2023 People of the Big River Field Class

 July 20th Location: Tshimikain creek, Sand creek   Today is the last day of our trip. We had an amazing field day today and met many people while doing work with the Spokane’s Tribes Natural Resource Department. We worked today with three people specifically, Calvin, Lars, and Donovan. Calvin has been doing this type of work since 2017 and started at a specialist fishery for endangered species and is now a water resource specialist. Lars is a veteran in the field and shared lots of his information with us. Unfortunately, today was one of the days that it was difficult to take notes while out in the field but for me is one of the more memorable days. Donovan is working with the department for the summer through the Spokane Youth Program for Tribal Members. Which I think is just amazing to be able to see these programs being in place and be able to make an impact on the younger generation to help them discover new passions and future career opportunities. We started off at one of th

 July 19th Location: Wellpinit, Washington   It was our last day at the Harris Park location. I woke up at 6:00 am to start packing and to help with cooking breakfast. We left before 9:00 am this morning to head over to our last campsite. Around 4:00 pm we arrived and set up camp and got to work on our blogs. 

 July 18th Location: Tribal Native Plant Nursery and Tamástslikt Cultural Institute   We met Gail at the nursery today. The Nursery was opened in 1994 and was originally for non-profit… but due to personnel changes had become a “for-profit” and was not very successful, so they are working on making it only for restoration work once again. The organization has been partnered with the Wildlife Program since 2004. A lot of the information being given to us during this trip I already knew of or had learned from my parents but there were some things that they do that I had not heard of. She mentioned using snow cover for insulating plants which I thought was interesting. My mom in her garden insulates her plants for the winter but we would cover them in fallen leaves or other natural plant debris so they would make it through the winter. I also learned that some seeds require rough treatment in order to mimic nature by grinding them up against sandpaper. One of the plants they grow ther

 July 17th Location: Walla Walla Hatchery   We revisited the South Fork Walla Walla River this morning to get our final measurement from this site. Flow Meter Device 1: 0.6 m/s m/s 15.7 MAX MAX 14.2 Degrees C Degrees C   Flow Meter Device 2: 0.47 m/s Today we visited the Walla Walla Hatchery’s restoration sites and their facility. Our tour guides for the facility and restoration site were, John, Tela and Jason. The restoration work they have done is impressive considering how much work they had to do for there to be more meandering in the channel. Previously it was relatively straight and had been moved by farmers and other landowners. I thought it was great that whenever there are any disturbances while they are working, they plant native species, which is great as it provides a more balanced ecosystem for everything in and surrounding the river. At the site we essentially had two different ecosystems m

 July 16th Location: Harris Park Campground   This morning we took samples just down the road from our campsite. Following that we did starch hydrolysis testing on the samples taken from Strawberry Lake and Keyes Creek.   Site 3 -           South Fork Walla Walla River Date: July 16 th , 2023 Time: 10:36 am Coordinates: N 44 Degrees 33.969’, W 120 Degrees 08.767 Elevation: 606m Samples: 4 samples taken (1 Maria, 1 Jordon, 1 Angelique, 1 Zach) Site Description: -           There were light patches of algae present in the water with cobble to boulder sized rocks in the water. There is not much vegetation present at the site and the width of the river is around 6.6m and a depth of about 1/3m. The banks of the river cut down steeply. We believe that the South side of the bank is fortified because the North side is eroding. There is cotton wood like trees and the cliffside North to us is made up of Columbia River Basalt. The area from which we collected water is not

 July 15 Location: Bend, Oregon   Today was our last day in the Deschutes National Forest and we are travelling to Harris Park Campground. We stopped by the library to work on and upload our blogs. This was one of our longer travel days and I was pretty worn out by the time we got to our campsite. I got to talk to my mom today and tell her about what we have been doing and how things are going for me.