George River Internship

Project Objectives:

1. Enlist 10 Advanced Interns annually to conduct assessments

2. Collect physical and biological data to establish baseline conditions

3. Provide experience at fisheries assessment projects (not just weirs)

Students applying to participate in the internship should be highly motivated individuals who are interested in learning more about the area’s natural resources. Students will be involved in assisting biologists with counting salmon, sampling fish for biological data, collecting habitat information, and completing a curriculum of learning activities ranging from fish dissections to analyzing fisheries data. Students will spend seven days at the remote field camps of the George River as well as the George River Weir.Students will spend 5 days floating the George River as well setting up 5 more stations along the way.The interns’ travel to and from the project site and room and board will be paid. The intern will also receive a $500 stipend after successful completion of the program. Interns must complete the written curriculum before the stipend will be paid. Also High School Students can earn 0.5 credits in River Systems Ecology.

Qualifications

• Participants should be between 15-19 years of age. (However younger applicants can be considered if there are not enough applicants)
• Participants should be a resident of one of the Kuspuk villages but applications from other villages will be considered
• It is recommended that applicants participate in 2 Math Science Expeditions prior to attending the GRI
• Participants must have completed 2 prior Math Science Expeditions on the Salmon / Aniak River.Also must be recommended by MSE Staff

Based on current state recommendations and forecast we believe we will still be able to have the GRI in July. We will continue to monitor the situation and will follow all state recommendations at the time to ensure that we are able to execute safe travel, housing and working environments for our students. As we know this is a constantly changing environment and if needed we to ensure safety we will postpone or cancel if necessary as the dates near. We will make a final determination on canceling the GRI on June 26.

To Apply

• Participants must have a mature attitude and good work ethic
• Participants must be motivated to complete all work and written assignments
• Complete Applications Include the Following...
• On Line Application
• On LIne Resume

Once Selected you will need the following

• Travel Papers to be signed by parents (if under 18 years of Age)
• Contract of Employment
• Copy of two forms of ID (If already on file from previous years, you do not need to submit)
• Complete Page 1 of the Employment Verification Form I-9 (If already on file from previous years, you do not need to submit
• Complete page 1 of the W-4 Form (Updated for 2024)

Project Location:

The George River will provide some unique opportunities for this project. First there is the weir location in the lower river which provides salmon escapement numbers. Second, not far above the weir the river essentially splits into two forks which are very similar in catchment area and physical characteristics. This could provide an opportunity for conducting a “paired watershed” type of study. The watershed is predominantly oriented north and south, and is not heavily vegetated, which may result in an increase in thermal regimes, relative to other watersheds in the Kuskokwim basin. There is an active mining operation in the one fork, the extent of which I don’t know.

Logistically, the George is relatively close to Aniak and Napaimute, and has one established airstrip (Granite) up at the mine. The feasibility to float down from this airstrip is unknown; however it appears that suitable reference sites could be accessed by jetboat, for each fork.

General Study Design:

Establish a minimum of two long term reference sites on each fork, and one below the forks but above the weir. Each site would consist of; a main channel location and an off channel location, preferably a spring brook, for a total of 10 sampling locations.

At the main channel site below the forks and one in each fork a permanent reference site would be established. These sites would be instrumented with continuous data recording pressure transducers and temperature loggers. Additional physical measures would also be collected at these sites, i.e. discharge, pebble counts, embeddedness, water chemistry, other?

All sites would collect information, such as species abundance estimates, salmon condition factor, macroinvertebrates, habitat characterization, stable isotope collections, temperature loggers, ysi water quality measures, other

Adult salmon monitoring could consist of; a few days at the weir doing counts, asl, etc. Future work could involve tagging at the weir (for apportionment) between forks, carcass surveys or aerial surveys.

Project timeline:

Data collection would occur over a 7day period (including logistics) July 11 - July 18, 2020. Measures would be repeated annually, and expanded as project evolves.

HS Students earn 0.5 credits in Science "River Systems Ecology" or 0.5 credits in Math "Statisitics"