Still the same old story… but there’s a baby walrus!

Sorry for the delay between posts! Things have been extremely busy, and by the time we are in from the field I am just too tired to write. Also, nothing really interesting has been happening. Jenny and I are still pointframing daily, and I already talked about that. We are currently just a little bit under 2/3 of the way done with the plots we need to complete before the end of the season. We are optimistic that we will finish in time. Soon we will head back to Atqasuk to keep working there.

I have been delaying writing for a while because I just haven’t had anything worth writing about… until two nights ago! I got to witness the fish and wildlife service, with the help of some natives, rescue a baby walrus here in Barrow! 🙂 The mother either left the baby or was killed, and without its mother the baby would have died. It is so young that it still depends on its mother for food. So, it swam up to the beach. The fish and wildlife service took it to give it some food, and hope to find a home for it. I heard rumors that they would be sending it to the sea life center in Seward, AK. That is a great place, so I hope it ends up there. Here are some photos I was able to take:

The Fish and Wildlife crew pulling the baby walrus up the beach to get it away from the ocean so that it didn’t swim away. It would die in the wild without its mother at this age.

Finally made it far enough away from the ocean. Shortly after this, the baby turned and tried to bite one of the workers. It was actually pretty cute, but I felt sorry for it because it seemed so scared. But, it was for a good reason.

Trying to make an escape up the beach…

The rescue team, some locals, and some people taking pictures after the walrus was in the kennel. Shortly after, the walrus was loaded into a truck and taken away to be fed.

Seriously so cute. Such an amazing animal. Hopefully it lives a long and happy life. 🙂

In other news, a photographer came out and took some pictures of Jenny and I working yesterday. He is from the California Press. Hopefully I will get some copies of his pictures once they are edited to add on to here. We also had a worker from BASC come out and make a video about our project and talk to us about our sites. So, we were in the spotlight yesterday. Even with all of the distraction, we finally managed to finish pointframing on the Barrow ARCSS grid. That leaves us with 106 plots left to complete! Getting closer…

Also, today we are taking some 2nd graders out to a fake ITEX site that we made to talk to them about the Arctic, plants, and let them run around in the tundra for a while. Hopefully it goes well. Maybe that will be the subject of my next post.

Three weeks left here on the top of the world… as much as I really miss home, I know I am going to be sad to leave. Time to make the most of the rest of my time here!

“Well, my hands are wood-free now!”

Last night I pulled about 12 splinters out of my hands. Thanks for the precision tip tweezers Jenny! The splinters came from crawling around our wooden boardwalk. This usually isn’t a problem in Barrow because I wear gloves. But, it has been so hot here in Atqasuk, I haven’t been wearing any. This is generally the life of the Atqasuk kid, and with that comes the characteristic “eskimo tan”, displayed by the hands of Jenny and me below. Jenny’s tan has been a work in progress for the majority of this summer. Mine has been built up over the past week. Sorry Tim, I am bearing the mark of an Atqasuk kid…

Jenny’s Hand

My Hand

Jenny and I have been feverishly working on our pointframing. Total, we have 256 plots to accomplish. If we complete them all, we will set the record for most plots completed by a single pointframe team in one summer. GO US! We are currently at 93/252 plots completed, and have only been pointframing for a week and four days. It feels like we are moving slow, but this is actually good progress for that short of a time span. Our goal is to finish up the last 15 plots of the Atqasuk ARCSS grid by Saturday, and then head back up to Barrow to keep working there. The Barrow sites will take much longer, because everything takes longer in Barrow. The ITEX sites there have more plant species, and are more dense with vegetation, which makes pointframing harder. It is a lot easier when you only hit one or two things at each point than when you hit 4 or 5. The data gives us information about the different plant communities.

Today on our way in from the field, we collected some graminoids (grass like plants) to make a bouquet for the house. Then, we decorated a vase for it (a re purposed Pringle’s can). It is a nice break from work, after spending very long days in the field the past couple days.

It is strange how excited we still get about plants, even though we spend all day around them. On our trip in, either Jenny or I would yell “LOOK AT THAT ONE! IT’S SO TALL!”, then stop the ATV, run off, and grab as many as we needed for the vase. I think it turned out pretty decent.

Well, time to go to bed and wake up to do the same thing tomorrow.

Peak Season and Point Framing

Well, as you can see from how long I have gone since my last post, peak season has arrived, and boy has it been BUSY! Also, sadly, this post will not be too long because I am tired and covered in a thick layer of bug spray and dirt, and would like to take a shower before I get to eat.

So, let’s begin with a flashback to the jump in the Arctic Ocean that I talked about last post. I thought you would enjoy some pictures. Clearly, it was cold. As expressed on the face of fellow researcher Jenny Liebig, below:

Jenny ran in before going under like a big chicken. But, she has done the plunge before, so she is allowed a free pass. Here is the evidence that I actually went under (note the ice in the back ground, supposedly to prove this is the Arctic Ocean):

Cold. Cold. Cold. Cold.

Now, to more recent news. Yesterday was my 21st birthday! 🙂 We celebrated in Barrow on Wednesday night because we left for Atqasuk on Thursday. I got in from work on Wednesday to see a beautifully decorated hut, courtesy of the gang from University of Texas at El Paso. It was a Hawaiian themed birthday, and Christian cooked shrimp tacos (one of my favorite meals). Nickole baked a cake and cupcakes, and everything was delicious.

As an added surprise, we had a bonfire on the beach on the Arctic Ocean. It was my first Barrow fire, and it was great. Thank goodness we have our eagle scout, Chase Baldwin, on our team! I don’t think the fire would have ever gotten going without him and his amazing skills (lighter + cardboard + wood =  fire). 😉

So, it was a great birthday. Thank you to everyone who had a part in making it special. I really appreciate it! 🙂

Besides celebrating my birthday, we have been very busy at work. It is peak season, and this year we are charged with the job of point framing all of the ITEX sites and the ARCSS grid subset. Jenny and I have been slowly but steadily working at this. When point framing, we place a grid strung with fishing line over our plots. At each intersection, we drop a ruler down and identify everything we hit, whether it is alive or dead, and the height it is at. Jenny has been doing most of the measuring, while I have been recording all of the information she tells me as fast as possible:

Even though we spend most of the day sitting in one place, the work is still draining. Imagine measuring and identifying plants and looking at that grid for 9 or more hours each day, or just writing everything you hear for that amount of time. Tedious, but tiring. Jenny and I are starting to go a little crazy, and it is only our 4th day in. So far, we have completed 42 out of 252 plots (30 in Barrow and 12 in Atqasuk). So, slowly making some progress. I am hoping for a record setting day tomorrow (the record is 17 plots in one day, set by Jeremy May and Jenny).

Another interesting thing going on at this moment is that the boss, Bob Hollister, is in town. With him we brought a new grad student staying up for a couple of weeks, Jessica. We took advantage of the day together in Barrow to get shots of this years crew:

A great group of people to spend the summer with! Now, it is getting late. Time to chat with the boss about future career plans, then head to bed.

4th of July at the Top of the World

Happy belated 4th everyone!

I got to witness 4th of July festivities in Barrow for my first time this year, and I loved it! There was a parade in town that was better than I expected. But, essentially it is a line up of decorated trucks from local businesses or organizations decked out in red, white, and blue.

They even have a “Miss Top of The World” walking through the parade…  brings back memories:

During the parade, I got to see some very adult researchers act like children as candy was thrown… fighting off the children to get their favorites. Being that I don’t really eat a lot of candy, I ran and got a lot and gave it all to the adorable little girl standing next to me:

It was a great time. I even got a free bag! They had stands set up in town selling funnel cake, burgers, hot dogs, and all kinds of snacks. You could also enter a raffle to win a gun… sadly none of our boys won. Below are some pictures from the parade and other events throughout the day.

 

As much as I loved the parade, my favorite thing that we witnessed were the races. I watched some one and two year old local children racing, and it was the cutest thing. Here is a link to a video of the girl races: CLICK ME!

After our afternoon in town participating in the local celebration, we went back to our hut to celebrate like we do at home: a cook out and hanging out with friends. We cooked burgers and hot dogs on the grill and had some other researchers over to play games and relax. It was a very nice time… then we jumped in the ocean.

The Arctic plunge was freezing. But, what else would you expect from the Arctic Ocean? Scarier than the cold was the lineup of jellyfish on the coast… I’m pretty sure they were dead, because no one got stung, thankfully. I have avoided jumping in the ocean for the past two summers, always making excuses not to go. Finally on the 4th I had no excuse, and I jumped…. well, ran in and ran out as fast as my body would let me. I don’t plan on reliving that experience.

Tomorrow the boss arrives. Tim and I are going to spend the day prepping for Bob’s arrival… re organizing everything the Bob Hollister way and getting the sites as ready as possible for peak season measurements to begin. Arriving with Bob is also a new grad student from GVSU, Jessica. She is going to start the Master’s program this year and this will be her first time visiting the Arctic. We look forward to seeing what she thinks of Barrow, hopefully she loves it as much as I do!

So, all and all a very good past few days and hopefully more to come! Sorry for the long break between posts, it’s a busy busy time up here in the Arctic. Peak season is coming soon, and with it comes much more science. 🙂