June Executive Director's Report

Our marine debris Octopus "Ophelia" was completed by Bonnie Dillard, Eva Holm and a few volunteers from Kodiak High School just in time for Crab Festival  this year.  Instead of entering her into the parade we were allowed to showcase her right downtown near the fisherman's memorial outside the harbor office.   There, she drew thousands of admirers and hundreds of photo-takers, and brought attention to the kinds of things washing up on our beaches and their potential impacts on the marine environment.

"Ophelia" guards the fishermens' memorial outside Kodiak Harbor Office. Merrick Burden photo.

We received word this month that NOAA reconsidered our grant request for a clean-up of Tugidak Island, and increased the funding from $90k to $120k.  This will expand our clean-up from seven back to our original proposal of ten weeks on the ground.  Half of these will occur in 2013, the other half in 2014, leaving us plenty of time to  recruit volunteers, to arrange logistics, and to avoid sensitive times at Tugidak around migratory bird nesting and seal pupping seasons.

 

On May 22 we began our first trail crew of the season, a six-week hitch for Kodiak High School students and grads called the "Frontcountry Crew".  True to their name, this professional conservation crew consists of seven young individuals and two crew leaders working on trails and public lands near Kodiak.  Beneficiaries of their work include state, local and federal agencies including State Parks, the City of Kodiak, Alaska DOT and the Fish & Wildlife Service. The crew blog provides a project-by-project account of their work, which is co-authored by crew leaders Nick Kesling and Lesley Seale.  You can see short bios and photos of Nick, Lesley, and all ITN seasonal crew leaders here.

(From left) Joey Mauer, Andrew Caballa, Marina Reckner and Jon Richard lift a retaining log into place on a new section of trail at Ft. Abercrombie State Park while Jaymi Bethea looks on.  

The first project for the Frontcountry Crew (FCC) was to complete the boardwalk on the mist net trail for FWS, a project we had intended to complete last year.  This trail serves a citizen science program where refuge volunteers capture, band, and monitor migratory songbirds throughout the summer and the mist net operations began June 6th.  We were eager to complete trail work in time to leave the habitat untouched during the study, and are glad to have wrapped up one of the few outstanding projects left over from last year. 

Next up for the Frontcountry Crew was to provide a path in Fort Abercrombie between the new Camp Host site (located near the newly constructed pole barn) to the new tent sites to be constructed later this summer.  The completed project left a 4' tread of full-bench construction, with a critical edge on steeper sideslopes composed of  native logs.  The bench will receive a gravel lift during Ft. Abercrombie Trails Day in late July and until that time park users are asked to please stay off this vulnerable section of new trail as the ash layer sets up. 

Here and there, the crew has also been performing maintenance and small trail improvements that you may enjoy--stump removal from Rotary Park trail corridors, a trailhead overhaul and litter removal  from Island Lake Creek Trail, even cleaning out the pedestrian access over the Buskin River bridge (did you know it was paved under all that gravel?).  This crew knows that it's the little things that count, and they've set out to beautify Kodiak in this way.

On June 9th and 10th we welcomed four seasonal crew leaders.  Maya Edgerly, Andrew Martone, Alex Maros and Ethan Zubkoff will lead the Backcountry Crew (BCC) comprised of volunteer interns from Columbia Preparatory & Grammar School.  Longtime ITN fans will remember CGPS from previous years.  This high school has furnished an ITN trail crew each year since 2009, and provided countless hours of volunteer service for us.  They conducted two of the three marine debris clean-ups we've done at Shuyak Island, installed over a mile of geoblock at Spruce Island and Anton Larsen Bay, built several bridges and played a large role in the construction of Rotary Park trails.  This year, Columbia Prep is sending fourteen students--the largest crew ever.  Add to that two chaperones and four crew leaders and you've got a small army of do-gooders.  This year CGPS's focus will be continuation of the marine debris clean-up begun at Halibut Bay last year, and construction of bridges on the Ouzinkie to Sunny Cove easement trail.   Between June 14 and July 4 you can catch updates on this crew several times a week on their blog.

But before Columbia Prep's arrival on June 14th, we're training our crew leaders on sustainable trail construction and maintenance, provided this year by Christine Byl.  Together with her husband and partner Gabe Travis, Christine owns and runs Interior Trails out of Healy, Alaska, just outside of Denali National Park.  Christine has been working on trail crews from Montana to Alaska for sixteen years and brings a wealth of experience to our training classroom.  She is providing this training with the help of Alaska Trails, a statewide non-profit that supports community organizations like our through training, consulting and technical assistance.  We have based our training out of the FITC (Fish Tech) center on Near Island, a great classroom facility with trails nearby.  This week we've covered topics such as tool safety,  trail sustainability, new trail construction, trail maintenance, design and layout, tread structures, retaining walls, climbing turns and switchbacks, and rigging.  We are grateful for our partnership with Alaska Trails and Interior Trails, who impart their hard-earned wisdom to me, our six crew leaders and seven members of the Frontcountry Crew. 

After the trails-specific training ends on Wednesday June 13th, we will conduct in-house training on items specific to crew leaders and spend a few days on logistics.  Beginning June 15th we will conduct training on Wilderness Survival and Bear Safety training before mobilizing to Halibut Bay and Spruce Island to embark on our backcountry projects for the year.

Wilderness survival training is a much-expanded topic for ITN crews this year, thanks in part to guest instructor Jim Dillard.  Jim covers topics such as how to dress for the outdoors, what to put in your day pack, how to build a shelter or start a fire in difficult conditions, and the many uses of a knife, saw or axe.  These are critical skills for anyone growing up in or moving to Alaska, and the woodwork he teaches has numerous crossovers to trail building techniques.  I'm thrilled that Jim's been willing to share his expertise with our crews. 

With that training under our belt, we'll be ready to undertake the season's work.  I look forward to reporting on our progress throughout the summer.