In my post for this month, I wanted to talk about the opportunity I had to step away from my usual botany work and spend a week with the trails crew. It was a nice change of pace, offering a differen, hands-on experience that deepened my appreciation for the land. While I love working with plants, this week broadened my view of conservation and gave me a new perspective on the ways we interact with nature.
Working with the trails crew was both challenging and incredibly rewarding. I gained a real sense of the physical effort and skill required to maintain the trails that allow hikers, bikers, and outdoor enthusiasts to enjoy these beautiful spaces. It was eye-opening to see just how much goes into creating and maintaining access to the outdoors—something I hadn’t engaged with directly before. This experience gave me a newfound respect for the behind-the-scenes work that makes these areas accessible to the public.
Hemlock Lake.
The teamwork was another highlight of this experience, as the work required a different type of collaboration. Clearing trails and ensuring safe passage required constant communication, coordination, and trust. It was very rewarding to be part of that dynamic.
I also had the chance to learn some new techniques, from clearing debris and trimming back overgrown areas to using tools I had never handled before. One of the most unique and exciting parts of working with the trails crew was getting to use a crosscut saw. It was an entirely new experience for me and definitely a highlight of the week. There’s something especially fun about working with such a traditional tool that makes you feel as if you’ve been transported back in time.
This experience also showed me how interconnected different aspects of conservation are. The work the trails crew does plays a crucial role in making nature more accessible to everyone. By maintaining these paths, they’re not just preserving the land—they’re helping more people experience it, which in turn can inspire more interest in conservation. Contributing to that effort was incredibly satisfying, knowing that it would improve the experience for anyone who sets foot on those trails.
Adding to the magic of the month, I’ve had the chance to witness the forest slowly transform into its fall colors. The vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows make the landscape even more breathtaking. Working amongst the changing foliage adds a whole new layer of beauty to the job, and makes the work even more special.
Oh, these? I brined those olives outside of Baur, take! Take more. More—
In all four years of my college experience, I had never met a man so eager to harvest the bitter little olives that grew, unnoticed, outside of the small Arts and Sciences building on west campus. Or now that I think about it, those small passion fruits too, which inhabited the butterfly garden through the late summer months, tasting like watery echoes of their relatives in the tropics. Or, even, the pea flowers that vined up the lamps besides one of our biology buildings (which ended up being toxic so we begged him to stop eating them). Or—
—uh, okay. You probably get the point.
While scouting, I spotted some angel wings (Pleurocybella porrigens)! This was the first time I had seen this mushroom and I admit it does look quite ethereal.
I have a lot of memories of Stan. In the fall of my junior year, I heard Stan had tapped the maple trees on city sidewalks. Then, that he was making flour from acorns. Then, that he was going mushroom hunting in Forest Park and that all were welcome to come with. Or, most memorably in my sophomore spring, that he was making his yearly fishing trip up in Montauk State Park, and that I was invited. He was the coolest college advisor I could ask for.
Neither of us could’ve possibly known, but Stan laid the groundwork for life in Alaska.
Stan taught me how to fish. In Montauk, he showed me the way around a spinning reel on a camping lot, comparing the casting motion to throwing a frisbee. Memories of fishing puns and superstition, of the stink of bait, of camp jambalaya and marshmallows and of Stan’s fuzzy little trapper hat in the morning cold feed into my brain. His energy was contagious. When my friends and I reeled in several fish that night, he taught us how to clean them.
[Week 2, Karta Wilderness Area] After a day of filling our minds with the floral diversity of Southeast Alaska, it was time to even the playing field and fill our stomachs. Val was kind enough to lend me her fishing rod and, still not used to wearing Xtratufs, I stumbled over to the Karta river. Relying on muscle memory, I pieced the rod together and tacked on a spoon lure, taking in the rapids all around me. My friend in wildlife, Auggie, gives me a few pointers on the feeding behavior of trout and char. I listen to my line plop into the upstream, and watch it work its way down. The slack disappears, just a second, and Auggie yells at me to reel. I try to maintain my precarious balance on the rock as I do, tugging at the last second. My first Dolly Varden pops out of the water.Smaller than a rainbow trout, but tastier, I think. Stan would have loved to fish here. I wrap myself in my sleeping bag that night, feeling so lucky to have a mind swirling with Latin names and to be so utterly dwarfed by the temperate rainforest around me.
After making the catch, Auggie shouted that I’d reeled in a Dolly Varden. Mishearing him over the rushing water, I looked down at my catch and wondered when someone had named a fish after Dolly Parton.
Stan taught me how to forage. I say this loosely, because the man also ate many things that he probably shouldn’t have. But what I really mean is that he imbued in me the spirit of foraging. Of being so curious and intimately aware of your surroundings that you become able to bring back some of its wonder to the dinner table. One of our mutual favorites was the Pawpaw tree. I am of the opinion that the Pawpaw is a midwestern treasure. The fruit, although short-lived, tastes as if someone had told a mango seed that it was actually a banana. C’mon now.
[Week 10, Gravelly Creek] We are collecting a target species today, Ribes bracteosum. The shrub is also known as stink currant. Levi and I bicker over whether the stink is the good kind or not. I contend that it is. Levi wrinkles his nose. We open up the Wildflowers of Alaska app to see if an official flora will prove one of our nasal preferences superior. As we read the annoyingly unbiased descriptions, my eye catches on a fun-fact: the frosty-blue, (pleasantly!) herbal fruits are edible (with notes describing the flavor ranging from unpleasant to mild, but I digress). I prepare everything I’ll need to start the collection, cutting a few of the berries open to get my calculations started. A vomit-green jelly, alongside some dark, angular seeds spill out. It had always made me laugh how Stan so readily popped questionable things into his mouth, giving even the least-of-choice edibles a chance. The morbid curiosity itches my brain. Anytime we’ve collected from an edible plant, I’ve had a taste. Admittedly they were mostly blueberries and salmonberries up until this point. But you learn by doing, right?
Some more edible endeavors (left-to-right). (A) Another target species! This is salal (Gaultheria shallon) the mild-tasting yet hairy blueberry relative. (B) A winter chanterelle haul (Craterellus tubaeformis) which was so so good with butter and garlic. (C) And finally, high-bush cranberry (Viburnum edule)…your battery-acid likeness humbled me…but I will be back after the first frost.
But maybe most importantly, Stan was a consistent reminder of just how fascinating the world is. I admire the way he was, always so curious about the most random of things, always encouraging his students to seek out what kept them up at night. He didn’t care about what you were already good at. What kind of work energizes you, Em? Become good at that. That was his advice. When Stan met me, I was a political science major. The very first time I went tromping in the woods was in his class, in fact. Freshman year. A city girl who needed hiking boots. I imagine that somewhere along the way, I took a turn down the right rabbit hole because here I am, still tromping around in the great outdoors—asking questions, taking notes, and eating questionable things—and I get that same childlike wonder from it each time.
[Week 12, Gravelly Creek] We map populations to gain a general sense of their density and spread. And mapping was exactly what I was doing on a warm afternoon, eyes flicking between the GPS on my iPad and the trail ahead of me. A habit ingrained into me throughout this internship has been to always be aware of your surroundings. This was usually so you could find good populations of your target species, but of course, being alert helps with spotting wildlife, weather, or dead trees, as well. So, trusting the GPS to follow my path, I let my gaze wander over the tops of the midstory, noting the abundance of Devil’s club (Oplopanax horridus) in my vicinity. O. horridus is a sprawling shrub adorned in prickles, with broad (but also prickly) leaves, and terminal clusters of red berries. It also happens to be a target species. I’ve always found it to be an interesting plant—there aren’t many others in the area that are quite as painful to touch. So I asked it a question that I ask a lot of plants these days: why are you the way that you are? Or in the case of O. horridus: who hurt you?! I didn’t expect to have an answer so soon. The sound of splintering wood had me whirling to my left. And there it was. A black bear, standing on its hind legs, pushing down on O. horridus like an uncompliant vending machine.The red berries flitted through the bear’s mouth, the animal’s thick coat fighting off thousands of years of evolution in just a couple of minutes. Were the prickles a way to ensure that only bears could propogate O. horridus’s seeds, perhaps? I pulled my jaw closed and pocketed that thought—and this potential seed collection—for later.
A few points of intrigue (left-to-right). (A) A most-handsome Pacific banana slug (Ariolimax columbianus). (B) A fuzzy white ball of fungi(?) that I am heavily curious about. (C) And a room in the El Capitan cave system that mysteriously floods, despite no one knowing (yet!) where exactly the water comes from.
When you miss something or someone, you see them in everything.
In many ways, that is how I have felt about Stan throughout this internship. I’d always envisioned that I would be able to swing by campus and catch up with him. That we’d sit down, I’d pet his dog, and we’d talk about the university arboretum, weird-looking seeds, and his latest find at the thrift store. That I’d get to thank him more formally, for everything he has done to encourage my pursuance of all the wonky environmental phenomena I love.
All this to say that meandering through airport security, on the precipice of leaving home to start this internship, was the last place I expected to find out about his passing.
I think grief is an emotion that most environmentalists contend with on a regular basis. At this stage in the game of climate-change and politics, we are in a never-ending battle of loving things that we would either regret to lose, are losing, or have already lost. Here on Prince of Wales, where the vast majority of the island has already been cut down at least once, I can only look at the forest around me and wonder at what once was. At what large stands of old-growth may have looked like, at which native plants used to thrive in the places now dominated by reed-canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea), and at how differently indigenous groups may have managed the land before us. Don’t get me wrong; I deeply admire the work that the Forest Service here has done—and continues to do—to repair and prevent the errors of the past. There are so many amazing people working here, and around the world, simply because they care about that mission. But we are all working on a puzzle that was handed down to us missing a few, if not many, pieces.
There is a natural and undoubted sadness there, in that sense. We may want so badly to connect with the past, if only to appreciate and learn from it just a little longer. Loss often leaves us with an overwhelming amount of love and this bitter desire to please justput it somewhere, even if that somewhere seemingly no longer exists. But what we do have is right now.
This internship has taught me many practical things about the kind of conservation work I want to embody moving forward, but on a more personal level, I’ve learned to see the work I’ve done here as a way to honor Stan’s legacy. I hope that through all my rambling, it’s become clear that Stan is a crucial part of why I am here, now.
So, to my college advisor, my professor, and always my friend: Stan, you’re the man. I see you in the trees (and wow are there a lot of them in the forest, who knew) and in every funky-flavored fruit I put in my mouth. I see your influence in every person who was lucky enough to witness your love for nature in action. I find your spirit in all the people who share echoes of your gentle wit and wonder. And, when I’m outside, I try to experience all these beautiful places through your eyes, even if it’s for just a moment. Let me share something with you, this time.
September has really flown by. We finished our bumble bee surveys early in the month and have spent the remainder of our time conducting buckwheat surveys and seed collections. I can’t believe I only have one more month of this internship left! It feels like I just got here! This month we’ve been collecting lead plant (Amorpha canescens), dotted blazing star (Liatris punctata), purple coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia), stiff sunflower (Helianthus pauciflorus), and blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis).
Blazing star has been my favorite to collect so far; the seed comes out pretty easily, and unlike many other plants we’ve collected from, it doesn’t poke you! It is pretty small and hard to see from a distance though, but if you’re collecting early enough and can catch the rising sun behind them they’re much more noticeable.
Liatris punctata. See, they really stand out in the right lighting!
Lead plant has (so far) only been found up on the Cedar River District, which is located east of the Grand River District and in North Dakota. It’s nice getting to go up there; however, there is major construction on the main (and only) road, so the trip towards that area takes longer than it normally would.
Amorpha canescens
Grasshopper cameo
Back home in garden we have a different species of purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea. You can tell them apart since E. purpurea has more pigmented rays and the leaf margins are serrated, as opposed to E. angustifolia which has slightly duller rays, hairy leaves, and smooth margins. Collecting coneflower brought back some of my own childhood memories, and I recalled the times when I used to cut off the seed heads and pretended that they were little echidnas or hedgehogs when I played in the yard.
Echinacea angustifolia. Please tell me you see my vision.
This month, we also assisted our mentor Greg Schonert with biological evaluations on the Grand River District for rangeland improvements. Biological evaluations are done whenever a new project is planned for range, with the objective to determine whether changes made to the land would be detrimental to Regional Forester Sensitive Species (RFSS). In this instance, the project involves making improvements to a waterline (for the cattle grazing on that allotment) and new fencing, so we traveled along the proposed route for these and identified the common plants, making note of sensitive species we found in the area. If there were any RFSS, their presence can affect the project depending on the severity and level of disturbance it would cause. These changes can vary, from altering the timing of the project (not doing it during nesting season if there are any RFSS birds nearby) to completely rerouting the project (if the route goes through critical habitat).
Just outside of the project area was a golden eagle nest in a cottonwood. I was informed that this nest has been active for 20 years!
Outside of work, I’ve taken a lot of trips this past month! I started September by driving up to Canada for labor day weekend where I did some sightseeing and visited the Winnipeg Zoo and Botanic Garden. Now I can say my car has traveled to another country!
Pollinator garden at the Winnipeg Zoo
Trail near Lake Winnipeg
Mid September my parents flew up from Oklahoma and stayed in the black hills area where we did a lot of hiking and birdwatching. We saw a Lewis’s woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis) for the first time, which was super cool!
The gang’s all here
Melanerpes lewis
Mountain goats chilling on the side of the road in Spearfish, SD
My time on the Lincoln is swiftly coming to an end, and I cannot say that I am happy about it. Every day out here has been a new adventure, and I have learned so many new things, it’s impossible to count. I’ve learnt at least one new plant each day, the highs and lows of restoration ecology, and just how much time, effort, and care is needed to successfully get someone’s great idea off the ground. Not only am I speed running botany, but I am also cramming wildlife biology, fire and flood restoration, and endangered species monitoring and care. I feel like I am gaining all these new superpowers that I can go out and save the world with, one seed (or fish) at a time.
I am having to toughen up though. I’ll admit it, I’m sensitive. Several of the projects we’ve had the opportunity to help out with have involved the removal of invasive species. One project I didn’t have the heart to help with was removal of the invasive Brook Trout. The professionals in this case were responsible for handling the situation, and although I could not do it, I understand the need for invasive removal. The rivers and streams in the Lincoln have been stocked with a myriad of fish, beginning as early as the late 1800’s. For much of that time, there was little regard for what fish was added and how their overall presence would affect the ecosystem as a whole. The Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout is the only native cutthroat to the area, but Brook Trout were introduced a long while ago as they are hardier and a bit bigger. This also meant that they quickly started to outcompete their native cousin as well as gain the ability to hybridize.
The project we got to help with recently was the stocking of the YY Brook Trout. It may sound counterintuitive, I know. Why stock the invasive species? Because they’re all males with guaranteed YY chromosomes. If you remember your Punnett squares from high school then you’ll know this means that if they mate, they will only produce more male offspring. So by introducing these male-producing males, the population will slowly but surely die off on it’s own, and there would be no more need for manual removal. I had never heard of this method but I have to say, I am a big fan.
The process of stocking the fish was so fun. It involved filling a plastic bag with 5 gallons of water which contained over 100 fish, then shoving it into out backpacks, and it was quite an experience. New Mexico Game and Fish provided frame packs we could attach the bags to, but the wildlife crew advised that it was much more comfortable to bring our own big backpack which was what we did. When I first got the pack on, I could feel the force of the fish swimming around on my back and tailbone, and then you start walking. I’m sure you remember the terrifying little girl (Darla) from Finding Nemo? And how she would shake the bag with the fish until it died? That was some chump change right there. The level of sloshage that occurs when you’re hiking with 100 fish on your back is wild, and I was so worried with every step. But we would stop and check on them at the halfway point and those lil guys were troopers. Every one of them made it to the drop point with no issue, and the relief they experienced when we set them free in the stream was palpable (so was the relief of walking back with a backpack devoid of 5 gallons of water).
One of the wildlife crew with his “room with a view” for the fishesHappy fishes acclimating remarkably fast
Stocking fish was not something I had planned on, but I am so glad I got to help. Fishing is a big deal in New Mexico and I used to go as child all the time. Like I mentioned before, I’m a little sensitive so I eventually got to the point where I couldn’t even put a worm on a hook. It had been a long time since I had been around fish in this close a manner and I forgot how much I appreciate them. I don’t know if I’ll get back into fishing any time soon, but I am a big fan of learning how to help my state’s rivers and streams get back to their former glory.
This past month, I went on my first backpacking trip! We went for 3 days and 2 nights into the Jefferson Wilderness to survey rare plants. I was really excited for this trip, and as we set out for our six mile hike in, I buckled up and trekked on to see some new, amazing sights.
The brat caterpillar (me) emerges from her cocoon (sleeping bag)
All was going well on our trip. The hike wasn’t too steep and the burned forests were somewhat cool to see. However, upon the first hour of being in the cool and dry alpine air, I felt something come over me. My lips… they were… dry. I dug and dug through my carefully packed bag, searching for a savior, but I soon realized that in the midst of my packing I focused too much on the layering and too little on the chapstick. I was left in shock as the realization came over me that, for the next three days, I would be stuck with chapped lips.
The next morning was brutal. I woke up with my lips more chapped than before. I could feel the crust forming. They stung and peeled. I licked my lips knowing that I was making it worse, but I didn’t have the self-control to resist the instant soothing that came from it. I picked at the dry skin, leaving behind a raw and bruised mess. As we began our work for the day, I hoped that it would keep me distracted from the horror I was facing. I lined up transects and poked my nose into some grasses. All was going well. The misery of my Sahara lips was replaced by the frustration of keying out flowerless plants. Then I received terrifying news. My boss said, “You guys can just sit for a second while I finish up this transect.” Slowly, my brain began to focus. It crept into my mind. I tried to resist, but I couldn’t. I had no power over these parasitic thoughts. Suddenly, the pain of my dried lips possessed me. I kept my composure, but on the inside, I was screaming at the pain. I felt like Bella Swan turning into a vampire, but instead of my life being sucked out by a demon child, it was being sucked out by my dry, chapped, ugly, crusty lips. I soldiered onwards.
Pretty Lake! My lips are dry!
The rest of the day continued about the same. During my surveys, I was at ease with distractions, but as soon as we began hiking to another place, the pain crept its way to the forefront of my mind. I felt as if my lips were a great salt plain – dry and cracked with no end in sight. Later in the day, as I sipped on hot tea and ate my soupy, freeze-dried butternut dal bhat, I found brief solace. The hot liquid cured my irritation if only for a moment. That night, however, as I slept, my mind kept me awake with nightmares of an eternity of chapped lips. I felt like they would just fall off, and in that moment there was almost anything I would do for chapstick; I was desperate for relief, and yet, none came. I tried to soothe myself into sleep with daydreams of my precious Aquaphor tub, but the yearning only made it worse. I fell asleep to the howling of wind, the downpour of rain, and the burning of my lips.
Finally, relief was near. I woke up the next morning with fierce determination – it was time to go home. On our hike back, I raced back the six miles – hopping across streams and running down hills. My lips were drier than the twice-burned forests that I hiked through. I daydreamed about the Aquaphor awaiting me. We made it back to our truck in record time, but the drive back to the office was the longest 30 minutes of my life. Aquaphor was the only thing on my mind. I felt it calling to me. With every mile that we got closer to relief, my lips seemed to burn even more. The desiccation demon sensed that my moisturizing holy water was near.
These burned trees have nothing on my burning lips (ft. Katie)
I raced to my apartment and looked in the mirror for the first time in three days only to reveal that my lips were blue and bruised. They peeled along the edges and were inflamed all around. I yanked open my bathroom cupboard and grabbed my tub of Aquaphor. As I slathered on the thick salvation, I could feel it radiate throughout my body. My lips soaked it up, and I was applying more and more every five minutes. I couldn’t get enough.
I genuinely am not exaggerating. This is what my lips looked like when I returned
Praising my savior
Finally, after a week, the peeling went away, and my lips returned to normal color. This scary story has a happy ending. I am happy to report that my lips are currently smooth and moisturized with no long-term damage in sight, and also the backpacking trip was really fun otherwise!
Thank you to the legend that is Jack Boyle for aiding me in transcribing the horrors I faced into beautiful descriptions!!!
Anyone who is interested in conservation knows how disheartening this work can be sometimes. Climate nihilism, especially, seems to be all over the place these days; we seem to have set a point of no return, a point where there’s nothing to be done, and it’s coming closer than ever (1). Because of this, too many people have turned their backs on even trying to change their behaviors at all; if it’s big policy changes and corporation choices that will make the real difference, why should I do anything?
The site of ~3-year-old fire at Crater Ridge, and the future of many of our forests
Conservation efforts can also often feel aimless, another obstacle to personal motivation for change (and the reasoning for my mythology reference in the title). Science is fluid; new things are always being discovered, and the policy and politics surrounding it are changing endlessly as well. This reality can be especially troubling for the burgeoning scientist, for those still trying to learn even the basics. Close to the end of my college experience, I took a stream and wetland ecology class and came to truly understand how beautiful and crucial these environments are for our earth. Unfortunately, while I was taking that class, the legal definition of what a wetland is (distinctly different from any scientific ones) became more restricted, leaving countless wetlands that did not fit the new criteria more vulnerable to destruction. For example, ephemeral wetlands, which, due to their characteristic fluctuations between healthy wetlands and bone-dry soil mean they are no longer protected. So now, any of the species that rely on them for survival will suffer (2). This change in policy definition is holding a spreading impact, as many do.
Riparian/wetland habitats on the Bighorns: a small creek near Twin Lakes (left) and a reservoir at Trout Creek formed because of a beaver dam (right)
As a result, the people seeing these impacts – those working on the ground – are tasked with figuring out where to go next, how to find purpose and guidance in an everchanging landscape. It feels like trying to solve a problem in a circumstance too similar to another Greek reference to be comfortable – you’ve heard of Sisyphus? It’s impossible to not feel some of the relentless pressure and futility, to question if what you’re doing is even worth it.
But here’s the thing, there are so many people trying. In fact, I would hope that I could call myself one of those people. As of writing this, I have spent all but one working day of September collecting seed to be used for revegetation and other conservation efforts, and my preceding summer has had a similar purpose. Outside of myself, when I got to my assignment at the Bighorn National Forest, it was amazing to see how many people there were committed to maintaining and conserving just this one forest. Step back even further, and you would see that commitment from countless people extended to other national forests and public lands as well.
Some of the views at seed collection spots: near Hunter Ranger Station (left), Porcupine Falls Trailhead (middle), and Crater Ridge (right)
Even people not devoting their entire lives to conservation are finding commitment in other ways. I have loved getting to interact with people on the forest who are wondering what we are doing – and who wouldn’t; I’m sure we paint an interesting picture with our paper bags, working in the middle of a random field. I have gotten to hear personal anecdotes about the plants on the mountain and have been shown plant photos with the hopes I can give an ID. Outside of a work context, I have also seen successful social media pages, those that teach others about the planet and plants (check out Let’s Botanize, The Black Forager, or The Native Habitat Project), that promote climate optimism (like The Garbage Queen), and that encourage people to petition their government to protect the natural world (see Alex Haurus and the approximately 6 million people he got to sign a petition against a pipeline set to drill in an Alaskan wildlife refuge). These are both managed and supported by countless people committed to at least knowing a little bit more about our earth and how to protect it.
Contrary to popular belief, our actions can make a difference. Whether that’s collecting seed all day every day, petitioning for policy change, or decreasing single use plastic waste, individual efforts are powerful (3-5). Even something as simple as getting outside more often can influence us more than we know (6). Small efforts add up.
Twin Buttes ViewpointTensleep CanyonWho wouldn’t be motivated to protect and conserve these views?
So, find what ways you can to connect back with the earth and help it out just a little bit more. Conservation does not have to be an aimless wander or an unapproachable goal – we’re not actually walking the Asphodel Fields. But let’s have a different aim than Sisyphus. Let’s NOT reach the top of the hill, not because the stone rolls back down as soon as we get close to our goal, but because we are pushing together, and because we see how much higher we can go and how things can be better than we’ve imagined.
September has brought a change of seasons to the Sierra Nevada. With colder temps and leaves beginning to loose chlorophyll, there is a very “late summer” feeling in the air. This also means that many of our seed plants have completed their cycles, and we’re finding ourselves in the office working on data entry more often.
As the plants complete their cycles, we do the same. This brings time for reflection on the field season and allows us to wrap everything from this season up nicely. While collecting seeds from the remaining late flowering plants, we’re also planning to clean data, ship collections to Bend for cleaning, mount herbarium vouchers, and say our goodbyes to the forest.
Anaphalis margaritacea in seed
Anaphalis margaritacea seeds!
I have been trying to sneak in a few last minute weekend trips in an attempt to squeeze as much as I can out of the summer. At the same time, I’m feeling the need for some good rest and time with friends from home. Last weekend, I was coming back from a camping trip and was lucky to experience an early snow just south of Lake Tahoe! It has since melted, but it was a wonderful chance to do a bit of winter frolicking.
I’m looking forward to the comfort of autumn and to the last of the seeds maturing!
Everyone knows what water is: H2O, two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Air, likewise; a swirling solution of gases – chiefly nitrogen, but also oxygen and carbon dioxide, and a whole smattering of other trace elements. Earth, now that one is a little more complicated.
What we call soil is the fragmented crystals of silicate rocks and metal ions, with a sprinkling of carbon and the other N-P-K minerals that are essential for plant life. In other words, ground-up rocks and leaves. It took me an upper-level forest fire science class in college to understand what fire, physically, is. As flammable substances undergo combustion reactions, they emit light and heat as energy escapes, packaged into photons in the infrared-to-yellow range. Fire is the visible, volatile cloud of gases where this reaction is taking place at that instant. In the heart of a flame where the hottest molecules are ionizing, this means fire approaches the hidden fourth state of matter: plasma.
Rarely do we encounter such things in the outdoors; these forces of nature are usually the domain of the physicist. Blanketed in rainforest as it is, southeast Alaska rarely experiences wildfires. Our firemen are usually on assignments in the more combustible landscapes of the lower 48. But fire in Alaska still has quite a story to tell. The southern coast of the state is situated along the Pacific Ring of Fire, where volcanoes like organ pipes belch out smoke signals along the Aleutians and Katmai’s Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. (What are they signaling? To quote Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, “And all who see him cry: Beware! Beware!”) Several miniature volcanoes dot the coast of Prince of Wales Island, and the fingers of magma chambers tickle the surface under a smattering of bubbling springs in igneous rock. We took a backpacking trip to explore one such spring, before ultimately being turned around by a bear trail blocking our path. Not to be outdone, however, we climbed to the top of a mountain for one of the most incredible sunsets I had ever seen. The fire in the sky met the fire we built in our little Swiss chalet for a cozy evening above the tree line, where the three walls of our hut sheltered us from the howling alpine wind.
As fire is the emission of energy and light from a combustion reaction, it differs in an important way from the Greeks’ other three classical elements: temporality. You can hold a bottle of water, a bucket of earth, a flask of air; fire is a product, an effect that exists only as long as the reaction continues. This reaction is described by the “fire triangle”, a model that describes heat, fuel, and oxygen as the necessary ingredients for a fire to ignite. Remove any one of them, and the other two collapse – the fire gasps into a smoldering ash heap as the reaction stops. Heat is generally the limiting factor for fires on the Tongass, as too much energy is needed to warm the abundantly wet wood. We learned this firsthand as we tried to build our fire in that mountain hut. But in those rare instances where a fire does take hold, it rejuvenates the forest and turns the clock back to an earlier stage of succession, creating the conditions where our target plants are found – and where they will be planted to foster its recovery.
Taking soil samples to look for charcoal deposits from historic campfires.
Finally, fire has an intensely human dimension. We are the only species to have mastered its making. Anthropologists believe that the advent of cooking allowed our ancestors’ skulls to devote less space to our jaws and more to our brains. What is more, the temporality of fire gave them time to sit around and tell stories while they were together, weaving the first nebulous friendships that would blossom into civilizations. We worked with our archaeology crew to survey streambeds for ancient charcoal deposits – places where the Tlingit Indians sat together and told these stories long ago – and help conserve this heritage during current timber harvests for the tribe’s totem poles. I have also spent many an evening reading the Alaska Native legends from the Thorne Bay Library – tales passed down through many generations of campfires, tales of brave adventurers and daring escapes from cruel twists of fate in the wild north country. There is a special charm even today to sharing stories around a campfire, as I have had the chance to do many times this summer.
My time in Alaska will be ending shortly, and it has truly been an unforgettable experience. I dreamt of working in the Last Frontier for years, and I have learned more here than I could have ever hoped for. When my Xtratuf rain boots have been resigned to barnyard duty, when the salmon dwindle back to trout and the wind through Pennsylvania’s caves does not play the same melodies, I will still have many stories of the incredible crews I had the chance to work with and the once-in-a-lifetime sights I saw in Thorne Bay. These campfire tales of bears and salmon, caves and mountains, cumulus clouds and constellations will always bring back exceptional memories of the summer I spent in Alaska – and I’ll tell those stories with a fire in my eyes.
The past month has been highlighted by work on some of the later stages of seed collecting and production. At the beginning of the month, we completed several trips to a production farm in Chino Valley, where we weeded plots, planted plugs of Lotus wrightii and Argemone pleicantha, and collected several lawn bags of Elymus elymoides and Achiellia millefolium. Later in the month, we worked on the Leo Grove restoration site in Payson, where we raked pine needles and seeded almost 3 acres of land! After finishing at Leo Grove, we revisited Diamond Point to check on the population of the Penstemon linaroides that we found. Thankfully, the population wasn’t wiped out by the recent burn that it was exposed to. We finally made our collection for that point and also found some more quartz points!
Agaves being grown at the Chino Valley production farm.
With my season nearing an end, my co-intern and I are putting the final touches on processing our seed collections from the past month. Although we still have a few more populations to visit, we successfully collected seeds from seven of our high-priority species across 25 sites. These include Achillea millefolium, Bromus carinatus, Elymus elymoides, and Eriogonum umbellatum.
We also had the chance to collect seed from two unique species. The first was the Washoe tall rockcress (Arabis rectissima var. simulans), a critically endangered member of the family Brassicaceae. The location for this population is slated for parking lot construction as part of a bike trail along the east side of the lake, so we received permission to perform a salvage collection which will be used to seed the surrounding forests. We collected at least 62 grams of seed for this species, despite their incredibly small size (1-2 mm each).
Seed from Washoe tall rockcress
Tahoe yellow cress (Rorippa subumbellata) was the other unique species. This Brassicaceae only grows on the shores of Lake Tahoe, and a lot of effort has gone into its conservation. We recently visited two populations in hopes of collecting its pods, but the majority were still maturing. We plan to return a week from now, when the seeds will most likely be ready. One consideration we had to make was avoiding its look-alike, the curvepod yellowcress (Rorippa curvisiliqua). Fortunately, the fruits of the two species look very different.
Using seed collected from previous years and purchased from a local native seed vendor, we are in the process of putting together seed bags to be used for revegetation at Incline Lake. This is a manmade lake from the early 1900s that was a popular resort and vacation spot and is now being restored to its original meadow habitat by LTBMU. Each seed bag will cover a quarter acre and includes specific weights of seed from seven different species. Soon, we will use these bags to continue previous years’ work in seeding restored landscapes at Incline Lake.
1.12 lbs of Lupinus arbustus for 1/4 acre
Completed seed bag with rice hulls as the matrix
As always, I take the opportunity to appreciate the beauty of the area, especially when I get to climb up high for a bird’s-eye view.
