killed. “If only they were fighting abortion,” say local pro-lifers.

Spring hit New Brunswick, too. On April 3, a court heard the peculiar case of a heterosexual couple wanting a divorce on the grounds of same-sex adultery committed by the wife. Such grounds do not yet exist in Canadian law, so the action (strongly approved by the gay community) was bound to come sometime. But it’s peculiar, nonetheless. Or suspicious, because under current laws, the couple’s divorce would have taken effect on May 13, anyway. Is there an agenda there?

Today’s CBC radio phone-in topic was global warming. One caller talked passionately about the harmful impact of body heat on the environment – so many degrees per body pound or something. His solution? The world should follow China’s example, get on with birth control and reduce the numbers of humans. Hasn’t he heard that we are now wrestling with depopulation? Doesn’t he know that we have a doctor shortage? A tradesman shortage? That we’re killing the equivalent of a large city annually? As I said, they’re all coming out of hibernation.

Spring always brings a predictable crop of weeds, including books “proving” that Christianity is the greatest fraud in history. That Judas was the good guy who acted at Jesus’s own request to help Him move out of his human body so as to achieve his destiny. That Jesus didn’t die on the Cross, had as much sexual passion as any 21st century man, slipped off to France with Mary Magdalen to raise a family.

But Easter lilies and blossoms also appear among the weeds. This spring many people are visiting a beautiful church in the tiny Acadian village of Tignish in western P.E.I. to see a face on the tabernacle veil, a face they variously interpret as Jesus or as his mother. Media coverage has generally been accurate and respectful and some reporters have later returned to enter into penetrating spiritual discussions with the pastor, Rev. Jim Willick. “We’re all made for God and our hearts are restless without him. People in the media are seeking God, too,” says Willick.

Spring and Easter are also seasons for joy and renewed hope. This year, we can rejoice that South Dakota has enacted laws against abortion and that a government commission in France has rejected same sex “marriage” in “the best interests of children.” Spring is often a time for pleasant surprises.

We can rejoice in the many inspiring local re-enactments of the Good Friday and Easter events, including the university students enacting the living Stations of the Cross in many churches. We can rejoice that Anglican churches still hold the beautiful Tenebrae service in Holy Week and that orchestras and choirs perform Handel’s Messiah and Mozart’s Mass and Easter cantatas.

It’s also the season for right to life annual meetings, for organizing Show the Truth visits, for the national March for Life in Ottawa, where youth figure ever more prominently. It’s also the season for “pure fashion shows” and for inspirational talks and visits by wholesome contemporary role models, like Juno nominee Janelle. All signs of new growth, all reasons for hope and joy.

Yes, spring has arrived in eastern Canada, but it’s been such an unusually mild winter that we’re not quite sure what to expect. It might even be that Anderson, Bardot and the McCartneys will return in the summer to help Show the Truth campaigners to end abortion and its violent destruction of unwanted pre-born children.