Arctic Visitors

Dear Carol,

We continue to have good weather and bad luck on this trip. We got a late start this morning with poor visibility grounding the helicopter. Too much fog, basically. But it cleared about 10 AM and we went out to one of our farthest lines. The weather there was perfect. Sunny, temperature of about 10 above (for a change) and windy, but not so windy we were in danger of blowing away.

Our first cast was perfect. Finally got everything working. Hooray! But it all broke again on the second cast. We are beginning to think someone has put a curse on us. So back early and another long night of changing batteries in the power pack, building cables, and trying to figure it out all over again. John, the principle investigator, just rolls with the punches. No histrionics. No acting out. I don’t think I could stay as calm if I were in his shoes. He just comes up with another idea and gets on with it.

Gear Problems Electronic equipment is hard to build and maintain for working at cold temperatures and with heavy pressure. Some of our instruments just refuse to work reliably under these conditions, even with John and Claude combining their considerable skills to solve the problems. Of course, everything works back in the hanger, so trouble shooting is problematic, to say the least. I never saw either John or Claude act out their obvious frustrations, although when John’s pliers fell down the sample hole I did hear him mutter, “And good riddance to you, too, you miserable piece of equipment!” (Or, something along those lines.)

The highlight of the day, however, was nearly being run over by an arctic fox. He came charging into our clearing, and just slammed on the brakes when he saw us. Finally, he moved off about 50 yards. I had left my binoculars home the past couple of days because they froze so bad the first time I took them out. But I threw them in my pack this morning, thinking it would be fairly warm out there. I was glad I did. I was able to get a really good view of him before he moved off. Completely white, and a big bushy tail, just like the fox in our neighborhood.

But I’ll tell you, you have give a fox like that some credit. This is a hard place to make a living in. (No dog food left out on the back porch here.) He looked fat and happy over 100 miles off shore.

Well, today was the day. Polar bears!

We flew into our second sampling location this morning and it looked like the site of a polar bear convention, tracks everywhere. Oh, oh.

We circled around, didn’t see anything, and were about to land when the pilot decided to “make just one more swing around here.” Two seconds later I spotted the bears out my window. Wow! What a thrill. A mother and yearling cub. Look closely at the picture. You should see two bears.

Polar Bears! Polar bear tracks were abundant on the ice, but finally we saw the real deal right in the middle of our sampling site! A sow and a yearling cub are not terribly thrilled to see a helicopter landing on top of them. Past experience with scientists means a dart in the rear, a tooth pulled, and a hell of a headache. These two are running for cover. We kept a close eye out for them the rest of the day, but didn’t see them again. Seeing bears this close made the whole trip worth it for me.

We flew back and forth a bit, scaring the bears in...what!?...the direction of our next sampling site. Uh, is that a good idea? Then decided to sample this site. Since it was a warm day (well, relatively speaking) I was the guard again. Kept a sharp eye out, but didn’t see them again. They were either feeding in this area, or have a den. But they spent quite a bit of time there.

I guess I’m ready to go home now.

Tough day on the ice. Winds were blowing at over 30 mph, although temperatures were warm (about 5 above). The tent took a long time to get up and down, and we broke a pole once (we have extras, thank goodness). We wouldn’t last an hour out there without the tent.

Snow blew into our generator, freezing the air intake filter, causing all the gas to end up in the oil pan. Now we know another thing that makes the generator run poorly. The good news is this cut our day a bit shorter, although we had to spend it getting the generator sorted out. Fortunately, we recognized the anemic coughing and managed to get the gear out of the water, or we would still be out there.

The wind has been blowing hard for a couple of days, which has greatly changed the nature of the ice. Now there is a lot of water out there! There were just huge leads out there. One of our sampling sites was right in the middle of one. We (wisely, I think) skipped that one.

Open Water Leads in the Ice The wind has changed and what had been solidly packed ice is beginning to open back up into the more usual open water leads. These, however, are huge and the helicopter has to gain plenty of altitute to go over them, as we are not carrying the necessary survival suits to travel over open water.

I’ve changed my focus from looking for bears to looking for whales in the leads. They could be here, I understand, from talking to a native this evening at dinner. She had great stories to tell of how the whaling communities work here in Northern Alaska. Very interesting, but too long to share tonight.

Suppose to be windy again tomorrow, then we might have a couple of decent days. Thursday is the last day we have the helicopter, then a day to pack and home. I’m beginning to think about it

Love,

Dave