ISLE ROYALE BOTANY WORKSHOP THIS COMING JUNE 13-18!!

Experience four days in Lake Superior's Isle Royale National Park and learn to identify the diverse plants that live on this incredible island!

BOTANY WORKSHOP INFORMATION:
This special botany workshop, sponsored by the Isle Royale & Keweenaw Parks Association (IRKPA), and taught by botanist Janet Marr, is open to anyone with beginning/intermediate knowledge of plant identification who is interested in learning to identify the early summer native flora of this species-rich Lake Superior island.

Workshop participants will spend four days on Isle Royale learning native plant species, using such tools as a dichotomous key and hand lens to identify plants. Other topics will include discussion of island plant communities, rare species, ecology, and invasive species.

Most workshop activities will take place outdoors. Optional evening sessions will also be offered to review plants learned earlier. Field trips will include Tobin Harbor, Scoville Point, and Raspberry Island, places that are all located in the vicinity of Rock Harbor.

Workshop attendees will meet in Houghton, Michigan, on Monday (13 June) afternoon and travel from Houghton to Rock Harbor (on Isle Royale) on the Ranger III boat on Tuesday (14 June). Participants will return to Houghton on the Ranger III on Saturday (18 June).

REQUIREMENTS:

Workshop participants should be able to walk up to 7 miles in one day with a daypack on rocky, sometimes steep, trails and bedrock, sometimes slippery, shoreline.

INSTRUCTOR:

Botanist Janet Marr, the workshop instructor, has had many years of experience studying plants across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale. Janet taught the 2007 - 2010 Isle Royale botany workshops as well as many botany, aquatic, and wetland plant workshops in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. She is co-author of the Isle Royale Natural History Association's Island Life, an Isle Royale Nature Guide.

ENROLLMENT IS LIMITED TO 12 PARTICIPANTS. Past botany workshops have filled up very quickly so sign up soon! Contact Kristine Bradof at 906-482-7860 or kbradof@irkpa.org for more information about workshop registration or to register. Contact Janet Marr at 906-337-5529 or jkmarr@mtu.edu for details about the workshop itself.

BOTANY WORKSHOP FEE:

$675 per person if registered by March 5, 2011 ($25 discount for IRKPA members;
see http://irkpa.org/ for information on becoming a IRKPA member).

$699 per person if registered after March 5, 2011 ($25 discount for IRKPA members;
see http://irkpa.org/ for information on becoming a IRKPA member).

A $200 deposit is required to reserve your place in the workshop and may be sent to the Isle Royale & Keweenaw Parks Association, Attn: Kristine Bradof, 800 Lakeshore Dr., Houghton, MI 49913. The balance is due by April 17, 2011.

A cancellation fee of $75 will be charged for cancellations between May 1 and May 31, 2011. There will be no refund for cancellations made after June 1, 2011.

The fee for the botany workshop covers instruction, camping, meals on the island, notebook, Slavick/Janke’s Flora of Isle Royale, and transportation to and from Houghton, MI on the Ranger III. Participants may travel from Grand Portage, Minnesota, on the Voyager at their own expense. See http://www.isleroyaleboats.com/ for Voyager info.

LODGING/CAMPING:

Participants may camp for free at a Rock Harbor group site for the four nights on the island. You may also stay in the Rock Harbor Lodge or Housekeeping units at your own expense (consider sharing a room with another participant or friend to reduce your lodging cost). For information about lodging (at Rock Harbor Lodge or Housekeeping units), boat rentals, etc., please see: http://www.isleroyaleresort.com/ or call 866-644-2003 (winter season) or 906-337-4993 (summer season).

For information about Isle Royale National Park, see their home page at http://www.nps.gov/isro/ or call 906-482-0984.


Janet Marr
email: jkmarr2@hotmail.com or jkmarr@mtu.edu
phone: 906-337-5529
23180 Hwy. Rd.
Calumet, MI 49913 USA

Looking for Photos for Newsletter

We haven't got a lot of photos for the upcoming issue of the newsletter so our newsletter editor was wondering if members could submit photos, especially for the following trips which will have trip reports in the issue:

Awenda
Mactier Sand Plain
Wainfleet Bog
Five Points Forest

Please send pics directly to jmarkodunn@gmail.com