Fish Trapping, Beach Asparagus, & Tree Coring: the Adventures of TRAYLS

Just as our rainy June came to an end, the TRAYLS crew completed the first half of their season. The first three weeks of the season were followed with a variety of activities including fish trapping, trail maintenance, beach asparagus harvesting, tree coring up Ear Mountain and more!

Week four was spent clearing trails and setting fish traps with Marlene Duvall from the Forest Service. We lopped overgrowth, picked up trash, and did other routine activities to maintain Bear Paw Lake trail and Wukuklook trail for the summer.

Marlene shows the crew how to clear the streams crossing Bear Paw Lake trail

The crew clearing cow parsnip at Wukuklook

Another fun task we did with Marlene was set fish traps! After clearing the Suntaheen Fish Pass, we set a few fish traps up-stream to see if the fish pass was working. Turns out it is! 

A successful fish trap with fresh salmon eggs lured in a couple fry in Suntaheen Creek

Ted clearing Suntaheen Fish Pass of rocks

We also set some in Upper Game Creek both up and down-stream of culverts that will be replaced to see what fry are present.

Putting the trap in a calm, deep, and shaded pool is likely to catch a few fish

Dylan secures a fish trap in Upper Game Creek

Fish trapping is not only essential to carry out Forest Service projects, but also allowed us to practice our fish fry identification! We observed three types: Coho, Dolly Varden trout, and Cutthroat trout.

Coho fry have regular par marks along the body, have orange on the fins and tail, and have a distinct white stripe along their anal fin. The base of the anal fin is also wider than the base of their dorsal fin. Trouts on the other hand are usually darker, have irregular par marks along the body, and the base of their dorsal fin is wider than the base of their anal fin. You can distinguish Cutthroat from Dollies by observing the face- if the mouth extends past the eye and there are red marks on the throat, it’s a Cutthroat.

We ended the week by hiking and maintaining part of the Spasski trail. The Forest Service will be upgrading the trail in the future, so we helped take measurements for bridges and set fish traps to identify what species are present in those tributaries of Coho river.

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Thank you again Marlene and those at the Forest Service having us with you and sharing your knowledge!

One highlight of our fifth week was beach asparagus harvesting and processing with Huna Heritage Foundation, Gordon Greenwald, and other HIA Environmental staff! We set out to Burnt Point with a goal to gather five gallons of beach asparagus for the Traditional Food Fair at the end of the summer.

Gordon joined and shared his knowledge of beach asparagus

The guys are using scissors or knives to not damage the beach asparagus

Gabby harvesting

Out harvesting on a beautiful day!

The whole next day was spent cleaning beach asparagus, making the pickling brine, and sealing jars of pickled beach asparagus!

Just keep cleaning!

Dylan fills the jars with the pickling brine

Ian describes the jarring process

The final product!

Another highlight of our last week before the mid-season break was the hike up Ear Mountain to collect tree core data to tell us about the climates of the past! The way up was steep, buggy, and completely covered in brush like devil’s club, but the crew was persistent and stayed positive the whole time. It was a great team-bonding experience and we collected a lot of data along the way.

Dylan takes a core from a Spruce tree

What most of our “trail” looked like: overgrown brush and devil’s club

The way up was steep, but beautiful!

The view is an added bonus!

It’s hard to believe the season is already halfway over! Thankfully there’s still plenty of fun and learning to be done.

Written by Arianna Lapke
TRAYLS Coordinator