By George Voigt (Colby College)
“George?” The tone of her voice made me start, I hadn’t heard my voice in almost 16+ hours since saying goodbye to my father in the Montreal Airport that morning. Susie was standing there, looking at me. I must have nodded or acknowledged her somehow (though looking back that whole night was a bit of a blur, probably due to a very bizarre sleep schedule) because she came over and shook my hand and we proceeded to find Grace (who I later found out had sat behind on the last flight from Vancouver to Whitehorse). There has been so much going on and so much to learn, that it almost feels like there couldn’t possibly be enough time under the sun to fit it all in, but worry not my friends the sun doesn’t set up here till 10:30pm, and even then it doesn’t really get dark, so there is plenty of time to get it all in.
Let me back up and introduce myself. My name is George Voigt, I am a rising junior at Colby College back east in Maine. I am double majoring in Environmental Science and Economics. For me the reason this summer program with Round River stood out above all others was the work that has been done with Tlingit First Nation to help conserve the land here that has so much history for the people, as well as providing a very large tract of land for all the animals, plants, and birds who call this place home. I got excited as I read more about how all the groups worked together everyone has worked together to create a comprehensive plan for protecting the resources that these people have used for ages.
But I know what you are all here for, a recount of what amazing adventures we have been up to this week. So, without further ado, I give you a short synopsis of some fun things that we did this week.
This week started off with quite a kick, on Monday we were able to go on our first Marmot and Nighthawk surveys. Both of which were filled with interesting practices and events that made them quite memorable. The Marmot survey we was fun hike up Ruby creek, well it was actually more of a drive, to the same point where we started the Ruby Mountain hike last week. Then we walked up the road a ways, to some burrows from last year, We saw several Marmots, and while we were setting up our cameras (yes, we have wildlife cameras this year which is really cool) one large Marmot came waddling past us without a care in the world and started basking about 7 meters upslope from us (see below picture).
We got the cameras working and will be going back next week to check on them and see what cool pictures we get. Later that day we went on our first Common Nighthawk survey, which was also amazing; we drove up separate roads in cars starting at 10:00 pm (and the sun still hadn’t set, now I know why the B.C. flag has a sun on it), we would stop every little bit and listen for Nighthawk calls and their wing booms (which is something I have no idea how to describe aside from suggesting that you look it up on the internet), We heard several Nighthawk calls and a handful of the wing booms between the two cars. Since a lot of other animals are active during that time of night we also saw moose, porcupines, a bard owl.
The following day (Tuesday), we hiked up the El Dorado trail, this trail is an ATV trail which heads up the backside of Sentinel and takes you from warm bay road all the way up into some pretty remote backcountry. On the way up we spent a lot of time identifying plants (yes mom and dad we are learning a lot about the local flora and fauna), and there were several pallets of logs, which seemed to have some sort of telegraph wire running up the slope. After passing these, we had several hundred meters of trail left in the trees before we made it out of their shady cover, and when we did break through into the subalpine it was yet another gorgeous view to see those beautiful mountains. The air has been much clearer recently and in the end what it has done is make the vistas all the more staggering. While the purpose of this trek was to survey ungulate populations and demographics, we were unlucky in that regard, making it 0/2 on ungulate surveys (in the future we will be going on scrub birch surveys in the hopes that we will see everything else we want to see, but none of the scrub birch which gave Grace and Ranjit some lovely looking scrapes). At the top of our hike, we had a gorgeous view of the Llewellyn glacier, and quite a bit of wind, we found some shelter on the leeward side of summit, and took a break going over what we had done so far, ascended almost 1000m. What we could not have predicted was what Julia would find on the way down, a relatively intact mandibular process (lower jaw bone) of a male moose.
This was a quite a find, and is currently living on our couch. This brings us to the descent, which was excitingly quick, as there were dinner plans that would require some time to prepare. We were hurrying down the trail, and in some strange twist of fate I came around a corner to see a Lynx turning in the middle of the trail and run off the way we were going and disappear around the corner. I will attest to the validity of this sighting but I was the only one in the group who saw it, which leaves some room of doubt about whether it happened or not. We continued down the trail at record pace, and made it back for a lovely pizza dinner.
CANADA DAY!
So… Canada Day… here it is… I wonder what it’ll be like. All thoughts I had in my head as I woke up. I had no idea that Canada Day (I’ve only experienced it once, today, here in Atlin) is a riotous occasion where a good number of townsfolk come out and make floats for the parade. Keep in mind that Atlin is a town of 400 people, so any sort of town wide celebration was beyond my expectations. The RCMP, that’s the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, had a magnificent float, as well as a number of other groups that had clearly done quite a bit of work for this occasion.
Some highlights from the parade were the Atlin mall float, (I should explain that the Atlin mall is considered the part of the dump where people leave things they do not want, and ultimately is given away for free. So the float consisted of a small two-wheeled wagon attached to an ATV with a man sitting in the wagon with an Atlin Mall sign.) There was quite a lot of candy being thrown out, as well as temporary tattoos and lyrics to the national anthem. The parade ended at the park (which none of us knew about, until today), and subsequently we saw the famed Canada Day cupcakes, which had red (like the color of a beet so not so much red) and white frosting and were arranged in the shape of the flag. We enjoyed ourselves greatly, playing on the swings and on a whole gallivanting around. Lunch at the house followed, at which Julia unveiled her Red Velvet Canada Day cake, which, similarly to the cupcakes was more of a raspberry or beet in color. It was delicious. Then came the afternoon, when clouds rolled in and everyone went to work and study… summer school.
Thursday, our group split up into two separate parties that conducted mine, and marmot surveys. The marmot group got to check up on the camera traps that we had set out the week before and see what awesome pictures they had taken over the course of the week, as well as conduct some behavioral surveys on the marmots that live in the Ruby creek area. The second group went on mine surveys to Birch creek and got to take a look at some of the placer mining that has been done there over the past several years. They got to see a bunch of old machinery and get to recognize different chemicals that miners commonly use on their sites, and how they store them.
On Friday we set out of our overnight in Blue canyon, it was a lovely drive up there after lunch, and visiting with Sophie (a farmer who brings her fresh produce into town on Fridays.) We conducted several mine surveys while out there, gaining a better feel for the variability in which mines are left after people leave. That night was too rainy and windy for the nighthawk surveys that had been planned so we instead took a drive to warm everyone up instead and as you can see below that meant we crossed quite a variety of terrain from rivers to quite rocky slopes.
The Fourth of July was a lovely day from the beginning. We woke up to bright sunshine following the previous nights rain, and some nice red river breakfast cereal. We packed up camp and headed out to do a couple more mine surveys, almost get one of the suburbans stuck, and finally find an old airport runway. When we got back from these exciting adventures we cooked up a wonderful meal of pot stickers, rice and of course a patriotic cake (topped with cherry strips, and blueberries).
All in all, a great way to round out the week. Tomorrow we look forward to meeting Tlingit elder Uncle Jackie, and hearing as much as he can tell us about this time growing up in this region and how things have changed.