As the school years comes to an end it is time to say goodbye to one of my favorite spots near campus. It is hard to believe that the school year is almost over and that we will be entering exam week in a few short days. I took one final trip down to the salmon hole to cap off the phenology project and also take some time to relax and enjoy the beauty of this place one last time.

As I biked down, trying to beat the rain, I felt calm. When I got to the parking lot above the salmon hole I looked down and was amazed. The amount of water that was going through the river was immense. I had never seen so much water going through the salmon hole. I hurried to get down to the rock beach and was shocked when I got down there. I could see up to the dam clearly now, and was simply blown away by both how high the water was but also by the sheer amount of power the water had. The water was crashing over the dam like I had never seen before and it was smashing into rocks and making some of the most intense white water rapids I have ever seen.

I looked around and thought back to the fall when I would go down and go fishing with my friends. This is where I made so many memories and had a lot of fun. Some of the best sunsets can be seen down here and while the fishing is not the best it is still a great spot to go and spend some time.

There is so much more to this place than just a river with a dam in a small town. This place is a great spot to look at nature and culture from one spot. It’s obvious that there is nature around in the form of fish, birds, mammals and all sorts of other types of species. Thinking a little deeper though it can easily be seen that there is culture in this area.

The dam shows how humans have used this area to better themselves. There are old mills and other businesses that show that this area has been used and developed by many generations over the years. This area has some great culture and amazing history that is obvious and by simply doing a little bit of looking around the area we can learn so much more. There are lots of signs with information all over the area explaining the history of this place and the people that came before us.

While I have no family connection to this area I feel connected in the natural elements sense. I am not connected to the people here but after spending some much time over the past year in this area doing so many different things I simply can’t say I am not part of it. This is where I caught my first Northern Pike, where I sat and talked to a friend on the rock at 12 am admiring the river and simply talking about life. This is where I truly developed a passion for fly fishing. I have strong emotions about this place and every time I go down and see garbage or smell the sewage being dumped I am ashamed of humanity and feel sorry for what is being done to such an amazing place. I will greatly miss this place over the summer and hope that some day people will value this area more and protect it from the issues with pollution so future kids can have the same experiences as I have had over the past year. 

While most years in Vermont mid April means flowers, birds signing, warmer days and a healthy mix of sun and rain this year has been different. As of the last couple weeks it has been very cold and has not felt much like spring. Everytime spring seems to be here the weather changes and we end up with more snow. This affects both plants and animals. My friend and I spent an hour walking around the Salmon Hole today looking for any sign of spring. There simply isn’t much happening yet. While I suspect that since there is water there are amphibians we did not see any or any sign such as eggs or tracks in the mud. We saw almost no sign of life except a few trees starting to bud out and a couple of plant species starting to grow. We saw a couple of plants such as moss and wild strawberry plants starting to grow and one plant that I thought might be a flower but was unable to tell. The one tree that we found that looked like the buds were starting to break, or at least getting ready to, we were unable to identify. We thought it might be a cherry or maybe an ash but it was hard to tell with the tree being unhealthy and soaking wet changing how the bark looked. The Salmon Hole is surrounded by an edge. The edge starts within about 50 to 100 feet of any given point and it turns into fairly old growth woods. This edge creates good places for song birds and mice to live, as well as animals like raccoons. The woods is home to species like deer and grey squirrels as well. These last two species tend to live in forest interiors so it suggests that this edge does support forest interior species and I have seen sign of species like fox and bobcat in the area which also tend to be forest interior species. Hopefully the Salmon Hole will start to green up once spring finally arrives here in Vermont and the animals will move back in to this amazing little spot in Burlington.

The place I chose to do as my break phenology site was my father’s sugar house. This time of year there isn’t much in the way of wildlife and birds as we are very high up on a mountain and many animals leave in hopes of better habitats at lower more protected areas. However this year this was especially true as we had multiple nor’easters come through in the beginning of March which resulted in over 2 feet of powder. This made it even more of a biological desert. Typically there are many species such as turkey, deer, bear moose, crows, ravens, raccoons, fishers, robins and many others that use the fields and surrounding woods for habitat. However this time of year many of those species have left or gone into hibernation and during the whole break I only saw a couple of crows flying around and a few fox or coyote tracks, but this was very limited. In a couple of weeks more birds and mammals will start to move back into the area as spring starts to take hold and the snow leaves for the rest of spring and summer. Most of the surrounding areas of the sugar house are fields but there is more woods than anything else once you get away from the sugar house. These woods are all dormant now and the woods are in many different stages as some have been cut off recently some about 10 years ago and others have not been logged in 30 or 40 years.

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Time to go back to the Salmon Hole! This time I was focusing on the type of community at the Salmon Hole. Using Wetland, Woodland, Wildland to help me decided that the Salmon Hole best fits into to river coble shore category. The reasons for this is because it is a very strong river due to the hydro dam on the river. There is also a lot of rock all over, this is both bedrock and stones of various sizes. The river is very powerful and fluctuates which prevents many types of vegetation growing close to the shore. Where the river has deposited sediment small shrubs have started to grow and this is another example of a river coble shore. As spring continues to come the vegetation will start to grow more and close in on the Salmon hole but then when flooding happens again in the fall and winter these plants will be killed and washed away.

The Salmon Hole has gone under some extreme changes over the past couple weeks. The ice that was once safe enough to walk on back in February is now all gone except a few small pieces. The river is running much higher than it normally does in summer or fall but this is because of all the runoff we have been having with the warm weather melting the snow. The river is running very fast in the main channel as well as a result of the increased water flow. Nothing has started to grow however and the only differences in woody structures such as trees are some new dead trees have appeared thanks to the river depositing them and also a tree was recently cut down by beavers. The higher water has also deposited more substrate on the shore and I wonder if this will result in more shrubs growing closer to the water edge.

While using BioFinder I learned many things. Some of the interesting things I learned were that there is a feeder brook that runs into to river just below the Salmon Hole but also there is apparently one that runs the length of the river. I don’t know if I believe this or not. I also learned that the land next to the river is mostly private. I just assumed it was all town property as it has a trail on it. I was shocked to see that the town of Winooski uses the river as one of its boundaries. This reminded me of how the connecticut river is used to divide Vermont and New Hampshire. Being a fisherman I have spent many hours fishing the Salmon Hole and have fished all the way down to the first railroad bridge below the Salmon Hole. while doing this I have found a few culverts but none of these were listed on the BioFinider. It was also interesting to find out that the area of the river is a high priority because it has rare species. I am assuming this is the sturgeon as there are many signs about them.

When I was last at the Salmon Hole, back in early December, it seemed like a very dead, dreary area. There was not much sign of life as almost all of the leaves had fallen off and any leaves still on the trees were dried and brown. There was no ice on the river yet, the temperatures were fairly cold but nothing in comparison to what the area has experienced recently. There wasn’t any snow on the ground either so tracks were hard to find unless there was some soft mud but this was rare as the temperatures were below freezing and this made the mud hard and small animals like raccoons and foxes did not leave tracks. Now in late January the Salmon Hole has frozen over and there’s a couple inches of snow all over the area! There are sections of open water where there is higher current but anywhere there is still water it has frozen over with at least 6 inches of ice and me and my friends had fun exploring the middle of the Salmon hole as we were able the walk right across it! There still isn’t a ton of sign of wildlife, there is lots of human activity down by the water but I was unable to find any wildlife sign as the snow was very hard and packed by humans and domestic animals as well as how much ice is all over the area, as seen in the first two photos. The reason for all of this ice is because as the water rises the ice forms in the new areas but when the water drops back to normal levels the ice breaks up but remains in place. As I went away from the water  I found sign everywhere. The snow was hard and finding tracks that were in good enough condition to identify was difficult but I did find a few species. It was also a challenge with all of the human and domestic animal traffic to find wild animal tracks. I found sign of domestic dogs and cats, along with deer, red fox, raccoon, and opossum. I was surprised to see so many fox and raccoon tracks as it appears to have no benefit for the animals. The water is now ice and the food for these animals has pretty much disappeared. Raccoons also tend to den up and conserve energy during the cold weather so I was surprised to see that it warmed up enough for a long enough time for them to come out and move. The trees have all lost their leaves now and identifying them is much harder. My friend Alex and I worked together to find some species that we knew we could ID through buds. We found Northern Red Oak, Paper Birch, Basswood and Boxelder. There are many shrubs and small woody plants along with these trees.      

It is obvious that humans have had some very large impacts on the Salmon Hole. The first thing you notice is the dam. During high runoff periods water spills over the dam and I have noticed that at this time there is a strong smell, I can’t explain it but it is very disgusting. To go along with this smell there is trash from the runoff as well as people littering. I went down to the Salmon Hole a few days ago with a friend so we could get some more photos for the final post of the semester and we went and explored both sides of the Salmon Hole. We took in the beauty and started to look around at the town to see the impacts. We noticed many brick buildings that used to be old factories and are now stores or apartments. One thing that is still in use though is the power plant. The dam is part of the power plant and the town was built because of the river. Without the river the factories wouldn’t be there and the dam wouldn’t have been put in to get the power. My friend and I are always interested in the fish ladder they have for getting fish over the dam. As we continued to explore the dam we found some very interesting signs that described the town through the years. The signs describe both how the power plant and fish ladder work but also the history of the area being settled, and the Abenaki being pushed out and to Quebec. The signs then go further and explain how Winooski became a mill town for flour and the river was used as the power source. Next the area went into a bust period where the need for milled goods became nonexistent which took away the areas source of income, but all was not lost. Now the town is back in good condition and has been since the second boom during the world wars where the demand for mills came back up. This is very typical of the northeast. Over the course of this semester I have learned that humans have changed the Salmon Hole and in some respects destroyed it by littering and blocking the river. This is all for human gain but at some point we started to realize the damage and start to fix it. Hopefully this will continue and the littering and smell will go away in the future. There is obvious change happening and this reflects the typical change that the whole US has embraced to start fixing things we have done wrong. I have attached the photos I took that show the Salmon Hole, the River Walk, the dam, the fish ladder, the signs and a potential rock wall or foundation we found.

I spent my thanksgiving break back home with my parents. Most of my time was spent hunting all over my parents land as well as state and private properties all over the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. My family owns a sugaring operation and our sugar house sits down the mountain from my house. As I walked out of my house and towards the woods down below my house I was struck by the beauty of the sunrise. I stopped and looked at it for over a minute. It was the best one I had seen in a log time, maybe the best I had ever seen. I took a couple photos to send to my friends and also some just for me. I was shocked at how amazing it was that morning, I was full of  joy and optimism that morning as I proceeded on and tried to find tracks fresh enough for me to track down a deer. Later that day I realized it was Thursday, Thursday meant thanksgiving, I was even more shocked when I realized this. I had wanted to post the photo on social media but I felt it an inappropriate time to do so as it would fall under the stereotypical thanksgiving post. I still plan on posting the photo as I will here because it is simply breathtaking. I won’t share the photo for a few days but I will still explain how lucky I am to have grown up in this amazing place that can still take my breath away as I walk out the door.

When comparing my home to my phenology site at the Salmon hole on the Winooski I can draw a few connections. both of these sites I use for outdoor reasons like hunting, hiking, fishing, yet my home has very few people out there with me. If I was to see another person most days I would be shocked. at the Salmon hole it is not uncommon to see 2, 3, 4 or even more people down there. Many times that I have gone down with my friend Alex we find trash of all sorts. We find fishing line, bottles, bags and other trash that has been thrown into the river by people. many times after a heavy rain the river stinks and I don’t even want to touch my line after letting it get into the nasty water. This is less the case back at my house however it still occurs I just don’t see it because there are a lot fewer people using the resource. However hunting is very big at this time of year and road hunting is fairly common and one of my biggest pet peeves. People have very poor ethics in my area as well and often they don’t care about fair chase, all they want is to kill something, most of he time they don’t even have enough respect to make a clean kill or they do very inappropriate things such as letting the animal suffer when they should be finishing it off and preventing the suffering. both places are very different but in both cases I see ways that people are abusing the resource and aren’t using good ethics.

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Here is a small event map that I did for the Salmon Hole.

There have been some amazing if not drastic changes to the Salmon Hole since I was there last. Almost all the leaves have been striped from the trees now but some still hang on. Red Oak hold their yellow leaves and Norway Maple and Honeysuckle still have green leaves! It is much quitter now, I didn’t hear any squirrels but did see their nests high in trees. The only sounds are that of the water rushing by, the traffic zooming by, and the few chickadees that still remain. The water level has risen substantially and has made an island in the middle of the river out of what was a point that you could walk out on. the poplars are very obvious now with their golden leaves still holding on like the oaks but they aren’t as big or as abundant.