SCA alumnus and hip-hop/blues crooner G. Love describes his 1990 SCA experience at Yellowstone as “magical” in the November issue of Best Life magazine. [full text quoted below] The article asks 40 “of the world’s greatest adventurers” to share the secrets of their most significant travel experiences.

Other personal tales come from oceanographer Phillippe Cousteau, Jr., filmmaker Werner Herzog, and author Bill Bryson. The feature isn’t yet posted on the magazine’s website, but here’s G. Love’s story.

Let us know your most memorable travel experience or comment on G. Love’s journey.

…from Best Live Magazine
Get in Rhythm with Nature
G. Love, front man for the band G-Love & Special Sauce, has toured all over the world.
I grew up in cities where the only jobs for teenagers were in kitchens, cooking or washing dished. But when I was 17, I got a job through the Student Conservation Association to build and repair trails in Yellowstone National Park. It was a magical summer. There were six of us, all total strangers, and we hiked 14 miles into the Montana back country and camped in bear country for a month. It ws hrd labor: hauling logs, building bridges, and constructing “check steps.” The woods provided a lot ot time to think and write and filled my heart with love and inspiration. I had my guitar there too, Sitting around the campfire and playing for people, practicing my songwriting — even though it was a small and captive audience — that’s really where I cam of age musically. One day I scrambled to the top of Elecgric Peak with two of the others. I felt like I could see the entire park. I found an elk horn bleached white by the sun. “Should we take it?” someone asked. Twenty years later, whenever I take my 7-year old into the woods for a camping trip, I wonder if that horn will still be there waiting for us when we make it to the top.
TIP: To summit 10,969-foot Electric Peak, plan for a three-to seven-day summer trip. Enter through the park’s northern entrance at Gardiner and make Sportsman’s Lake your base camp.
HOW: Student Conservation Association offer conservation internships. http://www.thesca.org/conservation_internships/

Richmond, Vermont - UVM Graduate Students James Barnes and Delia Delongchamp are developing a new program with UVM, SCA and other land conservation programs.

From their Graduate Research Master’s Project:

The program adheres to a “service-learning” framework, combining teaching of core knowledge and skills in land stewardship with in-field service to land conservation organizations. The service component ensures that interns know how to properly monitor and assess properties held under conservation easements or other forms of public ownership, including record keeping, field surveys, and reporting of property status and management needs.

UVM Graduate Students James Barnes and Delia Delongchamp

(more…)

From Live Earth and youTube, a tribute to Michele Gardner-Quinn, SCA Intern ‘06, Prince William Forest Park, VA.

by Katie Sobalsky, SCA Intern
Eating with Ethics
This is something that I’ve grown to understand and appreciate. My time at Green Mountain College has instilled in me a deeper understanding of the importance of what we eat. Not just for our own personal health, but the health of the planet. I feel that as an environmentalist what I choose to eat is just as important as my other life choices, such as choosing to be a part of the SCA.

Before coming out to Petersburg, Alaska, I did research on it and realized that fishing is an integral part of the community. Although I am a vegetarian I decided to eat seafood while I am here. It’s fresh and caught by local fishermen, thus I like the fact that my food hasn’t had to travel far and it supports the local community.

I admit that I battled with whether or not I wanted to eat meat when I was out here, but my ethics pushed me towards doing so as I figured buying Tofu meant that it would have to travel thousands of miles, spewing fossil fuels just to get to the island. Besides, the fishing here seems to be very sustainable. I’ve talked to a few fishermen who care a lot about the ocean and forest and maintaining this beautiful wilderness…not just for their own job security but because they truly love it here and believe it deserves to be treated with respect.

This is a topic I would like to investigate further. The local library is stocked with books about the history of the town and its fishing industry…but I also plan on simply spending some time by the docks and talking to some fishermen.

Removing a fence in 100 degree weather in rattlesnake country may not be the most glamorous job, but our SCA interns at Padre Island make it look easy.

The exclosure fences are part of a thesis for a New Mexico State graduate student. The study is complete so the fences need to be taken down.

“The graduate student is now furthering his research by setting up predator exclosure fences to keep coyotes out and determine the effects coyotes may have on small mammal populations in the park. Four exclosures, 50 square meters each, were placed in several areas around the park, including one on a spoil island in the Laguna Madre.”
-From NPS’ Gulf Breeze [pdf]

by Katie Sobalsky, SCA Intern

Petersburg, Alaska is quite an eclectic little town. The tiny fishing village located on Mitkof Island boasts a population of no more than a few thousand people, most of who fish, work in the canneries or are part of the Forest Service.

Petersburg is part of the *Tongass National Forest, which if I’m not mistaken is the largest national forest in the United States and one of the few temperate rain forests. Anywhere I look snow-peaked mountains surround me, and although the weather is dreary and overcast and usually spitting misty rain off and on all day, the beauty of this land and sea is enough to make me forget about the weather.

I’ve spent a good amount of time exploring the town, sitting by the docks and watching the fishing vessels come in and out of port and the giant sea lions roar and splash. One night on a walk along the seashore I was lucky enough to see a Humpback Whale surface, make a loud blowing sound, then sinking back into the deep, gray water.

And just the other evening, I sat beside my friend, laughing as he got showed up by a Bald Eagle who was a much more deft fisherman than he. My friend had not bites, but the eagle nose dived and snatched fish after fish.

Photo credit: Donel Judy

“The Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest national forest, covers most of Southeast Alaska, surrounding the famous Inside Passage. It offers unique chances to view eagles, bears, spawning salmon, and the breath-taking vistas of “wild” Alaska. You can take a sled-dog ride on a glacier, hike boardwalk trails, fish in streams or ocean, or just relax at a remote cabin.” — from the NPS website.

On his way to document SCA interns working in Waveland, Mississippi, our colleague Garrett passed through New Orleans and sent back these photos. Stay tuned for more photos — of gulf restoration work around Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, especially hard hit by Hurricane Katrina almost two years ago and then a marine biology project in Padre Island National Seashore off the coast of Texas.

by Katie Sobalsky
I’m an SCA intern this summer for my second time…I just couldn’t get enough of the trail work! There are eight of us on the crew building a reroute up the trail on Petersburg Mountain. Residents here seem grateful for our work as the trail is currently mighty steep and run down and in parts quite impassable.

Although we’ve yet to do much trail work because we’ve been doing training for the Forest Service (like how to escape a helicopter that has crashed into the ocean, or what to do when a Grizzly Bear’s sitting around the bend), we have gone up the mountain a few times and spent a couple nights up there building our base camp. The mountain is steep and rugged and our base camp is no exception. We had to build platforms that jut out of the mountain’s side just to provide a flat, dry spot for our tents and kitchen. It’s quite a luxurious base camp, and although I usually find pleasure in ‘roughing it’ I admit that after eight hours of working in the rain I don’t complain about coming back to a heated urt with a refrigerator stocked full of fresh seafood!

A summer living in the rainforest is more than I could have dreamed of…endless green, giant 700 year old trees, wildflowers and ferns and bear and moose…and this is work? I absolutely love the feeling of working my body hard all day and getting dirty, then coming back and cooking dinner with everyone and resting up to do it all again.

Krishna Kennedy’s mom here. I will have him accept formally himself, but there is no question he will come. His (adoptive) dad climbed McKinley (Denali) in 1987, which started his obsession with big mountains, which resulted in his climb of Cho Oyu, which resulted in our adopting two kids from Nepal, which resulted in our finding out about a third sibling, which resulted in our eventual (took 6 years) adoption of Krishna. You will be pleased with Krishna’s work ethic and demeanor, and we are green with envy at his placement (and yes, we know the mosquitoes there are the size of small sparrows!) Cyndi Kennedy