Here’s a look at the town from on top of a hill at sunset 🙂

It is time for this internship to end. It was nice to have an internship that was five months instead of 3, your field season is longer and you get to spend more time with friends you meet at work. This internship placed me in Klamath Falls, OR which was a transition area between a high desert and and coniferous forest. Learning about different landscapes really helped me to understand other ecological systems, because here water is so scarce. There are different issues of concern than the Midwestern states I’m from.

I learned a lot of different plants, which is awesome because I love identifying plants and trees. I have a pretty good idea what a botanist’s job entails. I like doing the work, I just think working in an area that received more rain than Klamath Falls would be ideal. I miss my green grass. The terrain here was quite interesting, every step landed on volcanic rock, so you definitely spend more time looking at the ground than anywhere else. The scenery was gorgeous, there were 2 mountain peaks (Shasta and McGloughlin) in the distance and the rest of the area was full of buttes. Quite a nice change from flat Minnesota.

Besides working with plants, the thing I liked most about this internship was being able to work with a government agency, the Bureau of Land Management for me. I loved the people that work here, and it’s great to meet all the people from different departments: fire, wildlife, forestry and archaeology. I’m really glad I met these people, and it’s all thanks to the Chicago Botanic Garden!

-Erin Strom, Klamath Falls, OR