Jeremy's Blog
Just another WordPress.com siteSo many plants…so little time
So I am not really sure how what I am about to say actually happened. I have a bachelors degree in Biology with a Plant Biology emphasis. I am currently in my 5th summer conducting research on plant related things. I have subbed for professor’s in labs that I taught people how to collect, press, and mount plants. So how in the world was Saturday the first time I had ever pressed a plant!!!!! I mean, I know how to do it, I just never have. Hmmmm….
Well that being said I told Rob earlier tonight “I have been bitten by the plant pressing bug…and I got it bad, man!” This may be somewhat of an understatement. Since Saturday (my first plant pressing attempt mind you) I have attacked the tundra with the full fury of Eric Hulten. I currently have in my bedroom quintuplets (5 samples) of 46 species of tundra plants being pressed. I am collecting so many so that if I mess any up (which i am sure is inevitable) I will have extras. This and I haven’t even started the grasses yet or went out into the tundra away from the road or the sites. AND, the mosses and lichens are still to be done. My heart is actually pitter-pattering a little faster even as I write this. I have officially discovered the joy of plant collection, identification and pressing… and I got it bad!!!!
Now for a little kudos to be handed out. These go to Jenny and Kelsey who have been instrumental in my new found obsession. They have helped collect plants, identify them, given me tips on how to press them (thanks Jenny), and tolerated me as I drive along on the ATV, suddenly stop, jump off, and say “I haven’t got that yellow one yet!” as I run off the trail toward a group of flowers. Also, one more pay it forward kudos to Rob because Kelsey and I are coming Barrow this weekend and I am going to guilt him into a whirlwind tour of plant collection that the North Slope has never before witnessed.
Stay tuned to more confessions of a serial plant presser. So many plants…so little time!
Shaking things up
So today things got shaken up a bit. Today is the day when Jenny and Kelsey make the big switch. Both of them are leaving the comfy confines of their routines and study sites that they know. Both are fully capable of taking on anything the slope throws at them so they will adjust fine.
Good news! I only saw a handful of mosquitos today. The winds have shifted again and in turn changed the weather. Today was in the low 40s and cloudy, as opposed to 70s and sunny. I never thought I would come to prefer cold, damp days to warm, sunny ones but that was before this season. These days I will take a bugless day any way I can get it.
Alright, I was brief in this post but I am very distracted by a movie…well that and the kids that are on the roof of the house running around. At least they are not pounding on the windows but that is only because they don’t know we are here. Ahhh Atqasuk.
Let ME tell YOU a thing or two about bugs!!!
So I have been somewhat of an absentee blog poster lately. Sorry about that. That being said, my blog seems to be doing pretty well as far as number of views per day thanks to the links from my coworkers blogs. Thanks guys. I promise to be more diligent about writing more frequently. Even if the posts are just a random assortment of loosely associated occurrences. Ok enough of the pleasantries, let ME tell YOU a thing or two about bugs.
I have spent considerable time in this village of Atqasuk, but today was unlike any other day that I have seen. In the Midwest a walk in the park, a picnic, or a day fishing often has the annoyance of a dozen or so little mosquitoes following you around. Spray on a light layer of Deet and you are good to go.
This is not the case in Atqasuk. Here a few dozen bugs would be great. It is more likely (on warm days) that you have several hundred to a thousand flying around you at any given moment. Those who have not witnessed it may balk, but those who have witnessed it can attest to the truth of this statement. Have you ever seen the videos of mouse outbreaks in Australia? You know, those images of countless mice clamouring over one another in a massive, moving horde. Thats kind of what it is like here, but with hungry, flying bugs.
Oh yeah and did I mention that bugspray seems to only stop them for 30 minutes or so. The bottle says “Stops bugs for up to 8 hours of protection”. Well I am here to tell you it lies! Or at the very least, when in Atqasuk there is a Bermuda Triangle where the bugs have developed an immunity to it.
Anyway, back to today. Pointframing season has begun. Normally we are on boardwalks so our movements do not stir up a lot of bugs (only about 50 highly intuitive ones), but now we are pointframing a 1km square grid which means we are trudging around out in the tundra. This kicks up bugs as you move along and you acquire more and more until the cloud of tag alongs is so thick you have trouble concentrating on plants. This is not because they are biting you (which they are), not because they make a high-pitched, thunderous whine of thousands of wings (which there do), but because you actually have trouble SEEING through the cloud of them all moving in front of you. Today there was more than a few times in which I wanted to drop my ruler, jump up, and go running across the tundra just to have a momentary reprieve from these blood-sucking miscreants. That would probably cause more problems than it would solve as it would stir up an even larger cloud. There was one point today when the wind picked up and seemed to blow the bugs away. I made sure to point this development out to Jenny (who was sitting about 3 feet away), to which she replied “Yeah but there is no way I could possibly count the number of them crawling on your head and back right now!” Then, as it often does here, just like that the wind changed and died down bringing the cloud back once more.
If you are reading this Kelsey, don’t be scared. Actually you already know because your arms looked pretty mangled after a weekend here, so maybe a little fear of it is healthy (you know, some self-preservation). Desspite all this, I would still take the bugs over the finger debilitating cold of some towns I know of further north. Even though I came in from the field today and counted 14 bites on my face alone…MY FACE!!! Oh things we do for science. So next time I am sitting on the paddleboat on a summer evening with a beer in one hand and a fishing pole in the other when a mosquito bites my arm, and someone with me says “Damn bugs!”. I am going to (ever so slightly) smirk, look over, and say “Let ME tell YOU a thing or two about bugs.”
Nalakatuk
So today was the day that we decided to go to a Nalakatuk. This is the “whale festival” where a whaling crew throws a huge all day bash in the center of town for everyone. And I mean everyone, no matter where you are from, local or not. You can wander in at any time and the crew and the rest of Barrow are more than happy to share everything with you. They will talk with you, laugh with you, share the whale with you, and they even don’t mind if you take a lot of pictures (which I spent most of my time doing).
Up here there are many things that we don’t have down south, but one stands out more than anything else. Pride and the sense of community. People know each other here. At home we know the people in our families and social circles, but who actually knows all the other people in their community? Also, no where else (well as far as I have seen from my limited travels) has an event like this. There is a strong sense of faith and much celebration to God for safety during the whale hunting season (which I imagine is a relatively dangerous pursuit) and for their success. Even us non-locals can walk right in and participate in the event in its entirety.
This was my fifth Nalakatuk in the three summers that i have been here and they never fail to amaze me. The host whale crew passes out Mikigaq (whale meat fermented in blood), Muktuk (raw skin and blubber), a variety of beverages, and fruit. The crowd sings hymns in celebration and joins hands in prayer before the bounty is divvied out to families and other onlookers.
To be honest, I said a little word of thanks for myself for two reasons. First, for the whale who gave its life for this community and second for another opportunity to witness this celebration one more time.
Then the real fun begins…the fabled blanket toss. Imagine a large blanket of four tanned caribou hides sewn together with the corner tied to large ropes. These corner ropes are then raised to about eight feet by poles creating a huge trampoline. People then gather around the “blanket” and grab the edges. This starts the invitation for the brave ones to climb aboard with the crowd throwing the blanket up and down until the passenger goes flying into the air. Believe me, it a sight to behold. Each person only gets 2 or 3 tosses before it is the next persons turn. I know several people that have done this, but I have not (too much self-preservation I guess). Inevitably, someone always goes flying off into the gravel, but rarely get hurt. This whole process can go on for hours until everyone is exhausted and go home.
This celebration has been described to me as homecoming and winning the football national championship wrapped into one. This analogy pretty much describes the experience perfectly. The whale crew is akin to the winning team and the captain is the star quarterback.
All this, but this is the THIRD Nalakatuk in THREE days!!!! Now the town of Barrow sleeps quietly under the midnight sun, because the fourth and final Nalakatuk of the season is tomorrow!!! I can’t wait!
Saturday night at the top of the world
So let me be frank right up front, I am tired and this post is going to be short. That being said, several interesting things have happened over the past day or so. I started my laundry last night in Atqasuk. This sounds like a small thing but up here it can spiral out of control. My laundry was almost done when the drain began to overflow and flood the room. I had to ring out my clothes by hand to put them in the dryer. Upon doing this the dryer promptly would not turn, made a horrible noise and then stopped working. From there I had to stretch twine around the room into a messed up spiderweb to dry them. the next morning I had to catch the early flight to Barrow so I just threw my still wet clothes into a garbage bag and then into my duffel.
I suddenly looked up and saw that the plane was on the ground and had a housemate drive us to the airport at breakneck speed. Several times we took corners and I was sure I was going to fall off into the gravel at 30mph. Arriving back at the hut in Barrow I was actually able to finish my laundry.
The rest of the day was rather uneventful, however the infamous “tally board” made its revival. For those that don’t know the tally board is where we get hash marks whenever we make inappropriate comments (or at least things that can be loosely construed as inappropriate). I am the proud owner of none, zero, no marks at the end of the day. Some of my other cohorts have not faired so well, to say the least. Anyway, I digress, we worked in the shop and ticked some of the things off of Rob’s enormous list of things that need to be done this summer.
This evening we had a Thanksgiving style dinner with the UTEP crew that was pleasant enough, but then it quickly moved into drinking a few and playing cards. It was lots of fun and just as I was walking into our hut to sleep, a few of our crew were making their way to the beach. I quickly grabbed my coat and followed. Let me point out that tonight at midnight the sun is shining and it is about 45 degrees. A great evening overall.
Anyway, tomorrow I am looking forward to getting some field time in. However this is after I get up to have brunch and watch the Ivory Coast crush Brazil in the World Cup (hopefully). Well I guess i wasn’t as tired as I thought, but that is all for now.
New outlook
So first off let me once again point out that a day up here seems more like 3 days rolled into one. Take today for example, I got up confused about everything that is going on around here and not being able to provide any insight into anything for my coresearchers. I had felt this way for about 2 days now (which is like 6 days). Anyway I digress, I woke up and decided that instead of stressing about how to figure out what we are doing this summer and what was being planned schedule-wise, I was just going to get up keep my head down and work n the few things that were within my control. And you know what? It worked.
Kelsey, Jenny, and I got our morning stuff done fairly quickly and before we knew it the boss took us aside to explain things. The explanation took about 20 minutes about things that had taken several long days to prepare. Needless to say this set my mind at ease (at least a little more). Now instead of not knowing what is going to happen, I am fully aware of the cluster f*$% we are in for. Surprisingly knowing the vast amount of work that lies in wait is much better than not knowing.
So with this new information I had a revelation about this field season. I am not going to drive myself (and those around me) crazy with trying to figure it all out and nail it all down. I am going to just do it. I am going to work hard, play a bit, enjoy the summer, and most importantly…smile. That way just in case the whole thing come crashing down it will be one hell of a ride. But of course it won’t come crashing down because we will all pull together and work our butts off to pull everything off. It will all be done quickly and efficiently. Even with the day-to-day challenges that come with working on the Slope like getting a shotgun but no bullets, working for 4 hours cutting stakes only to find out they are wrong, and flying through the fog in a little plane 800 feet in the air with the pilot putting all his attention into peeling his orange. All of these things, which by the way, happened today.
I do still miss my girls, but something still thing also brings a content smile to my face and a new outlook…tonight I am falling asleep in Atqasuk.
First week…
So I have been on the slope for a week now. The trip up was uneventful, well relatively. I saw an 8 year old walking a rabid dog through the Minneapolis airport and later had to sit next to her, her mom, and the dog on a 6 hour flight to Anchorage. Besides that, and another flight from Fairbanks to Barrow which was loaded with climbing kids, the trip was uneventful.
From there it was an overnight in Barrow bunking in a hut, that turned out to be the digs in Barrow for the summer, before heading to Atqasuk for 4 days. Atqasuk is just as I had remembered it. A quiet little North Slope village with nothing much going on. We set up the research sites and built a nice little bridge. Kids are still in school here so the whole stay was fairly uneventful. We made our was back to Barrow yesterday to await the arrival of the rest of the crew.
Meeting people at the airport is an occasion with plenty of pomp and circumstance. Larger than normal groups of researchers and logistic providers converge on the terminal to await the arrival of “new blood”. 2/3 of the crew this year are repeats and hopeless romantics who spend the rest of the year pining over how to get back to the tundra. We only have one new crew member but that is enough to make even the mundane things exciting for us as we show her around.
Things are going fairly well overall and we are spending most of our time unpacking, organizing, and just generally reacclimating. The adjust is relatively easy for me due to this being my third bid in 4 years. That being said, I still find it extremely difficult to be away from my girls (who I miss terribly).
I will try to post every 3 days here. Stick with it because this post will be the most benign all summer. We start field work in the morning and traveling later in the week, both being activities that always promise adventure and good stories.
