Look At Me Still Talking When There’s Science To Do

In Grand Rapids… thinking about Barrow (among other things)

Archive for the point

…and there was much rejoicing.

July 25, 2008 at 6:57 am · Filed under Barrow and tagged: , ,

I really really ought to stop writing posts at the end of pleasant days. My unending admiration for this adventure (along with the overly-positive vocabulary I use to describe it) is liable to make me ill, should I ever re-read anything I’ve written (and of course I do, that’s the whole point!).

That being said, today was probably my third (or fourth?) favorite day of the season so far. Though it was a dreaded growth measure day, we were filled with optimism and good cheer at the beginning of the day due to A.) the GLORIOUS* weather and B.) the magic hour of 5:00 p.m. that was rapidly approaching (to be explained in due course).

BASC, our trusty logistics provider, has seen fit to throw us one curve ball after another lately. We attribute this to their poor money managing rather than any blunder we have committed for which they could secretly (or not so secretly) be punishing us.

To begin with, the beloved blue truck was sneakily removed from our list of assets through a short series of favors that we warily agreed to comply with. (Bob told us to be helpful!) As our access to the truck grew less, so did our goodwill towards BASC, those sneaks! We harbored no ill will toward the Enemy**, however, as their part in the truck fiasco was quite inadvertent. The replacement trucks we were occasionally offered (they were trying to humor us, no doubt) included a run-down number plagued with a gnome stowaway who’d locked himself in- or so we assumed from the incessant banging noises emanating from the glove box region.

We also were required to abandon Dario’s hotel in favor of a hut that is rented by BASC. It does make sense to save over ten thousand dollars a month by placing six of us in the hut instead of in costly hotel rooms, but as a result, we are forced to live with strangers! That is a lie, they’re not strangers at all, they’re Gilda and Sandra from UTEP, both quite harmless and charming girls. You can imagine how pleased Rob and Jeremy are to have four new female roommates***! The hut, though not without its challenges, has several advantages as well, and it should suffice. The chief difference for me is that my Favourite Walk is now a little longer- certainly no harm in that.

In any case, at 5:00pm today the Enemy was long gone from Barrow and the truck was relinquished to us at long last. This reunion was not without its share of mishaps, since, to begin with, the keys were left behind three separate locked doors in the office, but eventually it was quite a happy ending. We celebrated with Thai food and a trip to the point. Jean hadn’t had a chance to go yet, and the clear sky and sun-sink (not setting yet, but almost!) held out for the whole GLORIOUS trip.

*This is an example of “overly-positive vocabulary.”

**The gentlemen from the BBC were the Enemy, since they were given our truck when theirs failed to work. Who could hate gentlemen from the BBC? They were filming snowy owls for “Frozen Planet,” and EVERYONE loves snowy owls.

***They began immediately on the “No Girls Allowed” sign for their bedroom.

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Adventures are a wonderful thing

June 24, 2008 at 2:57 am · Filed under Barrow, atquasuk and tagged: , , , ,

I suspected that I would love the sunlight in the arctic circle because the constant presence of daylight would put the sun at a very advantageous angle in the sky. I suspected correctly. I prefer low suns to overhead suns. The sun has been joining us quite a bit lately. In fact, today in Atqasuk, it was hot and buggy. One layer of clothes and one layer of bug spray were all I needed.

Saturday started out as a work day but as the sun came out we stopped working and headed back to town for the first Nalukatuk of the season. Between the sun and the beach, where the festival was being held, I was pretty happy.

A Nalukatuk is held to pass out the meat and celebrate a successful whale hunt. These days are North Slope Borough holidays, so things close down and people fly in from all the next villages over. We didn’t go to the meat passing out part and we didn’t eat any whale, but this was merely the first one. This particular whale was killed about a month ago. I think there will be four more.

The party is thrown by the successful whaling crew. The part of the celebration that we saw was the blanket toss. A trampoline-sized seal skin is used to toss people into the air, and the goal is to stay on the blanket and keep standing and jumping with each toss. There are often injuries, but there is also candy being tossed by the people being tossed. Candy is exciting.

We’d had a full day that included going out for Thai food that was served by a woman from Vietnam by way of Ohio. She gave us lemon meringue desserts on the house because she liked our style. Mostly she liked Jean’s style, though Jean turned down the offer of an ear and nose massage.

Rob and I were not interested in watching a movie or going to bed before midnight, because he’d suggested taking an ATV out to Point Barrow and it sounded like a capital idea, especially given the sunlight situation. Point Barrow is about nine miles northeast of Barrow itself. Since our hotel and lab are already six miles out of Barrow, we didn’t have as far to go as all that.

We drove down a fairly narrow (maybe… i don’t know, it was less than a football field) dirt strip with the sea on either side. These Seas mean that the ocean we see on the beach every day is not really the ocean, but at the end of the point, it is. So we saw the Arctic Ocean and took pictures and kicked a piece of whale blubber and checked out the various bones adorning the beach.

Rob also instructed me in how to drive the ATV. This went about as well as could be expected.

The next morning we put Bob on a plane. Joining us for the farewell breakfast at “Pepe’s North of the Border” were a reporter and a middle school science teacher from Florida. Both were writing blogs about their experiences working with a research group from Florida International University. The former was here on her own dime and doing freelance writing for her paper, and she was getting on the same plane as Bob and going home. The latter is a part of the PolarTREC program for educators, and she has three or four more weeks of Barrow time. Both blogs are linked at the far right.

We don’t have our leader anymore, so we’ll have to be content with emailing him every other day until August when he comes to pack us up.

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