Mt. Robson from the Shore of Kinney Lake

Eleven days; nine major highways; eight states and provinces; seven national parks; six national forests; and five state and provincial parks later, I arrived in Anchorage, Alaska from Shreveport, Louisiana.

We made it!

My trek traversed the southern plains, semi-arid prairies, the cold deserts, the western cordillera, the boreal cordillera, and the marine west coast forests. Along the way I met new Betula, Anemone, Lupinus, Erigeron, Trillium, and Equisetum species, as well as a plethora of nonvasculars.

My co-intern and I have been working in Anchorage for just over a week now, partnered with both BLM and the Alaska Natural Heritage Program, and most of our time thus far has been spent either in training or in the herbarium, familiarizing myself with common species and speciose genera. For me, it was initially a bit overwhelming to be confronted with a flora so radically different from that with which I’m familiar, but our mentors have provided excellent resources and enthusiastic support. We’re also scheduled to do field surveys sometime this week, and I imagine meeting the plants in “person” (i.e., three dimensions) will certainly help in learning their names.

Today was spent weighing, packinging, and labelling seed from last year’s Seeds of Success collections, and it was exciting to see the fruit (no pun intended) of last year’s interns’ labors. The Plant Materials Center, which houses Alaska’s S.O.S. program, is near Butte, AK in the Matanuska Valley. This was easily the most scenic lunch I’ve ever taken.

Our first field outing– shortly after the Chicago training session– will be with NRCS, and we’re headed to the Chandalar Shelf in the Brooks Range! My excitement exceeds that which the English language is sufficient to describe. I’m continually grateful for this opportunity to contribute meaningfully and to travel to such phenomenally beautiful locations.

More to come after our stint in the field!

Bonnie B.
Anchorage BLM Office & AK-NHP

After a month of waiting, the Rogue Valley’s native plants have finally begun their first round of seeding!

So far we have been able to make numerous collections of interesting plants like the silvery lupine, Lupinus albifrons, the onion grass, Melica geyeri, or the slender meadowfoam, Limnanthes gracilis. The process of surveying these plants and then following them every week until they go to seed has been a unique and gratifying experience for myself, personally. The longer I work on seed collecting, the more sophisticated my eyes are becoming when gazing into southern Oregon’s natural environments. It is a constant reminder that there can be a seemingly infinity of objects to perceive in nature at any particular spot, if we could just learn to see what is there.

My partner, Mason, and I are excited to get back into the field and not only collect seed of our scouted populations but also hunt for freshly flowering populations to keep on our radar for the upcoming summer months.

– Jason

Three days after graduation I drove from eastern North Carolina to Grand Junction, Colorado, and started my internship with the BLM field office here the day after I arrived. It has been a whirlwind and a complete change of environment. Everything is different here! Every day I look around me at the Book Cliffs, Grand Mesa and the Colorado National Monument and have to pinch myself and ask “Is this real life??”  Definitely not the flat plains I’m used to (and I thank God every day for the lack of humidity). My knowledge of the flora and fauna are completely lacking though, as my fellow local interns have been quick to point out. But I’m quickly learning and want to learn more about this beautiful landscape. The past two weekends I’ve been playing tourist and visiting all the big destinations…unfortunately I can’t get myself up early enough to search for moose on the Grand Mesa. But who knew Grand Junction was in the middle of wine country? Or dinosaur? Or wildflower? I also got a chance to visit Teton National Park and Yellowstone over Memorial Day weekend

In the past two weeks I’ve mostly been doing all the standard training (Is four hours of defensive driving necessary? really?) and a variety of projects out in the field, from mending fences on exclosures, to big game transects. I’m slowly learning about the relationship between the public, the federal government and public lands. I’ve attached some pictures that glimpse at what I’ve seen the past two weeks.

The largest flat-topped mountain in the world!

Sclerocactus glaucus, a threatened species

Colorado National Monument

Prickly Pear

Barrel Cactus

Mule Deer

Wild Rose

Elk

All the best,

Lindsey B.

Bureau of Land Management

Grand Junction Field Office

Howdy from the high, lonesome rangelands of Harney County, OR y’all!

Well, actually, I’m writing to you from my office at the Rea Selling Berry Seed Bank on the campus of Portland State University in sunny Portland, OR. Thus is the duality of my new lifestyle as a CLM intern. Every other week I leave Portland and drive eight hours to one of the remote places in the contiguous United States, immersed in solitude, totally at one with myself and this brand new flora for six days in a row. The rest of the time, I live in the heart of this wonderful, bizarre city, surrounded by my weirdo friends, in a totally different ecoregion with lots and lots of moisture.

Listen guys, the range is no joke. I mean seriously, you could die out there doing the most routine field work. Last week, the local BLM botanist in Harney County told me of a few places I should put on my “must see” list, so I decided to take a little field trip to Foster Flat Research Natural Area to scope an ephemeral playa lakebed Artemisia cana/Poa secunda plant community. “Oh, only thirty two miles down that there dirt road, I should be there in less than an hour,” I said to myself. Three hours later I made it to Foster Flat.

The Burns BLM district is dry — really, really dry — receiving about 7-12 inches of precipitation per year. That said, thunderstorms and showers are common in late spring. As I made my first forays into Foster Flat on foot to examine the miracle of desert plant life, I noticed a very large thunderstorm in the distance — looming, menacing, threatening. I then recalled an anecdote relayed to me by my former supervisor and friend Tom Kaye at the Institute of Applied Ecology in Corvallis, OR. Apparently Tom knew a guy who got caught in the middle of one of these little rain events in the hollers of Harney County back in the old days, and the fellow ended up bogging down his vehicle and getting stranded back there for a week! Yes indeed, one whole week. Was it true? Was it lore? Was Tom just giving me a little gentle hazing? I looked around at the bleak, godforsaken (yet botanically rich!) landscape, lovingly stared into the depths of my iPhone for the slightest hint at cell reception and muttered a few choice phrases as I imagined the thirty two mile hike out of Foster Flat. Those poorly drained clays and silts are unforgiving, and I wasn’t waiting around long enough to find out if my Subaru could levitate out of the all-but-certain quagmire that approached. I spent the rest of my work day channeling New Zealand rally car legend Possum Bourne as I (slowly and safely) navigated through the epic landscape of the Harney Basin, “Stairway to Heaven” blasting on my vehicle’s sound system all the while.

Yep, just another exciting day on the job in Harney County. The outsider might gaze upon the desolate terrain and decide that there’s not much to see except a denuded wasteland. In reality, I work in a botanical wonderland — windswept, silent and mystical. This harsh, unforgiving landscape has many stories to tell, and yet more to be written.

Starting a new job often comes with a mixed bag of emotions including excitement, fear, determination, and anxiety. I personally experienced all of these emotions and more prior to starting my CLM internship in Cedarville, CA. I was nervous about the job, as well as moving to a new place where I knew no one. Of course it is natural to have these feelings but at times they seemed overwhelming. However, taking a leap of faith, and concurring my emotions has made me into a stronger person. Each time I leave my comfort zone and try something new, I am rewarded with new skills, more confidence and new life experiences.

When I arrived to Cedarville, I new it was going to be a new way of living and would take some getting used to. The town has a population of roughly 400, there is one grocery store, one gas station, and I do not have any cellphone service. A remote location such as this may not be for everyone however, one month has passed and I have come to love it here. It is quietly tucked away in a valley surrounded by beautiful mountain ranges with ample opportunities for outdoor recreation. Enough said about Cedarville. Let me tell you what I have been up to at the Bureau of Land Management.

The Surprise Valley field office in Cedarville manages over a million acres of land, straddling the border of northeastern california and northwestern nevada. The majority of the land is considered sage-steppe ecosystem and is important habitat for many wildlife species including the greater sage-grouse. Populations of this ground dwelling bird are currently in decline due to habitat destruction and fragmentation. As a result, restoring the sage-grouse habitat has become a main focus of the Surprise Valley BLM.

One cause of habitat destruction comes from encroachment of western juniper trees (Juniperus occidentalis). Due to a reduction of wildland fires, juniper trees have expanded their territory significantly, encroaching on the sage-steppe ecosystem. Western juniper absorbs a high volume of water, and competes with native vegetation for resources. Part of the sage-steppe ecosystem restoration strategy is to reduce juniper encroachment using a variety of treatments. This project will include both pre-treatment and post-treatment vegetation monitoring. What I have been doing for the past few weeks is establishing pre-treatment vegetation monitoring plots and collecting data.

Jumping right into this project on my first day of work was challenging. I had to learn the protocol on the spot and learn a long list of plants that were unfamiliar to me in a short period of time. However, it has been a valuable learning experience so far and I am certain that my knowledge and skills will continue to progress as more time goes by.

Vegetation monitoring has taken up the bulk of my time however, there have been a few opportunities to get involved with other projects. For starters, I have been scouting out sites to collect seeds for the Seeds of Success program. This has been a challenge due to the ongoing drought in the area. Forbs are especially difficult to find. I also spent a day planting basin wildrye (Leymus cinereus) starts that were grown by local high school students using seeds that were collected by a previous CLM intern. Lastly, I was able to go along with my mentor to install game cameras at two bighorn sheep guzzlers. Afterwards we used radio telemetry to track down the bighorn sheep that were released several years ago. With some patience, we spotted four bighorn sheep having a lazy day on the side of a ridge. On the drive back to the office, we came across a Golden Eagles nest holding this bundle of joy:

Until next time,

Amy Thorson

BLM Surprise Valley

Cedarville, CA