July Wrap Up

Well, July's trip has come to a close!! Approximate exercise totals: 60 miles of hiking, 30 miles of canoeing, 10 miles of swimming. WOW.

It was tons of fun, and we owe so much thanks to the people from the National Park Service, everyone at Mott Island and Isle Royale, and our generous sponsors. Even though we had lots of fun, it's really good to be back!!

Can't believe we're leaving again in two days!! The first trip and the break between them went by so fast! I can't wait to get to know our new volunteers, Jennifer and Rachel, and to have all kinds of new fun up north. Sarah and Charlotte- we'll miss you!! Thank you both so much for all of your hard work!

Here are Sarah and Charlotte's drawings that summarize our trip to the island in July. I'll be back later in August to share all of our new stories!! :)

Artwork by Sarah Schaffer

Artwork by Charlotte Lee

Phosphorus Analyses (July 30, 2012)

Today, we analyzed our unfiltered water samples for total phosphorus! This process took longer to prepare, because the samples have to be autoclaved first. We did that on the 28th and refrigerated the samples until today, when we continued by adding reagents and letting them sit for a bit. Then, we checked their absorbance with the spectrometer at 885.0 nm.

Here are some pictures of me working in the lab before using the spectrometer! So much fun. I love working in the lab. :)

Adding the reagents after autoclaving...

... and mixing the samples with a vortex mixer!

Nitrogen Analyses (7/27/2012)

Analyzed our samples for Nitrogen today! We tested specifically for ammonium (NH4+). Here are some of the pictures of us using the spectrometer on samples in the lab:

Basically, you add some reagents to each sample, let them sit for between one and twenty hours, and read their absorbance on a spectrometer at 630.0 nm. It went well! Glad that the spectrometer in our lab got fixed up- it's a great one!

Day 21: July 25, 2012

Last day on the island!! We woke up bright and early, but it wasn't very bright... It was super rainy out. We could hear it on our tents as soon as our alarms went off. My Helly Hansen coat was right at the top of my pack!! Put it on and warmed right up, and started getting ready for the day. We had to wrap up wet tents, which isn't too fun, but we stayed nice and dry!

Nice day for travel? I think so!

Packing up, with help from Helly Hansen!!

Nice and dry!!

Got on the boat at 8 am, and then the boat left for Rock Harbor to pick up more people at 9 am. Then we went back out of Rock Harbor and headed for the mainland! The waves were really crazy on the way back. Sarah, Angela, and I all fell asleep. I think I avoided a majority of the seasickness because of my crazy nap.

We didn't miss the boat!!

Take a look at those waves...

Toward the end of the 6 hour boat ride, we got to hear a concert on the upper deck! Two of the NPS people working on the boat played music for us- guitar and fiddle! We heard the song "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald" and lots of fiddle tunes as well!!

Finally got off of the rolling waves, and back to Houghton! We started driving pretty much right away- after buying a cooler and ice to keep our samples cold until we got back to Lansing!

Drove to an ice cream shop and had a sweet treat- I got amaretto mackinaw fudge ice cream, and it was SO delicious. I don't know if I've ever had ice cream that delicious.

Yet another beautiful sunset up north!

After eating dinner at a fast food restaurant (which shocked all of our stomachs, after we'd been eating non-greasy food for so long), we kept driving until we got back to East Lansing! There were some crazy storms following us almost the entire time, so we got to see some very cool lightning! Got back around 2 am. Can't believe we're back! But there's still lots of work to do yet!

Mackinac Bridge in the dark!

Day 20: July 24, 2012

Spent the day organizing and packing for the Ranger III tomorrow! It was Angela's birthday too!! We surprised her with some little cinnamon cakes and a candle, and we gave her a birthday card with a were-spider and a moosicorn drawn inside (artwork by Sarah!). To celebrate the occasion, we watched Alien versus Predator in the rec room. It was a really fun night. :)

Happy Birthday, Angela!!!

We made her a card with a moosicorn and a were-spider on it!! Sarah did the artwork, and Charlotte and I collaborated on the message. :)

I can also say this without jinxing us now: We finished sampling without any injuries! We had our travel sized first aid kit from Coghlan's with us though, just in case. I'm glad that we all kept safe!!

None of us got sick from the water either! I'm so glad that we were using the SteriPen!

Have to be up bright and early tomorrow for the boat! Hopefully we're not forgetting anything.

I also got attacked by the tent

Day 19: July 23, 2012

Today was our tourist-y fun day, since we'd finished sampling! We canoed from Moskey Basin and stopped at the wolf moose museum across from Daisy Farms!! It's also Rolf and Candy Peterson's house. Candy came out as we were pulling in and helped us get our canoes situated, and Rolf gave us a tour of the place.

This was one of the best canoeing days that we had!!

There were so many moose bones there- I believe Rolf said that they had over 2,000 in their collection. He talked to us about the health problems that moose suffer from, particularly in their old age that make them easy targets for wolves. There were two complete spines there, which was really interesting to see.

"Mooseum of Pathology" :) Moose get some of the same diseases that we get in our old age, namely arthritis, osteoporosis, and periodontitis.

These are a bunch of skulls without horns attached.

Here's a long row of moose jaw bones! There were a few of these that clearly showed health problems, including one that showed signs of really bad cancer. That would've caused the moose a lot of pain, making it a target for attacks by wolves.

On the left, there's the pelvis of a healthy moose, and on the right (in two pieces!) there's a pelvis of a moose afflicted by arthritis.

This is their huge collection of skulls with antlers!! The two right in the front died in a fight with each other and were found hooked together!

This skull probably belonged to a moose that was born female but that had too much testosterone for some reason. She ("it") would have been unable to reproduce, and developed these velvety, lumpy antlers.

We got to see their set of skulls with antlers attached- there are so many of them!! There were several abnormal ones too, like ones with asymmetrical antlers, ones with antlers three times as big and thick as is normal, and one with these crazy, lumpy, velvety antlers. Very interesting!! The symmetry and size of moose antlers is the greatest when moose are between 5 and 10 years old. Most of the skulls were in that age range I believe, but there was also a section for younger and older moose. Then we went inside and signed the guest book, and stayed to chat for a bit. Rolf showed us some videos that had been caught the previous morning on a camera placed at Lake Ojibway- we saw a moose, a wolf, a beaver, a family of ducks, a rabbit, and what he thinks was a muskrat! Not all at once of course, in separate clips. We told them about the wolves that we heard last night too- apparently they hadn't heard them, but they were very interested to hear about it!!

Then, we paddled next door to the Edisen Fishery, which was basically completely deserted, but still interesting. From there, we hiked to the Rock Harbor Lighthouse and ate lunch! We walked around in the rocks that were out front of it, and Charlotte found several pieces of Greenstone! We left them behind of course (Take only pictures, leave only footprints :) ), but we got pictures of them. Then, we explored the lighthouse a bit, which was very interesting. There was basically a museum inside of it, and we got to climb to the top of it too! The spiral staircase felt like it went on forever, even though the lighthouse was only 50 feet tall. Once we got up to the top, I was afraid that I would fall through the hole in the floor. :P

Welcome to the old Edisen Fishery!

Charlotte was a brave explorer- she climbed and claimed a rock tower!!

Mine was slightly smaller, but still admirable in my opinion.

Greenstone!!

I think that this is our only group photo from the entire trip!! Look at us- the four adventurers!! :D

The Rock Harbor Lighthouse

Angela, Charlotte, and Sarah at the top of the lighthouse!

What a beautiful view.

We hiked back to our canoes and went on to Mott, getting back around 4 pm. Charlotte and Sarah sanitized all of our gear, and then we went for a voluntary hike!

GASP

We hiked the Mott Trail before dinner- it had some cool views, and it felt nice to hike slowly for once. Normally, we're hiking with a purpose, but ambling along a trail is fun in its own way. :)

To a hungry camper, this may look similar to a hamburger bun.

But don't be fooled!! You'll have to wait until you're on the mainland for a burger!! :)

Sarah, the tour guide

Angela adventured over a partially submerged rock bridge in a small cove we explored!

After our extra hike, we were feeling really hot. So we jumped off of the dock into Lake Superior!! It was so refreshing. We got some cool pictures of us jumping in, too! Angela even took an action video with the waterproof camera.

Went to bed late, but it was a really nice day, and my sleeping bag was so comfortable. I discovered the glow in the dark zipper- it made me smile, and it's really useful when you're having a hard time zipping up your bag in the dark! We need to get some pictures in our Lafuma bags next time- this time we were so busy being satisfied and falling asleep quickly in them that we didn't have time to think about pictures. :) Tomorrow we'll start packing up, and get all ready to leave on the Ranger III on the 25th!

Day 18: July 22, 2012

Packed up our stuff today, and canoed back out to Moskey Basin! We have to re-sample LeSage and Richie before we go back, because back when we sampled them originally we weren't sure whether the samples needed to be filtered or not (and of course, because it was our first sampling experience, we hadn't brought the lab notebook to check). So we didn't filter anything, and as it turned out we need filtered samples for nitrogen testing. We figured that it would be relatively quick though, because we didn't have to do any of the other things that we normally do- no transects, no secchi disk or inflow/outflow data, we just had to get fresh water column and sediment porewater samples to be filtered!

After the 2 hour canoe trip, we ate lunch and left to sample! We hiked to LeSage and inflated the boat. We used a slightly different format this time to save time- I went out on the inflatable boat with Charlotte, and Sarah went back with Angela to Lake Richie to get some sediment samples with our other sediment corer! I was a little nervous to be inflatable boat, but I figured I'd been canoeing for over two weeks now- how difficult could it be?

I was so confident, that I paddled right onto the shore.

Well, it was incredibly hard. I definitely underestimated the amount of trouble that their sneaky boat can cause.

You're completely at the mercy of the current, and the boat rarely goes in the direction you want it to. It seemed like when it finally was going the way you wanted, it would suddenly decide, "... I want to turn left." So it would make a sharp turn for no reason, and usually we'd just have it turn in a complete circle and try to move on from there. It was definitely a work out!

Charlotte and I got our four water column samples and four sediment samples, and got back to our starting point about two hours later. In the meantime, Sarah and Angela hiked back to Lake Richie and took a sediment sample, and then Angela snorkeled around looking for some Utricularia vulgaris.

And while snorkeling, she made some leech-ey friends!

They came back to LeSage when we were finished and helped us to carry our sampling equipment to Richie- Angela portaged the boat single handedly!! Way to go, fearless leader! :D

At Lake Richie, Sarah and I went out in the boat to re-do our water column samples, and to get two more sediment samples from the further corners of the lake that Angela couldn't get to without a lot of swimming. Richie is really big though, so we spent a lot of time paddling. Loons were chasing us too! They kept on diving up from under the water and ending up really close to the boat. And, of course, they made noises at us that we're sure meant, "GET AWAY FROM MEEEE!"

LEEEEEEEAVE!!

 To get water column samples, we used the huge integrated tube sampler. It's a task that requires two people- the one in the front of the boat rinses out a collapsible jug and a funnel with lake water while the one in the back of the boat puts the sampler as straight down into the water as possible, to a depth of one meter. They close off the top of it, sealing the water into the tube, and then they drain it into the collapsible jug, held by the other volunteer. After mixing, sample bottles are filled from the water in the collapsible jug.

We finished re-sampling around 8 pm for the July Trip!! WoOoOoOoOoOOOOO!!! (<--basically the noise that the loons made) We got back to our shelter before it was even dark out! So proud of us. It was a very full day, though.

The final July voyage of the inflatable canoe.

Filtered our samples for the day, and filtered more water with the SteriPen bottle filter. It got out the small bits of debris floating in the water- overall it does a pretty darn good job! And then we got rid of the germs and viruses as well! We've used the SteriPen pretty much every day up here, which is really exciting. It still hasn't run out of battery, and it's lightweight and conveniently sized so that it's really easy to transport! As we were about to get ready for bed, we heard wolves howling outside!! They sounded pretty far away, but there were a lot of them. I would guess that there were at least four of them, talking back and forth. How cool is that? :)

Of course, we had to SteriPen some water for breakfast in the morning!

Between this sign on the wall and my Lafuma sleeping bag, I certainly will rest easy. :)