Hello everyone. The past few days have been really busy here at the Northeast Science Station. The past couple days have been spent moving into and preparing the new lab. The lab is absolutely gorgeous. When you walk into the door, there is a cozy round center room with a wood stove, reminiscent of a ski lodge, surrounded by side rooms containing labs, storage areas, offices, and even a suite of bedrooms and full bathroom. On Thursday evening a few of us had the opportunity to become the first international scientists to sleep in what will in the future surely become one of the key Arctic labs.

On Friday Sudeep, Claire, and I took the first water samples of the trip. It was great to finally get a chance to start working after months of preparation and a week of actively discussing potential projects. We paddled out to a sample site in the middle of Shuchi Lake, a relatively small thermokarst lake within walking distance of the station, and profiled its physical properties and collected water and zooplankton samples. It was there that I experienced my “official” baptism into limnology (Yes, that means I stepped off the raft and sunk deep in the mud, filling my wading gear with water and becoming soaked). After dinner, we went back up to spend three and a half hours in the lab preparing the water samples for analysis.

Today we’re continuing our sampling and analysis.  Nickolay, Valentine, and I are looking at permafrost, and are about to go out on the field to collect a set of samples. Overall, everything is going well and it’s great to be here.

Until later -Joanne