Club Presentations

Consult the latest Muskrat Express for upcoming presentations.

Field Trip List 2011
Field trip participants must be current club members. Join now.

Alkali Lake, April 17th.
Fred McMechan (392-7680)
Meet at Scout Island Nature Centre at 9:00 am to arrange car-pooling. Enjoy this annual field trip to view bird species along the road to Alkali Lake. Be sure to bring a lunch with hot beverage, your binoculars or spotting scope. Birding will be done from the road so expect minimal walking.

Three Wednesday Evening “hump-day holidays” Recreation Trips May 4, May 18 and June 8.
Rick Dawson (392-3370) and Margaret Waring (398-7724)
Meet at 6:00 pm at Scout Island with the essential gear for each of the following activities. These three evenings will feature easy recreational outings, using three different modes of movement: biking for the first trip, walking on the second, and lake paddling on the third. On the May 4th bike trip, after meeting at Scout Island, we drive down to the last parking lot in the Williams lake Creek Valley. From there we will bike down to the Fraser River and back looking at the birds and trees on the way. On May 18th walk the trail along the rim of Fox Mountain. On June 8th voyageur canoe paddle at Rose Lake.

Chilanko Marsh

Chilanko Marsh May 20th to 22nd.
Jim Sims (296-3638)
Meet at Puntzi Lake Tanker Base at 9:30 am on Saturday morning (allow a minimum of two hours driving time from Williams Lake) or contact Jim if you want to meet him at the marsh on Friday night and camp out for the night. This is an annual species count conducted on the marsh and the surrounding riparian zone. The marsh provides an opportunity to see most of the water fowl that are summer residents on Chilcotin lakes and marshes. Join us for a casual day long walk around the ponds as we search out the variety of bird species around the marsh. Following the birding you are welcome to gather at Jim's Eagle Lake cabin for Saturday night. Bring a tent or camper as there is limited space available (the sauna will be warmed up). There will be a pot luck supper Saturday evening and a pancake breakfast Sunday morning. Sunday we will take a walk along the shore of Martin Lake. Please call Jim for more details if you plan on participating.

Birds at Scout Island, June 5th.
Cathy Koot (392-4250)
Join Cathy for an early morning of birding at Scout Island from 7:30 to 10:00. Scout Island is home to some of the best birding opportunities in the Cariboo so take advantage of this opportunity to identify and learn more about our local birds. Beginners are welcome.

Birding in the Williams Lake River Valley, June 12th.
Phil Ranson (398-7110)
Meet at 8:00 am in the lower parking lot (Frizzi Road past the transfer site and down into the river valley). Join with Phil for a morning walk in the river valley. Learn some of the bird songs of the many birds that will be nesting in the valley at this time of the year.

Niut day hike, Saturday July 23rd.
Jim Sims (296-3638)
Hike to the alpine on a recently renovated trail (Butler Ridge Trail) on the north end of The Niut Range overlooking the West Branch of the Hormathko River. Please meet at the Horn Lake Recreation Site at 9:00 am sharp on Saturday morning. There will be a short stretch of steep road that may require high clearance but will not need four-wheel drive. The hike is on a new fairly well marked trail that leads to the ridge top. The trail gains about 2000 feet in elevation and is a steady uphill hike. Bring a hearty lunch with extra snacks, good hiking boots, binoculars camera sunglasses and screen as well as rain gear. Walking sticks are a great asset especially for the long trip down. You may want to turn it into a camping weekend. There are lots of recreation campsites in the area that could be used if you wish to camp out on Friday or Saturday nights. Due to the difficult nature of this hike we require that you register by phoning Jim or email the Muskrat.

Eureka Wildflowers

Eureka Peak, Saturday Aug 13th
Sue Hemphill and Jurgen Homburg (398-8532)
Meet at the Horsefly Bridge at 8:00am. Join Sue and Jurgen for a hike into the alpine on the north end of Eureka Peak located in the Cariboo Mountains near the headwaters of the Horsefly River. There will be an elevation gain of close to 1500 feet so be prepared for a healthy hike. This trip is planned to coincide with the peak of the alpine flower season so bring your plant book to help with identification. The steeper East side of the Eureka ridge is home to a large mountain goat herd and they can often be seen from the top of the ridge. Be sure to pack a hearty lunch and trail mix as well as good rain gear as you are in the rain belt of the Cariboo Mountains. Streams on the hike up as well as the plateau are dependent on snow melt and rain fall so you should bring a water bottle. Good foot wear is imperative and gaiters could be an asset as the vegetation will be very deep and most likely wet. The last part of the drive is over rough logging access roads so high clearance vehicles should be used. Car-pooling will be arranged at Horsefly. If you wish you are welcome to camp over Saturday night but your guideswill be returning home Saturday evening. Please phone or email the Muskrat to register so you can be informed if a change must be made.

Quesnel Research Centre Tour, Saturday August 27th.
Fred McMechan (392-7680)
Meet at Scout Island at 8:30 am to arrange car-pooling. Please be prepared to assist your driver with a contribution to cover the cost of gas. Bring your lunch, camera and binoculars. The research centre tour will last from 10:00 to 12:00 and will consist of presentations by two researchers. After having lunch at the Research Centre we continue on to Quesnel Forks, where you can spend the afternoon wandering through the historical site looking for birds or just enjoying the history of the area.
Leah Vanden Busch (MSc, UNBC, 2010-) (ELP)
Leah began an MSc program in Sept 2010 and is co-supervised by ELP and John Rex (QRRC's first PhD graduate, and Geography Program Adjunct Prof). She is looking at the movement of marine-derived nutrients in the hyphoreic zone of streams in order to determine the spatial and temporal extent of nutrient retention in the riparian zone of salmon bearing streams. While much literature has suggested that bears and wildlife are responsible for moving the carcasses and nutrients to the riparian, we are testing the impact of mixing of stream and groundwater in these regions.
Alex Koiter (PhD, UNBC, 2010-) (PNO and ELP)
Alex is looking at improving methods to fingerprint sediment sources in agricultural watersheds. The project is linked to the PhD project of Nick Reiffarth and the NSERC Strategic Grant application. In particular, Alex will look at testing the conservative behaviour of tracers of minerogenic sediment and in improving statistical and modeling approaches to source fingerprinting. He will do his fieldwork on the Quesnel basin (including using the QRRC flumes) and in South Tobacco Creek watershed, Manitoba. Alex is a fully-funded NSERC PhD scholar.

Grassland riparian hike, Sunday August 28th.
Ordell Steen (398-5017)
This will be a short hike on the grasslands south of the junction of the Chilcotin and Fraser rivers along the west side of the Fraser (the old River Ranch). It will include a stop at an ancient pithouse village site with several house pits and a hike down along a deciduous tree-shrub riparian area through the grasslands to the Fraser River. All or only a portion of the hike can be done as we will return by the same route. The area will be accessed through Farwell Canyon and by the Poison Lake road, which will probably require high clearance vehicles. Meet at the Nature Centre at 7:30 a.m. Contact Ordell Steen (250-398-5017) if you require additional information.

Junction Sheep Range Provincial Park, October 22nd.
Fred McMechan (392-7680)
Meet at Scout Island at 8:00am. Bring a lunch, water bottle and you binoculars for this annual day long drive and hike into the park. This will be at the peak of the California Big-horned Sheep rut so look forward to seeing the sheep and perhaps you will be lucky and see or hear some head-butting.