IRON MOUNTAIN – On Thursday, Nov. 10, Bay West College will host speaker Erin Lehnert with her presentation, “Wildlife of the Galapagos Islands.”

The public invited come experience the wilderness of the Galapagos Islands at 12:30 p.m. in Fornetti Hall, Bay College West.

She is the daughter of Stella Hansen, Ph.D. and Pete Lehnert. She graduated from Kingsford High School, where she dual-enrolled at Bay College. Lehnert then graduated from Michigan Technological University in 2012, and received a degree in biology, with an ecology concentration.

She currently works in Maine, as a wildlife biologist for Acadia National Park, but also works as a guide for Wildside Nature Tours, and it’s through Wildside Nature Tours that her Galapagos trip came about. Two seats opened up at the last minute, so she decided to go, and took her father, as well.

She definitely enjoyed her trip. “Never before had I been to a place that was so pristine, where, if I didn’t know better, I might be the first person to leave footprints,” she said. “For me, the Galapagos was the true definition of wilderness: a place that was so untouched that the wildlife only saw me as a strange animal, and I could see no evidence of any who had walked there before.”

For more information, call 906-302-3000.