Putting Out Fires

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When I started this blog, Jesse warned me that ‘project blogs’ quickly become a project onto themselves. That became pretty clear a week into two weeks of fieldwork. At that point I had to drop all blog-aspirations and get down to more pressing matters! 

We had our undergraduate research assistant Kaili Morris arrive from upstate New York. It is always fun to have a fresh set of eyes on the project and do all the ‘tourist’ things like go out to amazing waterfalls. At the same time, you realize you take for granted all the things that took you 10+ years to learn and now have to guide someone else to the place and people. Kaili was happy to be in the faraway land called Canada and set about helping us with small details that end up taking up huge amounts of time.

IMG_9263As the clock wound down on our time to install all of our gear, forest fires began popping up all around the region. How symbolic. Our team scrambled to get the cameras up, only to learn that they overheat in the 23 hours of sun. Once that was settled, we had to make plans for backup power in the case of an outage- which there were many because of the fires. We left town just before many roads were closed and several homes evacuated. I stayed in touch with friends to hear that everyone was alright. It will be a long smoky summer. So far, flames have moved away from the communities. As for me, I still feel like I am putting out fires.
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