This week we are very excited to welcome our good friend Alex Ross to the blog. Alex just completed his MSc in the Department of Biology at Queen’s University and today he tells us all about his adventures sampling lakes in the Muskoka region. For more about Alex see the end of this blog.
To me, taking a job that would keep me outside and, better yet, in a canoe, sounded like a dream. Growing up I spent many summer days fishing from an old beat up cedar strip canoe at a family cottage. Subsequently I spent the better part of 5 summers during my teen years and early twenties guiding canoe trips for summer camps all over Ontario and Quebec. I knew that eventually I would need a “real” job, but when I heard of an opportunity to be part of a team surveying 135 lakes in the Muskoka region I thought, great! A real job can wait a year. Little did I know that not only was this a very “real” job, but also a gateway to a career that could keep me outdoors for good.
The project itself aimed to document new establishments of an invasive aquatic invertebrate, Bythotrephes longimanis, or as it’s more well known, the spiny water flea. Coming to the Great Lakes via ballast water from ocean-going ships, these tiny invaders have since spread to hundreds of inland lakes in Canada and the United States. Largely a result from transfer by recreational boaters, secondary invasions of the spiny water flea to inland lakes have unfortunately left a trail of ecological impacts in their wake. A primary goal of our work during the summer of 2010 was to establish a model that could be used for predicting where new invasions were likely to occur. As such, our survey took us to some very remote lakes with a low likelihood of invasion, as well as some very developed lakes with a high likelihood of invasion.
The spiny water flea: the subject of our search
After getting our feet wet and confidence up by sampling lakes with relatively easy access, my field partner, Julie, and I decided to pick a lake off the beaten path, so much so that it didn’t have a name. We pulled up satellite images and old topographical maps of our lake’s location, determined where the closest road to it was and formed our plan of attack for access.
The maps showed a meandering stream that led to a forested area where we could make a short portage to hop into the lake – no problem! Well, when we arrived at the stream what we found was much more “bog”, than stream. Undeterred, we set out but eventually discovered that our stream had all but dried up and that we were woefully unequipped to make it any farther. Looping back, we hopped in our vehicle and started down an unmaintained ATV trail in hopes of getting close enough to hike in the rest of the way. Next obstacle – stuck in the mud! After a good hour spent freeing our vehicle, and with the day getting late we turned around and decided that getting to this lake might have to wait for another day.
What we thought was our access point to the lake
Fast-forward a month or so, and with a new plan in mind, Julie and I set out to conquer this lake, once and for all!
Perhaps a little too excited for what the day had in store
With hip waders in tow we set back out and launched our canoe into the stream. Similar to our first attempt, it wasn’t long after putting it in that we came to a point where the water was all but absorbed by wetland sedges, flowers, and muck.
Quickly running out of water to paddle through
Now, let me walk you through what the rest of the journey looked like…
Once the stream became un-navigable it was time to get creative. Waist-high mud made us perform a rather uncoordinated combination of poling ourselves ahead with our paddles, and hopping out of the canoe to pull, and push it forward in increments of what seemed like an inch at a time. Unfortunately, there are no photos of this process but if you can imagine two people in the middle of nowhere, literally stuck in mud – that was us. Along with that, place a chorus of delirious laughter and excessive swearing that only the smaller creatures in our midst were privy to – I’m sure that many reading this have found themselves in identical situations.
Once the ground firmed up, slightly, we continued pulling our canoe through thick brush and shrubs, receiving the odd scrape to the arm or poke in the eye by an errant branch.
Not an environment fit for a canoe…
Finally on solid ground and with our lake at the top of a ridge we carried our canoe and all of our sampling gear up a steep slope to finally get a glimpse at the lake that had eluded us for so long.
Nearly there!
The lake itself was essentially a beaver pond, shallow and no larger than a few swimming pools in size. Although many would consider this no more than a puddle, I cannot think of a more triumphant and accomplished feeling that entire summer than finally launching our canoe into this unnamed lake.
Our final destination
As Julie and I found out, “lake” sampling often involved much more than calm sunny days on the water. However, we are happy to report that, at least on this day – the spiny water flea had not invaded our stubborn, secluded lake.
Alex Ross is currently working as a research technician at McGill University in an aquatic ecology lab, working on a fish conservation project with the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Alex’s research interests lie in understanding how aquatic communities and ecosystems respond to environmental change. His Masters project looked at understanding biological recovery of acidified lakes facing emerging stressors.
Dispatches from the Field 
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