Field Notes
During, before, and after the field course, Polaris students and faculty share their thoughts through journal entries.
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Fire Haze
The vivacious vestige of the Polaris Project (Blaize, Erin, JoAnn, and Travis), through which the remainder of the group must live vicariously, woke up to a vicious odor of smoke and an eerie unplaceable source of sickly yellow light yesterday morning.…
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On the Road Again
Today was a long, sad day. We spent the morning packing, cleaning and swimming in the Panteleikha one last time. Right after lunch we loaded up the bus and said good-bye to the Station. It was hard leaving behind the four returning students and all the people at the Northeast
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Yummy Yummy Yedoma
Hi everyone! As of late, those of us working with soil have been busy with making soil extracts. Sam’s earlier post gives an indication as to our all-hours filtering schedule, so I’ll write more on what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.…
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An Upside to Global Warming?
Well, maybe not, but it was remarkable nevertheless to see many of the Polaris Project students swimming in the Arctic Ocean a few days ago. For most of the year this part of the ocean is covered in sea ice. The image below, courtesy of the National Snow and Ice
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Late nights in the lab
Good evening/morning! While the rest of the group is sleeping, Elliott, Emily and myself are on a vacuum-filtering marathon in the soils lab. It’s about 1:30, morale is high, and we hope to be done by breakfast later this morning. Late nights in the lab are special time for all
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Seven Lessons from a Northern Adventure
We left Saturday morning on what we imagined would be a long, hard day trip to the Arctic Ocean and tundra. We ended up weathering a storm in a fishing shack, relying on Nikita and Sergei’s resourcefulness and our positive attitudes.
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Siberian cooking
The Northeast Science station in Cherskiy is one of the most remote places I have ever been, yet we have internet, showers, washing machines, a sauna and …. good food! All the credits for this last, most crucial survival need should be given to Valentina, our charming cook that creates
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We’re Back!
The Team made it back to Cherskiy late last night after a magnificent 36 hour trip to the Arctic Ocean and tundra. Weather extended the trip beyond our planned ~16 hours, which only added to the spectacular nature of the expedition. …
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Holed up and held up by bad weather
Hey all, Andy here – stateside. Max Holmes made a sat phone call back to the states. The group is delayed north of Cherskiy by bad weather. They have to wait out the bad weather before making the return trip back from the estuary.…
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A bug’s life
If you have been a regular reader of the blog, you last heard from the bug team as we were setting out our not-so-high-tech bug trap made out of birch branches and twine in an attempt to catch amphipods. Unfortunately, that venture did not prove to be as successful as
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project development
Not until now, slouched on the bench of the barge trying to keep my eyes open and fingers typing, did I fully appreciate the work that goes into getting good data. The brief account in paper’s methods sections don’t do it justice.…
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Heading to the Tundra and Arctic Ocean
Tomorrow morning we pile into three small boats and head north to the tundra and hopefully the coastal Arctic Ocean. The trip north has been one of the highlights of each of the first two years of the Polaris Project. We expect that the same will be true this year. …
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To Duvannyi Yar and Back Again…
Hello everyone! Its our first update in a while, as the internet has been intermittent and the team has just returned from a two day trip upriver. We went to a place called Duvannyi Yar, where Pleistocene-era soils are eroding at a massive rate as the underlying permafrost thaws and
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Making Sandwiches
It has been nearly one week since our PI’s Scott Goetz and Michelle Mack left Cherskiy, relegating the ‘Affiliated Five’ to ‘The Gang of Three’. Since then Heather, Kami, and I have been working hard to accomplish all the things we need to before leaving in another week.…
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Step One: Gather water, Step Two: ???
As Max Holmes says, the atmosphere here at the station is a balance between student independence in projects and guidance by the PIs. He was telling me that as a group they want to give us as much guidance and advice as they can but at the same time it’s
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