March 8th E-NEWSLETTER

Programs

FREE Community Seed Swap

TOMORROW, March 9th

5:00PM-6:30PM

It's time to start planning garden and planting seeds indoors! Join WRI for a community seed swap. If you have seeds to share and trade - great! If you don't have seeds but are interested in gardening and getting seeds to get you started - great! You'll also learn more about registration for WRI's E. Lorene Young Community Garden.

Swap Here

Nature Photography Workshop

Sunday, March 12th

9:00AM-12:00PM

ONE SPOT LEFT! This workshop will cover the fundamentals of making nature photographs and will provide you with the skills to make amazing images of what you love. This workshop is geared toward novice photographers, but all are welcome to attend to improve their skill set.

Photograph Here

Red Barn Event: Indigenous Roots & Reparation Foundation

Wednesday, March 15th

7:00PM-8:00PM

Join WRI in welcoming the chair and board members of local nonprofit, Indigenous Roots & Reparation Foundation (IRRF). IRRF was established in 2021 to preserve history, culture, traditions and language through education and advocacy. Come learn about the importance of their work!

Preserve Here

Under the Surface with Bird Bones and Skeletons

Tuesday, March 21st

6:00PM-7:00PM

Virtual

Learn about bird skulls, beaks, eyes, wings, legs, feet, and skeletal structures with naturalist, David Lukas. Many of these features are hidden by feathers, yet bird bones and skeletons uniquely shape every aspect of what we see when we watch birds.

Hidden Features Here

Red Barn Event: Nexus Ski Film with Sasha Dingle

Thursday, March 23rd

7:00PM-8:00PM

Join WRI and Leavenworth professional skier, Sasha Dingle, to watch the new ski film, Nexus! It is an action sports film documenting five distinct groups of skiers, their connection to the mountains, and how skiing shapes their relationships. This film is produced and directed by women. You can watch the film trailer here.

Ski Here

Introduction to Wildlife Tracking Class

Saturday, March 25th AND Sunday, March 26th

WRI invites you to a weekend introduction to the language of wildlife tracking with Adam Martin. Throughout the weekend, you’ll gain a basic understanding of how to identify and interpret the commonly left tracks and sign of the birds, mammals, and insects of our region.

Track Here

Red Barn Event: Geologic Fluids and Plant Life

Wednesday, March 29th

7:00PM-8:00PM

Join WRI, Washington Native Plant Society, and local geologist, Ralph Haugerud for a Red Barn Event! You'll learn about the four types of geologic fluids. The effects of these fluids govern how water moves in and through our landscape, thereby shaping our plant communities.

Flow Here

Garden Planning Workshop

Thursday, March 30th

5:00PM-6:30PM

Have you always wanted to grow your own food, herbs, or flowers, but have never known where to start? Or maybe you were worried about not having enough space for your dream garden. This is the workshop for you!

Plan Here

Thank you to our Community Education volunteers for helping out during the Red Barn Event and Snowshoe Strolls in the last two weeks: Paul Sozio, Betsy Steele, Mark Weick, Jack Mynatt, and Mary Austin.

Summer Camp Lottery Reminder

If you are interested in having your child participate in WRI Summer Camps this year and you haven't filled out the lottery form already, please do so by March 12th at 11:59pm! All forms filled out between March 1-12 will be treated equally.

Campers can enroll in one week of camp through the lottery system. Each camper can enter the lottery once, ranking each camp week in the application to indicate their most desired week to attend. If there are spots in camp after the lottery, those will be open to everyone through general registration. Entering the lottery does not guarantee a camper a spot in camp.

You will receive your lottery results via email by the end of the day on Friday, March 17th. Further instructions will be included in the email.

Lottery Form

Native Plants with Cascade High School

In a new program, WRI is working with the Plant Science class at Cascade High School to help design and develop a native plant garden on the hill side on the WRI campus. Currently, there are four 12'x6' plots and students can plant up to 8 species in each plot. The group of 11th and 12th grade students learn more about plant biodiversity, native plants, how to preform site evaluations, and which plants may grow better together. The students will design, plant, and manage the garden throughout the year, gaining community service hours to place towards graduation, college applications, and more. Stay tuned for updates as the garden continues to develop!

Middle School After School Program

In another new program, WRI is visiting 2 middle schools in Wenatchee once a month to deliver an After School Program. In the program, 6th-8th grade students learn about a new science and natural history topic each visit. On our first visit in February, students learned about the different kinds of mammals in the Wenatchee Valley. They looked at the skulls of some animals and learned how to identify whether it was a carnivore, herbivore, or omnivore by looking at the skull. They broke into groups, studied a skull, and created a scientific illustration of the skull using watercolor. They learned that making scientific illustrations can be important in understanding the specimen they are studying.

Mid-Winter Break Camp

Students in grades K-3 joined WRI for a 4-day camp over mid-winter break! They went snowshoeing around the WRI campus and Waterfront Park, walking through forested habitats, along the river, and snowy meadows. They searched for animal tracks and observed the ice on the river. They played in the snow and played many games! Their craft of the week was to make space mobiles, showing off their favorite planets that they learned about in the planetarium. In the planetarium, students got to look at planets and constellations up close. They also spent time looking at skulls and furs to learn about animals of our region. It was 4 days of fun!

Snow Field Days with Pinnacles Prep

In a partnered program with the Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery, 58 sixth grade students from Pinnacles Prep visited both WRI and the Hatchery for two fun days outside. On their visit to WRI, students went on a snowshoe exploration hike and became snow hydrologists! They learned to measure the snow pack by finding the snow water equivalency (SWE). Students collected a snow sample and weighed it to figure out the percentage of water in the snow. This percentage shows how much water is in the snow if it were to melt at the time they test it. Before measuring, the students had to make a guess of what it would be. Many of their guesses were very close! Their calculations had less than 5% margin of error, too, which was excellent for first-time hydrologists. Finally, students participated in a stakeholders debate on the usage of water for when the snow melts.

Thank you to our Youth Education volunteers for helping out the last two weeks: Tim Abel, Mary Austin, and Gina Westrich.

Place

Salmon Sculpture Stolen

We have some disappointing news – the Salmon Sculpture, that we enthusiastically installed last fall, was stolen from our grounds along the Waterfront Park trail near Barn Beach.

We were proud to commission this art piece from Swede W. Albert, an emerging Indigenous artist and descendant of the p’squosa people from the 12 Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Omak. He made the sculpture using recycled and salvaged metals. It was made to capture the essence of the salmon, an important part of the p’squosa culture and of all people in the Pacific Northwest.

We were ready to celebrate the art piece with a ceremony inviting community members, the Wenatchi Advisory Group, the artist, and sculpture sponsors once the snow cleared, and the signage was finished. While we are saddened and disappointed by the theft, this is only a bump on the journey towards a closer connection with the p’squosa people, the original stewards of this land.

We take lessons from this experience and will raise the funds to commission art like the Salmon Sculpture to share with our community.

We would appreciate it if you could keep an eye out for this distinctive artwork. It was broken off its boulder base on Thursday, February 16th in the evening or night. This theft was reported to the Chelan County Sheriff, and we still hope that it may be returned to us.

If you have any information, please contact us at 509-548-0181 or info@wenatcheeriverinstitute.org.

Thank you to our donors from the last two weeks!

The Cove Resort at Fish Lake

Leavenworth / Pine Village KOA

Ted Alway and Patricia Ortiz

Chelsea Trout

The Hooter Fund II

Lynn Dickinson - Sustaining

Brunners Lodge, Inc.

Syndicate Smith LLC

Christine Emmel - Sustaining

Laura and Greg Reichlin - Sustaining