Picture this: a summer at pictured rocks

Hello! My name is Matt Millado and I’m very excited to be a Mosaics in Science intern this summer. I’m working as a Hydrology Assistant at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Munising, Michigan. Pictured Rocks is a beautiful park known for its colorful sandstone cliffs that overhang Lake Superior. In addition, it has beaches, sand dunes, waterfalls, inland lakes, deep forest, and wild shoreline to explore. I actually grew up an hour from the park and have done a few day trips backpacking trips here, so now I am excited to get to know the park from a scientific and management perspective through this internship.

I just started on Wednesday of this week, but I’ve already met most of the park staff here thanks to the park-wide NPS Operational Leadership training program that we completed during my first two days. The program was led by the Pictured Rocks superintendent as well as a guest NPS employee from Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. It was a great way to learn about the different divisions of the park (maintenance, trails, interpretation, and science and natural resource stewardship) and to talk to people with experience ranging from 10 days in the park to 10+ years! Our science team at Pictured Rocks consists of a hydrologist (my supervisor), a wildlife biologist, and a biological science technician. I am also working alongside two other science interns, which has been a lot of fun so far. We commute to and from work together and will be helping each other out frequently in the field. Speaking of fieldwork, I should be getting out in the field to do some stream measurements (water temperature, water level, and discharge) early next week. Super excited to get to work and see where the rest of the internship takes me!