Fun in foam

Abby and I went canoeing in the Duluth harbor a few days ago. The water was totally brown (like sewage) and we were afraid to touch it (I realize now the color is not exactly obvious in the pictures, but it's true) but it was still mega fun!! Abby was helping me out surveying wetland sites on a couple islands in Pokegama Bay. There was SO MUCH FOAM! Probably from all of the rain Duluth got. We pretended we were canoeing in the arctic and navigating through icy waters and chunks of glaciers. Really, though, we were in Duluth. 

Madeline Island

Jonathon came to Madeline Island with me to survey sites we had by Big Bay State Park. It was a little rainy on the ferry ride, but then it cleared up and we went paddling on the lagoon in the evening. It was so beautiful! The water was still, and the reflections were excellent. I mostly slacked off and took pictures while Jonathon paddled us around. We saw lots of birds and some giant pike, one of which tried to bite Jonathon's hand off while he was paddling. 

Blue flag iris - so pretty!

He tried to leave me on an island but eventually came to get me

Loon foot!

Reflection video

See? Here I am slacking off.

We paddled out into the big lake after the lagoon

Isle Royale Part 1

This entry is part one because we get to go twice - we'll be there again over the 4th of July. We are hoping that there are moose fireworks or wolf cake or something Isle Royale-themed.


We had a great trip - good weather, hardly any bugs, no goshawk attacks (see below). Julia spent some time sleeping. We saw lots of cool animals - a luna moth, a moose, some birds and frogs. We circumnavigated the island on the Voyageur and drank their free coffee every time. We made friends with Dreadlocks Girl and Pike Boy and some sediment corers from Pennsylvania. We ate some of Pike Boy's fish and chased it with nutella s'mores - best invention ever (copyright, team us). We canoed and swam in Lake Superior and hiked on the Greenstone trail.

Lacking from these photos are pictures of us obsessively reading our Nevada Barr mystery novel set on Isle Royale (we were too engrossed to even think of photodocumentation). We spent quite a bit of time reading it out loud. Luckily there were 3 of us so even when we went canoeing the middle person could read. That Anna Pigeon, she's always up to something. It was an entertaining read, anyway, if you want to check it out! 

McCargo Cove, our first stop

Luna moth

Headed out to Birch Island for the first night

At the shelter - there are TONS of tiger swallowtails flying around, if you can spy them in this picture

At our first points - we put in a solid 18 minutes of work at this place

Snaaaake! It's a snaaake!

Really?

Applesauce to-go

Rock Harbor, to get ready for a backpack trip

We know this ferry well

All packed up

Another site, another 18 minutes of work

The hike out in the eeearly morning

Lizzie protects us from goshawk attack

Pontoon ride

Sorry about not posting in a long time. We made it back from Isle Royale safe and sound, and are continuing our crazy summer adventures! I will share the Isle Royale pictures soon. First I will show you some pictures from a hike to Miner's Falls and a pontoon ride out to Grand Island, north of Munising in the UP. 

Lizzie is the U and Julia is the P. We also ate pasties and fudge and considered ourselves native Yoopers. Julia is keeping a tally of all the waterfalls we've seen - there are many opportunities in the UP! We'll be back in a few days so she can add to her list.

Pictured Rocks - Miner's Castle. Near Miner's Falls.

Here are a couple pictures from one of our favorite sites on Grand Island, near Pictured Rocks. We rented a pontoon, loaded a canoe onto it, and were pontooned out near the site. Then we piled into the canoe and paddled to our points and did the surveys from the boat.

Pontoon ride out

The wetland we surveyed

Gotta write down those birds!

Isle Royale pictures to come soon!

Isle Royale!!!

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't posted in so long. I've had about 10 minutes of free time per day for the past week. I have pictures to post but the internet in this hotel is too slow to load them! The three of us have been doing afternoon and evening bird and amphibian surveys in the UP, Wisconsin and Duluth. We've been to Grand Island, north of Munising, we were in the Keweenaw for 2 days, we went to Madeline Island, and now we are on our way to Isle Royale!


We are taking a canoe and surveying some wetland sites near McCargoe Cove, Rock Harbor, and Windigo. We're in Grand Portage now and getting on the boat tomorrow morning! We'll be back on Friday and then we're going up to Thunder Bay for a couple days. 


Last time I went to Isle Royale, it rained for 3 out of 4 days and it was horrible. The forecast for this week looks good. We are going to have lots of FUN!


I'll post pictures when we're back!

Alvar

Julia and I are on Drummond Island, Michigan, to survey one of my sites. We surveyed east of Manistique this morning after getting rained out yesterday. Then we took our time driving to the island, stopping at a pretty alvar beach along the way. An alvar is a limestone plain. The soil is too crumbly and shallow for many trees to grow, so there are some stunted bushes and lots of lichens, mosses, and prairie grasses. Alvars are found in particular regions of the Great Lakes, but mostly in Europe (Scandinavia). The biggest one is found in Sweden. It's a rare habitat around here and there are some rare species found on it. The Nature Conservancy owns a lot of the alvar land on Drummond Island to preserve it. The rocks have the characteristic pockets, seen in Figure 2. Figure 6 shows how little soil and how flat the limestone rock is. We also found some Indian Paintbrush and a yellow ladyslipper!

We also FINALLY found a place to stay at a B & B that's not open yet. The owner gave us a deal on the B and we have to get our own B. She even invited us to her cookout tonight.