posted by Caitlyn:

We finally made it to CANADA! Our August trip was a blast and a nice trip down memory lane. It was nostalgic to stay at the same house in Athabasca and see the WBEA sites. My peat feet didn't take too long to come back after a few instances of being stuck. The black flies and mosquitoes also had faded from memory. I personally forgot bug spray when visiting our first site, Anzac, which isn't a mistake I will likely make again. Veg collection was as fun as I remembered. Everyone quickly found their favorite vegetation to pick. I personally loved Mitis, while Yev enjoyed Evernia. Kel and Wendy worked as a great team to collect all of the Sphagnum samples. It couldn't be all work and no fun though. Yev and I spent most of free time enjoying the always good Canadian Netflix. All in all we had a fantastic trip! We can't wait to go back in October.

Lab Days

Working hard in the Wieder Lab!  We have finally finished cleaning the 2015 vegetation samples! Most of it has been ground and measured.  Feels good to check stuff off the chart! Almost ready to start with the analysis!!

Now we have moved onto the easy stuff from August 2016.  This year doesn't look nearly brutal as the 2015 bunch.  A fan favorite of black spruce is getting picked today!

 

Today Wendy is working on the graphs for her carbon data.  Lookin' good!

To say the crew is getting a little stir crazy would be an understatement.  Here's Yevgeniya dreaming of the outside world and wishing to be out in Mariana Lake.  She sure is missing those blueberries!  

The Smell of Fort McMurray in the Morning

Posted by:  Kim

Welcome to Field Season 2017!

    Starting it off with a bang, Kel and I are tackling Fort McMurray sites and doing a fine job of it.  No bugs, no rain, no sun, no problem.  Actually, there were bits of each of those things today, but we weren't counting.  Day one went great and we look forward to tomorrow's adventure.   
 Sorry for the tease, but I'm making this short and sweet.  We have some planning to do for tomorrow and some good Fort McMurray food to find for dinner.  We'll have plenty to talk about soon.  It has been too long.  We've all missed the mosses and I'm excited to share scoop on our summer plans and what has been going on over the winter.     For now, I can assure you - the mosses are still here and it makes me happy to be walking among them - so lavish and green.

      

Thoughts from an Airport

Just a few things about this summer...thank you to everyone :) 

Some thoughts from an airport.

After 84 days in the True North, I have developed some skills that only a handful of dedicated individuals have acquired. We are the Few, the Proud, the Wetland Ecologists of Villanova University. 1. I am able to sit in the backseat of a pickup truck for up to 3 hours. (No longer than that, please). Most of our field sites are at least an hour and a half away, but the dreaded trip to Red Earth Creek is a whopping 3 hours. At least there is gas station about halfway there with a wonderful snack collection. 2. I am able to sort dried vegetation all day long, pending the fact that we are also watching movies and I am not sorting cranberry. 3. I can also unstick myself from what I like to call ‘Peat Black Holes’- endless pits of doom that one might slip in at any given moment on any footpath at any site. I think I’ve mastered the effective way to wiggle out of such a predicament. (Except that one time…RIP to my left boot somewhere at Utikuma).

After just about 3 months, I have learned these brilliant, resume worthy skills, but also the process of nitrogen fixation, the correct way to insert “eh?” into any Canadian sentence, and the definition of a bog. (Supposedly there’s no water movement, but I also learned that that’s kind of not true.) I am a Tim Hortons Convert and huge fan of the Canadian Netflix selection.

This summer was nothing short of the Greatest Adventure of my Life So Far. I learned how to operate a Gas Chromatogram, collect pore water, measure photosynthesis and cellular respiration, and that Sphagnum is the “Greatest genus in the world”- Kell Weider 2016. But I also learned that Yevgenia loves to watch horror movies, Mikah is a crochet wizard, Hope only drinks cold drinks, and Kelly has a secret super power for baking Olympic themed cakes. Catilyn calls her grandfather everyday and Wendy can cook a masterpiece dinner from even the emptiest fridge. This summer was a summer spent outside, sunburned, bug bitten, but almost always happy. I am so thankful to have seen the mountains in Jasper National Park, to have raided the thrift store weekly and to have celebrated America’s birthday in Northern Alberta with the people that I did. Thanks to one wild gang. Cheers to the adventures.