Virtual Day of Field Work

In the middle of  COVID-19 Pandemic, our lab work has stopped but we continue on. Lab work has been substituted with couch work. The number of coworkers has decreased and my daily coffee intake has increased exponentially.....my new coworker sleeps on the job.

My days are filled with Excel, Word, and preventing my dog, Hazel, from stepping on my computer ( which is much harder than it sounds).


On rainy days like today, I can feel Alberta field work calling. In the spirit of social distancing, I attempted a virtual field work day. Google Maps luckily has a lot of street view.  I decided to turn on last year's summer field work playlist and go searching for some familiar sites.

Had to start the day saying hi to Athabasca.

I quickly realized that the pictures were old because there was a field where the Tim Horton's is now.

Made my way to the Grasslands. There was a truck on the road that looked a lot like Sparky....it had a different camper top :( 

Now for the hardest question of them all......which gas station to go to in Wandering River. 

Traveling North.......I think I stumbled upon Crow Lake.....

Sadly, there was no streetview in Anzac....so I moved to Fort McMurray. Naturally, the line for Tim Hortons drive through was insane....some things never change. 

Drove by Syncrude

The roads and the street view start to disappear from there, so it is little harder to see the rest of the sites from our current project.....hopefully, we will get back to field work soon. Until then, stay safe everybody. 

May Days in the Bogs

Posted by Kim

     

What is this?  A new post?  Nothing since last July?   What the what is THAT about?

New computers sometimes don't play nice

Well, I'm here to tell you, things have happened, and things are happening now.  Caitlyn and I are just finishing up the start of the Summer 2019 season and it is good to be back doing field work.  Not too many stories (we've seen snow and bears and monster mosquitoes and some kind of Mustelid and almost hit a Kestrel and saw hawks and ravens galore and broke through ice and changed out 72 resin tubes and set 1500 crank wires), but we surely have had a productive time.  Life is somewhat allergy-ridden here for me in Fort Mac as I type, but we are off to Edmonton by tomorrow eve.  Things just keep on moving.   

Here are some pics:

Would Kel be proud?  mmmmm 

July Trip Highlights

Wow! The July Trip went by fast! We are just speeding through the summer. Here are some of the highlights of this trip!

Our Bear Encounter at Canadian Tire

BEAR ENCOUNTER. We saw two bears this trip. The first one was walking on the side of the road while we were driving back to Fort McMurray. He almost ran out in front of the road, but decided against it. Thank goodness. Our second bear encounter was at the Canadian Tire. He was a very nice bear. :)

MARIANA AND CROW LAKE. We needed more snowtubes for our new sites, so we decided to stop by Mariana and Crow Lake during this trip. Yev and I had moments of nostalgia at both of these sites, but they quickly subsided after getting stuck. They are still as beautiful as ever. 

Mariana

Massive Tires.  While driving back from McKay, we were stuck behind massive tires. We say multiple trucks carrying similar loads. We spend the majority of the  drive trying to figure out what  type of vehicle used this type of tire. 

Massive Tires

EDMONTON. We had an spare evening, so we got to spend it Edmonton.  After a week of field work, it was nice to have a little fun. Our adventure evening began on a high note as we successfully completed an escape room at the Edmonton mall. We finished it with a second to spare. 

We ESCAPED!!!

The night of fun continued as we explored the mall. We found an arcade and spent the rest of the night playing a variety of games from Mario Kart to Skee ball. The most laughs came from us attempted to complete several Dance Dance Revolution rounds. Our endeavors were successful as we earned an alien egg for our well-earned tickets. 

Eric and Spencer attempting to play DDR

My First Bog!

Taking a new perspective on the lovely bogs of Northern Alberta, I am a Villanova undergrad helping out with the project this summer.  Eric and I were wide eyed and eager for our trip up North, ready to get our hands and our boots a little dirty.  After cleaning, organizing, and analyzing in the lab we were very excited to see the real thing. 

After a couple easy flights we landed in Edmonton and headed up to Athabasca.  Excited by the saltwater pool at the hotel, we had a fun night before the real work began.  Then, the next day we headed to Athabasca University, prepping for all our sites: constructing the sippers, cutting boardwalk pieces, and getting all the materials we needed.  Then, after a long day at the garage, we got a good night of sleep and headed up to Fort Mac.  On the way, a site near Conklin was scouted, but to no avail.  We did get to see our first bear of the trip (kind of accidentally) as we were turning around to plan what to do next.  It ended up being a day off due to the new site not being what we were looking for (sigh).  So, the true fieldwork had to wait one more day.  We got up to Fort Mac, a little confused at how such a bustling town can be this far North, but actually really liked the town's unique charm.

Boots and Bogs

So, Friday comes and we head to MacKay to tackle the first site.  With Kel's and Kim's crash course in everything bog related, we were ready for veg collection.  We quickly learned the difference in root color of Fuscum and Capillifolium, had to scrape off Ledum from our gloves (the new growth is pretty sticky in early June), and tried not to get too stuck in one of the wetter bogs we went to over the week.  While it took some practice and quite a few questions, Eric and I quickly became pros at spotting all 10 species we were gathering.  With the help of SIU, Caitlyn, Yev, Kristen, Kim. and Kel, we cruised through veg and water collections at MacKay and then went to JPH4 where we got that finished pretty quickly as well.  I had never been in a bog before so I got quite a few pictures after I figured out my best path so that I wouldn't get stuck.

Eric at MacKay

The Mighty Kel

The next day was our first new site day.  We arrived at the site which we named Kearl and loaded up as much as we could to take out closer to the site.  As Kim mentioned, we had already seen a bear on the way and it was pretty clear that this is one of the more "off the beaten path" sites.  It was a hot and steamy day so we got to work right away to hopefully finish a bit early.  We hammered a lot of nails, pounded in posts, and set up everything pretty quickly on the site.  Then, with the help of SIU we struggled through getting veg for the sites (a couple of the samples were hard to find at some of the plots) and started packing up to get back to Fort Mac.  That's when Jeremy called us about the bear.  With this being the first wild bear I had seen while I am not in a car, you would think I would be cautious and careful, but no, I pulled out my phone to get a good video of the bear instead.  After a bit I realized, wow that was dumb, and pulled out my bear spray instead.  But, the bear sauntered on by and left us alone.

JPH4

The last three sites, McMurray Bog, Anzac, and Horse Creek, all went without too many problems and the rest of the week was pretty smooth sailing.  McMurray Bog was pretty dry on the walk out there and no one went for an unintended swim, the rain wasn't too strong at Anzac, and the Horse Creek setup went quickly now that we were pros at setting up a site. 
I was honestly a bit sad to leave Fort Mac, but was excited by the thought of our nice hotel beds waiting for us back in Athabasca.  We then made quick work of wrapping things up and headed back to Philly and the lab.  Overall, I know both Eric and I learned a lot being out in the field as well as had a good time with it.  Other than a few less horseflies, no complaints from me.  I can't wait to get back up there next month!!

The Bear!!

A new fan of peatland bogs,

Spencer