Blog Update August 7th

8/7/22

Hey! I’m Alana, a 12th grader and I will be writing today’s blog.

Okay! So we woke up at the tremendous hour of 7:00am and hurriedly got dressed and ready. We headed into the classroom at 7:45 to put down all our stuff and for a quick brief on the day. Breakfast was pancakes which were a 10/10 and much better than my moms flaxseed pancakes (hi mom!). I got seconds :). Then, we grabbed all of our stuff including our hip waders and headed into the vans. The trip to C1 and C2 was around half an hour but I spent the whole time thoroughly entertained by Vicki’s story of the baby she has named after her! I now aspire to have a person name their kid after me. After a series of bumpy roads and the van constantly attacked by trees leaning too far into the road, we arrived. Then began a slightly perilous hike made difficult because of the uneven and quite squishy ground and the swarming mosquitos. Before long we had the transects all set up and it was time to start. Julie explained all of the individual jobs and then Henry explained how to properly collect the data. It was around 1 so we hunkered down for some lunch. The CNSC had packed us some basic sandwiches and I had a cliff bar so hunger was abated. Then the work began! I was immediately drawn to the pinning job because I love plant ID but I ended up starting out with the pinning. Me and a JCR began to work our way down C1 transect B (although I thought it was A at the time whoops). The work was pretty straightforward so we were done 10ish minutes before everyone else. I started to worry that I had put the data in the wrong sheet so I asked Cate and she helped me transfer it. I actually didn’t do it wrong and ended up having to transfer it back :/ After we were done with the fen everyone laid down for a rest (because we stayed up to watch the northern lights and didn’t get much sleep). I spent the time walking around picking cloudberries aka Rubus Chamaerous to hopefully make some cloudberry jam at Nestor One! I also learned a bit from Julie about how in the regrow that following the burn lichen didn’t grow fast enough for a bog to from. Instead the ice wedges cause a fen to form which has less biodiversity and a much thicker ALT. For the transects at the burn I got to try doing micro which was my favorite so far! The mud in the burn swallowed a couple people and it took an effort to get them and their waders back out. It started to rain which made the mosquitoes worse and my face got bitten up. Then we hiked back, I got a little lost along with the back of the line but made it back just fine. The ride back was a slow adventure but the scenery was really cool. It was interesting to see the slight differences between the bog and the fen that I couldn’t really distinguish before. We got back with just enough time to shower before dinner which was pork chops and rice. The dessert was coffee cake which was another 10/10 and I had seconds again! We only had a shoot while before we planned to head to town so I spent it playing some UNO with Liam and Ryan. Leaving at 7, we went out to hear a Métis woman speak about her family history which was very informative. We learned a lot about residential schools and the injustices suffered by the Native people. She shared a similar viewpoint to Stanley (the indigenous hunter speaker from last night) about the labeling of her people by different names (Indian, Native, Aboriginal, Indigenous). She believed that all of the names were acceptable (except Indian) but didn’t understand the reason for the constant relabeling and was angry that her people had had no real say in what they were called. We said goodbye to Katie after trying some of here delicious bannock and headed over to Cape Mary. We watched the Beluga Whales and Seals breach the Churchill River and then headed back because it was already past 10. Next we got a briefing on helicopter plans for our trip to Nestor One tomorrow, packed all up and got ready for bed! I cant wait for tomorrow!

Written by Alana

Uploaded by Liam