7/21/2008

Yesterday afternoon, the students and PIs were given the options to either embark on an adventure up north by boat for a few days, or to work on data in Cherskiy.  The majority of us chose to travel north with hopes of seeing arctic tundra, reindeer herding camps, and possibly the Arctic Ocean!  So, last night after enduring a bouncy, wet voyage on a classic Russian-style boat, we anchored on the shore of the tundra.

This morning, a few of us (Anya Suslova, Katie Abbott, Karen, Max, Kate Bulygina and I) woke up bright and early to sample a stream nearby.  It looked completely different form than any of the streams we had seen in Cherskiy.  It had almost a beaded form; there were a series of little ‘lakes’ connected by a small stream that led to the Kolyma river.  After sampling, we also saw a reindeer herding camp along the shore of the Kolyma.  There was a group of small shacks filled with fishing nets, animal hides, beds, and small kitchens (one with ketchup still on the table!).  It looked as though the group had just up and left.  Sergei later informed us that they had followed the herd north for the summer and would probably return in the fall for a couple of weeks.

After breakfast we traveled a bit further north to our hiking and sampling destination.  Once we stepped off the boat everyone was in awe.   We were standing in front of a massive wall of shale, which Sergei stated was from the Mesozoic Period.  We could pick pieces off of the wall or the ground and we were holding millions of years old rock in our hands!  The group hiked further along the shore and up a hill.  The view was surreal.  We could see the Arctic Ocean in the distance in front of us, the Kolyma River to our left, mountains to our right, and in between was a huge expanse of tundra with a river running through.  The tundra was much more green than I had expected.  There were tons of grasses and woody shrubs, and it was windy, cold and beautiful!  We spent the afternoon hiking across the tundra and up along the stream.  The streams group took samples for a longitudinal study of the stream while the rest of the group explored and fished.  It will be interesting to analyze the differences in dissolved oxygen, light absorbance, nutrient levels, etc. along different parts of the stream.

In the mid-afternoon we hiked back to the boat for our journey home.  By midnight we had arrived back to what has come to feel like our comfortable ‘home sweet home’:  The Barge.

Kate Willis, Student Clark University