YOU ARE GO FOR DATA COLLECTION!
Now that most of the streams east of Nipigon are finished, we have been able to drive to the sites chosen for the day straight from Thunder Bay. As nice as it was to camp at Neys and Rainbow Falls, the call of my warm and comfy bed is readily accepted – and not to forget the ease of cooking a nice dinner with an oven.
Since the last update Nathan and I have been focusing on streams between Amethyst harbour and Nipigon and for the week of August 8-12, we were took part in an OSAP course. As far as assessing each site goes, we are doing the same things, the difference now being we don’t have to prepare for a week long camping trip as well.
OSAP, short for Ontario Stream Assessment Protocol, is a manual that outlines standardized sets of low to high intensity sampling procedures – how much time and effort you put into a sampling method – for assessing different attributes of streams. These attributes vary from physical and chemical properties of a stream to the biota – present or not – in and around the stream.
The best tip that I gained from taking the OSAP course is how to read a river. I am by no means an expert at reading streams, however I now have a good idea of what to look for and where to look for it. With this I now have a good starting point from which I can move towards an expertise in reading rivers.
