Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science!

Danni Gartshore, Master’s of Biology candidate at Lakehead University

Danni is currently researching the impacts of the invasive Spiny Water Flea on the growth of fish. She conducted her field work in Quetico Provincial Park in the summer of 2021, and is also looking at historical data dating back to the early 1970s.

by: Katie Tripp

Most of the summer was spent working on the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas and moving songbird meters around the park. In addition to this work, other projects completed this summer include collecting depth and water clarity information from lake trout lakes so that each individual lake trout population’s risk from climate change can be assessed; sampling lakes for the presence of invasive Spiny Water Flea and monitoring trends in salamanders in the park. We also assisted the Lakehead University Quetico Foundation Research Partnership students in data collection for their thesis.

By: David C. Toop

This year was a memorable one for Quetico Park. We entered the season with Province-wide Covid restrictions in place. Day use was allowed, while the opening of the Dawson Trial campground was delayed by several weeks. Many of our guests are American, and the USA border did not open until well into August. This was too late and too restrictive to open our remote entry stations this season. From June onward, forest fires caused the closure of the southern part of the backcountry, and by late August, the entire backcountry. The Ridley Library opened again to park visitors, many of whom were in awe of our collection of local and indigenous archives.