2018 people of big river field class

    July 20th /day 14   Well, today was a pretty bad day. Well for starters we found a place to shower but didn't  get  a chance. The sad part was that we never actually got a chance to shower. Well, the first activity of the day was meeting a couple of forestry specialists from the area that showed us around  a  couple of sites that they had recently cleared out.  The  foresters  we met were Lance  Leone , Clinton  Diestel , and Rob Mallery. They were all  really fun  guys and super cool. The first thing they did was show us around a couple of sites that they had recently cleared out one being near twin lakes, and the other next to. It was  really cool  seeing how an area looks before  it's  been worked on compared to how it looks like when it has been cleared out. We then got to use a few of the tools that they use when working in an area. Lance  actually showed  us how to take measurements and how to test the age of a tree. Lance showing us how to measure  O

July 19th / day13th   Well, today I got up extra early to put away my tent and shower I woke up to the sound of an elk in the distance then  realized how beautiful the view was  The perfect view.  Once we had set up the tent we got a chance to meet  Lucy  who was a traditional cultural preservation officer. Lucy showed us around the  Okanagan  reservation we got to see their caribou trail, along with the alfalfa fields that they use to feed the wild horse population in the reservation.  We then were taken to see where they hold their annual suicide run. The suicide run is when riders take their horses down a steep hill and they ride into the river. She then took us to a museum it was  cool . We got to see very many cool artifacts. One of the things that stuck out to me from what we read at the  Okanagan  tribal cultural museum was the Chief Joseph Hatchery Program. The program centered around meeting trust obligations to the tribes for ceremony, health a

July 18th day 12   Well, today was a pretty short day, we spent our morning blogging and making a big breakfast. We had pancakes and oatmeal.    One of my favorite parts of today was  getting  a chance to write a letter of support for one of our camp members from white swan, who unfortunately had to leave the trip for personal reasons. I'm really going to miss  them,  and I hope they are doing ok. Warren was  kind  enough to pick up  everyone's  letters to personally drop them off to the camper.    I have to say out of all  the  so  far  the  Spokane  campsite has been by far the best. Warren has been the kindest person I have had the pleasure to meet and I hope I get a chance to see him when I  come back  next year. After we said our goodbyes and we packed up we finally left.  We  couldn't  leave until 2pm because Jessica  had to clean up her RV.  It took us about 3 hours to get to our campsite. We camped out at the Net Pen RV Park which is located on  the

July 21/ day 15  well, this is it. since today is the last day of the trip everyone got up a little earlier than usual. I think some people even got a chance to go swimming. we did our usual routine of making breakfast and lunch, and then we began doing inventory. that took us about an hour to finish, I finished pretty early so I spent the rest of my free time trying to finish some of the handshakes that the campers and I had created. everyone was done around 7:45 so we then packed into the vans and were on our way. everyone was really excited to go home. to our surprise, Jessica still had a couple of stops for us, two of which I enjoyed but the last was a bit boring. our first stop was at the Conville dam, I found this place a bit boring because I have been here a couple of times before, but it was still nice getting to look around with everyone else. the highlight of that stop was when we found Mr. Clinton sitting in the kid's section with a coloring book. conville dam

July 16th/ day 10 well, today was a rather interesting day we started the day by getting a talk from BJ Keifer who was a director of natural resources for the Spokane tribe. He introduced us to some fishery biologists named Brian and Kaycee that took us down to a creak to show us how they collect samples of fish. the method that they showed us was called electroshocking what this does is send very weak electric waves throughout the water to temporarily stun the fish. before we got into the water we were given Waders to wear so that we wouldn't get wet.  I was given huge waders but Priscilla wanted it so we traded, it was hilarious seeing her walk with huge waders we went along the creek with our waders on shocking the water we collected a few fish but they were not the kind that we were looking for. me and my twin Priscilla  We were hoping to find trout but sadly could not manage to catch one. brian took a small group of us to a place where he thought there would be

July 17th / day 11  well, today we got to wake up really early, at around 6 am Jessica came to shake up my tent. this was weird because it was the first time that she had to wake me up all week. our first stop was at a wellness center we met Ray antze who was a natural resources director of wildlife and terrestrial. We sat in for a conference about the great things that the center does for the community. He also shared a little bit about himself and what restorations they are working on at the moment. but the exciting part was when we were told that we could come back and swim in the pool. Shortly after that, we headed off to the Kalispell tribal hatchery where they told us the history of the hatchery and how they have had to change a lot of things because of the invasive northern pike that was illegally introduced.  The hatchery was originally meant for farming largemouth bass. They showed us around the facility and we got to hold some of the minnow rainbow trout. It was real