2018 People Of Big River Feild Class

july 19, 2018  It was really fun, Lucy Luevano, she works at The Confederated Tribes Of The Colville Reservation, she works as a TCP (Traditional Cultural Preservation officer). she gave us some advice about our language, she said, "no matter what language you speak, don't let the governement tell you, you can't speak it, because it's the connection to your people, and it's how you communicate with one another." When everyone got done introducing ourselves to her we left to go to the Omak Stampede where we saw "the mountain race", it's called the mountain race, because it's a big hill where you race down as fast as you can into a river.  We went to a museum in Okanogan, there we met Amanda she worked at the museum, she said that they built it where they did, because it was already a Native trading spot. It was really cool! I liked how they added stories to everything they had in there. they had a couple of quotes that i liked it was, "

july 20,2018  today is going to be a forestry day, we went to go meet Lance Lelone he told us about what we will be doing today, he then introduced us to Clinton Desautal, he is a firefighter, he has been in the firefighting business for 18 years. He said Smokey the Bear is a firefighters worst enemy, because he wants all fires to be put out. He went to college for five years pretty much to play football, then he started firefighting. I like how he said " when you know all about fire, it's time to retire" I like it, because it tells you that when you know everything about fire your gonna start getting selfish, and try to do everything by yourself.  We stopped at the old 99 county road to see where they did a prescribed burn and how it turned out afterwards. Lance and Clinton showed us all the different types of trees, and how the forest company doesn't want the big trees anymore, because they are not as valuable as the little trees. Lance, took us to a beach and showe

july 19, 2018  It was really fun, Lucy Luevano, she works at The Confederated Tribes Of The Colville Reservation, she works as a TCP (Traditional Cultural Preservation officer). she gave us some advice about our language, she said, "no matter what language you speak, don't let the governement tell you, you can't speak it, because it's the connection to your people, and it's how you communicate with one another." When everyone got done introducing ourselves to her we left to go to the Omak Stampede where we saw "the mountain race", it's called the mountain race, because it's a big hill where you race down as fast as you can into a river.  We went to a museum in Okanogan, there we met Amanda she worked at the museum, she said that they built it where they did, because it was already a Native trading spot. It was really cool! I liked how they added stories to everything they had in there. they had a couple of quotes that i liked it was, "Ev

  July 17,2018     We went to the Camas wellness center where we met Ray, he told us that they said they first built it in 2006. it has 100+ kids for daycare, it is a urgent care facility ,and dental. its the only medical center in the county. there is only 30 people who have their AA, bachelors, and masters who works there. We got to go to the Kalispell tribal fish Hatchery, where I learned about all the different types of fish. They had Rainbow trout, Cut throat and, Bull trout, there was a bunch of little tiny fish called the cut throat trout and i put my had in the water, and surprisingly they didn't get scared, they calmly swam over or under my hand.  Later, we went back the wellness center, and we played a little bit of volleyball, and basketball, after we went to go change into our swimsuits and then MaCayla and I went into the steam room, and sat in there for about twenty minuets, then we went to swim. we played ball tag with Xavier, Kyle, MaCayla, Rudy, and Omar. at first

JULY 16,2018     Today was a fun day when I woke, I wasn’t expecting to run a mile, but Warren told me to get shoes on, because I was gonna run with them, I met Xavier, and Kyle. Warren brought them to run with Me, Caleb, and Taylor.It was really fun, I was scared, because I haven’t ran in so long, i asked Warren if it was to late to back out of running because I was scared but turns out, it wasn’t that hard. Kyle was my running buddy, he told me, my time was around nine or ten minuets. Xavier ran with Caleb and Taylor.     we met BJ and Vernon. Bj was a fuel manager and Vernon is a firefighter, he gave us a presentation about fuel management and everything they do.     finally we met George, he taught us the different types of trees, and how they grow them, they grow them by cutting a pine cone open and taking seeds out of it.     then we went to a creek, where we found little speckled dais, and we had waiters well some of us. and the ones who had waiters on got to shock the fish and

july 15,2018     it’s the second day at Wellpinit, so far we met two guys. Warren and Francis. Francis brought a drum, and taught us how to drum, and he told us that he only sings songs from his tribe, because one time his friend took a song from another tribe and one guy got mad at for it, so he doesn't want to start any trouble, he said if he only sings songs from his tribe no one can get mad at him for it.     when Warren got here he told Taylor and I to go and drum with the group. I was scared at first, because i had no idea how to drum, and he just said that i need to have rhythm, eventually all the campers had to drum. after drumming and singing songs in the Wellpinit tribe. when we were done with that we went to a look out and met a guy who stays there and watches for fires, i forgot his name, but i was really scared to go up there, because i'm scared of heights. it was also really scary going down, because i had to look down and it looked really high for me and the step

July 14,2018     today was an easy day, we didn’t do anything, but travel all day. It was pretty boring for the first part, so I took a nap, when I woke back up I had so much energy, that I rolled down the windows and started yelling at random people asking if they wore their seat belts, if they did I would say “good job, I'm proud of you!!” and if they didn't I would say “you better put your seatbelt on!!” one time we stopped at a stop light and this guy had his window down and I yelled at him saying “good job” for having his seatbelt on and he yelled something back, but we started driving so I couldn't hear what he said. after that we turned on some Taylor Swift songs and listened to her music for awhile, then we stopped at a store to get gas and I asked this women who pulled up right next to us if she wore her seat belt and she smiled and said “one hundred percent, all the time” and I said “good job!!”.     when we got to Tri-cities we stopped at a laundromat to wash and

July 13,2018 ,     Today was a hard, but fun day, we went to Goose creek, and we met the guy named Tom Walker, he gave us a McCloud, that’s a tool I used to dig up the dirt, we were out digging for about three hours, but we took water breaks for about five minutes. We took a lunch break at noon for about a half an hour then we started digging again, the purpose for it was to revegetate one side of the lake again, because when they built the bridge, they basically killed all the vegetation, so we had to re-vegetate it again.     After we where done re-vegetating, we left to go to lava butte and learned about the Newberry Volcano. It last erupted 7,000 years ago, they mentioned that it was the biggest volcano in Oregon. But scientists were pretty shocked when they found out mount bachelor was only 18,000 years old.     When Newberry erupted it left red rocks, because they had iron inside. When we up to the fire finder look out station, we went up to the lookout, they told us that when yo

 July 12,2018     Today I woke up at 6:30am, I got out of bed and got breakfast ready. We left the camp at 7:45am., and went to a research site east of Newberry Caldera. Were I met the two forest rangers. Charmane Powers, and Marlo Fisher. They told us about the pumice moonwort, they said it only appears two months out of the year. we searched for it about two hours and we found 243 plants, I was partnered with Omar  Torres, he is a heritage student that was my mentor for the day, we took a break about 1:00 pm., for lunch and when we were done with lunch we packed up and went swimming for about a half an hour. When we were done swimming we went to a camp and took a shower that was timed for five minutes. After that we went to the National Volcanic Monument to look for Obsidian, Obsidian  is a rock that comes out of a volcano, when it comes out of the volcano it becomes a rock that is black and shiny, because the temperature underground is different from our temperature above ground, s

July 11,2018 (learning how smoke jumpers use their gear)     Today was a good day, the morning wasn’t the best because it was super cold for me. I woke up around 5:30a.m. we ate breakfast, then we left to go to the Pacific Northwest Training Center for firefighting in Redmond. We met two smokejumpers who are rookies this year. One guy, his name is Sam Johnson, he has been a firefighter for nine years, but he became a smoke jumper this year, and the other, his name is Doug Thomas, he has been a firefighter for five years, he also became a smoke jumper this year (that’s why they are rookies). They showed us all the gear they need to wear for smoke jumping, all together the gear weighs 60 pounds. They mentioned that they make their own parachutes, because they don’t trust anyone else to make it for them. They took us to the planes they use to jump out, and showed us how to jump out of the plane properly. then we ate lunch, and after lunch we had an option to go buy shirts, sweatshirts,

july 10,2018 Today we went to the Klickitat falls fishing site. We learned about how they tag the fish and put little trackers in them, so they can see where they go, and where they’ve been. We met Shawn Bechtol he works at the Klickitat falls fishing site, and he is a fisheries biologist. He showed us how all machines work, and how they catch the fish, he also showed us how he checks to see if the fish is wild or not. He showed us how they put the fish asleep by shocking them and while they are asleep, he takes them and checks how long they are, he gets some scales from both side of the fish so they can take them to the lab and do research to see how old the fish is, after that he scans the fish to see if they have a tag in its belly if it doesn’t then he will put one in so they can track where ever it goes.             We met John Washines he also works the Klickitat falls, he is a fisheries tech, he took us to where the scaffolds are and he was explaining the traditional

July 9,2018             Today we woke up pretty early, we woke up at 5:30 a.m., once I got out of bed we went to go check the traps we set last night. We set two of them, but we only caught one. It was a mouse. Pedro Chavarria, he is a professor and an instructor on our trip, he helped us set the traps, and taught us how to use them properly. when we found the mouse this morning, he was teaching us how to check if the mouse is a boy or a girl. We found out that it was a girl and it was pregnant. At the end we let the mouse go, because Pedro said “mark and re-capture” it means we catch an animal and then let it go.             Jeanette Burkhardt works for Yakima Nation water shed coordinator. She talked to us about the Condit Dam. The Condit dam was built in 1912 and finished in 1913. They took it down in 2013, because the sediment was built up, and that’s what exploded out of the dam first.             She took us to Husum falls and she said that the temperature is 45 degree

July 8,2018             I woke up at 7:00 a.m., to go for a morning hike up Potato Hill, and going up took about thirty minuets, with all the breaks we took. Once I made it to the top, the group, I was with waited for the rest of the people to get to there. when they got to the top we took a group picture with Mt. Adams in the background.   We got into a little circle and Jacob Billy, he’s one of our leaders, he helps with cooking, and he’ll teach us about the Native culture and tell us stories. He sang us a song that represents the sun and the light. My favorite part about the hike was going down, because usually I don’t walk down, I slide down the trail, but this time I walked down with a student from Heritage, her name is Maria Lechuga, and I liked it because I like to meet new people and get to know her since we have to spend two weeks together. She told me that it was her first time ever going camping, and she fell down a lot, but we got to talk about the different type

  July 7, 2018              When I got to Heritage campus at 8:30 a.m., I loaded all of my bags into the van we are taking to the trip, once I was done with that we waited for about twenty minutes before they started handing out the tents, backpacks, sleeping bags, and air mattress             At 11:00 a.m., Jonalee Squeochs gave a presentation about the Yakima Nation climate change, I learned that the temperatures in the water effects the salmon, because the salmon can’t swim through hot or warm water. To fix the temperature change in the water they are trying to restore fish habitats so there are shady areas where fish can stay cool when streams get warm.             At 1:00 p.m. we ate lunch, and took a survey at the same time, the survey was about scientific method. At 2:00 p.m., we finally got into the vans and headed toward Potato Hill.             We made it to Potato Hill around 5:00 p.m., there is so many mosquitos there. I was trying to put up my tent, but the m