June 28, 2010

Summer Field Season Begins
by Adam Lieberg and Brooke Stallings

Adam at a rub tree along Holland Lake Lookout trail.

The 2010 summer field season has finally begun for Northwest Connections!

We have three interns living at the homestead this summer helping out with a variety of field work. Brooke, Ali and Colleen are all former Landscape and Livelihood students and we are psyched that they’re back in the Swan Valley with us for the next few months.

Right now we are in the swing of grizzly bear DNA work, after completing a three-day training in West Glacier with the USGS folks and other field crews from around the state. Next month we will gear up for electro-shocking fish in the Cold Creek drainage of the Swan River, a project that we are collaborating with the Forest Service on now that much of the land surrounding these reaches is Forest Service and no longer Plum Creek Timber Co. Our Holland-Pierce weed monitoring will commence in a few weeks, and intermixed in all of this is our 3rd Annual Bear Fair at the Hungry Bear restaurant here in Condon. We have a busy summer ahead of us, but our interns will keep you posted on our field work and excitement around the homestead.

This week, Brooke Stallings is going to share some of her photos and notes from the past couple of weeks of field work and settling into the homestead.

Happy trails,
Adam

After taking L&L this past fall and absolutely loving it, I was excited to return to the Swan Valley this summer for a different type of experience. Though I will be calling the barn 'home' for the next couple of months, I am a long way from my origin in Richmond, VA. When my internship wraps up at the end of the summer I’ll be heading back to Furman University in Greenville, SC for my senior year of college. As a biology major, I love the outdoors and I'm looking forward to being in the Swan for the summer, immersed in the type of field ecology that cannot be learned from books. I also enjoy gardening and photography, and I am excited to work on both while I am here in Montana.

Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park

So far I've been able to jump into field monitoring for the Bear DNA project, and had fun at our training in West Glacier. Back in the Swan, we've spent several full days in the field, collecting a good number of samples! This included several sections of power-poles along Highway 83 and Holland Lake Road. It's really awesome to be helping out with such an amazing project to learn about grizzlies and their status in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, which we are a part of here in the Swan.

Collecting bear hair from a power pole.

Last Wednesday Adam and I hiked the old Holland Lake Lookout trail to collect bear hair samples off of natural rub objects. There were over 20 switchbacks on the trail which whipped me right into shape. Along the way we saw several blue grouse, bear tracks in the snow, and many wildflowers in full bloom! I was enlivened at the sight of the first signs of huckleberries, though not close to ripe yet, and am hopeful that they will be ready before I leave Montana in mid-August.

Arrow-leaved Balsamroot.	Bear track in the snow.
Brooke Stallings

Another thing I love about being out here is the neat things that one stumbles across everyday. While eating dinner outside one evening, Ali and I watched as a herd of elk filled the lower pasture, including several calves. We watched them play, and I was surprised when I heard one calling for the first time! It's such a change to be here at the end of spring, getting to see all the wonderful signs of new life, and using my biogeography awareness skills that I learned last fall to do some field journaling.

-- Brooke

Elk in the lower meadow.
Fawn	Pond lily in bloom.

"I remember a hundred lovely lakes, and recall the fragrant breath of pine and fir and cedar and poplar trees. The trail has strung upon it, as upon a thread of silk, opalescent dawns and saffron sunsets. It has given me blessed release from care and worry and the troubled thinking of our modern day. It has been a return to the primitive and the peaceful. Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and benumbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me - I am happy." 
~ Hamlin Garland, McClure's, February 1899