Page 15 - Trending Magazine 2018 Fall

Musseling In_Layout 1 18-09-18 3:03 PM Page 2

hristian Tremblay stepped out from his white
Parks Canada pickup truck and walked several
Cpaces towards the locked entranceway that
stood before us.
As the large metal bar swung open, Tremblay
motioned for me to move my car forward before
locking the gate behind us and leading me to a grassy
clearing up ahead, to the shores of Whirlpool Lake.
Normally open to visitors this time of year,
Whirlpool Lake was eerily quiet that mid-August day.
Fireplaces lay vacant as wisps of grass poked through
the narrow slits of a wooden dock that had been
pulled ashore and left to dry.
Near the southwest tip of the lake, a marsh-like
patch had emerged where the water had receded,
creating a thick mud that swallowed our boots.
With our gear in hand, Tremblay and I set out in a
canoe and paddled our way towards a small yellow
buoy several yards away.
Lifting it up, Tremblay revealed a series of four
plates underneath, ascending in size from largest to
smallest.
Mostly empty on the surface, in a few months time
those plates, along with 10 other sets around
Whirlpool Lake, could reveal what Tremblay – the
aquatic invasive species project coordinator for
Riding Mountain – and Manitobans alike would rather
not want: evidence of zebra mussels in Riding
Mountain National Park.
“If something is there, we want to make sure it’s not
moved out of the park,” he said.
Named for the striped pattern on their shell, zebra
mussels measure only a few centimetres in length and
are native to eastern Europe and western Asia.

Larger than life: Mature zebra mussels
measure only a few centimetres in length.

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