On my way back

Despite a blizzard...

Despite a plane ride instead of a train ride...

I'm on my way back to Chicago.  See you soon!

Busy, busy, busy!

I have kept busy on my arctic adventure.  Even though Saturday was our official day, we managed to keep moving all day.  First was a trip into town.  We did some souvenir shopping, visited the Eskimo Art Museum, and ate at a local diner.  The apple fritters are worth coming back for!  Oh my goodness they were good!

Some folks stayed in town, but I went with a few others to try my hand at dog sledding.  It was very cool to learn the terminology and see how passionate the musher was for his dogs.  I took lots of video.  Riding the sled was amazing.  I couldn't believe how fast we went.  I also got to hold one of the pups.  Both were quite enjoyable!

On our way back from dog sledding, we stopped to walk out on the ocean ice one more time.  My roomie Sheila had missed out when we went before, so I went back out on the ice with her.  It was a gorgeous sunset but much colder than last time.

We helped build an igloo the day before.  I'm the little Inuk that can cut ice blocks but stinks at attaching them to each other.  They still let me spend the night in the igloo though.  Every part of your body that is in the sleeping back is toasty warm, so I pulled the sleeping bag over my head!  I made it the whole night and felt very tough.  And a walk from the igloo into the center will certainly wake you up in the morning.

Today has been busy as well.  We finished counting the needles of the spruce branchlets, data entry, and cleaning the classroom.  There are a few odds and ends to take care of...oh...and did I mention?  THERE'S A BLIZZARD OUTSIDE!  It started this morning, so it's 30 below with 50 mile an hour winds. Lovely!

Tonight is traditional foods night.  So if we are snowed in (which we will be until tomorrow), we should have plenty of caribou and local wine to sustain us.  Not a bad way to wrap up an adventure.

Winding Down

Today it was my turn to stay in and weigh tree samples.  Maybe I was supposed to stay in because it was my turn in the rotation?  Maybe I was supposed to stay in because I was scheduled to Skype with my students (which was so much fun, by the way)?  Maybe I was supposed to stay in because I viciously taunt people when they're in the snow-pit???  What am I doing in this picture?  I have no idea!

Either way, I stayed in today to measure the desiccation of tree branchlets.  You do this by weighing them once every 24 hours.  And there were only 128 of them!  I missed out on the site with the deepest snow cover, but I also lucked out and missed the worst wind so far.  The wind kept blowing snow into people's snow pits, so every 10 minutes they would have to shovel out a couple of inches of snow that was covering all of their equipment.

After lunch, we got to hear a lecture on polar bears.  There are some polar bear trackers working at the research center right now. They tag and monitor the movement of polar bears on the sea ice.  During this time of year, mother bears are coming out of their snow dens and taking their cubs onto the ice.  I probably won't get to see a polar bear while I'm here, but the trackers said they would share pictures that they've taken of moms and cubs this season.

Polar bears get tattooed on the inside of their lips, tags attached to their ears, and radio transmitter collars.  The collars and designed to fall off after a certain period of time (normally a year).  The trackers brought one in that they'd just recovered from an old den.

This is how much bigger a female polar bear's neck is than mine. Yikes! Maybe I don't want to cross paths with one of these after all.  They are very curious bears, and I wouldn't want them to start pondering what blonde tastes like.

Tomorrow we get a lesson on snow shelters, and then we'll build an igloo!  I'm very excited. Afterwards it's back into the field for more snow pits and snow coring.  Steve, our instructor/wrangler, told me I was doing a good enough job that I earned extra dessert rations. I think he's just trying to fatten me up so I'll be a more efficient snow corer.  I'm not falling for it!  

Viewing the kids blog

Hi friends and AGC families,

I've heard that some families have been having a hard time getting to my kids blog, but everyone can find my adult blog.  Perhaps there was a typo on the handout that was sent home with the kids.  Follow this link to get to my blog for kids.

Thanks for your patience.  Also, if you've been having trouble posting comments on the kids blog, I think I've fixed that too!

Warm Wishes,

Megan

Extraordinary Lengths

I had a very buff day.  I dug a large snow pit (see my kids blog for pics), and then I went to extraordinary lengths to get an accurate temperature reading.

I didn't have to dig the second snow pit, but once people know you can get an accurate reading...

I knew all that yoga and weight training would come in handy one day.  You can also see what it's like to ride a in a qumutak by going to my friend Kevin's blog.

Till tomorrow...Stay Calm, Be Brave, Wait for the Signs. 

I got that quote from Starman.  The guy who leads us in looking at the Northern Lights.

Beware of the Pukak!

What a busy day!

The morning started with another fabulous breakfast, but we were soon preparing for our first trip into the field.  We took qamatuk into the field.  I'll post a picture of one later, but basically, it's a wooden box on a sled that's pulled by a Skidoo.  You can also think of it as a free chiropractic adjustment.  Holy Moly, what a rough ride!  If the Skidoo driver is kind, they'll slow down before they go over a big bump.  If they don't, call the back surgeon.

We went out twice today and did field research at two different sites. I was on the "Forest Transition" team.  We worked in the areas between the forest and the tundra.  We dug 3 snow pits (two were 5 feet deep), and measured many different attributes of the snow: depth, temperature every 5 cm, hardness, density, snow crystal type.  And then we did snow coring. That's where you drive a large tube into the ground to measure how deep the snow is, and then you weigh the snow in the tube to calculate the density of the snow.  Easy, right?  But we had to take 33 snow cores at each site.  That's a lot of snow!

All in all, it was a fun day though.  I wore all of my six layers today, and we had great weather. Only seven below!  It turns out I have a lot in common with my new friends.  We all quote Monty Python and 80's movies, and are prone to burst out in song (Bohemian Rhapsody, for instance, in 3 part harmony).  In total, we spent six hours working outside and then returned to the center to do data entry and hear a lecture on snow.  There are so many different kinds of snow.  I had no idea it was so technical.

I got to see the Northern Lights last night. Vast is the only word to describe it.  We're going out again tonight.  I'll post pictures of that later too.

I've posted to my kids blog, so I feel my work is done for the day.

Till tomorrow, beware the pukak (a type of snow that has deconstructed to a more stable thermo-dynamic form, confusing...yes...but fun to say).

Getting Spruced Up

Is it for tree coring or brain density measurement? Hmmmm??

If you know me, then you know I can't resist a pun.  Therefore, the title of this post should tip you off.

We woke up this morning to the smell of pancakes and bacon.  The Arctic is a beautiful place!

After gorging ourselves we began our first assignment of the expedition.  Trim, measure, and weigh around 630 tree samples (varieties of spruce to be precise).  What do 630 tree samples have to do with climate change you ask.  Well now I know.

The treeline between the forest and the tundra is affected by climate change.  The tundra is by definition treeless, and this is an important fact.  As trees progress into what used to be the tundra, they replace other light colored tundra vegetation and snow.  The trees are very dark and absorb the sun's energy instead of reflecting it back, so the trees increase the warming rate of the region.  This creates a cycle.  More climate warming equals more trees, and more trees leads to more climate warming, etc...  In order to see how much affect climate warming is having on the tree's ability to reproduce and make more trees, we're measuring the new growth on trees to see how they are holding up against environmental stresses: wind abrasion, temperature, snow fall.  What I took from our researcher's presentation was that if the climate is changing, over time, the environmental stresses will be different and the treeline will react by moving forward (or back, they don't really know yet).

This all translated into a lot of work with small bits of trees. A lot!

Tomorrow we'll be heading out to take snow samples.  We had a walk about the center today , and I didn't freeze ( it was only -17 F, so if I had, it would have been a very bad sign).  We saw some examples of igloo building, and I'm definitely going to have to spend the night in one.

We also experimented with jumping in the snow.  I had a friend launch me so I could get some decent air, and I have to admit landing in a gigantic pile of snow is quite fun...until it gets down the back of your snow pants.  Time for a hot bath!

Adventure Begins at 3am

That's correct my friends.  Yours truly was up before the sun showering and generally preparing for adventure.  Or as much adventure as a day full of airports and trains can provide.

My first two flights, from Chicago to Minneapolis and Minneapolis to Winnipeg, were pretty uneventful (read as, I slept the whole way), but my passage through the customs line in Winnipeg was nerve wracking.  The conversation between the customs official (CO) and me (M) went something like this...

CO: Why are you coming to Canada?

M: Vacation (which is what I was told to say be Earthwatch).

CO: No.

M: Pleasure?

CO: No!

M: Personal Business??

CO: No! Where are you going?

M: Churchill, Manitoba.

CO: Nobody comes here on vacation in the winter.  What exactly will you be doing?

After about another three minutes of interrogation, I was able to convince her that my purposes were neither illegal nor inherently nefarious, and I was able to enter the country.  I just want to help take ice samples and count polar bears.  Maybe she found the Orca on my school sweatshirt intimidating?  Who knows?

My flight on the Canadian airline CalmAir was just that. I landed in Thompson, Manitoba about three hours before the train station opened.  I had a delightfully chatty cabby who dropped me off at the mall, where I ate dinner and bought something to watch on the train, and picked me up later to take me to the train station.  Everyone in Thompson was very polite and helpful. I was obviously not a local.  Pulling three rolling bags through the mall generally signals that you are from out of town. People in the mall would ask me where I was headed and then look generally concerned when I said Churchill.  Apparently, even Canadians think Churchill is a ridiculously cold place to go. This could be a sign.

When traveling, do you ever have those moments of epiphany?  Everything about what you're doing and where you're going comes into crystal clear focus, and you think to yourself...WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO!?! When a large beaded Canadian you from a town where a warm day is in the negative teens, says that Churchill is too cold, you know you're in for it.

Panic-attack aside, I wrote this on the train.  We were about a couple hours away from Churchill.  The train was comfy and nearly empty. I met some other Earthwatch fellows and volunteers, and everyone seems very nice (we'll see if that holds up after 10 days in the tundra).  I also made a friend from France, Lody, he truly is going to Churchill on vacation. He's come to see the Northern Lights.

Welcome to the Adventure!

Dear Family, Friends, and fellow adventure enthusiasts:

Only 9 days until this warm weather Oklahoma gal heads off to the frozen North! I am a mix of excitement, anticipation, and shivers at the thought of what awaits. I have a feeling that Churchill is going to make Boston and Chicago feel like island get-a-ways.

For those of you who are in need of all the details, I will be joining a field research team in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. The team is studying climate change in the Arctic. I am the recipient of an Earthwatch Live from the Field Fellowship. Earthwatch matches volunteers to research teams around the world. I applied for a teachers fellowship that allows me to communicate via email, blog, and web video with my students in Chicago. My hope is that my students will realize that they too can travel the world to find answers to their burning questions.

I'll be using this blog as my journal. It will be written on an adult reading level. I also have a blog through Earthwatch that will be written on a Kinder and first grade level. Check it out!
I will most likely post all of my pictures and video to that site.

The adventure awaits!
Megan