Grizzly Lake

I spent this past week at Grizzly Lake, located kind of in the northwest region of the park. I got to fly there in a float plane which was pretty cool. I was able to see a lot of the terrain and we flew through the mountains. The whole purpose for the trip was to do a fishery survey of the burbot in Grizzly Lake. Burbot are a kind of bottom dwelling fish, that sort of look a little like catfish in body shape, so they have that snaky shape to them. They are super slimy and difficult to hold onto. I almost made it the entire time without a fish really turning on me, until the second to last fish started to freak out and it smacked me in the face with its tail, stupid fish.

The work entailed setting 25 hoop traps with cut up herring in the ends and letting them sit a day. Then we went back to the traps and I hauled them up into our little boat. If there were fish in the trap we emptied them in a big tub with water and then drove them and the trap to the shore so we could mark them and get measurements. I was charged with restraining

the fish which is why I got smacked in the face with the tail. The traps were broken down and reset in another part of the lake, and on and on we go.

The trip would have been great if it wasn't for the weather. Most of the week was just miserable. I’m not exactly sure how cold it was but it felt pretty dang cold, it was windy and rainy the first 2 days. The lake water was 45 degrees. I was just chilled to the bone and not having any fun. Those first few days I was counting the hours until we were done with the work and just hoping it would go faster. The 3^rd day the rain stopped and I was really happy

about that, but still the wind and cold wouldn't let up. The 4th day was great, there was actually sunlight
: D so awesome!

On the whole I am glad I went. I was able to fly in a float plane, I saw a lot of new wildlife (including one very pissed off beaver who was not appreciative of us in his lake), I caught my first Alaskan fish, and most importantly I figured out I sure as heck don’t want to be a fish biologist : )

Note: Most of these pictures are from the last day, because that was the first time I was warm enough for my brain and body to function properly

My first grayling

This is how I slept at night, so ca..ca...cold

Summer Solstice

Saturday June 21^st was the summer solstice. So what I never realized was that people here actually do   This was my second try at making bread, both times were here in boxtown, and I think it turned out pretty well.

12:07am on the solstic

things on the solstice, unlike in most places where it is sort of an afterthought. Like “hey is it the first day of summer” and not think about it for the rest of the day. But here people wish each other a happy solstice like it is any other holiday. A local bar was hosted a band and some people from the park were going. I didn’t really feel like it all that much though, because this was my first actual full day off that didn’t entail traveling or anything that I have had in a few weeks. So naturally this was a day to get some things done, like unpack from my trip up to the Slana ranger station, clean my room, do some laundry, oh and bake bread.

Anyway, my fellow boxtownies and I decided we just wanted to hang out in boxtown and celebrate the solstice here. Pretty much solstice celebrations are like New Year’s Eve celebrations without out the freezing cold weather, annoying noise makers, and champagne; but you do have to add a few thousand mosquitoes to the mix. Basically you just hand out like normal and wait for the sun to set (which took place at 11:36pm), upon which time you take a shot. Wooo, yay solstice! So it wasn’t really a bad time at all : )

This next week I will be helping the park’s fishery biologist with a fish survey of Grizzly Lake. I am super excited to get to go on this trip, for one we have to ride in a float plane to get to the site. Plus, the biologist I am going with is going to show me how to fly

fish; this lake is apparently a super awesome fly fishing spot. I’ll be sure to take a lot of pictures, I am told this is an absolutely gorgeous place to visit.

Chicago Botanical Gardens

After my super FUN experience trying to leave Alaska I made it to Chicago. I actually have a theory about that see if you agree. So people are constantly telling me about people they know who have went to Alaska for a trip and just have stayed because they liked it so much. It is because they like it so much it is because Alaska wouldn't let them leave! Haha ok maybe not, back to my trip to the gardens.

The entire reason I went to Chicago in the first place is because there was a training for my internship. Since the internship is through the Chicago Botanical Gardens that is where they host the training. The people from the Botanical Gardens came and picked up a group of us interns at the airport a little bit after my flight got in and brought us to the hotel.

When the training started up on Monday they went through a little bit about the stats of who got the internships and what government agencies people were working for. So I was the only National Parks service intern, there were about 3 non-profits, and the rest were Bureau of Land Management (BLM) people, so most of the training sessions were sort of geared towards them. Oh well now I know more about the BLM plus I got a free trip to the Chicago area for awhile. We did some sessions on

seed collection, plant taxonomy, how to conduct plant surveys, etc. Most of the people there were plant biology majors. When we did some work on identification I felt pretty knowledgeable because I already knew most of the plant (including their latin spelling) while the other people were trying to key out the plant, thank you Michigan State Horticulture
 : )

The botanical gardens are about an hour or so north of downtown Chicago, so I didn't go downtown because the lagistics of getting there and around were not really worth the effort. Plus my internal clock was still on Alaska time (3 hours behind) so I wasn't the most alert of people all of the time, especially after spending most of the training days sitting inside with PowerPoint training sessions. But I did get to explore the Chicago Botanical Gardens a lot, I would definitly recommend people stop there for a visit if you are in the area. For one it is free to the public, also there are a lot of really cool landscapes and sites throughout the gardens.

 My trip back to Alaska was far less eventful than my trip from Alaska. There were no major problems I just sort of had a long day of flying and waiting. Although, there was this really annoying drinking fountain in the Seattle airport that someone had installed with a speaker that made amplified running water sounds along with a 'kurplunk' sound whenever someone used it. It was fine for the first half hour but 3 hours later I was about to pull the stupid thing out of the wall and go on the hunt for its inventor. There was a name on a plague by it, this David fellow is on my list.

After getting into Anchorage it was getting late so I slept at a hotel. The next day a few of my friends from boxtown were heading through Anchorage and they were able to drop me off at my car with its newly installed alternator and battery. Thank you so much Jarrod from Victory Bible Camp you are awesome!

Trip to Anchorage

I have been super excited to be able to travel to Chicago for training. Why? You may ask. Well because I set it up so I could lay over a little over a day at home in Grandville before having to get to training at the Chicago Botanical gardens. My flight was scheduled for 11pm in Anchorage on Friday. In order to get to anchorage and have enough time to get my car all parked I planned on having my car packed and ready to leave right after work at 5.

So Friday work went well and we actually got out at 3:30. I just decided to leave right then so I could go explore a little bit in Anchorage and maybe take some pictures along the way. There are some really pretty sights along the way so that was definitely worth doing. Then about half way to Anchorage my car started acting funny. It was shifting sort of hard and making an odd sound. Then I used my blinker to let someone pass me and I got a "click click blaaaaaaaa" sound...then my car was dead. To make matters worse, at that point there was no shoulder. (When I say no shoulder I mean there is a wall of rock to my right and the same on the other other side.) Luckily I had been going about 50 and headed down a mountain. I was able to coast down the road and at the bottom there just so happened to be a side road and parking area. I was able to roll far enough to make it to the road and get off the road to a gravel parking spot. This was my "Oh God please no!" moment. My first action was check my phone, as most of you have probably found out cell service in the mountains is crappy at best. But I had one bar! I have never been so happy to see one bar on my phone in my life. So what do I do? Call mom and dad :) What is that going to do? Not sure. Did I think about that, or care? Nope.

The call went like this...
Ring ring ring.
Dad: hello?
Me: My car is dead on the side of the road and I am no where near anything.
Dad: hello...hello megan. I can't hear you
Me: (yelling a little bit) MY CAR IS DEAD
Dad: hello...Michelle take the phone I can't hear her. She sounds like she is in distress.
Mom:hello megan? What's wrong?
Me: Caaaarrrr deeeead, CAR DEAD! (I decided to keep it sort and slow maybe that would get through. And also apparently not use proper English.)
Then the call cut off.

I would like to start off by thanking the inventor of texting and that the text will continue to try to go through with little to no service because I don't really know what I would have done. Now it was serious. I messaged my mentor at the Wrangell, my co-worker Peter, and of course my parent's. (That would have been a crappy move to call like that and not say what was happening.) Luckily all parties got the message. Peter texted me back quickly letting me know he was on his way. In actuality, of places for my car to die in Alaska, this was probably one the best places. First of all I was located on an actual marked side road. Second I was near a river that actually had a name posted along the road. I was able to tell Peter where I was actually and not just say by a mountain... although true is not very descriptive in Alaska, just sayin.

Peter made it to where I was by about 8pm. At this point, we are still around 1hr 45min away (flight is still at 11 and I wont be let in unless I am there at least 45min ahead of time). I'm still good at this point, close but everything will be ok.

This is the point where I found out why calling mom was a good idea. My mom being the wonderful woman she is contacted the people I stayed with in Anchorage to see if they had any ideas. Joel replied saying that I was only about three miles up the road from Victory Bible Camp and they would probably be able to tow my car to the camp and have their mechanic look at it. My mom called the camp and was able to tell me who to find and talk to. So when Peter arrived I packed my things in his car and we drove to the camp. After finding the camp, everyone was more than willing to help out. I can't even begin say how grateful I was and still am for their help. They made this bad experience far better than it otherwise would have been. I was able to give them my keys so they could tow it to the camp while Peter drove me to the airport.

When we finally left the camp it was about 8:15pm. Which was fine there was enough time for me to still get to the airport. So we are going along our merry way and then we get stuck behind this janky camper. Now when I say janky I don't mean this was old and worn out. It was janky as in it was a flat bed truck that had an old camper with the bottom cut off and held onto the truck with what looked like some sort of strap system. So naturally this vehicle is going at 25mph down the road (it is a 55mph road) and the road is winding through the mountains (aka there are no passing zones) plus the truck driver didn't really seem to be able to keep it within the lane. Several miles down the road there still has not been a passing zone and now there are 8 cars stacked up behind us. Just for everyone who is not aware of this, it is illegal to back up traffic on these types of roads and you are required by law to pull over and let the traffic flow past once you have 5 cars behind you (that sure wasn't happening here, even with several paved pull off areas for sight seeing that could have been used for this. ) Eventually we made it down the mountain and there was enough of a straight away to merit a passing zone.

At this point I am doing the calculations on time and looking at my GPS to figure out when I am going to get there, which are all saying 10:17pm. I had to be there with my ticket at 10:15pm. So while driving through Anchorage I am willing the lights to change or stat green. Somehow I was able to run in the doors at 10:13 and there was an open clerk that got me my ticket and I was at the TSA check-in by 10:15.

The flight to Grand Rapids and the flight later to Chicago all went off without a hitch. I was able to spend a little time home and see Marc and the family. This wasn't really how I planned on starting the trip, but it worked out in the end.

Starting Work up...Well Sort of

The rest of my week in Anchorage went pretty well I don't have any complaints. On Thursday we all went out to the Glacier Brewhouse for just an end of week get together. I ended up having a beer (it was alright, I really am not a beer drinker but I felt I needed to have an Alaskan beer while in an Alaskan brewhouse), and a steak for dinner which was really really good, sometimes I still think about that steak. I definitely paid for it though...$35 later, oh well when in Rome.

That Friday we had a half day so I ventured around Anchorage a bit to get some supplies. I was able to find a fishing pole at the Army Surplus Store which was having their tent sale. They were liquidating all of their fishing gear so I got a really good deal on the pole and it is super nice. I think we are going to have some good times here. Then I met up with my co-worker at Wrangell, Peter, and we had lunch at Moose's Tooth, it is this bar that makes fresh pizza that is super good. Put it this way I had to drive around for at least 15 min just to find a spot to park and it was a good sized parking lot. After that I stopped at what is known as the Brown Jug to pick up some libations for my down time in box town. This was the largest liquor store I have ever been in, there were so many types of beer, wine, and liquor I had no idea where to start. I actually started getting a little paranoid someone would kick me out because I could decide and probably looked like an underage kid trying to figure out how to steal a bottle of booze. I ended up with some basic beers because I didn't want to spend a ton of time in the store. I think next time I am in Anchorage I will take dedicate some time to looking around that store. After the beer I went to the grocery store for food. Haha ok that sounds a little bad I chose beer before food, but there was a reason I wanted to wait to get all of the cold stuff until last due to the 4 hour drive ahead of me.

This is what happens when you have nothing
better to do_ Amy and Matthew

My drive back to the park went off without a hitch. I would say my time in Anchorage was pretty great on the whole as well. Although, I did have a lot of people trying to ask me for money everywhere I went. I think I need to stop smiling so much when I am walking around and develop the resting bitch face for moments like that ; )

After getting back from Anchorage I had three whole days off. I sort of didn't know what to do with myself I am not used to having time off for that long. Usually I have some papers to type or something to do for hort club or some other thing. I really need to set up a list of things I want to so see and do while I am here because I basically just did random things around box town. I made bread for a party we went to (it was so good), I bough car insurance (super fun), we started work on some raised beds for box town, played a few games, and watched a lot of movies.

This here is box town. I'm in box 2 with my roomy Amy
The darker box on the right is the kitchen and there is a
separate bathroom and a community room

This week we took a trip up north to the Slana ranger station and just looked around the park a bit and helped one of the rangers with some plant id. While on our walk we saw some huge bear tracks, they were about 6in across, I wish I would have taken a picture so you all could understand the size this bear had to have been. Not lying though, I am glad we didn't see it up close. Today we are doing flight safety training, it is so sooooo boring, it is one of those times where you are more or less hurting yourself in a horribly failed attempt to stay awake. Tomorrow and Friday should be a lot better though, we are going south to Kennecott for two days to do some land assessment so that should be cool.

Flat top mountain

This week is week two of my training, this time I am in Anchorage and training with the other Exotic Plant Management Team (EMPT) interns. We have learned about the various invasive plants that we will need to control and also learning how to get the GPS coordinates of the plant stands.

Yesterday after work a group of us climbed flat top mountain. I am pretty sure this was the first mountain that I have climbed, either way it is the first one I climbed while in Alaska. We had a ton of fun, although after a little way up the hill I was definitely breathing a little harder. I'm sure in a few months if I try it again I will get up with no problem. There is a pretty good trail up the mountain so that made it a little easier, but when you get towards the top there are a good set of boulders to climb up. Getting to see pretty much all of Anchorage was well worth it.

Trip to Valdez

On Saturday, 9 of the temporary works/interns took a trip to Valdez (which is along the coast, about 2 hrs south of where I am staying) just to pick up some supplies from the slightly less expensive grocery store and walk around a bit. On the way down we saw a bear; I have no idea if it was a brown bear or just a blond black bear we noticed it too late. Upon getting to Valdez the group broke up a bit and walked around the town. Myself along with two other people headed off to one of the thrift stores. I bought a small food processor, yay to making homemade hummus, seriously food is expensive.

After looking at that store and a few others we headed to a nearby hotel, which has a bar/restaurant attached to it, to get some food and a drink. We sat at the bar and had an interesting conversation with the bar tender, who turned out to be the owner of the bar. After a while he comes over shaking a drink and sets up three shots (we didn't ask for them). We asked what it was and I joking said I was a little scared but he told us to try them. After asking what it was he told us the name (it was Russian no idea what is was). After drinking it he goes “this is a $100 bottle of vodka.” I must say it was pretty good, but I was a little scared for a second I wasn't about to pay $20 for a shot or whatever it would have equated to. In the end we were about to leave and after having 5 beers plus the shots between the three of us he hands us a $10 total bill, saying it was the family price. We gave him a good tip because that was definitely worth a lot more than $10. That was a nice little surprise for trip. Don’t worry anyone none of us were on driving duty…thank god because that vodka was REALLY good ; )

A little later in the day the group met up and we headed to the store for the supplies. Then we went across the bay to see the fish hatchery. When we got to the other side we stopped to look around and got to see some sea otters. This was the perfect time to scan the water with my binoculars (Thank you Marc for 

loaning them to me, I have found them handy many times already…and to everyone else, no I am not using them to creep on people). I was able to locate several sea gulls, a few arctic terns, a raven getting attacked by some pretty annoyed crows, and I heard a bald eagle, I couldn't find it though (sad days). During my searching I kept seeing these darker birds, but they were just too far away for me to see them properly. After at least 15min of me following these birds

willing them to land closer, three of the birds landed close enough in the water for me to get a halfway decent look and a picture. With a little investigation I found out they were harlequin ducks, they are pretty sweet looking

After taking some pictures around the hatchery we all headed back, stopping along the way to catch some cool pictures. Then we hit a little snag, there was a tree on the road. So all 9 of us got out along with some other drivers and started trying to move this tree. A tow truck just happened to be going along the road so we were able to hook up a strap

Harlequin duck

to the tree and he pulled it off of the road.

I would say that was probably the most interesting day I have had here yet.

Pictures thus far

 Trip to Alaska

 First moose of the trip

 Me and Clifford

 my Alaska family the Kiekintvelds
Thank you so much guys

Drum Mt.

Matanuska Glacier

 box #2=home