Chaunigan Lake Lodge

CHAUNIGAN NATURE TRAILS

Bald Eagle 1. BALD EAGLES and OSPREYS are the two big hawks that make their home at Chaunigan Lake. The eagles are very abundant here. They will often sit in the tops of the trees along the beach, watching and waiting for their RAINBOW TROUT lunch to come along. The immature Bald Eagles are mottled brown and black. They only get their trademark white head and tail at 5-years old.
Ospreys are less common, and can be recognized by their white body and head with a black streak behind the eyes and mostly black wings. In flight, Ospreys hold their wings curved like a boomerang, as opposed to the eagle, that holds its wings nearly straight. Ospreys and eagles compete for the same food supply and they don't get along. They are rarely seen together.
SUBALPINE FIR 2. SUBALPINE FIR is a slow growing tree that thrives in cold climates and high elevations. On Konni Mountain above 6000 feet, subalpine firs can grow to be over 100 feet tall. There is a little subalpine fir down at 5000 feet. This subalpine fir will never grow tall, unless the competing trees around it are cleared. The spruces and pines are much better adapted to living at this elevation and climate.
Feel its needles - they are soft and blunt, compared to the sharp needles of the spruce and pine trees around it. The Chilcotin people used these soft needles as a bedding material.
RED SQUIRRELS 3. RED SQUIRRELS do not hibernate over winter, so they have hidden pinecones in a CONE CACHE to eat over winter. Squirrels chew off the pine cone scales to get to the delicious seeds inside. After eating thousands of meals here, the squirrels have a huge pile of cone scales, a perfect spot to hide more cones. Red Squirrels eat mostly seeds, but they will also eat berries, mushrooms, birds' eggs, and young birds.
SOOPOLALLIE 4. SOOPOLALLIE is the shrub that natives called soapberry. This shrub has oval-shaped, leathery leaves with rust-coloured spots underneath. The red berries taste bitter and feel soapy. Native peoples mashed and whipped the berries with a little water to make "Indian whipped cream" - a bitter, frothy foam. You can make Indian whipped cream by gathering soopolallie berries in your palm and quickly rubbing your hands together.
Twin Flowers 5. KINNIKINICK and TWINFLOWER are two similar looking evergreen shrubs that are common in this area. Both species are growing here. Kinnikinnick grows to about the height of your hand or less and has shiny, tear-shaped leaves with smooth edges. Bears love to eat the red berries, which appear in late summer. Twinflower also has shiny leaves, but they are usually smaller, and they lie flat on the ground.
Twinflower's long stems are called runners - they are like strings lying on the ground with light green leaves and pairs of tiny pink flowers late summer.
Twin Flowers 6. COOLEY GALL APHIDS have laid their eggs in the tips of many of the SPRUCE trees around the lake. At first glance, the red or brown galls at the ends of the branches look like cones. They are actually swollen buds, deformed by chemicals from developing aphids. Cut into the galls and you can see the chambers where the Cooley Gall Aphids laid their eggs. When mature, the aphids emerge through cracks in the gall and fly away.
This species and its galls are found only where DOUGLAS-FIR trees occur nearby, because they spend part of their life cycle in Douglas-firs. Those generations eat Douglas-fir needles, but do not make galls.
SNOWSHOE HARES 7. A FEEDING STUMP is typical of RED SQUIRRELS. The squirrels have favourite logs or stumps where they like to eat many of their meals. The elevated position gives them a good view to watch out for predators. Keep an eye out for the YELLOW PINE CHIPMUNKS and SNOWSHOE HARES, which can also be seen scurrying through the forest. The chipmunks make their homes in underground burrows and outlast the very cold
winters by hibernating from November to March. They have large, padded feet for running on the snow without sinking into it.
LODGEPOLE PINE 8. This LODGEPOLE PINE is a host to the WESTERN DWARF MISTLETOE parasite. Mistletoe is a plant that grows inside tree trunks and branches. It only produces a little of its own food, and draws the rest of its food from the host tree. When the seeds are fully developed, they are ejected at 80 kilometers per hour. The seeds are sticky and stick to nearby pines into which they can send their roots.
BEAVER 9. The BEAVER is an ambitious builder, always making improvements to its dams and lodges. Chaunigan creek has several active beaver lodges and many remnants of old structures that you can see. A short walk off the trail downstream will take you by an active lodge. Keep your eyes out for beaver trails in the grass, and aspens chewed by beavers. The wood of trembling aspen is their favourite food and construction material.
BUNCHBERRY 10. BUNCHBERRY is the attractive plant with four white bracts per flower head. In late summer, the head of flowers will turn into a crowded bunch of red berries. Beside the bunchberries, there are several GREEN WINTERGREENS. The small evergreen leaves are at the base from which the yellow-green nodding flowers grow on a long, upright stem. Wintergreen leaves contain acids that are good for treatment of skin ailments, bee stings, and snakebites.
MOOSE 11. MOOSE and MULE DEER are regular visitors through the forest and creek. They are generally shy of humans, but you can see where they have been by the signs they leave. Their hoof prints have two "toes" and those of moose are larger than those of deer. Their droppings are their other obvious sign. Moose pellets are about three centimetres long and those of deer are about two centimetres. Moose and deer sign can usually be found here and on all of our other trails.
LODGEPOLE PINE 12. LODGEPOLE PINE is the BC tree species that depends on fire most. Fire is needed to heat its cones so they will open and release their seeds. Another reason lodgepole pine is adapted to fire is that it cannot reproduce in the shade of a forest canopy. Fire removes the canopy, letting the sunlight reach the ground, so a new stand of pines can begin. Forest fires play a natural and beneficial role in many forest ecosystems.
TREMBLING ASPENS 13. TREMBLING ASPENS are the smooth barked deciduous trees. This is another species that grows well after fire. Did you know that a patch of aspens could be all one tree? That's right! Most aspens grow, not from seeds, but up from the roots of adjacent aspens. So technically, many trees could really be parts of just one plant, connected by the roots! The result is that aspens are some of the world's largest and oldest organisms.
Trembling aspens are best known for their beautiful shades of gold in autumn.
KILLDEERS 14. KILLDEERS lead a stressful life all through the spring and early summer. These red-eyed, brown and white shorebirds lay their eggs right on the bare ground in our swamp and along the runway. All summer they must watch out for predators who might take their babies. As you pass close to a nest, angry Killdeers will shriek at you to go away, and will try to lure you away from the nest. Sometimes they even hobble around, pretending to have a broken wing, to distract predators from the nest.