Mystery bird

I was just out testing my new camera in Kangerlussuaq when I stumbled across this cool bird. I haven't been able to figure out what it is - any ideas? For scale, that pipe next to the bird is about a half a meter off the ground.

Sweet corn and puppy dogs

I've forgotten how miserable life can be in Minnesota during the summer. Sure, the temperature is only in the 70's (20's C), but the humidity is awful. I'm becoming a true northerner - a person who thinks that Minnesota is a southern state. I must also admit that I've forgotten how beautiful the countryside is near Maple Grove (my home town): rolling "hills", farms, and many different deciduous trees. It's nice to see something other than spruce, aspen, or birch. And the constant sound of crickets brings back childhood memories of summer.

One great thing about Minnesota is the sweet corn. Minnesotans are serious about their sweet corn, especially in rural areas. They know when and where to buy sweet corn from Farmer A, and when and where to buy it from Farmer B. They discuss it much in the same way that Alaskans tell friends where are the best places to pick blueberries and catch salmon. Lucky for me, my visit corresponded with sweet corn season. You can't describe how good fresh sweet corn is, you just have to try it.

The second highlight of my trip has been meeting my sister Carrie's new dog Frankie. He's a morky - half yorkshire terrier, half maltese. I wish I had a dog, though I'd rather have something larger than Frankie, who weighs in at a whopping 5 lbs (2 kg) and will probably be less than 9 lbs (4 kg) when he's fully grown.

The first signs of fall

On my ride to work today I noticed that the leaves on a few trees were just turning yellow. I even saw one small plant (a dwarf maple?) that had already turned completely red. And the nights are rapidly getting darker - its now possible to sleep like a normal human being! I'm returning to Greenland tonight (and stopping in Minnesota on the way) for about three weeks; I realized last night that by the time I'm back in Fairbanks the leaves will be in full color and there will be almost 12 hours of darkness. It feels like green up just happened. Thankfully I'm not dreading winter; I'm starting to look forward to it - and skiing and the stars and the aurora.

Enjoy the rest of your summer. I'll be back blogging in three weeks.

Anaktuvuk Pass: "place of caribou droppings"

The highlight of the trip, for me anyway, may have been the finish. Hiking into a remote village at the end of a two week trip is exciting. You can almost smell the non-dehydrated food and feel the warmth of buildings from miles away. I felt like I was racing to the finish line as we approach the village.


Yet I was a little nervous, I wasn't sure what to expect of Anaktuvuk. At first I felt like an intruder, and I knew that many of the villages in Alaska are known as being rough and not very accepting of outsiders. That was certainly not the case here. The people of Anatuvuk were incredibly friendly. I lost track of how many people on the street came up to us and started talking, asking us about our trip, talking about the upcoming caribou migration, explaining how to make Eskimo band-aids. Caribou soup was being served at the community hall and we were invited to eat some. We were also told that we could come back any time, that they always like having visitors. If only I could get a glaciology position in Anaktuvuk...

The people of Anaktuvuk are Nunamiut Eskimos (inland Eskimos) with a culture very different from the Inupiaq Eskimos (coastal Eskimos). They were a nomadic group that subsisted primarily on caribou and other small game. Supposedly they were the last nomads in North America to "settle down" - Anaktuvuk was not formed until the 1950s. Its amazing to think of the changes that have occurred to these people during the last 50 years. They now have indoor plumbing, oil heating, and regularly scheduled flights bringing mail and food. They still maintain much of their subsistence ways, but have sadly all but lost their language. Very few people younger than 50 speak Eskimo. Even though almost everybody there speaks English as a first language, they do so with an accent that makes you feel like you're talking to people who speak English as a second language. We were told that the children learn Eskimo in school, but they have little incentive to use it on a daily basis, so what they learn is quickly lost.


Anaktuvuk is isolated, but the people living there certainly are not. Many visit Fairbanks a few times a year, and some are quite worldly. One person we met said that he went to boarding school in Oregon during the 1960s (it used to be that all Alaska natives were sent to boarding school far from home, to Mt. Edgecumbe in southeast Alaska, Oregon, or even Oklahoma!). After boarding school he enlisted in the military because he had a low draft number and would have been drafted anyway. He just narrowly avoided being sent to Vietnam (he loved Nixon because of that), but instead spent several years in Germany. During that time he traveled around and saw many places in Europe. I could sit and listen to him tell stories for hours. Actually, many of the people there were good storytellers; telling stories is an important part of their culture, as they didn't have written language until recently.

From the Haul Road to Anaktuvuk Pass

Last Friday we (me, Inari, Jason S., Elvira, and Syosaku) returned from our hiking trip in the Brooks Range. We had hiked some 60 miles (100 km) in 12 days from the Haul Road - the supply road for Prudhoe Bay - to the village of Anaktuvuk Pass. We went over several passes and past several prominent features: Kinnorutin Pass, Mount Doonerak, the Gates of the Arctic (Frigid Crags and Boreal Mountain), the Valley of the Precipices, and Ernie Pass. As Syosaku said, the scenery there isn't majestic like Denali National Park, but its very beautiful in its own arctic way.


At times the trip was quite difficult - heavy packs, wet feet, too much rain, mosquitoes, bushwhacking. And even though those things are too be expected on a hiking trip in Alaska, we were all still happy to reach our goal of Anaktuvuk Pass. After returning home we went through our photos almost immediately, and I think its safe to say that I wasn't the only one contemplating my next arctic trip.


Keep an eye on Elvira's blog (the link on the right). Rumor has it that she's planning a "Brook Range Blogging Extravaganza".

Changes at NASA

Maybe this isn't news anymore, but I just learned that NASA quietly changed its mission statement to align more closely with the goals of the Bush administration. The mission statement once read: "to understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers... as only NASA can". The statement has been rewritten to read: "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research". This is very disconcerting to researchers who are studying climate change, as it means that a major funding agency is changing its focus away from a potential disaster on our home planet. Was this change an attempt to draw attention away from global warming, or was it just an honest attempt to more clearly seperate the various funding agencies (e.g., NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmosperic Administration)?