At the time of this journal entry’s posting, I will have been serving at the Squam Lakes Association (SLA) for a little over one month! I simultaneously feel like I’ve only been here a few days and also that I’ve forgotten what it was like to drive through flat Ohian country roads.
Before coming to SLA, I thought I had a pretty wide variety of experiences. I’ve shown beef steers, gone SCUBA diving in quarries, mapped wetland pools, counted spawning horseshoe crabs, backpack electrofished, and everything in between. But since arriving in New Hampshire, I’ve had a whole new range of experiences to add to my arsenal, and they’ve all been great. Without further ado, here are a handful of new things I’ve done while at SLA, and a few fun stories to go along with them.
1. Driving a motorboat
Prior to this summer, I had never actually driven a motorized boat. I’ve always loved the water, but if you don’t grow up with a boat, it’s hard to actually get time on a boat. On our first weekend at SLA, we took three boats out to Bowman Island for a campout. I jokingly offered to drive Calypso, our (approximately 20 foot) barge. I must have sounded convincing, because before I knew it, I was behind the wheel. It was a slow drive to the island, but I had a lot of fun, and I figured that if I could drive and dock Calypso, I could probably drive anything.
That didn’t completely end up being the case- I’ve found myself having to take up to four tries to dock our smaller boats, and had a particularly embarrassing first attempt at a boating practical- but it was still a great experience. Driving the boats is amazing. It’s always more fun with friends, but just being out on the water with yourself and your lake chart (always have one!) is something special.
Of course we don’t just drive the boats around for fun. It’s a really important part of the Squam Lakes Association to be able to traverse the lake. We’ll be boating ourselves around for tasks such as managing campsites (everything from checking campers in to maintaining the compost toilets!) and sending out our Weed Control Divers to tackle variable milfoil. It’s an important part of enabling the conservation work we do here, and with my love for working on water, I know boating will be an important skill in the future.
2. Hiking
If any of our readers have never been to northwest Ohio, where I grew up, I’ll paint you a picture using a single word: flat. There’s fields everywhere, and you can easily see over a mile in every direction. There are some great forests and wetlands, but nothing I’d call a “hike” with elevation change. Here at Squam, that’s obviously not the case.
I can walk a lot. I’m the family member who’s still ready for seven more hours at a theme park after the first eight hours have passed. I’ve walked plenty of wetlands to quantify vegetation and map out pools. But I found myself realizing about halfway through the hike we took on our first day of service that wetlands are typically very flat. As are theme parks.
Despite the reality of hiking hitting me, I not only survived the climb, but I enjoyed it. The view of Squam was definitely worth it. Since the first hike, we’ve gone on more to manage the Squam Lakes Association’s trails by redefining drainages to manage stormwater travel and removing blowdowns to create well-defined walkways. A climb with trail work tools and a heavy backpack isn’t a picnic, but it’s exhilarating and rewarding. When the hike gets tough, I just think about how our work is making these natural areas available to the public, and the pick I’m carrying gets a little lighter (or at least I’d like to think so).
3. Weed Control Diving
I had my Open Water Diver certification before coming to SLA. I got certified in college doing freshwater quarry dives, and I’ve also dove in a saltwater aquarium. I knew those would be very different from the Weed Control Diving (WCD) I would be doing to remove variable milfoil, an unfortunately well-known invasive species in the lakes region. WCD means there’s an actual task to be done through my diving, not just sightseeing. It involves new equipment, unique conditions, and plant identification.
WCD was the thing I was the most excited about and the most nervous about upon arriving at SLA. I was eager for the specialized diving experience, but I was so worried I would do something wrong, like accidentally pull up native plants instead of our targeted variable milfoil. But the WCD training we got helped alleviate my concerns. I’m certainly no botanist, but I quickly became more familiar with the aquatic plants we see in Squam. As I write this journal entry, I am also laying out my gear for our WCD practical, and hopefully at the time of this posting, I will be a certified Weed Control Diver ready to take on some invasive plants!
Variable milfoil is one of the boogeymen of the lake. It grows rapidly and can overwhelm native plants. If you don’t remove the entire plant, including the stem and roots, it could grow back. Through fragmentation, pieces of stem can regrow to full plants, so it’s important to be thorough while removing it, which sometimes leads to long dive days. Our training was amazing, and I’m feeling confident that we’ll be able to do great work in the water this summer!
I’m so grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had- and will continue to have- this season thanks to the Lakes Region Conservation Corps. My goal is to continue making a difference for this beautiful lake and the wonderful communities around it, and I hope that everyone else reading this is able to enjoy the beauty of Squam!
Christina is a half-year member at the Squam Lakes Association. Learn more about Christina here!