Tuesday the 23rd

Today we had another 6am wake up call and had to pack up camp. Dave Purdon went his separate way, but we were all really thankful for him for coming out and hanging with us for a couple of nights. It was great to talk to him and get some good life advice! After making sure we had everything ready to go, and finished eating breakfast and making lunches, we went to take a soil sample before heading out. It was really cool to see the different layers of soil at this site as they were very clearly separated and even had a lot of mycelium growing throughout. On our drive to our next campsite, we stopped at the Warm Springs museum on the Warm Springs reservation. We were able to meet with Jolene and Louie Pitt, Alysia Aguilar Littleleaf, and Elke Littleleaf. Louie had a great story to tell us about what inspired his life of environmentalism early on. While doing a redd count for work one day he was sitting down taking a break on the bank. When he stood up, the hen that was on the redd near him swam up as if to scare him away and protect her eggs. So he sat back down and waited a while. Again, he stood up and the hen came over to protect her eggs. So once again, he sat back down. When he stands up the third time the hen once again comes over to protect her eggs, but she is so exhausted from all of her hard work to get to this point that she dies then and there. He said that this truly made him think about all of the hard work that she had put in to secure a future for her children and future generations, and from that moment on he dedicated his life to protecting the future he wanted to see. It was also really interesting to hear from Alysia and Elke as well, they run one of the only if not the only guide service where it is 100% native owned and operated and who incorporate traditional teachings into the experience. I think this is so cool and would love to see something similar on the Yakima River one day. It was also important to hear from Elke about how the invasive cheatgrass has been taking over one of their traditional root harvesting sites, with it taking him over half an hour to get a small amount of roots due to how much cheatgrass roots he had to separate. This further emphasizes to me the importance of habitat restoration work and stopping the spread of invasive plants. Thank you so much to everyone who came and talked with us today, we really appreciated your time! Afterwards we walked through the Warm Springs museum which had some of the most amazing beadwork I have ever seen. It was really a pleasure to get to visit here. Then we made our way to crane prairie campgrounds where we will be staying for the rest of the trip. Another travel day done!





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