This week has been pretty eventful!

We missed seeing everyone on the conference call on Monday, but we were doing cool things! We got to start our field work! On Monday and Tuesday we visited four lakes in Mille Lacs (Lake Ogechie and Swamp Lake) and Ceded territories (Twin Lakes and Big Rice Lake), and took sediment and water samples from the latter (Big Rice Lake). We canoed on Ogechie and almost made it to the shore before we had a little tumble into the lake. Thankfully, we had a life jacket on and had successfully taken off our waders in the boat, in the middle of the lake. We got to see wild rice at both Mille Lacs locations! On Tuesday, we had a little bit more a chill day, taking hardcore naps in the SUV while Crystal (mentor) and Patrick (grad student) canoed and set up the sensors, since we were down a few canoes.

Anyway, we did our first alkalinity tests yesterday on samples from the cores that Crystal and Patrick took from Big Rice Lake off this ridiculously cool airboat from Fond du Lac. (The precarious looking boardwalk was at Twin Lakes, and it was as dicey as it looks). Probably the best part of getting out in the field is finally putting together the pieces from all the studies we have been reading and putting a face to the names and voices of tribal partners, and getting a better idea of what they are looking to get out of our studies.

For funsies, we have been exploring a little- feat.: a castle! (It’s the armory/ROTC building, but I was still excited); a mural of Dinkytown (where we are living on campus); a cherry in a spoon (at the Walker Museum and Sculpture Garden); and finally, a beautiful library (book nerd forever, this is the library across from our lab and has great study vibes).

Signing off for now! –Susie

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