Bailey LaBarge
Summer Intern
St. Lawrence Land Trust
PO Box 684, Canton NY, 13617
Personal Experience: Working with the St. Lawrence Land Trust for the summer of 2019 was very eye opening to me. I came to realize that there is a lot more to environmental work rather than just the clean up. There is a lot of behind the scenes jobs that are equally as important. Such as the accreditation so that way the Land Trust can become recognized for its work. I developed better communication skills from this internship as a result of having to go to the local farmers markets. I would have people walk up to the booth and would have to talk to them about what the Land Trust is. I simply just explained that it is a non profit organization that works to keep the watershed healthy and makes sure that there is future land that won’t be ruined by development. I also learned how to do water sampling as a result of working with Nature Up North at Hart’s Falls. I had to use a net and put it six inches into the water in a part that was rapid in order for the organisms to be swept into the net to be tested. The reason behind getting the organisms was that some of them thrive better in different environments such as contaminated waters and non contaminated and finding these organisms can give you an idea of how the water quality is.
Organization: St. Lawrence Land Trust
The St.Lawrence Land Trust is based out of Canton NY. One of the major properties that the organization owns is Hart’s Falls, which has public access. The mission statement is to protect privately owned space by getting volunteers to do community outreach to get people to preserve their land. The Land Trust covers from North of the Adirondacks to the St. Lawrence River. The board members consist of Tom Langen who is the President, Glen Johnson, Vice President, Ken Hebb, treasurer, Jessica Rogers, secretary, Carol Caddy, John Casserly, Dakota Casserly, Raymond Bowdish, Cathleen O’Horo and Peter D’Luhosch.
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Contact: Dan Bellinger, Internship Coordinator, (315) 529-6619, danielismaelbellinger@gmail.com, St. Lawrence Land Trust
About the Internship:
There were numerous skills that were required for this internship. I had to be able to work in the field along with being able to work on a computer. We did trail clearing at Hart’s Falls where we used tools such as hand saws, loppers, rakes, and weed cutters. Also I had to know how to use a screw gun in order to put together the bird boxes that are now placed at Hart’s Falls. The computer work took a lot of searching for me in order to find the documents that were necessary to fulfill the accreditation requirements.