Hi All,
By
now most of you know that I have been accepted to State University of New York Environmental Science and Forestry Campus (SUNY-ESF) in Syracuse. For those
that don’t, I am going to be a master’s student thru ESF Center for NativePeoples and the Environment. I will be working with the Menominee Nation in
northeast Wisconsin. The Menominee have been conducting a sustainable timber
harvest program on their reservation since the 1930’s. ESF and the College ofthe Menominee Nation (CMN) are working together to encourage a cross-cultural
learning experience where different ways of knowing will be emphasized.
Traditional and Scientific Ecological Knowledge (TEK and SEK) both have
important roles in natural resource management. My graduate advisor is Robin Kimmerer. There will be two sets of
undergraduate interns that will be working together in this journey. One group
will be from CMN and one from ESF. Together we will conduct research in the
Menominee Forest and the Adirondack Ecological Center, run by ESF. During the
month of June students and facility from ESF will travel to Wisconsin, where
together with students and facility from CMN they will conduct research in the
Menominee forest. In July everyone will head to the Ecological Center in the
Adirondacks. I will be the graduate student research advisor and peer mentor
for the students. I am very excited to work with the undergrads. Having been a
part of an undergraduate summer research (REU program thru UC Merced), I know the impact exposure to
research can have to the future of a youth, and the impact a mentor can have. I
have many great mentors and two of my most influential (Susan Roberts and MadhuKatti) helped show me doors which have helped me greatly in my journey on my
path, and me applying and being admitted to grad school. In a few days I leave
with the group from ESF to start, I’ll try and send out another update soon!
My cross-country trek:
On
May 28th I completed my cross-country trek, arriving in Syracuse.
Along the way I stopped in Jackson, WY, to visit some friends and briefly
explore the Grand Tetons area. Side note, the Grand Tetons were named by French
trappers and Tetons means tits, ha must have been some lonely Frenchmen. The
Tetons were outstanding! New landscape, plants and animals I was like a kid in
a candy store. Unfortunately, I did not see wolves or grizzly bears, but I did
see prong-horn antelope, elk, bison, eagles, osprey, white-pelicans and much
more, it had me thinking about the diversity and abundance of animals lost to the California landscape. Never in my life have I see so many pronged-horn antelope in the same
place. Being born and raised in California, where the populations teeter on
extirpation see a prong-horn is something few Californians experience.
While
driving on day one of my trip I had a phone conservation with my faculity
advisory, Robin Kimmerer, where I found out that June 2nd we would
be leaving Syracuse, NY for Milwaukee, WI. This meant I might have to cut my
trip short to make it to Syracuse in time to settle into my flat and fill out
paper work. After my two days in Jackson, WY some wet weather was entering the
region, so I decided, instead of heading north into Yellowstone NP in search of
grizzlies and wolves to head southeast for the lovely I-80. I had planned to
camp along the North Platte River, but thunderstorms changed those plans. This
California boy was worried about tornados, lightning and flash floods, so I
made the grown-up decision to get a hotel room. Thunderstorms in Illinois meant
I got a hotel room two nights in a row. With thunderstorms on the forecast for
the entire Great Lakes region I decided to drive straight thru from western
Illinois to Syracuse. Along the way it rained and rained and rained. I’m pretty
sure I was rained on more in those 48 hours then California saw during fall, winter and spring.
That’s it for now,
Cheers All!
Ray
Oh yeah! While in Wyoming… I rode a moose!
