PolarisProject

Polaris Project: Back in the USA!

Boarding the plane to Chicago. 11 hours to go… /ab #fb

“Guff Guff”

Off to the Moscow airport and on our final legs of our trip home to the US. We all leave a piece of our heart behind in Russia. /kf #fb

We have arrived in Moscow! The neverending day as we travel westward. 3 breakfasts before noon already! http://twitpic.com/c04ez /kf #fb

2 time zones down, 17 to go! We’re in and out of Yakutsk in a flash, already waiting for our flight to Moscow. /kf #fb

The Polaris Project will leave Cherskiy in a few hours. We are packing and cleaning the barge. Lots of mixed feelings. /ab #fb

Our time on the barge is getting closer to an end and I thought I would try to express some of the little things that characterize our home.  The first thing is the breeze.  The breeze on your face feels great on a warm day clears the air of any pesky mosquitoes.  Taking a boat ride ensures this wind and on a sunny day a boat ride up the river to a field site is a favorite. (NB: You can usually spot our Russian hosts in the boats because they are generally not wearing life jackets. Polaris folks do – safety first!).

Many days have been cool and overcast and the warmth of the fire our first comfort when returning home.  The “banya” or sauna on barge is a source of heat and entertainment on a cold day.  Described as the first thing that was constructed on the barge, the sauna means a hot place to sit then a really hot shower.  On a warmer day, it means a heating up and then taking a swim off the barge in the Panteleikha.

Sometimes, we even make a little fire to warm wet socks when we’re in the field for an extended amount of time.

We’ve been lucky to have our cook, Valentina this year constantly chiefing up some fantastic meals.  What ever she is cooking fills the barge with a new aroma, yesterday it was apricot rolls and often time it is onion and dill.  Dill is never on short supply.  When we are leaving for a long boat ride, she will scan to ensure adequate layers and then give anyone deemed under-dressed her full-length sweater vest.

We’ve gotten to try the delicacy of fish dried whole, peeled and eaten in it’s salty goodness.

In the evenings or when the barge was mobile, we’ve had the chance to pass the guitar around, listen to and sing along with songs in both Russian and English.

A sound I will never forget is the buzzing of mosquitoes past your ear… all the time.  In the morning laying in bed, walking to a field site, walking to the lab, filtering water, sifting for bugs, eating diner, whenever really.  The worst is when you get one in your head net.  In this case, Max caught this ambitious mother a little late.

There is never a shortage of breathtaking sights.  This arctic iris was found north on the Kolyma during one of our stops.

We have frequent visits from the ‘wildlife’ in the area.  Nelson is one of the two dalmations in eastern Siberia.

The sound of skipping rocks on the water plunked throughout lunchtime on our way to the tundra.

The feelings on the barge right now are many and mixed,  as people work feverishly to finish their projects and we prepare to leave our Siberian home and science  family.  We are all trying to soak in the little details that make up these vivid experiences.  Feeling the cotton grass between our fingers while we can…

Today there is excitement among our group for many reasons. We are still riding the high from our unbelievable day trip to the tundra.

Yesterday morning, after a brief breakfast, we strapped on the life vests and headed north along the Kolyma River. Along the way, we stopped at a few points to refuel and sample some smaller streams that fed into the Kolyma.

These breaks allowed us to better see how the landscape and ecosystems changed as we ventured into higher latitudes. The larch trees became sparser, many of the dwarfed willows and larch disappeared, and the peat groundcover was being outcompeted by grasses. Further north, we passed small snow patches that clung to the north side of the hills, avoiding some exposure to the sun. The banks had changed from eroding Yedoma soils to exposed rocky headlands. Most noticeably, the Boreal forest had transformed into sprawling grassland. The mosquitoes had diminished, we could see the contours of the landscape, and the cool breeze brought in the fresh arctic air. We made it to the tundra.

Personally, the tundra is one of the most special places I’ve seen. I have been above the altitudinal treeline multiple times but crossing the latitudinal treeline is something not many people have a chance to experience. After a brief but intense snowball fight, we settling into a spot on the bank of a small stream filled with Arctic Greyling. We tried our hand at fishing them out, with some having more luck than others. Our return trip south was beautifully accented by the brief sunset, with the sun just dipping below the horizon and then reemerging. There aren’t many places where you can experience sunset and sunrise within 25 minutes.

Today, we are in a bit of a frenzy. We’re wrapping up our sampling and trying to run any remaining experiments. On top of this, we were excited to see our project featured on the New York Time’s DotEarth blog. So, as we race around tying up loose ends, we’re trying to respond to reader’s questions and comments. It’s been a great couple of days.

A story about the Polaris Project has just been posted to Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog at the New York Times.  I think it is safe to say that Revkin is generally considered to be the top science journalist in the US, and of course the New York Times has a vast readership, so we’re really excited about this!  As you’ll see, the team in Siberia did a lot of work to help with the story.

You can get to Revkin’s story here.