2019 People of the Big River Field Class

Blog #14 Home once again. We woke up early today to pack our bags to get on the road. Even though it was a 2-week camping trip, I couldn’t stop but feeling that the time flew past us like a gentle wind who came and went casually. I have learned a lot, changed a little, and grown for the better. I didn’t share my appreciation that night at the campfire before our departure, but I truly cherish the relationship I had with every single individual I crossed paths with. I do not doubt that we will all look back to these times when we need spiritual inspiration. I do not doubt that we will do many great things in life to help our communities.

Blog #13 Thursday. Today was our last day camping with The People of the Big River. We camped at Yachats North (San Marin), Oregon. I was able to see the sunset for the first time and it was simply beautiful. It happens faster than you can imagine, and for a moment I was able to see the sun fall slowly behind the waves of the ocean. I can’t describe in words how it felt but this poem might: “HEARTWORK Each day is born with a sunrise and ends in a sunset, the same way we open our eyes to see the light,  and close them to hear the dark. You have no control over how your story begins or ends. But by now, you should know that all things have an ending. Every spark returns to darkness. Every sound returns to silence. And every flower returns to sleep with the earth. The journey of the sun and the moon is predictable. But yours is your ultimate ART.”  ―  Suzy Kassem

Blog #12 Klamath Tribes’ Aquatics Program Today we talked about a general overview of the Klamath River Basin setting, what it looks like, the geography, and a bit about the species that are important biologically and from a cultural perspective as well. The Klamath River Basin, which is one of two river systems that cut through the Cascade Range. They are the Colombia and Klamath rivers. We talked about The Klamath Basin Project (1906) when settlers began to arrive in the region, eager to raise crops and livestock. It was in 1902 when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the National Reclamation Act, which made extensive agriculture in the upper Klamath Basin possible by authorizing the reclamation of swamps and lakes to increase irrigable acreage. In other words, congress said take this wasted, awful land and turn it into something useful. They didn’t mind that there were people already using it, but the decision was made to get rid of these lakes. The two lakes used to be 5-6

Blog #11 Chiloquin Today we met with Dr. Alex G, an environmental scientist for 23 years; a graduate from Oregon State University with a degree in wildlife and fisheries. He’s been working for the Klamath Tribes: Modoc, Klamath, and Yahooskin. We walked up to a small spring called Kirks Springs which is located in the middle of the Williamson River (Oregon). This river is sort of a strange one because there’s a top of the river where the river just pours out of the ground like a spring and then pours into a wetland, disappears, and reappears 30 miles south. There must be a lava tube that collects the water and restarts the river. During our hike, we stopped to talk about the ponderosa pine trees. The trees had these black marks on it, which means that they have grown big enough to become immune to fire. They auto prune themselves; literally drop the branches off that the fire can get to, biologically, so that the fire can’t get into the crown and cause what they call a crown fi

Blog #10 Monday.  Service Today we went out to do two service projects: restoration project at the wetland and ponderosa pine restoration. Our first project was supported by three individuals. Tom a biologist for the forest service at Deschutes National Forest, Trent, a national r esources intern, and Peter a projects manager for the restoration projects. The river we worked on is the Deschutes River, and from it, we focused on the wetland with standing water where there are some invasive species, reed canary grass, that we pulled out to allow the Native wetland vegetation to grow and increase its density. While being in the water we stacked the reed canary grass on the kayaks, got it to shore, and put it on the pickup truck to dispose of it. The wetland is about 65 acres in size. It was interesting to learn that for the last 90 years the river couldn’t get through there because of a burn constructed along the river's edge. The history of this place goes way back, there are ma

Blog #9 Sunday. Generous people. Today we had a great time at generous people’s home. They offered to provide lunch and dinner for us and to use their home to blog some more and we appreciate them for that. It is not about today that I will be blogging about but rather about my overall experience so far about the trip. I was asked what have a learned so far during this trip, and I know that everyone’s answers are different because they came for different reasons. The reason I came to this trip was to learn about the Native Americans culture and their ways of health in regards to their culture and how it relates to what I know about nursing. We haven’t directly met or talked specifically about their believes in health and ways of healing, however, I feel we have had sufficient dialogue to understand what it is that matters to them, what their concerns are, and how it can relate to the nursing profession. When I mean nursing profession I mean our knowledge and our considerations

Blog #8 Saturday. Reflect. 0 As I decided to write this blog, I reflected on the importance of what we did on this day: setting up Trail cameras and going to Little Lava Lake. Setting up trail cameras is a project that we do to see what kind of wildlife is around our area during the time of our camping trip. Even though we have on caught a squirrel and a moth on camera, we know that there are other animals such as Bears, Bald eagles, Elk and Deer, and even Coyotes. While we looked for our locations we made sure to look for animals tracks, feces, feathers, or anything that would indicate living animals. We also marked our location coordinates and described of the location. The way that theses trail cameras are triggered is by movements and they also have night vision. After setting up the cameras we blogged a bit more and then decided to go to the lake. The lake has a beautiful scene and had many docking stations around. We simple got in the water and swam for a

Blog #7 Friday. Today I am going to share my notes about our trail camera.  Walker Talkie HUENSCG1 (Grey) SBCS Shoots Bridge Camp Site  10 T 0598382 UTM 4858314 H2O RR 071319 Camera #5 10T059638 UTM 4858395 Description of camera location. The camera is located on a small tree pointing towards the water.  HL RR071319 Camera #9 10T0598754 UTM 4858358 Description of camera location. A downhill with several animal tracks pointing towards the water and a variety of trees.  The crossing  RR071319 Camera #8 10T0598728 UTM 4858306 Description of camera location. Old logging road. Probably towards the water. Coming from 2nd camera going uphill and taking a right. Couple falling trees crossing to the other side of the road. Next to two water holes.

Blog #6 Thursday The power of your story. Today I think about what if we didn’t have the struggles that we have had, the challenges, and the pushes, we would never develop our character. It is from those times that we decide to do it anyway, and fight through, that our character comes from. Today I understand that each and one of us has a story - or many stories - that have shaped our lives. For the Native Americans at its core, their story is where they live, emotionally,  mentally, and sometimes physically. “Your story can either be the wind behind your sails or the anchor that is weighing you down,” Graziosi. During our visit to the Twanana museum in Warm Springs, we got the opportunity to gather around Native American elders from different tribes, but before I talk about that I will explain a bit about the museum history. As I looked at the posters on the wall they read, “The museum exists as an answer to a question that has troubled Native Americans in general and the Con

Blog #5  Fire Management//Warms springs.  A belief is a poor excuse for an experience. I’ve learned over the past few days that if you want to believe something, that’s a good place to start, but the most powerful thing is to put yourself in the experience. If you think you know what Yakama is like, go to Yakama and then you’ll know what it is like instead of assuming something that could be false. Brad Bonahue the assistant fire management officer off-fields (AFMO) spent time talking to us about fire management. He started in fight fire back in 1993 at 16 years old, second-generation firefighter. He then landed his first job at age 18 and then went to college in Eugene. He mentioned that the way that fire management is set is they have an FMO Trey Lener and three AFMO's. In addition, they have an AFMO logistics named Luther Clemen and an AFMO operations. All of them take care of their links because they are such a big organization. During the summer they have around 100 wo

Blog #4 Tuesday.  Today we moved away from the Gifford Pinchot National forest to Warm Springs, Oregon. Although most of the day we spent our time traveling we did eventually get to our camping location, had dinner, and got ready to go to bed. Just before we thought that we were fine to go to sleep something out of the ordinary happened. It turns out the location we were placed to camp was a local camping area with a park. I didn’t think anything of  it  but it wasn’t long until we were thrown off balance. S ome unknown individuals were walking amongst our camping area flashing their lights and disturbing some of our team members. This quickly turned some of them into panic  mode  but we worked fast to  find a solution. We decided to quickly move  each other's  tents closer to  each other  with the emergency call “Purple,” in case those individuals were close to our camp again. It was a safety concern and I am glad that for the rest of the night we slept fine. This situati

Blog #3 Monday.  Potato Hill  & Huckleberries.  I have just spent three days on our People of the Big River field trip with 18 other individuals, 13 of which are in school – students of all personalities, differences, and talents. What has stood out for me today is our inner strength and a true connection with nature that I felt with all of them. On this trip, the first task that we did was collect 10 different species of flowers to press them and reserve them. The idea is so that we can all have a little book that we can keep  with flowers from the Yakama Nation.  Two important factors to keep in mind while we collected them were to not pull them by the roots and to not touch the huckleberries.  So  as we collected the flowers we climbed to the top of Potato Hill. The top of the hill had a beautiful view of Mt Adams and the rest of the land. After our long  days'  journey, we gathered at the campfire and discussed some of the factors that impact the huckleberries beca

Blog #2 The Klickitat river near our camp starts in the goat rocks at en elevation of 8 thousand feet and goes all the way to the Columbia River at 100 feet.  The Klickitat River Everyone has things that they love, things that they can’t imagine parting, even though other people believe otherwise when they see them. Here at the Klickitat River, I see the things that the Native Americans find precious every day, and you would be amazed at the beautiful views and sounds that’s capture their hearts-a set of hiking trails each with different directions and every destination different, a huge rock that you can climb off to jump into the cold gentle river, 237 thousand acres of prime timberland that soak up the water. There is no arguing that with their confidence and love for their land I,  too, find things precious in this land: the young individuals. When I went down to the river I challenged myself to climb up the rock and jump into the water. It was cold but I noticed that th

Blog #1 Piece of the Puzzle-50 years from now I suppose someone is interested in reading my blog to get an understanding of my experience at camp Chaparral by the river.....  To be honest I had my doubts about coming to this trip just like everyone else. Whether it’s work, family, or simply lack of self-interest, however, some of us were convinced for whatever reason to tag along this trip. I was hesitant because I wasn’t sure what to expect and felt that my time studying in my room was better invested than going to a “camping trip.” Especially because that is 2 weeks or 336 hours of something that we are not used to doing in our modern daily lives. This includes being absent from social media, from our communities, Netflix & YouTube, fast food, daily showers, and of course a nice comfy bed under a well sturdy roof. I was convinced because I care about my community and being a part of People of the Big River was an opportunity to explore that desire to understand and le