Day 11: July 15, 2012

Canoeing back to Mott last night was worth it- sleeping in past 7 or 8 am occasionally is really great. :) Not too late though- had lots to do to get ready for tomorrow!

Did some information backup, organizing and repair of gear, and sanitized our gear again from the Benson sampling. We also packed as little as possible, and tomorrow we leave for our hike to McArgo Cove!!

Around 1 am, we went outside and got to see the Northern Lights. They were really clear, greenish, and completely beautiful. At first, our eyes weren't adjusted and we thought that they were just clouds, but after a few minutes we could see them moving around in the sky, like the bottom of a curtain swaying in a breeze. There were so many stars. We laid outside and just stared at the sky for quite a while. While we were lying there, we heard wolves howling in the distance!! It was one of the coolest sounds, and the perfect soundtrack for the natural light show.

Ended up finally coming in when the mosquitoes finally overwhelmed us. I am so itchy. God bless Sarah for letting me borrow her hydrocortisone cream, or I wouldn't be sleeping. Or probably functioning at all, let's be honest. I think they've got it in for me personally.

Day 10: July 14, 2012

We had a lovely wake up call this morning from a young fella staying in another cabin. At 6 am, bright and early...

"I AM NOT WALKING WITH NO SLEEP, SO SHUT UP!!!"

Hahahahahahahaha, we all chuckled about that. And went right back to sleep until 8 am. 

We hiked to Benson after breakfast and had to go off trail again! Mosquitoes were everywhere, so I put my mosquito shirt on! Those bugs were terribly baffled.

Walking in, we found a tree trunk that had clearly been chewed up by a beaver!! Haven't seen any beavers at all though. I hope that we do at some point- that would be very cool. 

Benson was a fairly small lake, which was nice. There was also a lot of Nymphaea odorata (water lilly) in it, which was awesome since it's my favorite aquatic macrophyte!! I love the flowers, and the cool curly stems underwater. 

 

 

We got our sampling done pretty quickly because of Benson's size. It also wasn't too windy, which meant that Sarah and Charlotte had an easier time doing all of their tests! One of the things that they do that I haven't talked about yet is measure lake clarity. They do this using a secchi disk.

Here, you can see Sarah dropping the secchi disk into the water over the edge of the inflatable boat.

Charlotte's turn to use the secchi disk!!

If you've never seen a secchi disk, it's a weighted down plastic circle divided into quarters that are alternating black and white. You lower it into the water and record the depth where you can't see it anymore. Then, you lower it down a bit more, pull the measuring tape back up, and record the depth where it comes back into view! The further you can lower it and still see it, the higher the lake's clarity is.

They're also in charge of recording moose activity around the perimeter of the lake. They look for spots where there are trails leading to the lake; sometimes there's also evidence of moose feeding on the plants at the water's edge. They take pictures of these areas, with something in the picture to provide scale, and they take waypoints (points with the GPS) of the corners of these grazing beds.

Here's a moose bed at Benson Lake, with a floating jug in the photo for scale.

In this moose grazing bed, Angela and I acted as the scale. We make pretty good moose, I'd say.

Moose might be one of the mechanisms of plant movement at Isle Royale- it's possible that moose trample over plants in their search for food, and relocate fragments of their leaves, stems, or roots. It's good to know what the moose are up to, in case it ends up relevant to Angela's study!!

Our volunteers are so good at their job!! Thanks, Charlotte and Sarah!

This is a picture of the other plant we're collecting for Angela's genetic testing- Utricularia vulgaris.

Leeeeeeeeeeeech

Finished up and hiked back to Daisy. We were all exhausted, but we thought it would be nice to canoe back to Mott Island, so that we could sleep in a bit tomorrow! Seemed like it would be a nice leisurely paddle at first, but about halfway there the clouds started rolling in behind us and we could hear thunder. Apparently, we're destined to have difficult canoe trips. We really paddled hard, and beat the storm there!

I filtered half of our samples from Benson after unpacking. We get two bottles of water at each point where we take water column or sediment samples. One of these bottles gets filtered, and the other doesn't. The filtered bottle will be used to test ammonium levels (NH4+), and the unfiltered bottle will be used in a total phosphorus test. We kept the samples cold by keeping them in a cooler with ice cold water from Lake Superior! Once on Mott Island though, we froze them.

Got to drink soda tonight!! That was a great surprise. I don't necessarily drink tons of soda when I'm home, but an ice cold pop really hit the spot after a long day. We also had really delicious pasta with pesto for dinner- kudos to Angela for being a fantastic camping cook! She's had some really great ideas for meals so far, and every single night we rave about how wonderful the food is.

Poor Sarah and Charlotte are so sunburnt!! I'm sure that it gets really hot sitting in their boat all day, soaking up the sun. Angela and I are getting slight tans too... Wetsuit tans are wonderful- color only on your face, neck, and hands. Woooooooo!!

Can't wait for that wetsuit tan!!

Day 9: July 13, 2012

It's Friday the 13th!! But there aren't any black cats or mirrors to break up here at the island, so I think we'll be alright.

We slept in a bit, and had a sanitation day! Angleworm and our next lake, Benson Lake, aren't connected, so we had to sanitize all of our gear. While we were waiting for the water to heat up or letting things soak, we told ghost stories in honor of the spooky date.

Ate lunch after sanitizing, and tried desperately to stay in the shade as it got hotter and hotter. Charlotte and Sarah wanted to jump off of the dock into Lake Superior, but it was really crowded by the time we got over to the dock. Daisy Farms is a "hot spot" of sorts for people to visit while they're on the island. It's a really good starting point for some picturesque hikes! Although everything is picturesque up here. :)

This was our shady lunch spot.

We settled for dipping our feet in the water to cool off.

 

Also, this is a video of river otters that we saw while sampling!! They were adorable, and I couldn't resist putting the video up here. :)

Had taco night tonight!! It was wonderful. I thought it deserved to be mentioned because of this great picture of the gals with their tortillas. :)

All ready to sample Benson tomorrow!!

Day 8: July 12, 2012

Hiked to Angleworm Lake today! We had to go off trail, which was a bit rough. Angela got us there though! I used my Bridgedale socks again today (I've been trying to wear them whenever we hike) and they were super comfortable. When I first saw them, I was afraid that they were going to be too thick, and would get hot on my feet. But they actually keep your feet really cool!! They're cushioning too, which is always an added bonus while on a hike. I wish that I had a pair for every day of the week. I might buy some more when I get home, because they're so comfy.

Angleworm is a really long, thin lake. We swam all the way to the far side of it, and did our sampling as we went down! It was a really nice day, and Angleworm was a nice lake to sample. Everything went well!

I have the world's coolest office. :)

Some underwater shots of macrophytes!! These cameras work really well.

One of the spots where I did my water chemistry tests in Angleworm.

 The volunteers had a harder time than we did I'm sure, because we didn't have to go to the very ends of the lake, we just had to go into the furthest quadrant. They had to go to the very ends in order to characterize the inflow and outflow! In short, they have to take photos (with something in them, for scale) of the opening of the areas where water flows into or out of the lake. They also have to take note of any vegetation or characteristics of the flow, note its strength, measure the width of it, and measure its depth. They told me that the most difficult thing about it is deciding where the inflow or outflow joins the lake, and therefore where they should measure. They also paddle against the currents there, which can't be easy in that inflatable boat!

We wanted to refill on drinking water before we left Angleworm, so we used our SteriPen!! We'd been using it on our water back at camps, but this was the first time that we used it in an inland lake. For those of you who've never heard of SteriPen, it's an ultraviolet purification system. You fill up a bottle with water, screw on a special cap, insert and activate the SteriPen while swirling the bottle, to make sure that it all gets exposed to the light, and drink!! At first, I was skeptical, I won't lie. But we've been using it since we got here so far, and now I get weird about drinking anything that hasn't been SteriPen'd! This was one of the first times that we had used the SteriPen filter top though. 

Sarah, using the filter to gather water.

And then, you swirl the water while the SteriPen gets rid of bacteria and viruses in it!! You can see the UV light working in the bottle!

 One of the handiest things is that the bottle top doesn't only work on the SteriPen bottle that we were sent- it also works on other one liter bottles! That's my one liter yellow bottle that's being filled in the photograph!

Hiked back to Daisy before it got dark out! Along the trail to and from Angleworm, there's a beautiful outlook where you can see Canada! It's got a really beautiful view. We got lots of great pictures!!

 

This is a panorama picture of the view from the ridge. It was so gorgeous.

We took a break and got some pictures of our Bridgedale Socks!!

Had to get some Scarpa insoles pictures too! The red ones are Scarpa air support insoles, the blue are Scarpa high support insoles.

Between the Scarpa insoles and our Bridgedale socks, our feet are really being pampered on this trip!! :)

Day 7: July 11, 2012

Packed up all of our stuff, including the charged Y.S.I and Sonde probe. We've been having trouble with the Y.S.I holding a charge, which is a shame because it was our way of measuring pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen levels, and temperature. It worked fine right after it was unplugged in the lab before we left, but even though it should've been charged when we got out to Lakes LeSage and Richie, it wouldn't turn on correctly. So we figured we'd try to charge it again at Mott and bring it to our next set of lakes. It worked when we unplugged it this morning, so we're hopeful that it'll still have charge when we get to Lake Angleworm!

The waves for the canoe ride to Daisy were really intense. I was worried that we were going to capsize, and that all of our gear would get lost in the Rock Harbor channel. Getting there was such a relief. We really had to fight though!

The waters were most rough around the opening to Superior. This was a picture of it on a nicer day- pretend there are giant waves and sea monsters out there. That's more of what we were dealing with.

We stayed in a shelter again, but had rude neighbors. They slammed doors and shouted until the wee hours of the morning. Slamming your shelter door is one of the biggest faux pas. It's really loud, and it echoes around the entire camp. I'll admit, I'm guilty of it a few times too- accidents happen. But if you go camping, try to make sure you're not that person. Everyone can hear it. Everyone. Ever wake up in the middle of the night for no reason?

Someone slammed a shelter door at Isle Royale. That's what woke you.

We went to a talk by Candy Peterson, wife of Rolf Peterson, about the wolf-moose study on Isle Royale! It was very informative, and she's a very friendly person too. We got to see several moose skulls, some other moose bones, and a wolf skull! There aren't very many wolves on Isle Royale- last time that they checked, I believe she said that there were 9, and only 1 of those is a female. Apparently, three wolves were found dead a week prior in a mine shaft. :( The question she posed to us was: should new wolves be brought to the island? And if so, should they be brought before the current population dies out, or should a fresh population be brought? One thing's for sure- a large predator is hugely important in the Isle Royale food chain. It's certainly an interesting dilemma to try to sort through.

Day 6: July 10, 2012

Canoed back to Mott with everything for our first processing day!! On processing days, we double check all of our data sheets, freeze samples, re-pack for our next set of lakes, and most importantly sanitize all of our gear. We have to sanitize between lakes to make sure that nothing is being carried between them that wasn't originally there. We didn't sanitize between LeSage and Richie because they're connected. LeSage flows into Richie, so anything in LeSage has the possibility of being in Richie as well. Had we sampled the lakes in reverse though, we would've had to sanitize our things in between.

To sanitize, we submerge our gear in water that's 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The volunteers are in charge of the sanitation, so they set up the turkey fryer that we use to heat the water and do the sanitation. We sanitize everything that's been in any of the lakes or that's contacted lake water. Things that can't be submerged in the hot water, like electronic equipment, gets wiped down with a mixture of bleach and water.

Things that go in Lake Superior need to be wiped off, and be submerged in boiling water in order to make sure that they're completely clear of invasive species. Currently, there aren't any invasive species in the inland lakes of Isle Royale, and we as scientists are hoping to keep it that way, to preserve the diversity of the aquatic species there. Lake Superior has invasive species in it, like zebra mussels, spiny water fleas, and eurasian watermilfoil.

Here's the whole turkey fryer set up, with some of the equipment to be sanitized!

Here, some of our gear is out to dry in the sun after being sanitized.

It was nice to have a day back at base camp too. We didn't have to do any hiking, and we got to take our first showers since arriving at the island, haha! I'm going to do my best to never take showers for granted again.

Heading out again tomorrow to sample another set of lakes! It's really nice that our Lafuma sleeping bags and Eagle Creek backpacks have compression straps on them- makes it extra easy to pack them up and save space! :D

Day 5: July 9, 2012

Woke up early to get to Richie. I was having trouble with my ankle for some reason, so I tried to lighten my load by not packing my Helly Hansen rain gear.

Worst decision ever. I'm never going to make the mistake of thinking that the weather looks nice in the morning, so it will be nice in the afternoon. By the time we got to the lake, it looked like rain. Worse rain than yesterday. We decided to hunker down and wait it out, so I put on a plastic poncho and waited for the storm to hit.

And hit it did.

It rained really hard for almost two hours. The thunder was so loud, and I swear there was some lightning right over the lake. It was awesome (I think that lightning is super cool), but also a bit scary. The rain was really cold too. My poncho didn't keep me warm like my Helly Hansen coat did on the canoe to Moskey, so I sat there shivering, getting rain in my not so protective plastic. Not a comfortable experience. From now on, that coat is going to be in my backpack wherever I go.

Eventually, we were able to sample the west side of the lake. We did the close cove, then started swimming to the far one when it started clouding over again. (Seriously, weather?!? Give us a break if you could.) So we climbed out of the water to wait again. Let me tell you, it's cold sitting out of water in a wet wetsuit. It didn't end up ever storming- I guess it just blew to the side of us, but better safe than sorry!

One of the important parts of our research is doing transects within the lakes. To do that, we attach one end of a pre-marked floating rope to something on shore (a rock or branch), pull it straight out into the water, and keep it in place at the other end with an anchor and a small buoy. Angela brings a 0.4m² quadrat (a square made from PVC pipe) to the 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, and 50 meter marks, and we record the plant species that are present in each spot at the surface and below the water. This gives some sort of a picture of the diversity within each lake. Sometimes it gets too deep or dark too quickly, and we can't do all 50 meters of our transect, but we always go as far as we can!

Branches or fallen logs work well as an anchor, as long as they're firmly in place.

You can see the transect rope going out into the center of the lake!

Every ten meters, the rope changes color, and every five, there's a knot in the rope, so that we can easily tell where we are in the transect.

The quadrat floats, which makes it easy to see which species emerge from the surface of the water, and how many stems of each species there are.

When held underwater, Angela can identify the species present underwater, and their relative percentage of abundance!

Angela's fashionable Potamogeton necklace. :)

So we sampled the far cove of west Richie, and then got to do an extra transect off of one of the islands in the middle of the lake. We finished sampling around 6, changed back into clothes from our wetsuit, deflated the boat, and hiked back!