After several months of work, on March 16, 2007, we submitted our Polaris Project proposal to the National Science Foundation’s International Polar Year grant competition.  Six months later we learned that our proposal was successful – the project would actually happen.  We’ve now completed our first round of on-campus courses at the collaborating colleges and universities, and it one week we launch our first of three annual field courses in the Siberian Arctic (which are really the core of the Polaris Project).  Wow – it is kind of hard to believe this is actually going to happen!

I’m actually surprised about how relaxed I am right now.  I know that we’ll have surprises and challenges along the way, but at the moment everything is just about as good as it could be.  We have a magnificent group of students and scientists (well, really all scientists – some just a bit older than others!) and the remarkably complicated logistics necessary to undertake this adventure are all falling nicely into place.  So, in just over a week, we’ll all meet in JFK Airport in New York and then travel together first to Moscow, then Yakutsk, then Cherskiy.  Though I’ve been to Siberia many times now, as I sit here now on a Friday evening at home with my wife, 2 and half year old son, and dog, I still have a hard time imagining that I’ll be in the far reaches of the Siberian Arctic in just 10 days or so – crazy…

My expectation is that all of the Polaris Project team will learn a tremendous amount about the Arctic, about climate change, about working in a large collaborative project, and about themselves.  Here we go!

Max