Water Quality Sampling

There are worse things than wet feet in paradise. Rainbow Cove.

Whew! Well, life picked up quickly on the island. Turns out that during the two weeks of water quality sampling I work 10-12 hour days. And those days are about bush whacking steep ridges and then shallow swamps quickly with a full pack of gear, and maybe a canoe, and the restful part is canoeing a mile or two. During this time, I came to appreciate the luxury of dry feet, as my boots never seemed to dry out from day to day after hauling through the low points. Also, it was really sad to hear about Orlando and extra hard not having much rainbow support here.

Luckily, I've recovered enough to get back to blogging!

Water sampling is hard work, but awesome because my buddy Matt and I get to tromp all over the island. This first round, our supervisor, Mark, came with us at first to show us the ropes. Our day starts off looking at the weather and learning to predict what that weather means for boating conditions on the big lake (Lake Superior) and our littler lakes. Both are important. Need waves on Lake Superior that will be safe boating to places and not leave our boat in an exposed position when we leave it to trek inland, and then some inland lakes are more or less susceptible to wind. With this information we can figure out safe places to work.

Water quality sampling lakes (red) and home (yellow star).

Water quality sampling team. Maria, Matt, and Mark.

Once we decide where to go, getting to and from the inland lakes takes up most of our day. Many places take 1.5 or 2 hours to get the boat to a place where we can hike to our lake. Since the island is so skinny, our hikes tend to be an hour or less, but they can feel longer because we are rarely on an actual trail.

Onward! What? You wanted a trail? Hahahaha!



Ahh that's a better trail. Whoops. Ankle biter.

The photo with a more open understory was one of the nicer bush whacks, even though it had a lot of small fallen branches hiding under the vegetation and waiting for you to catch your ankle. In large part because we actually were on a trail...just one that is mostly not visible, even with the help of orange and yellow flagging showing us where to go. Thank goodness for GPS!

 

Once we get on the lake we follow the GPS to a place to measure water level and then go to an exact sampling point in the middle of the lake where we anchor and record our data. No pictures of us taking the temperature, getting a compass reading on the wind, determining wave height, taking a secchi reading, or grabbing water samples with a 2 meter tube because I was busy. I get more time for pictures again when we send the sonde down. The sonde records water depth, temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and conductivity at every meter until we are at the lake bottom. In the first few meters the readings are often similar, so the sensor gives us an accurate reading quickly. The further down we go, we are more likely to have to wait for the instrument to give us good numbers.

Matt sending the sonde down another meter on Siskiwit Lake. Ryan Island
(the largest island on the largest lake, on the larges island, on the largest fresh
water lake in the world) over Matt's shoulder. 

 By the time we head home for the day, we're pretty pooped. Even with the hard work, I have so many great moments throughout the day I am constantly reflecting on how grateful I am to be here experiencing this beautiful island and working for such a great agency. Yay national parks!



Matt resting at Rainbow Cove as we wait for a boat to pick us up.