View from the Lake--Boat Tours of Lake Superior

The L.L. Smith, Jr. research vessel is back for another season of three-hour educational boat tours along the Lake Superior coastline! Did you know that a drop of water spends an average of 191 years in Lake Superior? Join us to discover why facts like these make monitoring so critical to keeping Lake Superior and its streams clean and healthy. Participate in sampling Lake Superior’s water and bottom-dwelling invertebrates (small animals without backbones) and compare your data to other locations around the lake. Get great ideas for how you and your community can protect this amazing resource while enjoying the "good life" along Lake Superior.

Are you a local government official, planning/zoning board member, or employee of a municipality and interested in attending for free? Please send Jesse an e-mail jschombe@umn.edu or call him at 218-726-6182.

Rain Harvesting Video

City of Superior Rain Barrels $40

Rain Barrels: An Old Idea That’s New Again. The PEIR Program (Public Education, Involvement & Relations) is selling rain barrels! Residential property owners of the city can purchase a rain barrel at the reduced cost of $40.00. Additional rain barrels can be purchased at the full cost of $70.00. All rain barrels must be pre-ordered by May 1, 2009. Download the application form, fill out and send it in with a $20.00 deposit. Rain barrel pick-up dates are June 4 from 2 – 7 p.m. and June 6 from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. at Wessman Arena on the UWS campus.

For more information click here.

Chequamegon Bird & Nature Festival

The 2009 festival will be May 15-17 at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center. The festival has over 120 activities ranging from birding field trips,kayaking, rain gardens, children's activities with David Stokes and a lot more. This is the peak weekend for neo-tropical bird migration. You can register online and join us for a wonderful weekend.

Lake Superior Partners Meet April 16 in Iron River

The Lake Superior Basin Team is meeting on Thursday, April 16 at 7:00pm at the Community Hall in Iron River. Please join us to hear presentations on two new initiatives in the watershed.

First we'll hear from Carmen Wagner and Kristen Tomaszewski from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources about a forest watershed project that looks at how forest canopy cover affects water runoff into our streams. Scientists have seen that leaving at least 60% forest cover in our woodlands can reduce the velocity and volume of water entering our streams, reducing the erosion of clay and soil that harms fish and our drinking water supply.

Also at the meeting will be updates from Matt Hudson and Michele Wheeler of the Bad River Watershed Association on their Watershed Action Plan.

For more information, contact me via email at ruth.oppedahl@uwex.edu or call 715-685-2676.

Hooded Mergansers at the Center

A pair of Hooded Mergansers are hanging out at the pond behind the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center. They are pretty shy and nest in hollow trees. They pair up in winter and may be headed further north. Our pond was tested for dissolved oxygen this winter, and did not have enough to support most fish. So I wonder what the mergansers are eating?

Photo courtesy of USFWS.

Wisconsin: Making it Home

A partnership of community groups and agencies are interested in bringing the Wisconsin Humanities Council’s Wisconsin: Making it Home film festival to the Chequamegon Bay area in 2010. The purpose of the festival is to promote dialog in communities about humans and nature. The Making it Home touring festivals include films from the 2009 Tales from Planet Earth Environmental Film Festival. The films tell stories from around the world that reveal connections between people and place, that explore questions of justice and responsibility, and that challenge assumptions about how we live on the planet.

We hope that we are successful in bringing this film festival to our area. If you are interested in volunteering, or would like to help plan the festival, please contact me.

For more information see our website.