Take Off, Eh?

Another successful October field trip to the great white north.  Snowflakes splat against the windshield as we head south from Fort McMurray back ‘home’ to Meanook via the Mariana Fen, and we are all warming our toes after trekking through the very cold and soupy fen that buffers our site just south of the Fort McMurray airport.  Snow fell last night, too, and let me tell you, picking and finding vegetation and collecting water is extra fun with a cover of the white-stuff on everything.  Surprisingly, it went pretty smoothly: black spruce branches make excellent brooms, and thankfully, we restocked on hand-warmers last night.  We’re pros.

But, even for seasoned veterans of the bog world, this trip was oh-so challenging.  Cramming in a gazillion things in so little time with so little wiggle room is a dangerous thing to do, but we seem to seek out the challenge time and again.  To boot, the weather is unpredictable and the forecasters haven’t gotten anything right for the duration of this entire trip.  Thankfully, we squeezed in Utikuma early, though, even then, we barely made it in or out.  We only went sideways a couple of times on the treacherously muddy oil roads and by whatever grace we may have, didn’t end up in a ditch.  Getting stuck has happened before and I’m guessing it will probably happen again, but not this trip.  It makes me uncomfortable when the steering wheel is just a suggestion for tires that are perpendicular to the forward (or sideways) progress.  Agita.   

And speaking of feeling sick….  Fort McMurray was most ugly this time around.  I guess I say that every time, but ugh…. It is so depressing.  Two of our sites are heavily impacted by the pollution and bizarrely, our normally forest-green mosses are turning teal and then dying at the site closest to the processing plants.  Something very bad is happening at that smelly site, and this is nothing any of us has ever seen.  Fort McMurray, once in a most beautiful part of the world, now oozes mud and toxic grey destruction.  They are fucking the Earth up royally and are proud of it. 

And so it is good to be heading back to Meanook.  The forest along the road turns white from trees dressed in crystalline sweaters and dropping temperatures and as we finished up at Mariana, so, too, have we finished up the field season.  We are all ready to head home for good for a bit -- just in time for winter to hit Alberta.  It was a long run this year and I am tired and burnt out – I think we all are, but there is still so much to do in the lab.   As I bask in the white world around me now, I daydream of blue Caribbean waters and warm sunshine on my face and days and days of only having to remember to put on sunscreen.   I am feeling decidedly unhealthy. 

But for now, back to Meanook we go.  And then home again home again soon there-after.  The snow is good, but home is a much better trade-off.  I look forward to it being my island respite for a bit.

Lingonberries, Bogs, and Bears

I just got back from a quick and wildly jam-packed trip to Alberta.  Two days into it and our sense of time was acutely distorted, and by the end we were all spinning.  Exhausting, but enjoyable, these fall trips to the boreal wetlands are usually my favorites.  The trees are turning gold, frost whitens the grasses in the pre-dawn light, and I am reminded that the heat of eastern PA will soon be a memory.  I can deal with some cool after this summer, and wow it was nice to wear a scarf again.

Into the field and along the trails, we foraged with the bears for cranberries, sweet and earthy honkin'-big blueberries, and the best lingonberries I’ve ever had.  Evidence for bears sharing our space was both interpreted and direct.  They were busy leaving piles of evidence everywhere.  I don’t blame them.  Those berries are irresistible.  Unbeknownst to us, a very large black bear joined us at Utikuma as we sprayed our plots with water (a paradox, I know) tromped out in backpack sprayers, and as he wandered into view with his head in the verdure, we took our cue and left the bounties of the bog to our fuzzy and somewhat scary friend.  Our hopes of making a wild-berry crisp that day were thwarted.

 

Utikuma, as you may recall, was burned just over a year ago.  I hadn’t been there since earlier this summer, and since then, the changes in the vegetation are incredible.  The mosses are coming back, the vascular plants are everywhere, and tiny baby spruce trees, all spiky-sprouts, hide among the recovering moss heads.   The charcoal-ed peat no longer stinks, but instead, has a not unpleasant  hint of an old house with a recently used fireplace.  Snares of naked black spruce branches threaten you with bodily harm and impalement (which will only get worse as the dead trees begin to really fall), but on the whole, it is a joy to witness the transformation making Utikuma a highlight of the trip.

 

Because Utikuma is an almost 3 hour drive north and west of our home-base Meanook, we sometimes stay at the Boreal Center where we feel most welcome.  This stay included a side-trip to Marten Mountain, which has been on my to-do list for quite some time.  We scaled the cobbled gravelly road in our F150 and had a vista of Slave Lake and vicinity that you don’t usually get in Alberta unless you’re in a helicopter.  My sense of well-being as we ate good food and drank wine around the campfire that night was palpable; and to boot, the stars were incredible.   

It was a decidedly productive and over-all fun trip.  The day of rain and a little time off today is helping with the re-entry.  Fall is starting to ease in today with an onslaught of grey and rain and wind and it makes me want to start cooking soups again.  I think tonight I will braise.  I am glad to be home.

Thanksgiving Canada-Style: Boreal Center and Field Work

This post was written on Thanksgiving, but due to lack of internet and then a modicum of work, I have delayed my posting and it is now 2 days After Thanksgiving, but you get the idea!  Back at Meanook, there are more stories to tell after this....

October 10, 2011.  I am basking in the most unexpected sort of happiness.  After a long day in a burned bog, repeatedly trudging back and forth with 4 gallons of water strapped to each of our backs, field work is done for the day, and we have arrived at the Boreal Center for Bird Conservation on the north-eastern shore of Lesser Slave Lake.  It hit 25 F on our truck thermometer this morning, but thankfully warmed up to the mid-50’s by the time we left the site.  Heavy frost gave the appearance of snow before the sun rose to warm it.  It was a great day for field work and we made the best of it - foraying to contented productivity with sooty faces and sore muscles.  The sun is shining, the aspens are strikingly golden against the blue sky, the breeze is brisk, and it is the best fall can offer.  The three of us have ‘The Nest’ to ourselves and it is beautiful here.

The Nest at the BCBC

The Boreal Center is located just north of the town of Slave Lake and it is a quick walk to a sandy, rocky beach along a grassy path.  Dark clouds are on the horizon, but for now, the sun shines and the leaves dance in the trees, reflect the low angled sun, and spill out that unique fall smell that I wish someone would figure out how to bottle.  Freshly fallen leaves and a crispness in the air make me long for slow cooked stews and fresh bread from the oven.  Today is Thanksgiving in Canada and we plan to have Thai in town – but we certainly give thanks for the beautiful day we had and the awesome accommodations in which we currently reside.

Lesser Slave Lake (nothing Lesser about it)

The common space in the Nest consists of a large open room with windows facing the lake and woods.  A fireplace is the nexus, and is built of smooth light colored lake-rolled igneous stones and an earthy tan mortar.  It is flanked by windows a floor and a half high.  Everything is clean and fresh and inviting and each of us has found a quiet happy spot of our own to relax into.  The kitchen is open to this Great Room, looks out to the fireplace and to the windows and a view of the lake through the trees, and hugs the bathrooms that join the two arms of bedrooms that extend out from the hub.  It is a very friendly space.  A fire and wine will be had tonight as the inclement weather blows in from the west.

We are here on our last trip of the year to Utikuma bog, and it is recovering rapidly from the fire.  Mosses are returning and thriving.  Cranberries populate the hummocks.  Labrador tea and Leather Leaf shade low-lying cloudberries and lichens.  Life returns, and it is terribly good to see.  After so much fire destruction this summer and fall, to be reminded that life does go on and new beginnings sprout with tenacity, is a very good thing, indeed. 

We are more than happy to be spending Thanksgiving, in any fashion, here at the Boreal Center in such a fall.  It truly is something to appreciate.