The epic skies of home

Look! Amy and i made it back from Ecuador, samples and all despite a botched permit, a random luggage search, and a short time being detained, but that story is for a later post :)

July 24th, yes sirs and ma'ams, tis July 24th here in Nebraska where the monumental vistas created by the clouds in the skies are nigh unparalleled by those of any other place i have been.

i have officially been home for over a month now. Is anyone surprised that i am just catching up on my blogging now? Probably no :) i am back from my six months of travel that ended very wonderfully with a South American twist. i left off my last post with stories of Svalbard, that seems so long ago now - and so different from my last experience! But i will do my best to pick up where i left off. Sometime soon i will have to write a lot down - before the vivid accuracy with which i can think of events and the potency of so many emotions escapes my mind, leaving only the hazy altered flashes and dulled blurs of color we call memories. That happens much faster than we would like to believe!

i am holed up in the Mo Java coffee house near NWU today, as lab work that needed done was minimal. This is rapidly becoming one of my favorite near-campus haunts, though the little used bookstore called Yellowed Pages is running a close second. i rarely drink coffee, and the goal is that the jolt of caffeine will set me fingers to typing at a good speed. Lets see...it seems as though i had written about our introduction to the frozen north, next step - excursion! The highlight of the trip and something i am assuming will be a once in a lifetime for yours truly (though i would have it otherwise).

This was, of course, a science oriented sort of mission. We were to take the snowmobiles out, sledges and all, and head toward a frozen fjord. The goal was to cut a hole in the ice and take round-the-clock plankton samples to examine dial vertical migration or DVM. This is where the little fellows move up and down in the water column - a balance of finding food and avoiding predation. In typical situations, plankton can move up during the night (so their predators can't see their little silhouettes from below, yay visual predation!), but for half of the Arctic year there is no night at all! We were going to take samples from a deep and shallow depth at each sampling and look at who was swimming where and at what time in the water column. Sound tedious? Maybe a little, but anything is made more interesting when you are wearing survival suits, playing with snow mobiles, and hanging out in a true Arctic landscape under the Midnattsol.

The first step was getting there. i didn't want to drive. In all honesty, i'm not super adventurous in terms of motor- powered things (though after this trip, i may be more so.) Whether i wanted to or not, they needed all licensed drivers. i ended up driving with my flatmate, Ellen, as my passenger. SOMEHOW or another, we ended up skipping the snowmobile practice session that had been promised to those of us who had never been on them. We packed up and headed directly out into the snow in the bright bright Arctic mid-morning. Hooray for learning via experience!



Us and the landscape. The land looked more or less like this all the way across. How lucky can you get? i think we all felt a bit like we had landed square in the middle of some National Geographic special. It was hard to stay focused on driving when all you wanted to do was stop and stare in awe and wonder.

The thing about driving - mountains and bumpy snow. It looks smooth, but it sure isn't. It felt like a continual arm exercise to keep the scooter going straight. The other big issue was the gradient across which we were cruising. They had told us that we would need to really lean to counter-balance the scooter. What they didn't emphasize was how much we needed to lean. When they say "really lean," what they actually mean is to get your whole self off the silly thing and hang to the side so the scooter doesn't flip and break your leg in the process. It took Ellen and i most of the 3ish hour trip out to get the hang of it. i was up on one ski so many times for the first bit; i fairly certain i would loose control and my flatmate as well! Interestingly, we learned later that they had sent us out on the type of scooter that is most easily tipped...

Yay! a flat space and a break for the arms. We crossed this valley fairly quickly.


Flatmates :)

We managed to make it out to the site with little incidence, despite the many inexperienced drivers. We stopped for one "restroom" break. Pardon me if this is crude, but have any of you females out there ever attempted to relieve yourself in a survival suit? It was emphasized over and over to drink plenty of water, and statistically speaking, we were told that women are more prone to dehydration when out on these sort of trips. Apparently we have a tendency to drink minimal water so we can take minimal breaks. In retrospect i have to admit that that is exactly what i did. Despite that effort, the art of squatting was nearly mastered on this trip. The hardest part was missing that danged furry hood...

Post arrival, the next step was setting up camp. We had packed a hefty canvas tent and a heater for it. The tent was large enough to comfortably hold about half of the group; in a pinch, it could hold almost everybody, but not comfortably.

It was a team effort to get everything up and going, and it took quite some time to get our base camp workable. One group took the ten or so minute drive to our sampling site. They would get the hole cut in the ice while the other crew finished establishing camp. i remained at camp and stood the first shift of polar bear watch duty with Morten. We passed the watch gazing across snowy horizons and discussing education across different cultures. i'm still amazed by the fact that they generally don't have homework in Europe...

Another incredibly important part of setting up camp was the construction of the ever vital latrine. Basically you dig a hole, carve out a seat, insert a bucket and keep a trash bag nearby. We had a very nice latrine, complete with steps and privacy walls. Latrine etiquette? Firstly, whenever you leave camp, a rifle and someone to stand guard always goes with you. Second, no liquids in the trash bag because all solid wastes must be carted out. Liquid waste is relieved somewhere out of the latrine. Next, line the bucket with a small trash bag, do your business in the bucket, tie waste and paper up in the little bag, and place it in the larger bag sitting very close by.

Camp from the latrine area on the "dirty" side of the mountain

One of my favorite pictures - a good example of how isolated we were out on the ice.

A team of dog sledders crossing Svalbard - the trail we followed is fairly well traveled by Svalbard's standards

And below...sampling! Fredrich, a Swedish student from UNIS (the University Centre in Svalbard) who accompanied our group, cut a hole in the ice with a chainsaw, and the sampling station was set up. Zoe stood close by on polar bear guard. If a bear was not known to be in the area, the rifle could be kept in the case. Theoretically you would be watching well enough to see one on the horizon and would be able to get the rifle out in time. If a bear was known to be around, the rifle was kept out and half loaded.





The sampling process involved lowering a unit to a certain depth and pulling it back up with a snowmobile (yay for pulley systems! cranking 70 meters of rope by hand would have been awful.)

It was a long day and night of sampling overall. We were split into two groups, and we rotated standing guard, sleeping, and sampling every three hours. We were extremely lucky with the weather. An icy wind only blew for several hours and one sampling session. Sleeping was difficult, due to limited room in the tent. And believe it or not, the tent became far too hot with its heater running at full blast! Some just of us simply took naps on scooters while waiting for our next job.

Ketil, our instructor, slept like a baby almost all night long on his scooter. i swear, that man was more at home out on the ice than he was in a classroom.

almost as low as the sun would get that night

It was a tiring sort of trip, and break-down of camp took almost as long as set up. We took our time leaving, enjoying the weather and the scenery and letting those who hadn't slept much take a nap. As we rolled (skied?) out for the trip back to Longyearbyen, i realized just how glad i was that Ellen and i had gotten the hang of keeping our scooter under control - as the gang successfully got underway, it began to snow, alot.

We proceeded slowly as the visibility around us progressively decreased. We finally stopped to take stock of the situation and managed a group picture in a brief break in the snow. Its funny the habits we have - we all found ourselves posing with big smiles every time the camera snapped another shot. Why we did that? Goodness only knows!

We traveled slowly and in a tight line, never letting the scooter in front or behind us leave our sight. If the person behind you dropped out of visible range, you were to stop and wait. Ellen and i had an excellent system worked out - we couldn't hear each others yells due to our helmets and the wind, and i hated having to turn around a lot, so she would simply whack my leg as hard as could if the team behind us dropped out of view.

We made it back safe and sound, after a stop in an emergency cabin and only one or two near disasters. The minimal visibility and the ground blizzard combined resulted in a flipped scooter or two. i was so impressed by my dear friend, Zoe. She hated driving and was terrified of flipping, but she kept going, even after an unexpected fissure in the trail caused her scooter to roll. It was slow going, and the two UNIS students who accompanied us newbies and our prof had their hands full guiding us in, but Longyearbyen appeared on the horizon at last. We unloaded equipment in a hurry and proceeded to crash - a well earned sleep.

And there you have it, the expedition, one of my most memorable experiences from the entire semester. i should probably head out, it's time to meet friends and see a movie. i might pause for a moment here though - i love people watching. A group of vegetarian/work-out fanatics left recently, making room for the two over 55 miniatures/purse enthusiasts and a very bored husband. i'm contentedly eavesdropping on their discussion that has turned to politics. i'm learning quite a lot about television years ago and their opinions on health care.

Happy day all! i will try to keep putting down stories and getting pictures up, despite the fact that it is rather after the matter. This blog entry leaves me with only one question...does anyone out there know how to get a job with National Geographic???