When I tell people I go to Siberia for field work, the first thing they ask is inevitably, “How cold will it be?” I usually ramble for a minute about how it can snow any day of the year, but because of the twenty-four hours of sunlight it is often quite nice. The truth, though, is that we actually hope for it to be cold and windy, at least part of the time. The reason? Mosquitoes.

Today, it was about fifty degrees and breezy. We wanted to take a quick sample on a small stream that Jorien and others are sampling on a regular basis. So, we all hopped in a boat, drove a couple of kilometers and up to a very small inlet. Climbing out of the boat to get to the stream, we immediately were mobbed by mosquitoes and realized to our horror that none of us had brought Deet. Sam was the only one who had brought a headnet; the rest of us had dozens of mosquitoes buzzing around, sounding like little tiny fighter jets. Even Sam got bit plenty, as none of us had brought gloves, either. I had just assumed there wouldn’t be too many out, as they were not around the station. The trees and shrubs near this stream had evidently protected them from the wind and the cold!

We took a very, very fast sample for the Aquatic Survey and River Carbon Bomb projects (which you will likely hear more about later), and high-tailed it out of there. The stream has yet to really be named – Paul Mann called it Yedoma Site #3 last September. So, in honor of our harrowing experience, it is now dubbed “Don’t Forget the DEET Stream” or DFD.

So, you can consider this your annual reminder from the Polaris Project blog that the worst part about Siberia are the little blood-sucking pests that follow everyone around in clouds. New students, don’t forget your bugshirts and DEET!