Saving the beavers

Today was the most fun day on the trip, we met Stephanie this morning. She talked about some old villages that used to be at the Coeur d' Alene lake. She presented what lakes used to be there which I thought was cool, even has a map and cool little structures we had to put on there in places we think it is. She told us why there was old looking power lines Avista put there many many years ago for power where settlers were mining for silver.
 Angelo Vitale, Gina and Stephanie Hallock brought us coffee which was really good and nice, after that we went to a sight where beavers live and have their own dams. I have seen baby catfishs in that creek we were at, I wasn't able to get the name of it so ya. It was muddy all over and tall grasses about my height, it was fun but smelt like beavers poop a lot. We got to see a different dam a other youth group did on the creek, these kids live here in Coeur d' Alene area. We was walking through a lot of mud, and Chrissy, Alyssa and I had to hold on to each other to keep balance because the wader boots were kind of heavy so we were sinking in the mud quickly and was a bit difficult to pull them out but ya. When we started the process on the Restoration of the beavers home because it got ruined there were two captain s , Al group 1 and Chrissy group two. I was working on putting under big sticks, plugged up holes and little flows ( actually really big), putting hay and mud all over even rock, I had the most fun today, this week. I like to catch um fishies in the waters we go to because they are interesting to me. I was hyper this morning, so much I was annoying people. Gina showed me this cut on her finger from the grass, I called it the grasscut instead of papercut. Yesterday Alyssa and me went for a walk on the bridge.

The way back we seen a lot of spiders all over the rails. Um when we were done we were rated pretty much ten of ten, awesomeness. The next day we went the casino here and had "all to eat buffet" and it was good, I tried eggs Benedict for the first time, these strawberries crêpes and had a full plate. Thank you Grandpa Dave, lol.

The 23

Today I met a biologists engineer named Stephanie Hallock who is cool and works for the CDA tribe fisheries. She has fixed this or straightened this creek that was causing bank erosion on this farmers land. The project goal was to recreate wet land habitat and to reduce erosion. It took three years to fix the creek  or move it I mean. The creek was eroding to where a power line pole could have fell over.
 The creek is Lake creek,  it has cutthroat trout in it, and natural habitat, there are willows and such that have grown. I actually got to see where the creek used to be and where it is now.
I met the CDA tribes Fisheries Programs Manager today, Angelo Vitale.
 I also got to help carve a canoe with a couple of brothers, i accidentally forgot there name all the work and writing we did today, eating sandwiches, an ice cream.Here is the younger brother I met, he was pretty cool, told me about the tools they use to carve a canoe.

I had a fun day, I was hyper this morning so.

today the 22

I had a banana and reorganized Ms. Morse's van because it was too messy with the boys in there. We are traveling today to Coeur d' Alene. I don't know for what  but I hope to have a really good time.
 today I met Angelita, Ruben, Jacob, Angelique, Gina, Laura, and Bobby (girl). These students work with the CDA Fisheries. CDA is the Coeur d' Alene tribe. We are camping at Chatcolet Lake. I've learned quite a bit about the CDA tribe and there past history, to me it was sad. They even showed a couple power point presentation of there tribe, the negative history. Like the leads and silvers going into the lake and making it dangerous for the habitat there. there has been a lot of water sheds there. it kills me to here about this kind of stuff contaminating the water and our traditional foods. When the settlers came over to America with their diseases and discovered silver and gold at the mouth of the CDA river which was on the CDA reservation. The settlers decided to try and take that piece of land and fought for it and got it, and mining  around on the creeks and this river contaminated a lot of there land.There was this act called the Dawes act, gave members pieces of land to break up tribe, encourage self farming. They removed families from the lake and forced them to move on these land so that they could build a park that is there today, and was supposed to pay the tribe but they didn't.
 I earned a lot of these different settlers, that come to America only to make money.
 Here in CDA there is only two fluent speakers of their language. The tribe is working on the contaminated sediment now because it has went to Chatcolet lake.
I  actually got to learn a few words which was cool.
We went to a gathering at the longhouse here, it was cool cause Alyssa, Chrissy and me went out on the floor and joined in on the Swan dance. Had good foods so it was a great dinner. After that we got lost trying to find Chatcolet campgrounds.

the 21

We got to shock fishes in this stream and catch them. We seen different kinds of little baby fishes. I wanted to catch more but we had to leave. It also didn't feel as long as it was. We left Wellpinit around nine and left the stream at eleven thirtyish. It was cool Ms. Morse put the shocker pack on and it had a little rat looking tail. There was this big wand looking thing on it with a ring connected to it that shocks the fish and stuff in the water, they said its to check what fish are in there and how they are doing.

 We talked to Twella Swan an Air quality monitor manager. Indoor air, outdoor air, radon in air can effect you and cause lung cancer. I learned a little about radon, you can't see, smell, or taste it. It is a 2nd leading cause of lung cancer. Trains are messing with the air like what they transport such as oiol and coals. These items leak or fly off the cars on the trains. There is been a numerous amount of train crashes and explosions from the train cars transporting these items around the U.S.. Burning coal in China is making living situations harder up there, and the air is coming down this way.
We met Savanah a Wildlife biologists and Delvin.

Today

Today we went to the Wellpinit High School / Middle School library to hear Warren talk about The Spokane Tribe of Indians also known as the Children of the Sun in stories usually. Where we went canoeing yesterday was above a whole lot of things like the valley it used to be, even graves. The salmon that used to go through this river are not so big anymore. Big fish wheels were common here to take fish to can and be sold all over the world. Until the Grand Coulee Dam was built the people that lived in that valley had nothing because it flooded their valley. We met Robert Nelson the operations manager of something.

  I learned a little bit about radiation like the different types of radiation such as cosmic radiation, terrestrial, internal, medical. Cosmic radiation is from outer space obviously, terrestrial is from the earth’s crust.

  In 1954 the Brett brothers started a uranium mine. They created this big hole you know to get the uranium and they started to collect water from the rain and the natural ground water because no plants were around to take the water up. They later found out it is hurting the fish in the water so in 1982 they started a water treatment plant. They pumped out most of the water and still is while some gets evaporated. Once it has evaporated they plan to reclaim the land for the tribal members.

Uranium is used in nuclear weapons and in nuclear plants. The uranium mine shut down in 1982 while they started the water treatment. Water would be pumped out and taken somewhere else to get treatment.

 I really liked it when we did this little thing to kind of get moving around, just a little activity.

The first one was when we did the circle introduced ourselves for like the fourth time. After that we did the teepee sweep,  look over your horse, smoke signals, drum circle and canoe.
We got to see the mine, and the big holes.

First Time Canoeing, July 19

Today we are going to take a lesson to draw with charcoal and pencil by George at 1:00 in the camp I'm at.
 Also we are going go canoeing with Warren Seyler and his nephew Hunter I believe, correct me if I'm wrong. I hope I don't fall off into the water trying to get on the canoe. I wonder where you canoe at.
  We learned a lesson how to sketch by George Hill. To be honest I know I can't draw for a dang thing and really I tried and it didn't look cool at all even though people said it wasn't done. It was fugly.

My first time canoeing is awesome! I even tried tipping us over to see what is would be like and Alyssa was like no let's not see. I had fun

. We went to look at the watch tower and I hopped on with Warren and his bunch. Hunter, Kyle, and X. The boys ran up there. I walked upstairs of the tower and was scared but not scared at the same time. It was funny.

Day Seven

Today we just left KOA, where we slept last night, and arrived at the pow-wow grounds of Wellpinit.
I set up my tent and ate a sandwich then we went swimming at a lake called turtle lake! It was fun because everyone was jumping off the dock, they even got me to jump a few times. I swam almost half way across the lake two times. Oh I forgot to mention that when I cooked I burnt my arm some how and didn't realize till Mrs. Black, Ms. Black's mother and Ms. Morse noticed it, because it was ugly and blistered, ewe rite.
Well it popped this morning when I grabbed the pancake mix this morning for Ms. Morse. . Now I'm blogging for you to read.. ;)
 We did laundry and took a shower here at the school. I also met Warren Seyler and his... nephew I think Hunter which was funny because the way he was acting. He was funny, and I let Mr. Warner know a little bit about my self and I said I can cook then everyone else jumped in and complimented. Now he wants some fish cooked by me.

Day after Celilo

  On this day I woke up in a good mood at first because it was quiet had a nice cool shower. Al, Sully and Captain made a bomb breakfast, banana chocolate chip pancakes with hash browns and bacon. It was delicious, even though Mr. Clinton poured sriracha sauce all over my plate instead of his. We traded hash browns and eggs, I really didn't care to be honest.
We all have a duty, sometimes twice a day. There is group one which is me and Chrissy, group two, Matt and Tarrel, group three, Alyssa and Judy, group four, Al and Sully, group five, Alexic and Ebeth. Bomb squad is where you make surer everything is put away in a vehicle or the r.v. , dishes duty of course to do dishes, cooking duty in which you cook.
 We went to see a museum because we didn't get to tag fish because of climate change.
Well everyone liked my dinner, and Ms. Black put me in charge of meals, like what to cook with what.
WE seen these cool pictures on rocks, and before that we went swimming at Horsethief.
I also got stung by a bee, on my chest.                                 She who watches.

At Celilo Village

 Day four, (really day five) 16 Well on this day I woke up and had a banana and then organized the vans. We arrived at Celilo Village around three p.m. and met four people. There was Michelle, Jeremy, Andrew and David. Andrew was talking about saving the lamprey that goes into our river,  the Columbia. He was saying there is not much more coming back because of all the dams up and down the river and other places.
    We also met Paul Lumley who is executive director of CRITFC, expert witness. He talked about our salmon count going down over these past years. All these reservoir's our ruining the wildlife in the Columbia river.
am done.... I don't want to be all mad about my people's river.

It was awesome because I was in full charge of dinner! I had a full kitchen, which means I have an oven, a fridge for cold juice, stoves. It was awesome. Guess what I made, just guess, I cooked up some fried buttered carrots with mushrooms for the picky vegetarian Ebeth, and bbq chicken (secret spices too) with rice and boiled carrots for the meat eaters. I like too cook full meal. Alyssa helped me make dessert well actually she did all I did was stick it in the oven. Lol. It was cupcake brownies with marshmallows on top. Yummy!

The new day 1

On the first day it was really cool! We got to meet these two guys who are fuel specialists in the forest. Rob and Newey was their names. They were talking about firefighting stuff like what they do when there is a wildfire. There would be 100 to 1,000 people sometimes. A big food truck would go up to where they are stationed or whatever and a dumpster that would get full, really full.
 He talked about natural resources to put a fire out, what would we need? How are we going to do it? Questions like that. There are two types of fuels, dead and alive fuels. Fuels are what can cause a wildfire. A dead fuel such as a dead tree on the ground. This dead tree is a 10,000 hr fuel. The bigger the fuel, the longer it takes dry, then burn. I also found some weird fungus that I found on an old piece of wood I was picking at.

 We also talked about what we would do to put a fire out, all I said is kick dirt on it if it is small, and showed them, they all laughed it was cool. We had lasagna for dinner, ha in the mountains. WE also went to the Forest service and met a seed extractor named Sarah. She showed us the rooms in which the processes take place.

Day 2,

This day was interesting because we got lost trying to get to The Lava Cast Forest. We all met Cristina the Lead Park Ranger who worked her way up to be the supervisor .After that everyone introduced ourselves to her and the group. She taught me what a National Monument is. She told me think of it as a outside museum, you cannot log on, take anything from, even a rock otherwise you would be looking forward to jail time, and fines to pay so do not try to steal from a National Monument. There are a lot of restrictions too. We looked at a newspaper talking about Newberry volcano which is considered active today. Looked at different types of lava such as hoho which moves slow that even your grandparents can outrun.  I forgot what the fast one is but ya. Some old guy that was there had a patio talk, he talked about different lavas and showed us rocks, even ashes from Mt. St. Helens eruption. Also seen some lava balls. We had a nice walk, which was cool, we did this roller coaster thing with the woman that walked with us, and made me feel like a little girl again. Talked about ourselves for like the third time. Oh and it is freaking expensive at their little gift shop. Mr. Black is super nice too. This day was my second time ever going to a cave which was cool.

Day 3
I woke up at six something and saw a deer near the van. That was the closest one I've ever seen. I saw two deer’s this morning which was cool I thought. Matt and um T put breakfast together, berry pancakes (plain ones too), and bacon! It was really good! I got to talk to my baby and Jeremiah, it was kind of sad cause she asked why did I leave for so long, how come she didn’t come with. The last thing she said was I want my mommy, crying. Oh me and Alyssa went for a walk to the stream and got in trouble. We was told we were leaving like something 30 and it was like 7 something in the morning, so we decided to go for a walk. When we did she almost stepped on a ant hill, which was kind of scary. This day we seen a lawyer too in some big fancy building of course…But he was talking about fighting for Native American rights, dams, and fish towers. To be honest it ticked me off when he showed us how big all of our U.S. Reservations because they were small, really freaking small! Super burn out. Ms. Black even let us go to the Plaza place and roam around for an hour. Not going to lie, I was wishing my family was around to see everything I seen, also because of the two lovebirds on this trip. They weren’t being inappropriate, just making me jealous because she had her little boyfriend with her. I guess because I was missing my little family, worrying about everything at home.
 

 

First day!!Excited :)

awesomeness! It was kind of funny because we was told to grab toilet paper for the mountains to wipe with, but it really we had to say something about our selves depending on how many squares we had. So I had 14 square pieces in which I had to talk about me though I went over 14.