2018 People of Big River Field Class

July 17 th – Tuesday Agenda for today: o    Drove to kaulipel o    Met with Ray at the Wellness Center o    Toured   the fishery o    Visited the caves o    Had lunch at the powwow grounds o    Saw the bison o    Indian creek community forest tour and talk o    Spoke to Jr the language teacher o    Roamed the wellness center o    Dinner at powwow grounds o    Drove back to camp The drive over was about two hours in the van. Everyone slept and visited in the car. I personal slept and snored a lot on the way over. Ray is the Director of Natural Resources for Kaulispel tribe. He wanted to be a vet for a long portion of his life but he didn’t want the bills that came along with the vet degree. Thus he changed his major. He manages all the natural resources.   We visited the fishery where we met with ___. They recently got a new technology that the techs really enjoyed. They had triple rainbow trout and bull trout, it was super cool. T

July 16 th – Monday Agenda for today: o    Talked to B.J. the Director of Natural Resources o    Got a presentation from the Fuel Management, Vernon o    Headed to look at forestry recovery with Henry o    Went shock fishing with Brain and Kacey o    Visited the Trading Post to get snacks and groceries o    Shared in the Pit House The talk with B.J. was very educational. He shared his educational pathway, job description, and shared some advice. B.J. had plans in mind but the tribe pushed him to go into Natural Resources so they can build their Natural Resources programs. He directs, fisheries, forestry, fire, fuel management and more.   He’s an extremely important and busy person, it was a privilege to talk to him at the extent we did. I asked what the biggest problem he wanted to fix and one of the problems was fish restoration. This is a common factor that I want to look at deeper to help the tribes. Fish recovery is huge and for the river people f

July 15 th – Sunday We had an awesome breakfast; pancakes, bacon, hash browns, and eggs. We woke up around 8 a.m. because our tents were already hot. Ate breakfast around 10 a.m. It was a lazy morning. At about noon Spokane tribal elders came by to drum with us. Francis, Warren, Jim and ** opened us the drumming circle and made sure everyone got to try it. The experience was amazing. Being able to be a part of the drum circle, sing, and listen to the songs was incredible. People travel far and wide to see and hear things like that. I felt very special and honored to be a part of that. After around 3 p.m. Warren took us up to their fire lookout. It was on top of this huge hill and the lookout tower itself had 4 flights of metal stairs. It was on top of this huge hill and the lookout tower itself had 4 flights of metal stairs. I didn’t know I was afraid of heights until today. Once I reached the top my hands were shaking and I felt like I needed to vomit. It was very beauti

July 14 th – Saturday I was awoken at 5:30 a.m. Ate breakfast and cleaned up camp. We drove about 13 hours to get to our new location. We stopped in Tricities to do laundry. Thank goodness because we were all getting a little smelly. Today we drove and drove and drove. I realized I like country music. Once we got to our new location we got to shower and eat. It was worth it. I am cleaned and rested. -        Destiny

July 13 th – Friday We started out with Tom Walker over at Goose Creek. It was another service day, my tool of choice was a cute little shovel. Background on the Creek; the culvert needed to be fixed. Recently they replaced a giant metal pipe that was previously there, with a better stream simulation creek. During the reconstruction the equipment and works left the former grasslands rocky dirt. To help the vegetation return to its previous state we gave it a little jump start today. Part of our group moved out the big rocks and made the dirt a little softer that was upstream. Downstream the dirt was already soft and ready for sludge transplanting. My job was to dig holes that could fit the sludge transplant to help start the spreading of the vegetation. On our break Tom talked to us about the project and gave us some facts: about 400 Thousand dollars was paid just to the contractors, Goose Creek and Sparks Lake has never supported fish previous to 100 years, and non-native fish

July 12 th – Thursday Service project day!! I loved today. Our big group split up into two service projects; trail brushing and vegetation surveying. I picked trail brushing because that seemed to be the best and I could see the progress as we go. We drove about 3 miles up the road to lava lake trail. Our guide was Jesse, she was amazing and super smart about her field. She is a trail technician. She guided us to the tools wed be using. There were: loppers, Mc Cloud, hand saws, and a chain saw. I utilized the loppers and it was a great choice on my part. There was a bit of a rule; put your arms out and if you can touch anything, cut it out. I could prune, cut out whole trees and pick up debris with my loppers. We cleaned our trail and had lunch at Lava Lake overlooking the water. After we got to shower. Thank goodness because this was day three and we were smelling pretty bad. We came back to camp and chilled. It was a good bonding day we sat in the river and chilled o

July 11 th – Wednesday This morning was freezing. After everyone finally got over the bear scare we woke up at around 6ish. Early day, caffeine is definitely needed. Today we went to ____. The showed us a lot of different things such as; fire trainer, smoke jumper, airplane hangar, supply cache, aviation section, and dispatch. All of it was extremely educating and fun. With the trainer they really pushed options for wildlife fires services and BIA. They were very informational and it opened my eyes to the option of firefighting. I am not exactly sure what I want to do with my life at this point and I feel like I need time and experience to figure it out. I will definitely be utilizing them. Then, the group took a tour with the smoke jumpers. AWESOME, I was so surprised that such a thing existed. The jumpers loved their work and worked very hard to get there. They jump out of planes and try to control a fire and prevent it from becoming a big fire. Dougie and Sam were rookies

July 10 th – Tuesday One of our longer days, due to driving. We started out at the Yakama Nation fishery. It was super amazing. They walked us through the whole process of trapping, transporting, and tagging the fish. This was a state of the art facility. The key point I admired was, no consumption of water. The water they get for the water to water transport and lift is all recycled back into the river. Everything was powered by non-electric motors because of the constant flooding. The fish lift is the second tallest in the United States. They showed us how the whole process happens. We saw them tag the fish and get a DNA sample. That was truly amazing, these people have very cool jobs. I was a little saddened when they inserted the tracking device and extract scales, because poor baby fish. L John was a Yakama Native and took us down to the scaffolding where all the traditional fishing happens. I really enjoyed all the knowledge he shared about the traditional fishing

July 9 th – Monday I was woken up at 5:40 a.m. today. It was an early one. After the whole morning routine we set off to see Janette Burkharet the water shed planner. We had a very long drive over to White Salmon due to navigational issues. It took about forever and a day to get to Janette. When we got there it was worth it. She shared facts and pictures of the Condit Dam removal. It was the largest Dam removal in the United States until another Dam beat it a couple of months after the removal started. It was extremely interesting. They decided to remove it due to all the maintenance and code expenses. Also, I later found out there was a lot of political issues and the river was claimed as having ecological importance. We went on multiple trips today; Husum falls, Janette’s restoration site and Underwood. The falls were beautiful and Janette shared that the water was about 48 degrees year round and the river serves as a safe haven for the fish salmon and pacific lamprey mi

July 8 th Sunday This morning the group went on a hike up Potato Hill. I was so tired I couldn’t wake up at 6:30 a.m. to hike. I woke up around 7:30 a.m. and the mosquitoes were up and ready to consume every drop of blood. I sat in a lawn chair watching everyone go up Potato Hill, it was funny. After everyone came back we had breakfast and packed up to come to Camp Chaparral to spend the day. On the way over we saw a cub walk across the road. I’m excited to shower J After the well-needed showers, our friend Doug Olney the resource manager at Yakama Forest Products took us on a walk. He showed us how to identify different trees, dwarf mistletoe, and gave use forestry terminology.   Doug is extremely knowledgeable in the field. He shared that he has been in forestry for forty years. That blew my mind, I have never thought about forestry as a long life career. Then, the whole camp was extremely happy to get news that we were moving camps. Potato Hill was beautiful but the

July 7 th Saturday We had an early start today. At arrival we helped sort out the food and checked out our camping gear. Our very nice camping gear, I felt like a true naturalist when all suited up! I haven’t been camping in quite a long time I was a little nervous. I was thankful that we had a presentation before we left. I was extremely intrigued during the presentation. Jonalee Squeochs presented on climate change and the Yakama Nation Climate Adaptation plan. This presentation shone a light on how our communities are and will be drastically affected. I knew climate change was going to be a big problem in our valley but I didn’t think it was going to be that bad. Climate change threatens everything; economy, population, pest, water and so much more. After hearing about the progress the Yakama Nation has had with the adaptation plan I was relieved and surprised. I was surprised as to how so many organization and people came together, talked, compromised, and finished this gr