2017 people of big river 08

7/21/17 Another early day, we had to travel to Pullman to meet with Landan Charlo at Kamiak County Park. I met him during my internship, we talked about education and goals over liquid nitrogen ice cream. He told us about his research as a graduate student. He is studying the pileated woodpecker for a company in Snohomish County. Since this research is just starting and is going to continue for another 10 years, Landan is just learning how the woodpecker is considered a keystone species. Since this woodpecker is the largest one of its' species, it is easy for it to chop into the trees and make niches for other animals. The problem with this woodpecker is the fact that it needs more old growth forest to chop into, and the forest that the company wants the woodpecker to be in is young and uniform. Meaning that the woodpecker would be absent there. he took us to the spots were he got some pictures and signs of the woodpeckers' presentence. After meeting with Landan, we went to th

7/20/17 we went to the Cour D' alene Casino to meet Quanah and Dave Matheson. they talked to us about the relationships between the people and the environment. Along with pollution issues within the developing indian countries across the land. dams affecting food, fires burning up the reservation, air pollution, oil spills, coal transportation, and floods/droughts. everything reflects back to climate change, mitigating the affects of it, and dealing with cultural value loss. after talking to the father and son, we went back to camp. Pedro (nickname: Pedg, Pedgy) taught us about trapping of rodents and how they can be a good indicator of how well the other animals are doing. Just like macroinvertabrates can be a good indicator of how safe the water is at a given time. we made traps out of 5 gallon buckets, pcv pipe, wire, sticks and bait. the rodents would go to eat the bait and the pvc pipe would start spinning once the rodent would go the bait placed in the center into the bucket

7/19/2017 woke up early to catch up on the blog, but ended up taking about 30 minutes to write and 3 hours for others. it was a long, boring, and unproductive wait. we left Wellpinit at about high-noon to travel to Walmart in Spokane to stock up on food, and stuff. We was there for about 2 hours, and had to find Wi-Fi to upload someone's abstract. we then traveled to Cour D'Alene to Lake Cour D'Alene. we was greeted with a feast, it was a new experience since I have never been here with no knowledge of their culture. The feast had fish that was cooked on a stick over the fire, it was delicious. there was elk that was cooked in the ground for 3 days as a whole leg. it seemed a little dry but still really good, never had anything like it. then they had cous, which is a bitter root, and they also made moss into a pudding, it was a weird consistency yet addicting. after dinner, there was a family that made their first canoe, so there was a blessing and song for it. the song wa

7/18/17 today we went to the Spokane Tribal Fishery, Anderson Farm, and Roosevelt Lake. It was an crazy fun day. The fishery is not as large as the Yakama fisheries because treaty agreements were agreed upon here at a later time. The fishery program has 1000s of smolt growing in a single tank with more than 20 tanks. Although return rates are sort of low due to the dams. At Anderson Farm, they work for the wildlife program, both of these programs are about mitigation of the affects of climate change on the wildlife. Wildlife program does not really focus on the wildlife itself, but the enivironment they live in. The project they had going on was putting in fences for crops that are for the wildlife in the winter. They grow crops from spring to spring for the wildlife, such as corn. They told us that about 2 years ago, that 47 percent of the reservation was caught in a wild fire, that explains why when we were cruising, there was little amount of animals around. Only seen some deer and

7/17/17 Yesterday's lazy day called for a lazy morning. Ended up skipping over breakfast. Brian Crossley, the water & fish program manager came to the camp to lead us out to Tshimakamin River. Where we suited up to go electro-fish to DNA scan rainbow trout and pit tag. we learned about salmon pathways to and from the ocean from the Spokane Reservation. This reservation is way different than Yakama in terms of culture, land ownership, treaty terms, ceded land, fishing/hunting inequality habit, and its more into the hills. Their river does not flow all the time, so fish were not a part of the culture until restoration projects came along while working with the dams close by. once we got into the river it, we ended up giving the smallest person in the group had the electroshocker on and it got wet, and said "turn off and let dry". So we thought it was going to be a short trip but all it took was a quick reset. This happened often throughout the river. it was slippery, r

Today, woke up about 9-ish. sunday, the day of rest. woke up hungry, so instead of being lazy and waiting for breakfast, I had to help out. I cooked the bacon, that was about it. then even had 2nd breakfast with cristy and taylor, we had an blt. got so full, had to nap. but then at the part, there was another geocaching test. I had enough sweets when I woke up. I got that hook up on brownies from Brenda. they were amazing. then we went swimming at lake, I forgot and didn't hear the name again. it was an alright spot, the swimming area was smallish, dirty, and in my opinion, over crowded. but it was fun. that was about the day. now the sun is setting and am ready for sleep. P.s forgot to get a picture for today :(