Today is another chilly, blustery day in Cherskiy and as I look wistfully out windows of the lab (the NUT prison) the clouds are scuttling madly across the sky. Luckily though, it is finally sunny after days of cloudy weather which is a significant improvement. Between the previous bout of chilly weather and the wild fires before that, it had been far too long since we’d seen any sun.
Orbita is very quiet today; Joanne, Travis and Blaize are out on a sampling run with Nikita while I catch up on some lab work. We had the realization yesterday that we leave Cherskiy in a little over a week, and there is still so much to do! We have made good progress on our projects, and have another busy week planned but are starting to feel the time crunch. In addition to wrapping up our projects, it seems like we keep coming up with new things that we want to investigate. Yesterday Blaize and Travis sampled Y4 every 3 hours to get a sense of the whether or not pCO2 in the stream fluctuates diurnally, and Joanne and I are going to set up a series of nutrient spiked BOD incubations from a variety of streams to get a broad sense of nutrient limitation in streams across the landscape. We’re hoping to get up to the tundra/Arctic Ocean on Tuesday to sample sites again later in the summer, hopefully just for the day this time.
Living at the station without the clamor associated with Polaris has been totally different than the previous month, and really quite relaxing. I didn’t realize just how loud 25 people can be when all in a room together, and how much organized chaos and activity we generate. With just the four of us going about our business, it seems downright peaceful. We have all enjoyed spending more time with the Zimovs and Davydovs, who have welcomed us into their homes and daily routines. I finally succeeded in holding Dascha, the youngest Zimov, without making her cry – a big success! We’re also getting spoiled by Valentina, who has pulled out all the stops cooking for us. When not forced to feed 30 people at every meal, the food gets significantly more gourmet. Fish pizza, pelmeni (yummy ravioli dumplings), and blinis – yum.
The saddest event since the departure of the rest of the group came a few days ago – we had to say goodbye to the barge. A new group of scientists arrived to study permafrost in the tundra, so the barge took them up north and is their new home. It was so odd saying goodbye to something that has been our home base for 2 summers with the knowledge that this may be our last time here. We lingered on that last night, kept checking to see if we’d left anything, but really just taking it all in and memorizing those little details that we hold so dear – the tippy bench that will flip you off at a moment’s notice, the banya, the walls covered in maps and graphs of our findings this summer, the tables arrayed with 18 different kinds of hot sauce and Old Bay, the front porch strewn with XtraTufs and life jackets after a day in the field. The barge was the object around which we all seemed to orbit, would all come back to after a long day and share stories. Even after the group left, we still had the barge. Now as we walk to breakfast each morning at the guest house, we all look at the empty spot where our floating home should be and miss it and the community that it housed.
I must admit, we are starting to reminisce about all the things we’re excited for when we get home – clean clothes, fresh vegetables, showers with water pressure. We love our home here, but are starting to get excited to see friends and family. More updates will be coming – expect to hear from us after our last tundra trip!
