After a summer collecting water quality data all over Maine, the transition to last September’s rush of data analysis and report writing had me wishing for a job that would get me outside as often as possible. So, when I found the opportunity to spend nearly a year conducting fieldwork in nearby New Hampshire I was thrilled. This desire to get outside and stick your boots in a stream (or a snowbank) is a trait I find many people in the conservation field share. It’s a combination of a great love for the outdoors and perhaps an inherent restlessness that propels fellow LRCC member Fay and I out of the office and onto the ice with a sled full of bottles, tubes, and sensors to take a temperature profile and core water sample to gather data on the water quality conditions present in Squam Lake during the winter months.
The ice was thick enough to support a large truck driving onto the lake from Sandwich Town Beach when we set out to sample the deepest point in Sandwich Bay. After a 20 minute snowshoe out, it takes 15 minutes to drill through the ice, and then the real fun begins. We sit next to the hole with a clipboard and a YSI meter and record the data the probe feeds us each meter until just above the lake bottom. The day was sunny, but the wind was icy, and so at 17 meters the water was a balmy 3.8 degrees Celsius and our fingers and toes were numb. Despite the freezing water that splashed my fingers when I plugged the tube used to sample the water column with my pinkie finger, a day spent out on a lake–frozen or not–feels like a day well spent.
I’ll be spending all winter collecting this data, and though some days out on Squam may be windy, bitter cold, and excessively long, the data we collect is vital to developing a better understanding of water quality in lakes year round. Winter data is underrepresented in limnological research, but the biological and chemical activity of a lake under ice can be crucial to understanding its overall condition. Plus, I’m not inside, which was exactly what I wanted last September.
Carolina is a full-timer serving with the Squam Lakes Association working on water quality conservation. Learn more about Carolina here.
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