Science & Memory UOregon SOJC

This week, the Science and Memory Fellowship cohort returned to the lower 48 from our time in Cordova. Back in Eugene, I have already begun to reflect on our trip.

Coming from an urbanized city of 170,000, I thought I knew what it meant to be connected to people. We have roads that take us to anyone we want to see and reliable internet for making plans and keeping in touch with far-flung friends, and so I wasn’t sure what connecting would look like in a place with 2,000 residents and one road. 

What I found is that the community and connections between people in Cordova are tangible: XTRATUF boots are worn by almost everyone, the same landmark environmental events are brought up in most conversations, and you see the same people at the grocery store every day. For members of the seasonal forest service staff, like Kat and Sarah, these ties are some of the many reasons they love working in Cordova.  

The expansive forests, productive waters, and regular wildlife sightings make Cordova a beautiful place to visit, but it was people that make it a wonderful place to learn and grow. My hope is with our return to Oregon that the entire cohort is able to fully capture the community of Cordova through our storytelling. 

Carmen Sanchez-Reddick 

8/24/22

Wendy Ranney, owner of the Whale’s Tale Café, describes Cordova as her heart. The way she speaks of this place, and the people who live here, exudes such vibrance I could see watercolors lighting up and spreading across crisp white paper. I can’t imagine this trip without her. She makes the best soup in town and not to mention the most amazing dirty chai you will ever smell, let alone taste. 

She lives a life of strength, movement, and resilience. Wendy is catchy music, a warm hug, a sharp photo, soft watercolors, and a beacon of support for this community. 

Kelp is kind of amazing. Cordova fisher and kelp farmer, Thea Thomas said so. 

She owns a small kelp farm just a 20 minute boat ride from Cordova. Not only is it a nutrient packed food source but it is one of the most sustainable products that contributes to the production of gelatin products, cosmetics and more. Thomas said that unlike nearly every other form of agriculture and aquaculture, kelp requires no fresh water, no fertilizer and no land. Plus, it actually sequesters carbon from the water. 

Where it grows, kelp combats ocean acidification and helps maintain habitat and water quality for other aquatic species. This is only becoming more and more important as Alaskas climate is changing quickly. Kelp is resilient and will be a consistent and sustainable resource even as everything around it changes. 

There is also hopeful future with kelp. Studies have shows that adding kelp to livestock feed can nearly eliminate livestock methane emission. And using kelp as fuel could alleviate emissions from the fossil fuel industry. 

Across the Pacific, kelp has been a staple for years. It is farmed for food and more. But in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, it is just getting started. It is catching on fast though as the number of kelp farms like Thomas’s continue to grow. 

There is a future in kelp and the extent of its benefits are only just now being studied and utilized in the region. 

When I walked into David Rosenthal’s house earlier this week, I immediately felt awash with a sense of awe and comfort. Rooms glowed with paintings of glaciers and icebergs and snow covered landscapes taking up every inch of wall space within his home. I love to paint, but someone studying both journalism and biology I’ve always thought of art as my side-gig. I listened to  Rosenthal talk about his journey of going to school for physics, dropping out, trying various different career paths before finally caving in to his passion for art. He’s been living in Cordova for decades now and his obsession for light shows through the detailed documentation of the multitudes of glaciers that he's painted around Cordova. 

Unintentionally, through his love of Cordova and painting Rosenthal has chronicled the retreat of the local glaciers. He pulled out canvases of Sheridan glacier from a shelf, and while the paintings were from the same angle and same glacier, the results were shockingly different. The show made up of many repeated paintings of different glaciers over the years is scheduled to be shown at the Museum of the North in 2026. Rosenthal explained that the panels accompanying the paintings will discuss climate change, and how his paintings are a way to engage a non-sciencey audience and bring people into a discussion of what the future of the world may look like.

Looking at his paintings and listening to his story made me realize that art, science and communication don’t have to be the separated bubbles that I usually believe them to be. He inspires me to find future creative ways to display the world around me and to connect people to science in all types of beautiful and unconventional ways. 

Nearly everywhere in Cordova, Summer’s Timekeeper, more commonly known as fireweed, has already bloomed, signaling the end of summer. Admittedly, another sign has been the constant pouring rain. 

As we followed the trail to the Sheridan Glacier, we were greeted with a patch of blooming fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium) near the edge of the lake. Far in the distance, the frosty prominence of the glacier was visible under blankets of mist. 

Taking in the view, we pondered why plants exposed to the frigid glacial winds were flowering later than those in warmer environments? For some plants, warmer temperatures signal summer and time to reproduce. The cooler weather present in proximity to the glacier had caused fireweed to bloom later than plants of the same species in other locations.

In the face of climate change, how differing temperature regimes impact plants is still largely unexplored. Our view of this landscape was improved by the beautiful pink of the fireweed flower. But for other species that depend on consistent timing, fluctuating temperatures may mean the lack of a meal. 

The past few days I've had the chance to experience first-hand the challenges of communicating science. As a researcher in the field of science communication, the difficulty in translating complex knowledge to a wide audience is not news.

I've always known how communicators and scientists struggle with it. But it was only here, in Cordova, that I got to struggle with it myself. In the past few days I've been in rooms, labs, and in the field, having conversations with incredibly nice people, experts in their fields, learning quite a lot about how much I don't know.

Blame my lack of a biology background, or the fact that English is not my first language, but the fact is that the sci comm PhD student signed up for the culverts project without knowing what a culvert was, and nodded along during conversations about otoliths while simultaneously googling "otolith" without being noticed.

It's been humbling. It's been amazing.

Moon jellies (Aurelia aurita) dispersed across a beach at Hartney Bay.

Jellies are animals that rely on ocean currents to drift along (aka zooplankton). As such, aggregations of jellies will often become washed ashore due to bad weather and strong swells.

While moon jellies can sting, and can do so after death, their stinging cells (nematocysts) are unlikely to cause a painful reaction. 

Carmen Sanchez-Reddick

On our hike with ecologists from the National Forest Service, the trailhead was dotted with witch’s hair (Alectoria sarmentosa), a lichen that is an important winter food source for deer and a way for scientists to monitor air quality. Lichen, as Ann (one of the ecologists) describes, are farmers of the forest. The organism is composed of a fungus which grows cyanobacteria or algae. The algae or cyanobacteria provides food for both itself and the fungus via photosynthesis. Lichens soak up moisture and other nutrients from the air surrounding them, which is why they can be used for monitoring baseline levels of pollutants in the air. 

Untouched:

After a long day restoring goose islands and exploring the Copper River Delta, I was pretty hungry and quite wet, but also reawakened. Throughout our day, I kept coming back to one thought: I’ve never been in a place so pure, so untrammeled by humans.

Unlike Oregon, whose forests are fragmented and scarred with clear-cut lines, Alaskan forests are lush and natural. While the USFS in Oregon is just another arm of the timber industry, the USFS in Chugach National Forest does not harvest trees for profit—their only purpose is to keep habitats healthy.

Until coming to Cordova, I didn’t know that the Earth could look this way. Now that I’ve seen it, though, it’s given me peace and hope.

- Orca Adventure Lodge, 7.19.19 -

Its hard to call it day in Cordova, when the day doesn’t really end. 

It’s been two days back home since my trip, and reflection has already started. My time spend in Cordova was highlighted by new friendships, lots of learning and most importantly, work.

This work was not completed on a computer or out in the field, but it is the idea that there is work to be done beyond the scope of this singular trip or trips in years past.

How can we work to communicate to the world, that the issues up north are a reflection of the times we are living elsewhere? Why should anyone care?

As a talented group of creatives, we can begin to answer these questions, and get to work.

- Pete Dahl Slough - 

Dusky Goose artificial nesting maintenance with U.S. Forest Service

At a certain point I stopped counting them

- Thompson Bain

As I lay in bed with my eyes half shut, I wanted to write about my experience and takeaways from an exhausting day working with several forest service workers to film and help replace plants in artificial bird’s nests.

One of my biggest takeaways was how hard they work. In total, we added about 8 new plants to 3 different bird’s nests near the Copper River. It took 4 people, over 2 hours in an airboat, and several miles of hauling kayaks through an untrailed forest, simply to replace these plants. 

I do not mean to write this to say it was a waste of time but rather an emphasis on the amount of care and thought the forest service puts into protecting and helping the animals and plants in the wetlands. It was really eye-opening to see. It was also great to see how much the workers loved their jobs and how passionate they are. They work so hard and have such a great time to help this ecosystem.

There are times that so beautifully capture where and how you want your life to be that they live on. One of them: Walking through an early morning mist with a dozen thinkers and makers, quietly finding a thread for this place and time. On a rare moment for those of us accustomed to a different set of sounds, we hear a roar from the forest of an angry bear. All the protocols in place because we have a wise guide, we listen and marvel. 

What a day.

Deb Morrison 07.18.2019