Last time I wrote, I was preparing to depart.  Now, more than a week later, we’ve not only arrived at our destination, but have also spent two full days becoming acquainted with the station.  Because others have written in the meantime, I shall focus on the latter—on the most recent activities here in Cherskiy, both on and off the barge.

Barge bedroom

First, a description of my room:  I’m accustomed to living in a room, usually occupied by me or me and one other, in the case of my dorm room.  Here however, I share a comfortable bunkroom with three others: Bill, Chris, and Max.  Bill saws logs, Chris kills mosquitos at bedtime, and Max reminds me when I have to rise the following morning.  Though we have no overabundance of space, I would have it no other way—the bedroom, like the barge, is small but nevertheless provides for all our needs.  Even more, the barge shapes our activities, structures our habits.  I’ll find myself chatting with max across the narrow inter-bunk divide about politics, writing journals across the kitchen table with a professor, or brushing my teeth five others—to my surprise, even oral hygiene has somehow become a social activity.  All in all, the barge—whether because of the rich stories to which it is essential or its quaint but prominent presence here—has taken on a personality of its own.  I can see the barge like the quintessential home in so many children’s book illustrations: With us, the barge dons an eye-cover, nestles down, and falls asleep with us at bedtime.

Today we spent most of the day off the barge.  Early in the day, we students followed Andy into the larch forest to an alas, in quotidian terms, an old lake basin that has since drained.  There we learned how to core trees. 

Brian Kantor coring at Grass Alas

For me this was exciting because until now, most of my ecological learning concerned aquatic systems where fieldwork generally included water samples and water probes.  Today, however, I enjoyed the immediacy of our work—all I had to do was drill an honest and simple tool into tree to unlock the secrets of our investigation.  A tree core, as I learned, tells us more than just the age of a tree.  With the age of a tree we can begin to piece together the clues that a terrestrial systems holds, even to understand how trees respond to rising greenhouse gas levels.

Andy Bunn with a tree core and straw behind his ear

Well, here on the barge it’s quieting down.  Though the sunlight illuminating my activity implies otherwise, it’s nearing bedtime.  Thus, I wish y’all good night.  I’ll be writing soon—I’ve got an exceptionally exciting project underway and I’m eager to write about it.  Perhaps a taste of environmental anthropology is afoot…?

Brian