So the final week in Alaska is here, and just like last year we are all extremely busy. The only difference is that this year Rob and I actually feel confident doing what we do. We had anxiously awaited the second coming of Hollister. We had all become quietly comfortable in the routine of our groups dynamic. That being said, our comforts could possibly be suddenly upheaved for the rest of the summer.

The reality of the day was actually much less dramatic than it had been built up to be in our minds. Bob did not step off the plane with the clouds cracking with thunder, quite to the contrary the weather was nice. As for our dynamic, it was altered only slightly and his arrival served as a fresh sounding board for what has happened this summer. He barely even got off the plane and we began jabbering loudly and constantly about all that had happened this summer. We told of “loon people”, seals, jellyfish, fossil hunting, and the frustrating trials of our trucks that keep escaping. He listened intently and patiently possibly waiting for us to talk about the research…no such luck.

Anyways now for a smidge of bragging. At dinner on the evening of Bobs arrival all of us were eating and discussing the next week. Jenny and I were going to Atqasuk on Friday for 4 days to do total season measures, wrap up stuff, and break down the sight. I must say that the 4 days would have been full 8 hour work days. At dinner Bob and Craig were reminiscing about “the good old days” and Craig said that they did total season in 18 hours! That sounded preposterous to some, being that it took us 4 days of solely doing that to do it last year. Jenny and I saw a challenge.

That night UTEP had a party in their hut and we all hung out and played poker. We got this idea in our head that if we came back on Sunday we could spend more of our last days in Barrow. The seed was planted innocently enough and by the next morning we were ready.

The next day we prepped, paced, and waited impatiently for our flight. We were determined to perfect our already above average efficiency in order to get it done in 2 days. At 5pm Friday evening we landed in Atqasuk and we were off.

By 6pm we were in the field and made “phenological observations” before started on Jenny total season. I had left my coat in Barrow so had to make do with a raincoat filched from the house in Atqasuk. We worked until 11:30pm and then came home to prep for the next day. After a bedtime of about 1am and a wake up call of 6am, we were ready. We hit the field at 7ish and finished both of our total season on Saturday. A long day to say the least as we were swarmed with mosquitos, almost run over by a bull caribou, and trying to push as hard as we could. Bob came out around 6pm and we finshed about 11:30PM. Saturday was the same as Friday…work, home, eat, sleep, get up, work.

This morning was the most hectic of all days. We did a FULL day of work between 7:30am and noon. We were determined to make it to thet damn plane and after almost running out of gas, breaking our backs, and even losing a pair of gloves we did it. We were quietly cautious about the flight though, since we were not on “the list” to go today. Then Bob did something interesting. He walked over to a local and talked for a minute or two. Upon coming back over he simply said “Dont worry. We are on the list now.” I dont really understand it but it was impressive.

Anyway back in Barrow our counterparts are working on their total season and we finished our biomass weighing. Now I am deciding how much longer to stay awake. Tomorrow is another day here and I think that it bring the tearing down of the Barrow sites.

Let me start off by saying that days in Barrow seem like 3 all rolled up in one. Take yesterday for example. I woke up not feeling quite right but decided to go out in the field anyway. Bad idea. I only got through 1 point frame (which took much longer than it should have) and then started vomiting. I went back and slept for a few hours and tried to go to the lab, where I felt so bad I had to go back to bed. This time i slept for about 4 hours. When I got up I was fine and went and got groceries and worked in the lab for the rest of the night.  A long trying day to say the least.

Today I woke feeling ready to take on the world and the weather around here was pretty good too. It was a little cool (40ish) this morning and fog, but its Barrow and we take what we can get. Anyway Jenny and I decided that today was the day we were going make our stand. We were going to finish point framing the Barrow Wet Site. This site is the hardest to identify and most diverse of all the sites. Anyway we decided to give it a go, even though it meant doing 16 plots. The standing record is 14 plots, which was done in an easier site (which we set I might add). Anyway we buckled down and tried to saty focused. And (as you can tell by the title of this post) we made it, after hours of mind numbing, voice destroying work.

Coming back out of the field we were feeling pretty damn good about ourselves, and after a quick pitstop most of the team went out for a celebratory dinner. Then back to the lab for more biomass. Biomass is a hard, long undertaking but I think we are doing pretty good for our first time. Anyway i need sleep now. Even though today was greatly productive, we need to stay focus if we are to be at the top of our game for whatever random thing tomorrow brings.

Well let me just start out by saying the past week has been one hell of a ride. Last week started off great. Jenny and I were feeling motivated on Monday and did 14 pointframes in one day. Which may or may not sound like a lot, escpecially for those who don’t know what it is. Let me tell you that it is quite a feat. Then the weather took a downward turn, and I mean a very fast turn. Tuesday was cold, but nothing terrible since 35 degrees is what we are trained to deal with. Then Wednesday hit….

Wednesday is what you would call a “shitty day”. It was snowing sideways, mainly due to the sustained 30 mph winds with gusts that make you stumble. Not to mention that the temperature dropped steadily throughout the day into the upper 20s. This continued throughout the night and the next day was colder with ice and snow. So we stayed in both days….well, after trying to be “hardcore” and going out for a little Wednesday morning. The weather quickly turned us back though.

Friday was Jeans birthday, the day the weather broke, and the day we all went to Atqasuk. I went out Friday morning to get the pointframe from the site and all of the plants were coated with ice. I am not sure how they will survive it, but it made for some convincing photos to send back to Bob on why we did not go out the past two days. We arrived in Atqasuk early in the evening and commenced Jeans birthday party. We had dinner and gave her a poker set as a gift, then she promptly fell asleep.

The next day was more biomass collection followed by a less than bountiful fossil hunt. Sunday was a long field day (cool and rainy) and nothing much that night. Everyone seemed very ready to go back to Barrow.

This morning Jean and I went out to mark waypoints of weather stations with my GPS and got the ATV stuck a few times. One of which required us both to push it and floor the gas at the same time. Jean did a little swimming before we headed back to the house. Then we waited for the plane to come. Rob tried an experiment of running out of the house with candy to se if the kids would chase him…and chase him they did. After giving the kids various treats we called the airline in Barrow only to find out that they were on a weather hold on account of fog. One plane did make it to Atqasuk but it was a charter for their high school kids. We were able to hitch a ride on it to get back.

The flight was nerve racking at best. For the entire flight we could not see anything up, down, or around us. We were flying in pea-soup fog. Then we started to land (still not being able to see anything). It was fine until we were 200 feet up and then the pilot quickly turned right, which meangt we were off course. I will be honest, I started to sweat a little. Then like magic the runway appeared through the fog and we landed safely.

Now safely back in Barrow we all went our separate ways, which kind of seems to be a trend. Early on in the summer we did a lot of things together, but now it is more 50:50. Half of the time we do stuff together and the other half we do our own thing. I guess that is what happens when you spend 8 weeks working and living together. It is amazing we still get along.

That’s what the conversations are like around the biomass sorting table in our lab. It is fun, but it always ends up in the gutter.

Tonight was no exception. After a long day of flower counts in the field with our self proclaimed “scientific tourist” Bob, we came back into the lab to continue the immense task of sorting biomass. Sitting around, listening to music and talking about anything and everything. The conversation is laden with a host of  jokes. So much, in fact, that an idea for a tally system on the “wall of shame” was hatched. I can proudly say that I am the owner of only 1 of these tick marks. Others in my group did not fair so well.

Not that we just sit around and tell jokes, there lots of other stuff going on. We have visitors, there is running in the halls, some yelling, lots of tear-inducing laughing, and all with sprinkles of Rob’s creative film making. All this and science still has a tendency to get done around here.

Today in the field was not quite as fun, but still not too bad. We all worked separately on various aspects of flower counts. I did some of Rob’s graminoid species. Today was about 40 degrees, windy and very foggy. This morning I decided to break out my cold-gear hood, so I was actually pretty toasty despite the conditions.

Oh I forgot to mention the most important part of the week….we are going to Atqasuk on Wednesday!!!! There are many people in the world whose hearts would not race at the sound of those words. Those people have clearly never been to Atqasuk. So let me tell you give you a little (unbiased, and completely objective) information on Atqasuk. It is a small inland village on the North Slope of Alaska situated on the Meade River. Approximately 300 people call it home and it is about 60 miles south of Barrow (my current home). What else? Oh yeah it is fantasmically amazing! The fishing there is great, weather is great, and locals are great. Well, the kids at least since we never really see anybody else around there. The only downside is a few thousand mosquitos. But hey, no plavce it perfect.

As you can see I am just a little excited about getting out of Barrow and relaxing a little. Its still going to be a working weekend, but the scenery is different (and prettier). I think it is just the bonding time the crew needs to regain our perspective.

Lets see, what else random happened today? We saw Matt who is one of the ”loon people” whom I have shared some living space in Atqasuk for two years running. It was completely random to see him but he had some great stories about the kids in Atqasuk. He got locked out and had to recruit the kids to show him how to break back into the house. On a different occasion was trying to get the kids to leave. He would carry one kid outside and go back in for another and then the first would be let back in by his friends. They are a crazy group of kids. He said that he was carrying one out kicking and screaming when he looked up and a woman was standing there and she told him to stop abusing the kids. He was able to convince her that he was doing no such thing.

Ahhhh, Atqasuk. Its going to be one hell of a weekend. And I really need to buy Matt a beer when we all go through Anchorage.

Well today was probably one of the quickest and longest days of my life. The crew and I spent the entire day sorting out my biomass. First off, let me give credit where credit is due. There is no way that I could do this whole biomass thing without these folks. It is a monsterous task WITH them. I grossly underestimated the amount of person hours that are going be involved in it. Now I find myself thinking of methods that I can come up with that will make this process even a little bit more efficient. But anyway that is neither here nor there.

The day was long for obvious reasons, as it only can be when your spend 11+ hours sitting at a table and tweezing lichens, mosses, and vascular plants apart and sorting them. On the other hand there was much bonding involved today. We all listened to each others music, promptly critiquing selections (playfully of course). Rob also slipped away for a bit to work on somewhat of a secret project. It appears to be a portable trolley system that will allow for seamless video to be taken of large swaths of tundra, possibly for a video/music montage that I feel is going to come in the future. Either way I am very interested to see how it works out. There were times where we would lose parts of our crew for short stints, but such is expected on a lab day. A lab day around here is about as close to a day off as we get. It really means we still work all day, but at least we are freezing our butts off.

Today has surprisingly been fast in the fact that every time I look up it’s time to eat a meal. It seemed to be less than an hour between breakfast and lunch, the same with dinner. I guess that biomass sorting is more captivating than I give it credit. It also appears to be a more widespread practice than I had thought. It seems that every other researcher in this building has done it, and so feels our pain. They all are also more than happy to give the advice that we should recruit others to help us. That being said…none of them have yet to come in, pull up a chair, and get dirty with us. I can’t say that I blame them though. We do have a few prospective helpers tomorrow though, so we’ll see.

The night did end on an up note. As a treat for all of us, we watched the movie “Hot Fuzz”. It was pretty funny and I am a growing fan of the leader actors, even though I have no idea what their names are. They are the guys from “Shaun of the Dead” (a must see).

I am doing better this evening, but had a bit of a home sick spell this afternoon. A few times i thought to myself…hmmm I wonder what Napa Valley is like this time of year? I am sure its nice. But then a again so is the North Slope in the summer.

Lately things have been going just a little crazy in the big town of Barrow. Some in a good way, some in a surprising way, but always interesting. Things always have a way to happen that way up here. Thats why I say you have to be ready to improvise, improvise, improvise.

Lets start out with the good stuff. The crew is getting along pretty good up here, but as with any group of relative strangers thrust into living and working together, there will be a few bumps in the road. I got to go out with one of the snowy owl reasearcher up here and had the chance to hold a 1 day old snowy owl chick. It was very cool, but they were described by Jenny as cute and muppet-like. Jean and I were able to get some good close up pics of caribou at our sites in Barrow which was nice.

The surprising stuff could be taken as good or bad (depending on how you want to look at it). So biomass at the Barrow wet site started today and it has turned out to be quite a project. It started yesterday as I prepared for said biomass. I had to get holders for the point framed poles drilled. This turned out to be easier said than done. In the BASC shop things are not placed in any order and you have to search for everything. I then nailed the point frame tags to a board with what ended up being a very dull drill bit. As the bit drilled in it pulled the point framed tags up (and the nails up) and spun the tags around and shot the nails in all directions. THEN went I went to trun off the drill I was shocked by the “off” button on the drill! Needless to say that I survived the ordeal and was ready for biomassing today.

This turned out to be a hurdle in its own right. Today the weather was great but quite windy. Jenny and I had to point frame two plots before removing all of the vascular plants (and separate by species), lichens, and mosses. We tried to do this whole process in the field but it proved too time consuming. We ended up cutting all of the above ground stuff off with knives, throwing it into bags and taking it back to the lab. There all 4 members of our crew sorted it all out. This took us about 6 hours total. I think that doing this on 23 more plots may be quite a bit more than I had expected.

All said, I am just going to keep on keeping on. Make sure I keep my head down and work my ass off to get everything done that I have to.

Today I sit waiting on a plane to get off the ground in Barrow, so it can pick Jenny and I up from Atqasuk. As usual we were supposed to leave at 8:30am but we sit here at 10:00am waiting for the fog to clear enough to fly out. Improvisation seems to be the theme for the summer. We have missed flights, delayed flights, and some people around us have flights that actually circle the airport before turning back, not landing. Not to mention that scheduling has often been trying at best. That all being said so far it has turned out to be one hell of a summer so far.

This summer I have visited Fairbanks, been in Barrow’s 4th of July parade, been dive-bombed by Jaegers, watched baby birds hatch, often been caught off guard by the randomness of my crewmates (in a good and often hilarious way), caught grayling in a snow thaw fed creek, and still managed to get my work done. I am excited to have the scheduling and preparation work done for point framing the sites. This will allow me to spend more of my down time experiencing the excitment of the North Slope.

I am actually a little dissapointed to be leaving Atqasuk. I have become quite accustomed this quiet little village. The kids are curious and fun to hang out with, the pace of life is glacial, and the fishing is outstanding. Here is a place where you actually share your life with the wildlife. While its not on the tourist brochures, Atqasuk is a must see place.