Hansen Creek

I'm spending a lot of time this year at Hansen Creek, one of the spawning streams for sockeye salmon in the Wood River system watershed. One of the class projects revolves around the stream. We walk it daily, count and measure fish, and have also tagged some fish to see specific spawning behavior.

The creek mouth is very shallow and it's a shallow stream overall, which makes for great photos of fish half way out of the water. The gravel is small and water flow is good, so the fish seem to enjoy spawning in it, despite its depth in places.

The fish have been really late this year entering the creek, but they've finally come back. I got to see two pushes of fish into the creek (from the lake), which is totally awesome to see. The bears have been cleaning up in the stream. Circle of life, yet again...

A couple of these photos are through my polarized sunglasses so that you can see into the water at the fish better, but the color is kinda strange. I need a polarized lens for my camera...that would be pretty cool.

Field camp at Lake Aleknagik

The Lake Aleknagik camp has been expanded and is pretty spiffy now. They built a new dock house, so the old scow is no longer, are currently building a new cook/eating house, which has a killer view of the lake.






They even have their own Bota--a cool golf cart on steroids. Jon Warren would like this place!



I'm enjoying kicking it in the Bunk (Funk) house with Katy again this summer and Marlene's cooking continues to be fantastic. Dessert every night means I need to have lots of self-control so I can fit into my bridesmaid dress for Lauren's wedding!

The class!

This summer I am serving as the teaching assistant (TA) for a UW undergrad class with 6 students. They are learning about aquatic ecology and conducting their own research. It's a very cool program I think!

Here we are on the first day of the class, doing some limnology work.



We had miserable weather the first week of the class, but it's turned around recently. The class has been going well and it's a great group of students.

We learned about peet bogs and stream ecology with Daniel Schindler.

No-name Lake

We trekked over to a lake on Porcupine Island (about a 5 minute boat ride from camp on a different part of the island) to see what was living in it and check out the area. There was an old boat left by past UW Fisheries Research Institute (FRI) researchers. We didn't see anything larger than a bug living in the water, but we enjoyed the paddle and saw some sweet tundra life.

Thanks to the salmon gods

We caught some sockeye hanging out in cabin bay to enjoy through the summer, which Richie and Drew filleted skillfully. I saw stickleback eating the carcasses in the shallow water we had thrown the carcasses into. More circle of life stuff. Cool to see! On the way back to camp we saw a mama merganzer (or some sort of duck--my duck identification skills are lacking) with 16 babies! We also had a great sunset that night. Good day!

Blackboots the fox on Porcupine Island

A fox paid me a visit one night as I was heading out to the outhouse on Porcupine Island. We had seen him run past the main house one night while eating dinner and I had seen him out of my bedroom window one morning, but this time he bounded up to me as if I had food for him. Slightly odd, but super cool to see him. He almost seemed like he wanted to play. At least I got some photos of him. The light was bad so sorry for the lower quality photos. He was a cute little fox! He sat and scratched his neck just like Merlin and Ice Claws do!

Outings on the lake

We did limnology sampled during my first full day at camp (July 1). So we drove all around the eastern part of the lake. It was a beautiful day—sunny and calm (“keep this day in your heart,” said Richie, “during all the really ugly ones.”)



We went down to Pile Bay, at the far northeastern part of the lake, to get gas on another morning. The mist on the trees was stunning and ethereal.




We have explored various parts of the lake, including Woodey Island, Seal Island (where the seals like to haul out) and the Triangle Island group. There is a year-round population of seals here at Iliamna. This is one of only 2 freshwater seal populations in the world (the other is in Russia—Lake Baikal—I think). I haven't seen them yet but hope to soon. Lots of fun places to see!



Another day we went “piking,” or just catching pike. We went to a small lake next to Iliamna that used to be part of a bay of Iliamna until it was cut off from the lake by a gravel berm—thus, it’s a “berm lake.” The pike bit like mad—Richie and Drew (the tech) caught fish on their first cast! We measured the fish and collected a scale to age the fish and a fin clip for DNA, and threw most of them back.

UPDATE: The fish are back! July 7, 2008 they are in Cabin Bay, in front of the camp. They are still silver and oh-so-beautiful!

4th of July

The town of Pedro Bay, pop. about 60, is 15 min. by boat away. See www.iliamna.com for more photos from its website. We celebrated 4th of July at a potluck with them. It was fun to meet the locals and they are a very nice group of people. One of the village elders fished Bristol Bay in sailboats before engines were allowed! Pedro Bay village is mostly native. The doctor was in town, who lives in Anchorage but comes out to the village twice a year to see people. He also is assigned to 2 other native villages around Lake Iliamna. There is the community health nurse year-round in the village. We met others who spend just the summer in Pedro Bay. Not a bad place to be, I'd say! Note swimsuits in 55 degrees, 40 degree water—ah, Alaska!

Flying to Ilimna, our camp

I flew from Anchorage to Pedro Bay, Alaska with Dido, a Belgian girl who is doing research at Iliamna with us this summer. We had a gorgeous flight, saw the Kenai Peninsula and some big mountains, including Mt. Redoubt and Iliamna. Also the island that is a volcano (Augustine Island).











































Lake Iliamna is the largest lake in Alaska. It's about 100 miles long and 40 across at its max. Our camp is in the east side of the lake on Porcupine Island, which is about 5 x 3 miles. Haven't seen any porcupines yet... Camp is really nice, with lots of room and good facilities. It's on a pretty bay, Cabin Bay. We have a nice sauna, the main house with a kitchen, some outbuildings, the lab, and a new building with computer/lecture space with 2 bedrooms where I sleep. There is also a little garden called "Moose gardens"--guess which one it is.

The camp is electrified by its own generator. It makes a racket when it's on. We turn it on from about 1ish to 11 pm daily. Without power, it's no electricity, no lights, no running water, no computer, no internet, etc. So one has to plan ahead. It makes you appreciate 24/7 power!!



























































































































































Next to the camp are a series of really pretty ponds we roamed around the other day. We carried a gun as there have been sightings of a wounded bear. We haven't seen him though, fortunately. We did see red-legged frogs and many lilies. The tundra is so soft--a perfect place for a nap. Watch out for falling spruce trees--the spruce bark beetle has killed over 50% of the trees around. Pretty amazing.





















































































The first night we were there it as windless and the trees reflected perfectly on Cabin Bay. But it can get pretty windy on the lake and it's rained pretty regularly. But when it's calm and not pouring rain it's drop dead gorgeous.



































































































Check out the video of the lake!