Field Notes: Flora and Fauna

A note: If you click on the pictures in my posts, you can view a larger version of the shot. So to get a better look at those moose there, put your index finger to work.

A cow and her calf

I took a hike on the Jano Pond Loop yesterday (6/15), and many of the flora and fauna pictures in this post were shot during that expedition.

Thursday (5/29)

Yesterday Jacob and I rode into Anchorage to pick up the Butterfly Lake volunteer hosts, Eric and Mariah. This was our first big excursion in a state vehicle, so of course we received the “don’t break ANY laws, go below the speed limit, etc.” talk from Vic. We performed remarkably. Eric and Mariah may end up being the Red Shirt Lake hosts if Tom does not return, as Red Shirt is much busier than Butterfly and is more of a priority.

Today we hiked down to Butterfly Lake with Chris to do a trail inspection. Butterfly Lake has been a hotbed of controversy recently: homeowners on the lake are split over allowing ATV access in the area. ATVs are often used by the older property owners who cannot make the trek down to the lake shore, but the use of these heavy vehicles over the wet ground (Nancy Lake is in a swampy valley) leaves deep muddy ruts in the trail which are a hindrance to those hiking in by foot. And as one who yesterday hiked this trail by foot, I can tell you I understand the hiker-owners’ concern—hiking the three miles to the lake, one regularly comes across patches of impassable trail, where you must teeter along the higher sides of the path to avoid losing a shoe in the mud.

Before starting the main hike down to Butterfly, we went down a nearby winter trail to inspect its condition. The trail ends at a large beaver dam, an amazing feat of beastly engineering. The eight foot high wall of sediment and wood is concave in shape and 20 feet long, creating a short waterfall and holding the retained water as well as the Hoover. While inspecting the construction, I noticed a moose and her calf crossing the water about 200 feet away--she looked agitated and in a hurry to get across the creek. Chris wondered if a bear was chasing her—moose calves are frequent, easy meals for bears in this area, and with hunting not allowed within state parks, bears are beginning to overpopulate and moose numbers are dwindling. (Actually, hunting with firearms is not allowed within the park, but a bow and arrow can be used during the appropriate season. But hunting bear with a bow and arrow is certainly only for those very, very, very sure of their aim. Needless to say, not many do it.)

A Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca) rests atop a spruce

Returning to task, we began our hike to Butterfly and were fortunate enough to come upon a male spruce grouse performing its springtime mating ritual. Though we startled the female up into the limbs of a spruce tree, her partner continued his dance. Resembling a chicken in shape, the grouse’s feathers are gray with white tips, and a red comb graces the top of each eye. But for this performance, he had his tail feathers fanned out and lifted up, and was strutting his stuff for all he was worth. Walking back and forth across the trail and pecking fiercely at the ground, his outer ring of tail feathers, black with brown tips, snapped from left to right in regular intervals around the inner ring of gray feathers with white tips. He continued his fandango for several minutes until we had to move on, whereupon he reluctantly retreated into the vegetation.

Saturday (5/31)

These past two days have been spent enrolled in a sustainable trails class, taught by the non-profit group Alaska Trails. A sustainable trail is one which “conforms to its terrain and environment, is capable of handling its intended use without serious degradation and requires minimal maintenance.” The idea is to build trails that don’t scar the landscape, but rather take the hiker/biker/rider safely through undeveloped areas while retaining the “wild” feeling of being out in nature. These routes incorporate advanced construction guidelines that allow for adequate water drainage and minimize erosion, making the trail easy to maintain and enjoyable for the user.

A Red-Necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena) on Alman Lake

Friday night we headed down to Palmer for the “classroom” segment of the course, where we went over what exactly sustainable trails were and how they were planned, built and maintained. (The beginners group that I was in also went outside and learned how to use a clinometer, a simple hand-held device for measuring the grade of a slope. ) One of the teachers was Mike Shields, a pioneer of the sustainable trails movement who has been constructing trails around the country for fifty years and is a well known figure in parks nationwide.

Early this morning the twenty classmates met up at Crevasse Moraine for a day of hands-on training. We split into our two groups, beginners and those more advanced, and the beginners headed off to do hard manual labor while the experts did what experts do: plan where the trail goes and tell the beginners how to use their hard, manual labor to best create the route. I picked up my McCloud and Jacob his Pulaski, and we followed our instructor Mark down a hiking/biking loop built by volunteers a few years before, with Mark pointing out important sustainable features of the trail along the way: full bench construction, an outsloping tread, properly constructed grade reversals, etc. (If you’d like to know what all that means, let me know.) Coming to a stretch of unfinished trail, we got to swing our tools and put into practice what we’d been learning, and it turned out pretty well.

Wednesday (6/4)

Not many people are paid to recreate. Sports stars, perhaps, but posts where recreation is a mandatory aspect of gainful employment are hard to find. And though technically I’m not working this summer but rather volunteering, Chris is paid to do what he does. And today was spent paddling the park’s canoe trail loop, a seven mile route traversing 13 different lakes, with short portages in between. Though rain clouds threatened to advance toward the last leg of our trip, they retreated without conflict, and we enjoyed a beautiful day on the water. Coming from Ardaw Lake, we saw a Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) from the shore of Jackknife Lake, and on almost every lake we found a pair of loons—there is usually only one pair per lake, and to hear the loons calling to each other from lake to lake is a sound not easily forgotten. On James Lake Chris and I cast out our lures (yes, we brought our poles—with three people in a canoe, the middle person is in perfect position to throw in a hopeful line while being paddled around), and lo and behold, I caught my first fish. A good sized Northern Pike (Esox lucius) was courteous enough to strike my yellow and orange-skirted spinnerbait, and I thanked him profusely before letting him swim free.

Pulling up to the portage between Little Noluck Lake And Milo Pond, we heard what sounded like tent stakes being hammered into the ground. But approaching the campsite there was no sign of a tent, and we soon discovered the culprit: a porcupine was gnawing away at the wooden latrine. For some reason these spiny critters are common privy pests in the park; no one knows what makes latrine wood so appealing to them. If you’ve never seen a porcupine, they are quite fearsome looking, but are essentially harmless if you don’t get too close (they cannot shoot their quills, nor are the spines poisonous, contrary to common myth).

Thursday (6/12)

It’s extremely hard for me to believe that in two days, I will have been in Alaska for a month. The pace at which the summer is flying by both amazes and saddens me—I will not be ready to leave in two months.

On June 5^th I celebrated my 20^th birthday with friends around a campfire; we roasted marshmallows as I listened to them remember their 20^th, and I understood that the strange feeling nagging at my cerebrum—caused by the realization that I was no longer a teenager—was common to all their recounts, as well. I’m sure you recall that same unnerving twist in your stomach, too. My youth is behind me—good times for sure, but I’m ready to see how I fare with young adulthood.

On the eve of my matriculation into the ranks of antiquity, I seeded the raised bed (made from scrap materials found around the station) which I had prepared some days earlier, planting carrots, lettuce and radishes. All the varieties are specially suited for Alaska’s cool, short summers, and though it’s my first personal garden, I have high hopes for a bountiful harvest. The soil here is sandy and full of pebbles left by the retreat of a glacier thousands of years ago, so fairly extensive preparation was required before those precious seeds touched the dirt. My mix was native soil/fire pit soil/moose poop. All large rocks were removed from the native soil, which made up the first 8 inches of my 20 inch high bed. Lovely black, nitrogen rich “burn soil” (taken from an area where scrap wood was previously burned) and finely ground moose pellets were mixed in with the native soil to make up the remaining 9 inches (I left 3 inches between the top of the bed frame and the topsoil). Though still rocky, the radishes seem to like it and lettuce seedlings are sprouting, as well. I’ll keep you updated on the carrots (needing extra moist, warm soil, the carrots are covered with clear plastic until seedlings start to emerge). Though I haven’t had any problems with pesky critters yet, one hungry hare could destroy my tiny crop in its entirety, so preventative measures had to be taken.

On a culinary note, Sunday night I fried up a batch of homemade Southern corn bread over the fire, and used the remaining oil to try my spatula at dandelion fritters. To make these tasty appetizers, pluck the blooming dandelion heads from the tops of your favorite backyard weeds (genus Taraxacum), rinse them and coat them in corn meal mixed with a little salt. (Note: only use plants where herbicides are NOT used.) Fry them up and enjoy the crunchy hors de oeuvres along with a wild greens salad—Sunday I used young dandelion leaves, fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) shoots and a few clover (genus Trifolium) leaves, but dandelion leaves are delicious on their own. (Use clover in moderation—if eaten in excess it can cause digestive upset.) If you’re entertaining for others or enjoy garnishing for yourself, the bright yellow dandelion petals look (and taste) great either mixed in or atop the salad. Dandelions are a superb source of calcium, iron and vitamins A, B and C. The red fireweed shoots have a taste similar to asparagus; I had steamed fireweed tonight with butter, salt and pepper—scrumptious.

The park sells firewood to campers at $5 a bundle, and anyone who ties the already split wood gets $1 for every bundled bundle. So Jacob and I have been shooting for an hour of bundling a day, and with my exclusive 7-Bundle System (I’ve got a patent pending on this), we can do about 50bph (bundles per hour). That works out to $25/hr each—a very welcome wage to a volunteer.

About the mosquitoes: I was warned they are bad in Alaska, and they are—I was bitten nine times while writing that last sentence, and I’m sitting inside wearing pants and a long sleeve shirt. (OK, I’m exaggerating, but they are quite prolific.) The only place I’ve been before that resembles this state mosquito-wise is Portsmouth Island on the Outer Banks of NC (remember that, Mom?) But I’ll happily put up with these whiny gnats in replace of ticks any day. There are no ticks here, and actually no snakes either. (Though I’m not particularly averse to snakes, it’s nice to not worry so much about watching your step while traipsing through the woods.)

Tuesday I paddled out on Bald Lake in the one-man canoe, hoping for some pike or trout. Alas, no luck with the pole, but when a pair of loons dropped by it made up for my dinner-catching deficiency.

The elusive Loon

Last night I picked two quarts of dandelion petals and began the process of making dandelion wine: pouring boiling water over the petals and steeping the mixture for two days, after which sugar and yeast will be added to the again-boiled and strained concoction and the fermentation process will begin. Zephyr Spirits 2008 Dandelion Wine should be ready just in time for my 21^st birthday—let’s hope it was a good year.

The flora here are beginning to bloom as we slowly make our way into summer

Spreading Shield Fern (Dryopteris dilatata)