Isle Royale Botany Workshop to be June 16-21, 2008

HOUGHTON -- The Isle Royale Botany Workshop will be held June 16-21, 2008. Participants will experience four days in Lake Superior's Isle Royale National Park and learn to identify the diverse plants that live on the island.

Hepatica, one of many Isle Royale plants, blooms in the spring on the island. (Photo courtesy Janet Marr.)

This special Botany Workshop, sponsored by the Isle Royale Natural History Association (IRNHA), and taught by botanist Janet Marr, is open to anyone with beginning/intermediate knowledge of plant identification and who is interested in learning to identify the spring/early summer native flora of this species-rich Lake Superior island.

Workshop participants should be able to hike up to seven miles in one day with a daypack.

Participants will meet in Houghton, Mich., on Monday afternoon, June 16, and travel from Houghton to Rock Harbor on the Ranger III on Tuesday, June 17. The group will spend four days on the island learning native plant species, using such tools as a dichotomous key and hand lens to identify plants. Other topics will include discussion of island plant communities, rare species, ecology, and invasive species. Participants will return to Houghton on the Ranger III on Saturday, June 21.

Participants in the Isle Royale Botany Workshop will have a chance to identify a variety of plants that bloom in the spring on the island, including this Marsh Marigold. (Photo courtesy Janet Marr.)

Workshop activities will take place mostly outdoors. Optional evening sessions will also be offered to review plants learned earlier. Field trips will include Tobin Harbor, Scoville Point and Raspberry Island -- places that are all located in the vicinity of Rock Harbor.

Botanist Janet Marr, the workshop instructor, has had many years of experience studying plants across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Isle Royale. Janet taught last year’s Isle Royale botany workshop as well as many botany and aquatic plants workshops in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. She is co-author of IRNHA's recently published Island Life, an Isle Royale Nature Guide.

ENROLLMENT IS LIMITED TO 12 PARTICIPANTS. Contact Jill Burkland at 906-482-7860 or jburkland@irnha.org to obtain more information or to register for the workshop. In order to attend this workshop PARTICIPANTS NEED TO PRE-REGISTER AND SEND A $100 DEPOSIT TO BE RECEIVED BY MAY 1, 2008, to Isle Royale Natural History Association, Attn: Jill Burkland, 800 East Lakeshore Drive, Houghton, MI 49931.

Total cost for the workshop is $550 per person ($525 for IRNHA members; see http://irnha.org/ for information on becoming a member) and includes instruction, camping, meals (Tuesday lunch through Saturday breakfast), hand lens, notebook, Slavick/Janke’s Flora of Isle Royale, and transportation to and from the island on the Ranger III. Participants may travel from Grand Portage, Minn., on the Voyager at their own expense. See http://www.isleroyaleboats.com/ for Voyager information.

Participants may camp for free at a Rock Harbor group site for the four nights on the island. They can also stay in the Rock Harbor Lodge or Housekeeping units at their own expense. For information about lodging (at Rock Harbor Lodge or Housekeeping units), boat rentals, etc., please see http://www.isleroyaleresort.com/ or call 866-644-2003 (winter season) or 906-337-4993 (summer season).

For information about Isle Royale National Park, see their home page at http://www.nps.gov/isro/ or call 906-482-0984.