Indigenous Ecology Lab
As my lab mates head off into the field to collect this year’s data, and I am left at home base to sort through the copious amounts of spatial data I gathered last year, I find myself reminiscing about last field season. The wonderful thing about doing practical, land/plant-based research is that we don’t have to stay stuck in a lab, cut off from the outside world. Field season is a time where we get to go out into our study area and connect with it: the land, the people, and our more-than-human friends.
My favourite part about being out on my field site (the McKay Creek post-wildfire area on St’at’imc territory), is seeing the incredible assortment of plant life that I don’t often see on the coast in Vancouver. I am lucky that my project involves lots of walking around in the field, looking for plants (more details on the project in later posts to come), so I end up meeting tons of interesting new friends along the way.
Up on one grassy hill on the way to an established vegetation plot, I saw a beautiful field of nodding onion. This was a plant I had heard many things about from various books and human-friends, but had never seen in person outside of a botanical garden. The adorable little flowers burst out of the ground like fireworks, and the leaves smelled deliciously onion-y. I wish I had found more in my own study plots so that I could study it for my project.
One of my favourite “flowers” is Paintbrush (Castilleja sp.), so imagine my surprise when one of my study sites was full of them! I’d never seen so many of those beautiful red flower-shaped bracts in one place in my life. Something about these bright red clumps popping up all around really brought the area to life. I was very thankful to meet and brush my hands against them. Hopefully, their bright red colour will make them stand out in my drone imagery when I run my plant detection models.
Higher up in one of my more elevated sites, I found another of my favourite plants along the road: Lupines! While these weren’t very common at all, it was still such a joy to see those familiar purple-white pea flowers. I did not take the time to determine the species, but their flower stalks and palmate leaves were quite a bit smaller than my favourite species, the large-leaved lupine. Instead, I said a quick hello and went on my way to catalogue more other plants.
In the same area as the lupine, in the grassier forested area between the roads, I met a new species I had never interacted with before. Tiger lilies (Lilium columbianum) were scattered across all of the lush green grass of this high elevation site. They were so numerous that my field team catalogued over 500 of them across all of my high elevation sites!
My favourite encounter with them though was when I first walked through their meadow and happened to brush past a large tiger lily plant. I looked down and noticed that the dark orange anthers had left some bright yellow-orange pollen on my pant leg. I was delighted to be gifted with such a beautiful mark, and in my favourite colour no less! I hope I’ll see them again in future field seasons and get to experience their incredible colours once more.
On the last two days of my 2025 field season, my team and I surveyed a high elevation site with a gorgeous stream running through it. Near the end of our day, as we were all winding down after many long hours of walking and surveying, we took a walk along the stream and checked out the plants along the water. The species composition was quite a bit different from what we saw away from the water, of course, but what absolutely floored me was running into one of my favourite plants ever, the Western Columbine (Aquilegia formosa)!! There was only one plant, but the pointy red-yellow flowers stood out to me like a sore thumb. I stood in the water in my waterproof boots to get a closer look and was graced with seeing multiple flowers dangling over the water. With the stream gently flowing past these incredible flowers, it was the perfect way to end my week of field work.
I could go on and on about all of the beautiful plants I encountered out on the field (there were truly too many to talk about in one post!). However, I think what I have realized is that I am so thankful to be working on a project where I am invited on to such a beautiful land, full of so many amazing human and more-than-human friends. Going out and doing field work is not only important for gathering data, but also to re-connect with the land and re-orient myself in my place in the world.