Photo by Joyce Chan.
I had never before been out on a Bryoforay, so I had no idea what to expect when my supervisor invited me out to one she had been planning. She explained that the trip would involve exploring trails and various forested area in search of interesting plants, so of course I had to agree to go! After a bit of packing, we set out towards the Squamish Adventure Centre to meet up with the rest of our foray group.
Photo by Joyce Chan.
Before heading into town, we stopped off the side of a road to visit Woodpecker trail. Watching the experienced bryologists get to work was quite an experience. Immediately after getting on the trail, everyone flocked towards the moss covered trees and stuck their faces right up to the bark. Armed with hand lenses and other magnifying devices, we walked through the trail, stopping every so often to focus on a tree trunk, rotten log, or patch of rock that was particularly covered in bryophytes. With my limited experience, I was content to just poke around the patches looking for interesting lichens and mushrooms while the rest of the team scoured every inch of substrate to try to identify every species they could. They would often collect samples of the bryophytes, putting them in little brown bags or folded paper packets, and scribbling important notes on each packaged specimen. I didn’t do any such collecting, but I did fill a little bag with lichens to play around with later on. Each night we were out there, we would spend a few hours sitting down to a couple microscopes and taking a good long look at the day’s find. That was the first time I had ever opened a lichen keying book, and it was pretty interesting. I took one of my lichen samples and managed to figure out the genus, which was exciting! I opened up the section on that genus and tried to get down to species, but, to mydismay, the second set of options consisted entirely of chemical tests, which I did not have the equipment or the experience for. Oh well, at least I got a genus! I could tell everyone else was having much better luck than I, as technical phrases and complicated terms were flying around the room and over my head.
Photo by Joyce Chan.
The next two days were filled with even more fun things that weren’t entirely plant related. One of our sites was at a salmon run, where we saw a bunch of pink salmon swimming upstream. Their journey looked terribly difficult. Fish were constantly being pushed back downstream, while fallen comrades lay dead on the sides of the creek. We had lunch a ways up that creek, which was lovely. Later that day, we visited the local fall fair, where I tasted the best meat pie I’ve ever had (From Australian “The Pie Company”. Their chicken and leek pie was AMAZING). The last day was a wonderful mix of plant observation and tourism. The Sea to Sky Gondola was full of neat trails, beautiful views, and interesting bryophytes and lichens. I just wish we had more time to spend walking different trails…
Photo by Joyce Chan.
Overall I had a wonderful experience and am really glad that I went on this trip. I will definitely attend more forays in the future! (Can we go up to Haida Gwaii? Wells Gray? There are so many places I want to go now!)