CAMPOUT WITH KIDS!

The weather could not stop the kid's enthuasium about camping out at the beach last night.  Ora, my most common visitor at the Ranger Station, actually tried to bring on the rain!  She'd take a beach grass leaf between her index and thumb fingers and slide from the bottom to the top of a leaf, making a high-pitched (farting) noise.  She said every time she made that noise it would rain!  Luckily, it became more prevalent as we were all tucked away in our tents (or under a shelter as some of our more survival-ready teens were) sleeping.  But it didn't stop the kids from doing a GeoCash activity with the GPS to find candy (I think that search for candy while walking on hot coals!), or walk the beach to look for goodies (Elijah found some bones and he correctly identified some rib bones and what we are inferring is a skull, and he placed the vertebrae together properly; BOY IS HE SMART!), or play endless games of tag!

Dinner was a really great mix of "foil meals".  You just take any frozen ingredients such meat, vegetables and tator tots and wrap them in aluminum foil.  Then you stack them on a fish rack and place over hot coals.  After about 10 minutes you have a cooked, yummy meal!  Dessert was HEAVEN; banana boats!  You 1) put aluminum foil under a banana, 2) peel off a 1/4 section to the end, 3) hollow out that part of the banana, 4) put toppings on top of the rest of the banana --> marshmellows, coconut, chocolate or butterscotch chips, graham crackers, Reese's pieces, etc, 5) wrap the banana in the aluminum foil, 6) place on warm coals over a fire, 7) EAT with a spoon!

Activities with the kids included berry picking (and bushwacking through some devils club, see below), using a GPS to find a treasure, beach walking and tag!

Ora eating salmonberries!



Elijah's first round.... he shared with everyone too!



THIS WAY!

Which way do we go, which way do we go?



Feety pajamas!



My right hand adventure girl, Ora!

Ora found a squirrel cash

And when we woke up in the morning, Landon saw a momma bear and her cubs (which I didn't see in the brush) having breakfast!

Follow the tracks and into the brush, just to the right is the Momma.  She was about 200 m away!

We were monkey-ing around all night!

Ora is continuing the tradition with Gummy!

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!

It was such a great night!  Great kids, and a great night!

Monday-Friday I will be with a group of 9 teenagers at Esker Cabin completing the Esker Creek Wilderness Challenge!  I can't wait!  This will culminate my time here in Yakutat!

BEACH PARTY TONIGHT TO CELEBRATE THE SUMMER!  Bocce ball and a HUGE bombfire!

View of the Harbor

Last night I went salmon berry picking and then went to the harbor.  The trail to get to some patches of bushes had a really great park to commemorate a Yakutat citizen.  Below was his totem pole and the story behind it.  It was a great time to reflect on my time here and enjoy the beauty of silence.

It is funny to say this, but the daylight hours are getting shorter!  By 2200 (10PM) I had to be inside from berry picking.  Here's the berries I collect, again called salmon berries.

Yumm!  Going to make a jam tonight!

A little time was left to enjoy the night, so I went to the harbor to check out the view of the Saint Elias Mountains.  It was stunning!  Beyond words!



The reflection of the trees and sky off of the water



A great end to the night!

Friday night I am doing an overnight camping trip with some kids from Yakutat and the Tongass National Forest Service employees.  I will be attending a bon voyage campfire on Saturday to end the summer with smores and smoked salmon!  Sunday is a chartered boat trip to the terminus (face) of Hubbard Glacier.  I am doing to get so close!

Next week August 1-5 I will be at Esker Cabin doing a Wilderness Challenge camp with 14-18 year olds!  I can't wait for that!!  It will be days filled with outdoor activities and survival challenges like rope tying and an overnight survival skills night.

Before I know it I'll be back home in Florida! 

The Hills Are Alive, With the Sound of Music...... Well, a glacier farting!

HELLO HELLO EVERYONE!

I know it's been awhile!  Time sure does fly!  And boy did I fly!  I was sent to headquarters at Wrangell-St.Elias National Park and Preserve (the largest protected area in the WORLD; along with Glacier Bay National Park, Tongass National Forest and Kluane National Preserve) last week to work with an education specialist, Glenn, and another Teacher-Ranger-Teacher, Macky.

I was able to see the Alaskan Pipeline, go to an old mining town, hike with a naturalist, see my first mother moose with 2 calves (I was driving, so no pictures), held a bear and wolf skull, learned about the Native Ahtna culture and I CLIMBED A GLACIER to then spend the night camping by a lake!  I did do some work around all that stuff too (although it didn't seem like work!).

So to get to Copper Center I had to take 2, 45 minute flights to get to Anchorage then drive 4 hours on this widy, mountanious road.  The drive was spectular and I stopped at many look-out points on the way.  I didn't seem like 4 hours at all.

The Interior of Alaska has such a different climate and environment; the climate is much warmer during the summer and MUCH colder (say -50 degrees F) during the winter, and the environment has what is called a boreal forest which consists of white and black spruce trees, quaking aspen trees, lichen, red squirrels (boy are they loud!), wolves, bears (black and brown) and moose.  When observing the ecosystem I did not see the bald eagle that dominates the skies like in Yakutat.

When I was at headquarters I learned loads of new things from going to the Ahtna Cultural Center, interpretive program walks, and the Nature Trail Walk:

• Red squirrels are the only omnivores of the squirrel family and they have learned to find mushrooms on the ground and hang them to dry for the long winters.  They make loud screeching noises to warn others that they are in their territory.
• Quaking aspen have a green bark that makes the tree photosynthesize from the bark (as well as from the leaves).
• Soap berries really do taste like soap(so gross), but bears GORGE on them to get their mega calorie intake.
• Quaking aspen trees are very tolerate to fire, so they are the first trees to emerge from a burn.
• Black spruce trees can change the temperature of the soil by working with moss and lichen.
• Quacking aspen is the largest organism; they have a root system underground that makes each tree attached, therefore it is one single unit.
• Moose have no top front teeth.
• The Ahtna people (Native Alaskans) have a ceremony, called a potlatch, to mourn the death of a loved one.  At the ceremony everyone brings something (that they usually have ready MANY years in advance) to give away.  Some Ahtna words are very similar to the Navajo language.
• Glaciers are really hilly and dirty; and boy are they hard to walk across!

Mt. Drumm

Ahtna fish trap

Gummy at the Alaskan Pipline

Now after a week of work, I was able to head to Kennecott which is an old mining town from the 1930s.  The historical building were just breathtaking!  I felt like I was back in Dearborn Heights at Greenfield Village!

But the best part was strapping on crampons and hiking across the Root glacier!  It was incredible! 

Smiling the WHOLE TIME!

Right after we set up camp for the night!

Glacier river and waterfall

1....2....3.... JUMP

Gummy on the Glacier

All in all it was a SPECTULAR trip into the Interior!  Great people and amazing things to do and see!

Barnacles, Hummingbirds and Bears, OH MY!!

My assignments this past week have been to go back to Esker Creek and come up with lessons for teenages for a survival summer camp, called Esker Creek Wilderness Challenge.

So with the partnership of two Wragnell-St. Elias rangers and gurus, Macky and Glenn, we have come up with a great 5 day summer camp for teenagers to participate in that are from Yakatut and the Youth Conservation Core (YCC).  The kids will be completeing challenges such as foraging for edible plants to create a meal; correctly identifying organisms that they catch in Esker Creek; completing a scavenger hunt; understading tides; creating art work (not a challenge, just time to be creative) and the final challenge of bringing only 10 items with them to survive overnight after being stuck out in the wilderness.

Macky is another teacher my age who has grown up here in Alaska.  After only her first year teaching she has already gotten a grant and started a garden where she will also start a cooking class with her students'.  Glenn is a Native Alaskian who has been working for the park service for almost 30 years!  He has been outside all of his life, so he knows about everything!

So it was a great adventure that lasted for 5.......  oh wait, you want to know about the bear picture?  You mean the one above?  Oh riiiiight!  I almost forgot!  I WOKE UP THURSDAY MORNING TO A BEAR OUTSIDE OUR CABIN MUNCHING ON SOME GRUB!!!!!!  I was literally getting up off the top bunk to go to the bathroom when I saw the sow (female bear) above eating some veg!  At that time she was maybe 7 meters away from the cabin!  I am still in the process of editing the video (I tried to upload it earlier, but it's too large) to show to everyone.  Anywho, she sashayed her way through the field looking for food and even stopped to scratch her back (the picture above) on a tree. 

Check out the cool fur pattern on her chest.  It looks like a bow.  I called her Lucy; she had this mischievous side to her....  She even came RIGHT UP TO THE PORCH to sniff the weed whacker we had used earlier to create a larger trail.  Macky tapped on the front door glass to get her off the porch and boy did that scare her!  She moved off but too hungry to run away, so she kept eating.  Then Glenn got out on the porch and was talking to her, "Hey Bear" he said.  He's been around bears so much he knows what to do: he banged on the side of the house and boy did she run FAST away!  She doesn't need to associate humans as being part of the area, we wanted her to stay away from the cabin.  

Now this whole time I was building up to this moment, and it didn't disappoint me in the least!  I was inside (thank goodness) and it was a small sow who was very skittish around loud noises.  I got to see her walk and scratch her back and eat some food.  To top it off when we got dressed and went out to the beach we saw her digging up some clams (see below)!

Now On To the New Things I Learned:

• Alder trees are nitrogen fixers: they take in nitrogen from the air and use a red type of root to then transfer the nitrogen into the soil
• Bull kelp is the fastest growing plant: it attaches to the sea floor bottom and then grows up to get its leaves out of the water for photosynthesis (if you don't know what photosynthesis is you may need to be in my 7th grade class for a day or two!)
• Barnacles have the strongest adhesive to attach onto another organism or abiotic (non-living) thing --> no man-made glue can compare
• Barnacles also have the largest body size to penis ration --> penis extends out 8 inches to spread it's gametes out into the ocean

NOW:  My adventure continues as I am heading today to Wragnell-St. Elias National Park to continue working with Maky and Glenn on the Wilderness Challenge.  I will be back on Tuesday, but I will TRY and post updates as they come along!

Otter tracks

Rounding Up Some EXTRA SPECIAL Moments.....

HELLO HELLO!

I know it's been awhile!  I have been out and about doing things and keeping you all in mind!  I was TRYING to upload a video (not telling of what yet!!!!) on Sunday, but I have to edit it to make it smaller in length!

Today I am 100% attentative to the blog and I will be completing an entry today!  Gummy is still asleep he's been so active with me this past week!

Oh A' Kayaking We Will Go!

Friday was a fun-filled evening!  Someone had the brain buster idea to go kayaking to see if we could see any bears....  the adventurers were Jared, Matthias, Travis and myself.

Our mission was a kayak trip down the Situk (pronounced "seatuck") River; bear biologist Matthias and I were on kayaks while Jared and Travis would be travelling via pack raft.  A pack raft is a small inflatable raft that is compact enough to fit into a backpack to make crossing in creeks that are too deep to cross by foot.

In the excitement of going on the trip we forgot 2 key factors:  how long it would take us and how far we were going!

We didn't get to our landing spot until 6 PM....  Jared and Travis had a terrible time going anywhere in the pack rafts....  paddling 100% of the time got them nowhere!  They looked like they were in bumper boats or something!  I would paddle 2 strokes and they would have to paddle 20 strokes to keep up with me!

Well 13.5 miles and 6 hours later we made it to the mouth of the river; cold, wet, but still laughing our heads off!

We didn't see any bears --> what with Travis singing and me laughing at the boys not getting anywhere.  They literally could have packed a kiddy pool and brought the oars and had the same outcome!

I had a moment of perfect harmony with where I was; in the moment it was just so calming and exciting all at the same time (hard to explain)!  I'd be paddling down the river and see a juvenile bald eagle float by; hear a splash from under the water and see a bunch of salmon swimming up the river to spawn; hear a loud "quack" and see a momma duck with at least 10 ducklings swimming away from us... boy can they swim fast!

Bald eagle

Sea otter tracks

I realized that I got to this point because of my parents and my brother ENJOYING our time outside!  We'd all hike a trail in the fall off of 6 mile and Farmington or take bikes and ride around Mackinaw Island or watch my mom and my brother, Nickie, play tennis or spend hours outside a pond fishing and catching frogs or turtles or sitting on the beach at the cottage with my aunties and uncles or picking tomatoes and green beans out of my grandmother's garden or take a boat for a spin with my dad.  But it's that total enjoyment of being outside that has made me such an avid outdoorsmen; NO ELECTRONICS!!!!!!!!  My senses while I'm outside are on full blast.  I hear the flap of a bats wings; I smell the brackish river water; I see a group of salmon swim by; I can feel the breeze moving by kayak; I can taste the fresh, clean glacier water on my tongue.  IT IS JUST SO AMAZING!

LOVING THIS TRIP!