GooseFest 2013 is scheduled for October 19-26.

Greenwing Day held at Tasker's coulee

The Kenmare News, 8/24/11

By Caroline Downs

Laken Seykora, 3, of Kenmare, left his grandfather Russ Fenske, to discuss the fish eggs, fry and fingerlings on display at the Greenwing Day event held at Tasker’s Coulee on August 13th.

Rob Holm, project leader of the Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery, listened carefully as Laken looked at the vials of eggs, then pointed to and named the fingerlings of the fish species he recognized, including northern pike.

Holm asked the young fisherman if he knew what the eggs were used for, and Laken nodded. “Those are baby ones,” he said, and added that he learned all about fish from his father.

Laken and 61 other young kids and teens spent the morning at the 2011 Greenwing Day event held at Tasker’s Coulee on the Des Lacs National Wildlife Refuge. Several participants came from Kenmare, Columbus, Carpio and Minot, but others visited from Bismarck and Menoken, as well as out-of-state addresses that included Hot Springs, SD, Grand Junction, CO, Los Alamitos, CA, and Ritzville, WA.

With the location moved from the Boat Dock area on the Middle Des Lacs Lake because of damage and ongoing construction taking place on that road north of Kenmare, no sessions featuring water activities could be held this year. However, the Greenwings still enjoyed a variety of stations, including the fish hatchery presentation by Holm, waterfowl identification with Joe Breidenbach of Ducks Unlimited, trapping and fur identification with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service trapper Eric Seykora, archery with members of the Berthold Sportsmen’s Club, waterfowl decoy setups and strategies with Des Lacs NWR refuge manager Chad Zorn, and a wild waterfowl migration game, complete with birdseed, with USFWS personnel Jennifer Jewett, Andy Jewett and Jennifer Zorn.

Of course, the law enforcement scenarios were especially popular again, with the kids outfitted as game wardens and making arrests in illegal deer and snow goose “hunts.” Several USFWS and North Dakota Game and Fish staff members in uniform prepared the young “wardens” for their jobs, while other law enforcement officials left their badges behind to take the roles of law-breaking hunters.

The event ended with grilled burgers, T-shirts and doorprizes for everyone. The day was sponsored by Kenmare GooseFest, the USFWS, DU, the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, and Kenmare City Gaming/Hockey Boosters.

While several kids attended Greenwing Day for the first time, Saturday marked Holm’s first appearance at the event. In addition to photos and equipment he brought to demonstrate the spawning process used at the fish hatchery, he also set up a fresh water aquarium that acted as a magnet to the kids, complete with small blue gill, walleye, sturgeon and paddlefish.

“The kids are always so attracted to that,” he said, adding that the kids usually recognized the walleye and paddlefish. “But it’s also a chance to see the pallid sturgeon, something most people won’t have a chance to see in their lifetimes because the numbers are so low. I tell the kids, ‘Now you have the opportunity to see what a dinosaur would be like,’ because pallid sturgeon have been around that long.”

Which is exactly the sort of opportunity, the chance to experience parts of the natural world that may not be available otherwise, that Greenwing Day organizers offer every August.