The 2018 Polaris project participants are a diverse group of minds unified on the tundra of Alaska to investigate questions of climate change. The camp’s well-oiled machine is driven by new hypotheses and intense data collection. The researchers go to great lengths in the name of science, disregarding the discomfort of the elements, to gather samples and extract data from the environment. The climate isn’t always trying; some days the sunlight illuminates the beautiful landscape. The various shades of blue, green, brown, and white blend together stretching across the horizon, surrounding you as far as the eye can see. When the breeze picks up, it can be enough to keep the mosquitos at bay, but at any lull, the relentless festering swarm of hungry winged pests envelop you and test the limits of a bug jacket. Nevertheless, the bipedal company keeps alive the aspiration of scientific discovery. The goal is not to outdo one another, but to correlate and contribute to the bank of knowledge. For us the changes in the tundra are limited to the fickle weather’s passing moisture, though the accounts and stories from the local villages would indicate significant longer-term changes in the climate and the effects on their subsistence living.

– Polaris Project student Derris Funmaker, Sisseton Wahpeton College