Author: Phyllis Root and Kelly Povo, flowerchasers.com

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

July 5
5 a.m. We wake up at our hotel in Winnipeg.
6 a.m. We arrive at the airport, ready for our 7:30 departure to Churchill on Calm Air.
9 a.m. We arrive in Churchill after a calm flight on Calm Air (which has lived up to its name) excited for our class on sub-arctic wildflowers at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre.
1 p.m. As soon as lunch is over, we head out for some places alongside the road to look for wildflowers, along with our instructor, one of the learning vacation staff, and our bear guard (who knew there was  such a job, but we’re glad there is, since polar bears are seen in the Churchill area at any time of year).  While we look down for wildflowers, our bear guard looks out and around for any sign of bears.  And we do look down—many of these flowers, even the familiar ones, are amazingly tiny, including teeny bog rosemary and the tiniest round-leaved orchid we have ever seen.  We learn new flowers: velvet bells, purple rattle, flame-colored lousewort, Lapland lousewort, alpine milk-vetch, northern Hedysarum, long-stalked stitchwort, alpine bistort, bog asphodel, blunt-leaf orchid, and white mountain-avens. Along the tracks of the decommissioned tundra train we see huge swaths of artic wintergreen blooming (we know it as large-flowered pyrola). I take notes as fast as I can. Kelly snaps picture after picture.We end the afternoon tired but deliriously happy, filled up with flowers and having met our daily quota of at least one orchid, no matter how small.  Orchids or not, this has been a spectacular wildflower day.Out the window of our room the view stretches across pines, lakes, and boggy places to where the waters of Hudson’s Bay begin.  We are in territory I have dreamed about.And this is only the first day in Churchill.

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

July 4, 2018
When we first decided to drive to Winnipeg to catch the plane (Calm Air, a name we hope is accurate) to Churchill, we thought it would be a great opportunity to spend time in the tallgrass aspen parkland, one of Minnesota’s four biomes, which only covers about 5% of the state. Hayes Lake State Park, where we hiked yesterday, edges on the tallgrass aspen parkland, but now we are in the heart of it, where trees and prairie fight it out.

On the drive to Lake Bronson State Park we pass many showy lady’s-slippers in the roadside ditches, two sandhill cranes (for which tallgrass aspen parkland is prime nesting habitat), and a sign that says “Old Mill State Park 11 miles.” On a whim we take the turn.  Old Mill State Park showcases the history of area pioneers complete with an old mill and settler’s cabin, but it also has a wonderful path that winds along the edge between prairie, aspens, oak trees, and pines.  In the prairie grasses we spot prairie sage, milkweed, wood lilies, harebells, yarrow, daisy fleabane, small blue lobelia, purple prairie clover, and bergamot, all in bloom. Under the shade of the trees we’re surrounded by the susurration of wind in aspen leaves. Out in the prairie once again, we see purple leadplant blooming not far from a line of aspen.

At Lake Bronson State Park we head for a prairie where wind ripples the grass and we see purple prairie clover, prairie rose, bergamot, the bright orange of wood lilies, leadplant, rough blazing star budding, milkweed, and puccoon, along with a startled coyote who disappears into the trees at the edge of the grasses.  Farther down the road we hike a mile and a half into a Scientific and Natural Area (SNA).  Along the way we pass white prairie clover, black-eyed Susan, harebells, Canada anemone, Canada milkvetch, camas just budding out, milkweed, wood lilies, purple prairie clover, and yellow paintbrush.

At last we come to the SNA where we decide that if tallgrass aspen parkland is a battle between prairie and trees, then here the trees are clearly winning out, with aspen and willow saplings filling in the grassy open spaces.  We do see blue eyed grass, yellow star grass, marsh skullcap, swamp milkweed, goldenrod, and, behind the barbed wire of a nearby field, one western prairie fringed orchid shining in the sunlight.

So far on our trip we’ve been seeing at least an orchid a day, and today that one bright bloom, along with the showy lady’s-slippers, makes our quota.  We drive on north to Winnipeg for our 7:30 a.m. flight to the place we’ve been heading toward all along.

Tomorrow, Churchill.

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

July 3, 2018

Today we are grateful for bug shirts, a GPS, and waterproof boots because we’ve decided to head into Pine Creek Peatlands Scientific and Natural Area (SNA). Our directions send us along roads near the Canadian border, then tell us to walk .5 miles to reach the SNA.  They don’t mention that the .5 miles is through thigh-high grasses that hide deep runnels of water.  We slosh on toward the black spruce trees we see in the distance, clutching at horsetail and aspen saplings for balance.  When we reach what looks like higher ground we discover it consists of broken branches, stumps, and sawdust where our footing is even more treacherous. By now we’ve reached the bog forest, but between the dense growth and the hummocky ground we can’t find anywhere to enter under the trees. When we hear the first roll of thunder, we prudently decide to slosh back to the car.  We make it just as rain begins to pellet down.

Even though we never actually entered the bog forest on our attempt to go in we saw showy lady’s-slipper blooming along with Canada anemone, tall rue, swamp milkweed, fireweed, tufted loosestrife, Labrador tea, bunchberry, marsh skullcap, and three-leaved false Solomon’s seal gone to seed.

What did we learn? That when we are headed into an unfamiliar wild place, it might be wise to ask someone who’s already been there about the best way in.  Maybe that best way was indeed our slippery slog, but maybe another way would have led us in among the trees where we might have found the linear leaf sundew we had hoped to see. When we are headed into a wilder place that we have ever been, it never hurts to ask advice from someone who’s already been there. But, even with slogging and squelching, we’re glad we tried.  Next time (and chances are there will be a next time) we might actually make it into the trees.

Hayes Lake State Park is a contrast to Pine Creek Peatlands: roads lead us into and around the park, paths lead us under the tall pines to a bog boardwalk where we find lots of tiny pyrola and one northern bog orchid (we are still trying to figure out which).  The stillness under the pines, the green light after rain, birdsong and butterflies all make us think we have arrived at the beginning of the world.

Along the road to a walk-in campsite we spot several lesser rattlesnake plantain almost in bloom, along with showy lady’s-slipper blooming and lots of pipsissewa. We drive back to our hotel under a sky that stretches in every direction, knowing that native flowers bloom in places both wild and protected, and we are grateful for this chance to see them wherever they grow.