I haven't blogged in awhile because my life has definitely been all over the place and thus I have some catching up to do. As I saw most of you and filled you in on Gwaii Haanas I'll just hit the highlights and post some pics. Lou showed up on Haida Gwaii the night before we left for Gwaii Haanas. Some people who were supposed to go on the trip got sick last minute and he was able to come along. I don't think he quite knew what he was getting into... we had literally been looking forward to this once in a lifetime trip for the entire semester and he showed up and was going. Anyways, it was amazing and as soon as we got to the Moresby Camp boat launch we all were too excited to put on our 8+ layers of clothing (we were on open hull zodiacs that were really freezing in the wind).
The highlights of the trip :visiting four of the five watchmen sites: The watchmen sites are old village sites where the CHN (Council of the Haida Nation) have built modern longhouse style homes and two or three Haida will stay there the entire summer.
Any visitors to the islands will be shown around by the Haida watchmen so that their history is interpreted by the Haida and to ensure that no one damages the standing totem poles. 
The most exciting watchmen site was Hotsprings Island a small island with naturally occurring hotsprings. We brought out the scotch and the whole class had a shot then we jumped in the ocean and back into the hotsprings... such an amazing moment on a beautiful sunny day.
(Above: the whole class including teachers and our tour guides)We stayed on a remote float camp just outside of Gwaii Haanas where we saw pods of humpback whales everyday that we left the float camp and came back in. On the trip we saw pacific white-sided dolphins, humpbacks, sea lions and many eagles.
(Yes that is whale tongue) 
(we pulled up the prawn traps)The best part of the trip was exploring the rare flora and fauna with Andy MacKinnon and Sari Saunders who were able to explain every moss, tree, fern, etc to the micro detail.
On the trip we also went to Sedgewick Bay which is the location where the massive logging protests occurred in the late 1980's. The protests at Sedgewick Bay lasted several months and we were able to see the old houses that they built as temporary shelter during the protests which were left exactly as they were. Our trip guide Heron who was born and raised in Gwaii Haanas had never been to that site before and not many people have been there before. It was interesting because we had started off our course with a talk from Diane Brown an elder from Skidegate who explained the protest and significance behind it. She talked about the elders being flown there by helicopter and some of them were in their 80's and 90's and they had to climb the hill (that we climbed) to get to the logging road every morning. She also explained about the police coming and arresting the elders.
it was one of the most amazing three days of my life and it seemed like every minute just got better and better as we went. I will never forget it and i can't wait to go back. When we got back from Gwaii Haanas we had a week to prepare presentations which we were going to give that were open to the public. I did some research and with the help of Lou performed some decent field work to come up with an interesting ecological fix for a problem that is big on Haida Gwaii. HG has so many deer it is ridiculous, i.e. on an hour drive you can see 35+ deer along the road alone and it has drastically changed the understory. Many plants and trees (especially western red cedar saplings) are so heavily browsed by the deer that they cannot grow and in some cases are becoming extremely rare. Specifically, I was concerned with the amount of culturally significant plants for the Haida that are becoming rare-very rare due to heavy deer browsing. My study looked at the suitability of old-growth stumps to act as refugia for culturally significant plants and my research supported this quite distinctly. I found that there were significantly more culturally significant and vascular plants in general living on stumps that were inaccessible to deer in comparison to plots on the ground beside it. I summarized my results and gave some management considerations and implications for the future that would utilize these naturally occurring old-growth stumps as refugia and barriers from deer browsing. Mom and Dad came up and saw me give the presentation which was really nice of them; I really enjoyed having them see me doing something related to Forestry because it is a part of my life they don't get to see a lot of. After all of our presentations we had a final ceremonies with a traditional Haida feast and dancing- it was unreal. I gave a speech thanking our program directors and we presented them with Haida silver carved bracelets from a local artist designed with a frog and beaver for them. During the dancing component they got all the women up to do a women's Haida dance and then the men got to do their dance aftewards (I don't think I've ever seen my dad dance so it was pretty special). It was the most amazing graduation ceremony ever and will definitely be way better than the one i'll get from UBC. I'm so glad I did this semester, it was the best educational experience I've had in a really long time and I feel that I have grown so much as a person. Here are some of the pics from the night.
(me giving my speech)
Lou and I started work in Payson Arizona and we lived in a tent for two weeks or so. We just got started and the contract finished so we went to Missouri to visit Lou's parent's farm in Marble Hill. It was a long trip and we got delayed by snow and a cranky Ally. We arrived at the farm and had a couple days to relax and take care of business. Lou's parents were wonderful and they helped arrange a lot of things that have made life a lot easier for us for the next six months. They helped us get an amazing tent trailer that is decked out with a shower, porta pottie, fridge and stove! It has made camping so much more enjoyable and I can cook actual dinner now as opposed to eating hot dogs a lot. It was a huge help on their part and we really appreciate it. Lou's mom also let us trade his car for her jeep so anyways, we toted it all back across the country and are now in Flagstaff, Arizona. I really like Flagstaff a lot more than Payson, it is a college town with a unique historic downtown area. We met up with at the Forest Service Ranger station yesterday where we were debriefed by a forester about the specs for this upcoming project. Last night we came into Flagstaff and scored big at the thrift store (i got brand new Merrell hiking boots that are about 150 bucks for 12! yay!) and then we went to bikrams yoga to sweat it out. We're feeling really good about our new situation. Today was another down day as new contractors roll into town so we came into the library to take care of business.
Anyways, I'll try and put up pics of the area and work pics as soon as we start taking them (we keep forgetting to). I'll also put up pics of our new home aka the tent trailer!
peace and love
ally
