Ever since I discovered how to read the glaciated landscape of Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, I’ve been fascinated by these massive forces of nature. Admiring them from afar, seeing them up close, paddling among icebergs, touching their ice…glaciers are even more amazing than I’d expected. This week I’ve been busy leading field trips, but I’ve been dreaming of a time when I was a participant on two field trips that involved paddling near glaciers in Alaska.

By Elliot Witscher with Emily Stone
In the bright sunlight and heat of the afternoon, the cool, fresh, flowing water from a pipe in Prentice Park in Ashland, WI, was a welcome treat. I wasn’t expecting to find a unique geological feature in an unassuming city park. But walking down the hill from the parking lot, we found a plain metal pipe, surrounded by gravel, with water gushing from it. Standing in a circle with the 20 other people also taking the Wisconsin Master Naturalist Volunteer Training, I learned from Professor Tom Fitz that this was a flowing artesian well.

As our water taxi motored into the harbor, a gray-headed water bird floated around the corner of a barnacle-crusted rock. A Pacific Loon!
Having spotted one new species of loon, my interest in seeing the others grew. The afternoon that I arrived at the Toolik Field Station to prepare for doing caribou research, I took a short walk around the base to get a feel for the area. The tremolo of a loon flying overhead sent a thrill down my spine, and I watched the large bird land on the far side of Toolik Lake. Were they a Common Loon? They sounded similar. But the logo for Toolik features a Yellow-billed Loon, and I was sure the scientists would have chosen them deliberately. Now that I’d seen the most similar loon to the ones I’d left back home, my last goal was to see the most different loon.