Canoeing in Minnesota

Summer always seems to go by too fast. I can't believe we're already approaching the end of June. I've already been to Greenland and back, Minnesota and back, am now teaching an undergraduate course (which is a lot of fun but also a lot of work), and will be leaving for Greenland again in a few weeks. In the mean time I have a lot of other things to work on, including getting a paper submitted, studying for my comprehensive exams, gardening, fishing, and trying to get out to the mountains to have fun.

The trip to Minnesota was a much needed vacation from computers and e-mail. Inari and I went down there for our friends' wedding and to help my grandma celebrate her 85th birthday. Our friends had organized a pre-wedding canoe trip in the Boundary Waters, which was something we couldn't resist. I did a lot of canoe trips in the Boundary Waters when I was kid, and I'm sure that those trips had a strong impact on me. I hadn't been back for several years. In some ways the place was the same that it has always been: peaceful, familiar, relaxing. At the same time I realized that I've changed and have a different perspective on things. I found myself wondering why I never bothered to learn about the plants, people, and animals that live in that region. I was bothered that I couldn't identify basic plants. But most of all the trip made me want to spend more time in the Boundary Waters. Its not the most beautiful place that I've been, but its probably the most peaceful and also the most comforting. It feels like home.

Here are few photos from the canoe trip:

The view of Shovel Point on Lake Superior, taken on the drive from Minneapolis to the Boundary Waters.

Our trail group minus myself. From left to right: Jenny, Elvira (the bride), Inari, Kelly, Jason (the groom), Angie, and Mark.


Typical Boundary Waters scenery.

Sawbill Lake in the fog.

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Our friends' wedding was also a lot of fun. Probably the second most fun wedding that I've been to (sorry J&E, but you had some tough competition). The wedding festivities lasted an entire weekend and even included square dancing! Got to meet up with some old friends and make some new ones.

lessons learned

We tried to go canoeing yesterday (or I tried, Jason succeeded). It turned out to be an afternoon spend mostly driving from one point to another, trying to find the lost cars, and getting lost ourselves.

Lesson number one: everyone knows where they are going. We set a meeting point to be at a local grocery store. Already on our way there one carload got lost. After we were ready to go, only one driver knew for sure where the destination was, and we lost him in the first turn. A lot of mix-ups happened (not to mention an hour and a half of lost time) before everyone was at the river ready to get in the canoes.

(Here's Sam, Chris and Agatha seen through the car window. Notice the rain drops and proper attire.)

Lesson number two: If the weather is good, go now, and don't wait until afternoon. In our case, the gorgeous sunny and hot day turned into windy and rainy afternoon. Always bring your rain gear.

Lesson number three: if you are sick, don't go (hence my trying). I got a flu a day before, but kept hoping that my condition would improve (and hey, canoeing is not that strenuous activity anyways). It didn't and a splitting headache got me to my senses. I had to bail out.

Lesson number four: if someone is picking you up, make sure that they know where to go. After I bailed out two other members of the group decided to do the same (see lesson two). Problem was that it was their car waiting at the other end. I drove them to their car and they kept telling me that I was headed the wrong way (which I wasn't). In the end they did manage to find their way back and pick up the successful canoers.

As for me, I spend the rest of the day in a feverish stupor.

before and after

The blogsilence was due to a trip to Minnesota: we participated in an Amundson family gathering, a BWCA canoe trip and a wedding. Jason can fill in the details, what I wanted to share was this: We left in a hurry. Jason's paper writing woes, gardening craziness and my painting worries left our place in complete disarray. In fact, we were still packing at 1 AM.


It took six hours of cleaning to get to this stage.

Bear affects peaceful commute

I like bears, or at least I try to. I think they are pretty amazing animals. I also like biking and skiing to work. Even though the commute gets old at times, especially in winter, I mostly enjoy it because its a chance to get some fresh air, to organize my thoughts, and to put some distance between my personal life and work - though admittedly the last thing doesn't always happen.

What I don't like so much though, is when bears affect my morning commute. Granted, I didn't actually see a bear, but I did see this sign Wednesday morning just as I was entering a narrow trail through the woods:


That was enough to raise my heart rate even though I started biking at a somewhat slower pace.

Field appetite

You'd think that I'd eat a lot more food when I'm doing field work than when I'm sitting in front of my computer all day, but you'd be wrong. By a lot. A typical day of field work involves getting up around 7:00 and starting work around 8:00. On days that we fly up on the glacier there tends to be very little time for lunch since its expensive to have the helicopter sitting around doing nothing. That doesn't bother me too much, as long as I can get a few bites of chocolate and an apple. If we don't have the helicopter we are at camp tending to our instruments. Setting up the instruments requires hauling heavy batteries and solar panels around. (Once, while doing field work in southeast Alaska, I even hauled loads of rocks up the glacier. Seemed kind of pointless, since the glacier would just carry them back to its terminus...) On those days lunch becomes a little more important, but I still don't eat any more than I do at home. Dinner tends to be around 7:00 or 7:30 and is followed by a game of cards. Some days - especially if the weather is nice - we work after dinner though we usually try to avoid doing so.

Let's compare that to what I do when I'm in Fairbanks. I get up around 8:00 and am at work by 9:00 or 9:30. We have a coffee break at 10:30, which is occasionally accompanied by some sort of cake or chocolate. If not, then I'm hungry by 11:00. I usually make it until noon before diving into my lunch, which today consisted of a fairly large salad, and apple, and a couple of sandwiches. By 3:00 I was already thinking about dinner. I made it until 7:00 without eating anything else, but I had to snack on some munchies while I was cooking dinner in order to have the energy to cook. Its now 8:30 and I feel fine, but I'm pretty sure that a big bowl of ice cream will hit the spot in about an hour.

The only explanation that I can come up with is that my computer needs more than 4 GB of RAM to do all the work that I ask it to. It is forced to suck energy from me to complete all of its tasks.

What I'm listening, reading, watching: May 2008

Listening: Mr. Pitiful by Matt Costa

I discovered this little gem (great video) when I was looking through the Brushfire Records website. Brushfire Records is musician-owned company featuring some very good pop musicians (G. Love, Jack Johnson, Mason Jennings). I'm not so keen on Matt Costa's other songs, put I can't get this one out of my head. See if you can listen to it without tapping your feet and nodding your head. Its really catchy. I guess I'm a sucker for good pop music.


Reading: High Fidelity, A Long Way Down, and Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby

Since I'm on the topic of pop culture... Nick Hornby's books mix emotional turmoil and pop culture into funny, witty, and insightful stories. I've now read all of his novels and his autobiography (Fever Pitch, which is interwoven with the history of the Arsenal soccer club). I think the best two are High Fidelity and About a Boy, but they're all worth reading. I don't know of any other authors who can make breaking up with a girlfriend or contemplating suicide so funny. I'm sure that last sentence makes a lot more sense to people who have read any of his books.


Watching: Northern Exposure

Inari and I have now watched the first two seasons of Northern Exposure. I remember hearing of the show as I kid, but I never watched it. Its actually quite good, even though its portrayal of Alaska is off the wall. But then again, Alaska is a little off the wall. All of the characters are entertaining and unique. The show can be a little too bizarre at times, but I think it is just bizarre enough that you're okay with it. What I mean is, when you're watching the show you realize that you're not watching reality and you come to expect totally crazy stories in every episode.

Greenland photos

I've now had some time to go through my photos from the past month. I thought I'd post my favorites. I didn't take very many while I was in the field - I guess I've been to our site enough times that I can be there without feeling like I need to take a photo every 10 minutes.

A dog team on its way back to Ilulissat.

Naja took me dogsledding a couple of times in April. On this trip we headed straight up the hill in the distance. It was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed seeing Greenland in "winter".

My favorite of Naja's dogs - a youngster name Nuka. She was really sweet. Naja doesn't let the dogs put their feet up on you, so this one figured out that she could stand backwards and lean into you for maximum petting.

The town of Uummannaq, which is named after its heart-shaped mountain. The town is on a tiny little island. To get to Uumannaq you can take a dogsled, a helicopter, or, for a short part of the year, by boat. It has the northernmost port in Greenland.

The view from my hotel room, looking east across the sea ice.

Aerial photo of sea ice, taken during the helicopter trip from Uummannaq to Qaarsut. From Qaarsut I boarded a larger plane and flew to Ilulissat.

An iceberg surrounded by sea ice.

Myself wrestling the camera away from Isbjorn.

maailmassa on virhe

Ennen luulin, että maailman voisi jos ei nyt ihan pelastaa, niin ainakin tehdä kovasti paremmaksi paikaksi luotoystävällisiä tuotteita ostamalla. En ole menettänyt vielä uskoani, mutta kummastuttaa mihin tuotteiden luontoystävällisyys unohtuu pakkausvaiheessa. Teepaketti on kääritty useaan muovikalvoon, luomumaitotölkki on varustettu muovisella kierrekorkilla ja luomujuusto on pakattu säälittävän pieniin pakkauksiin. Viimeisin harmin aihe: suosimani jäätelömerkki on uusinut pakkauksensa pahvisista muovisiksi. Ei tietenkään kokomuovisiksi, silloinhan koko paketin voisi pestä ja käyttää uudelleen, vaan kanteen on lisätty turha muoviremmi. Mikäli vanhat merkit pitävät paikkansa, kuukauden päästä kilpailevat merkit ovat myös uusineet pakkauksensa, ja jäätelöä ei enää saa ilman muoviremmiä. Piih.

En valittaisi, jos kysessä olisi yksittäinen tuotemerkki. Mutta ei. Neljän vuoden aikana useampi yritys on vaihtanut pakkauksiaan vaikeammin kierrätettäviksi, hankalammiksi, tai muuten vain lisännyt turhan tilpehöörin määrää. Pöh.

English summary: today's irritation was caused by an ice cream packaging. Someone has replaced the old (fully recyclable cardboard) container with a new package that comes with a plastic striped lid. Didn't anyone tell the organic companies that combining several materials into one package makes the whole thing much less recyclable? Not to mention how much oil is consumed to make this plastic strip. We must not be running out after all...

Greenup

Another year that spring rushed past us. So far, I have experienced spring ten times above 64 degrees. Yet, the astonishing speed of spring time continues to amaze me every single year. Last week there was still snow on the ground, and temperatures were around freezing. I wore my scarf, mittens and winter hat as I have been for the last eight months. Today, snow is gone, grass has turned green, and dandelions are blooming. In short, it feels like summer (and I finally shed my wool socks).

This breakneck speed always leaves me feeling a bit cheated. Where did the spring go?

My bizarre and wonderful trip to Uummannaq

Greenland - and the arctic - is a lot like a small town. If you know somebody that knows somebody that maybe heard of somebody else, then all of a sudden you have new friends and a place to stay.

Example:

Last Tuesday I flew to Uummannaq, a wonderfully beautiful little town on a little island surrounded by sea ice. By mid-afternoon I had seen the town and was wondering how I would spend the rest of the week. The next morning I knocked on the door of a Ann Andreasen, a Faroese woman who runs an orphanage in town and is famous for her hospitality. My motivation for meeting her was that I thought it would be nice to talk with the children at the orphanage about the changes that are happening in Greenland. Anyway, her husband/boyfriend Ole-Jørgen Hammeken, a famous Greenlandic adventurer invited me in for coffee. (It turns out that I had read about Ann, Ole-Jørgen, and their daughter Pipaluk in the book "This Cold Heaven" by Gretel Ehrlich.)

Ole-Jørgen has some pretty amazing stories. He has/is circumnavigating the Arctic Ocean in phases, was the first person to climb the northernmost mountain in the world, pioneered a new dogsled trail from Uummannaq to Ilulissat, and is planning on dogsledding to the north pole this winter to "commemorate" the 100th anniversary of Robert Peary reaching the north pole.

Side note: I may have discovered an interesting piece of family history during my discussion with
Ole-Jørgen. I share the same surname as the polar explorer Roald Amundsen (changed by my one of my ancestors to Amundson), that branch of my family comes from the same small town as Amundsen (Borge, Norway), and supposedly the Amundsen surname did not come into existence until the mid-1800's. Although we haven't yet proved it, there is a good probability that we are somehow related to Roald Amundsen. We know that we aren't direct descendants, especially since Amundsen supposedly didn't have any children - at least not in Norway. However, Ole-Jørgen told me that he met an Inuit person in Gjoa Haven, Canada, who claims to be a direct descendant of Amundsen. So maybe we have long-lost Inuit cousins! What makes the story even more interesting, if its true, is that supposedly Amundsen's shipmates didn't talk about women in his presence - he didn't approve. He was so focused and determined during his expeditions that he didn't want there to be any sort of distractions to him or his men.

Okay, back to Uummannaq. While drinking coffee Ole-Jørgen's house was suddenly filled up with a French film crew! Ann and Ole-Jørgen were in the middle of filming a feature film in Greenlandic, the first such film in 80 years. So now I had a bunch of French friends. They introduced me to yet another French filmmaker who was working on a project with the children at the orphanage. He then introduced me to a French painter, who immediately invited me over for dinner... I think you get the point.

It was a fun and somewhat bizarre week. I ended up seal hunting by dogsled (didn't see any seals) and also gave a short and somewhat unsuccessful presentation at the orphanage (technical difficulties). The hospitality of the people I met rivaled those of Fairbanks. At times I felt like an intruder, but they kept inviting me along. I turned down a couple of offers only because I felt uncomfortable. I probably could have gotten a place to stay if I had been more pushy, but as I already felt like an intruder I decided to stay at the hotel instead.

The dinner with the French painter, his wife, and one of the filmmakers was also very much fun. I'm not sure why the French get such a bad rap. Every French person I've met has been really generous and fun to be around.

myyrästoori

Tapahtui tässä toissaillalla, kun käytin ulkohuussia:

Keräämme käytetyn vessapaperin erilliseen ämpäriin, ettei kolo täyttyisi turhan nopeaan. Astiassa vain sattui pyörimään myyrä, ehkäpä Cletherionomys rutilus, vaikea sanoa kun eläinkirjani on aika onneton. Nostin muovipussin täytteineen ämpäristä toivoen, että myyrä tassuttelisi tiehensä, erinäisistä syistä kun pesän teko vessapaperista ei ole toivottavaa. Mutta mitä vielä, myyrä istui tattina paikoillaan ja katsoa killitteli ruskeilla silmillään. Siinä me sitten seistiin, katsottiin toisiamme ja räpyteltiin aina välillä silmiämme. Kauempana huhuili pöllö. Vihdoin ojentauduin pystyyn ja myyrä piiloutui ämpärin taakse, ilmeisen lähtöhaluttomana. Kyllä se sitten viimein suvaitsi lähteä, eikä ole onneksi tullut takaisin silppuamaan vessapaperia.

English summary: a vole (possibly Cletherionomys rutilus) wanted to claim our outhouse for personal use. I think I managed to convince the critter that it was not a good idea. During the process, we did spend some minutes staring at each other.

häivähdys koti-ikävää

Kysymys: Mistä tietää asuneensa liian kauan ulkomailla?

Vastaus: Kun Blogilistan ilmapallot herättävät hämmästystä. Mitä ihmeen syntymäpäiviä siellä nyt vietetään. Minulla meni puoli päivää tajuta, että ainiin, vappuahan on pyhäpäivä. Fairbanksissä oli eilen oikean oloinen vappuilmakin, viistoa räntäsadetta ja lämpoä asteen verran.

Ilmapalloista lienee siis tullut liian arkisia, kun niitä saa ostettua tavallisesta marketista. Onneksi Fred Meyersistä löytyy laulavia ilmapalloja, jotta jonkinlainen roti säilyy ja palloja voi vielä ajatella luksus-esineinä...

The polka?

I have lost my polka virginity. For same strange reason, the polka is really (and I mean REALLY) popular in Greenland. Basically you can’t be a musician in Greenland if you don’t know how to play polka music. I went to a party on Friday – a post dogsled race dinner, awards ceremony, and dance. I ended up being forced, well maybe coerced, into polka dancing. The first song nearly ended in disaster. It’s not easy to dance with two left feet! The second time around was quite a bit better, in part because I danced with one of the best ones there, and in part because there was more room on the dance floor.

It’s interesting that dancing and playing music at parties – well at least traditional dances and music – has basically been lost from American culture. I wonder why that is. Is it that our culture is such a melting pot that nobody could ever agree on what dances to dance and songs to play? Or did pop music ruin everything?

Observations on dogsledding from somebody who doesn’t know anything about dogsledding

After a couple of dogsledding experiences in both Alaska and Greenland, I have made some surely keen observations. Dogsledding styles differ considerably between the two cultures. In Greenland, mushers sit on their sleds, which are wider and sturdier than Alaskan sleds. The dogs run in a fan formation and are controlled by voice and with a whip. This contrasts with Alaskan dogsledding, where the musher stands behind the sled, only use their voice to control the dogs, and the dogs run in a row. My impression is that the Alaskan mushers treat their dogs better. Greenlanders claim that their dogs sometimes need to be hit to be controlled because they are such wild dogs. Personally, I don’t think their dogs are any more wild than Alaskan huskies, and they definitely don’t need to be hit. Some mushers in Alaska have learned that the dogs perform better when they are treated well. Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.

There seem to be advantages and disadvantages to both styles, and I think they could learn from each other. The Greenlandic dogs seem more difficult to control because they are not in a line, so they are more likely to get tangled up with each other or with a passing sled. Also, because the musher is sitting down its more difficult to see what lies ahead. On the otherhand, the trails can be very rough and full of rocks. Its easy to imagine that a standing musher would be thrown off their sled if they hit a rock. What I find maybe most interesting is that they don’t have a very good braking system. They have no way to anchor the sled into the ground, and their only way to force the sled to stop is to throw a large rope (like you’d see on a ship) around the front of the runners. I’d have thought that they would’ve developed something more sophisticated by now.

By standing, the Alaskan musher can more easily navigate his team around obstacles. Their sleds, which are somewhat lighter, are easier to manuever from behind but likely couldn’t stand up to repeated collisions with rocks. This is okay because they mostly run through the forest and swamps anyway, which is also why they run in a line. The sleds have both an anchor and a brake.

Two things that I’ve definitely learned: I need my own dog team, and Umimmak (= musk ox = long bearded one) would make a good dog name.

I will post photos later, but right now I stupidly don’t have a way to download them from my camera.

Frustrations at the museum

My experience at the Ilulissat Museum has been fairly discouraging this year, especially when compared to last year. We had basically three objectives this time around: to give another talk at the school, to set up a time-lapse camera with the school children (to get them involved with our research), and to put together a short DVD containing photos and videos of our field work.

I spent two days preparing a presentation for the school, only to have the teacher cancel on me since I had already talked to her class (she didn’t know this beforehand). Of course, I was planning on talking about something different, but that didn’t seem to matter.

The camera has also been something of headache. First, we talked to some teachers who thought the project was a great idea – but not for their class. According to Naja, my colleague at the museum, that is a typical response from the teachers here. Regardless of their response, we’d still like to put out a camera. As I’ve told several people in town, I’m happy to share the time-lapse video with anybody who can make use of it: educators, tour companies, etc, and we’d like to have the imagery for our own work. The problem is that we’re having trouble finding a good, secure spot for the camera with a good view of the fjord. I had first thought that a roof of a building would be ideal, but finding an ideal roof is far from easy. At this point I think the best alternative would be to mount it on the radio tower, which is up on the hill behind town. It seems that there is some hope for this, but it will require quite a bit of bureaucracy. We’ll give it a shot anyway.

We haven’t worked on the DVD yet. It should be pretty straightforward, except that the computer I need to use is currently in Kangerlussuaq.

On the other hand, the trip here hasn’t been a complete waste. I’ve gotten to experience Ilulissat in “winter” and have already gone dogsledding a couple of times and also gone to watch a dogsledding race. (It was the type of race where the objective is to not come in last place.) And, I’ve just purchased tickets to fly to Uummannaq, a town about an hour’s flight north of here. I’ll spend 5 days and about a month’s salary… I’m really excited to go to Uummannaq, even if it is going to be really expensive. It is much more removed from the standard tourist route and will be my new farthest north (over 70 deg).

Side note: travelling in Greenland is incredibly expensive. I’m paying over $50 a night for a bed in a hostel (a hostel!), a taxi from the airport to the hostel (5 km) costs $25, a burger at the greasy dinner costs $20, beer costs $10 a bottle if its served to you and $4 if you buy it at the store (and its not particularly special beer), and dinner at one of the nicer restaurants costs $50. The flight to Uummannaq will cost me $700, and a hotel room there costs $200 a night (actually fairly reasonable by Greelandic standards). I might end up camping outside of town or staying in a hut, but first I need to find out if Isbjorn lives nearby.

sizing matters

Some frustration today was provided by weird US clothing sizes. OK, I kind of see the principle. Sizes get bigger as the numbers get bigger. That part is easy. Difficulties start when I actually try to apply the theory and buy something that is my size.

I needed a new lingerie and hastly calculated that since my bra size is 75 centimeters, I should be fine with 30 inch bra. I guess there is something else going on here instead of a simple conversion from metric to imperial. The smallest size I could find was 32. Since my bra size is fairly common in Finland, I refused to believe that here I would be considered a weird undersized mutant. So I grabbed randomly some 32's and 34's and headed for the dressing rooms. When I tried them on, there did not seem to have any logic which sizes fit me and which didn't. Some were huge, providing ample room plus some extra space for my breasts, and few were super thight. (Most of them were really big, so maybe I am a weird undersized mutant after all.)

It has taken me some trial and error to find right size pants as well. I think the numbers start from somewhere around 0 and grow in increments of 2. But each company sems to have their own sizing chart where the basic unit of measurement is unknown and one just have to guess what size to try. To keep it all confusing, it seems to me that every single item of clothing has their own numbering system. Underwear sizes do not match pant sizes, and shoe sizes do not match sock sizes.

And I really don't understand why this country needs three different shoe size scales: separate ones for kids, females and males.

Ilulissat in winter

It's great to be back in Ilulissat, and its great to see it in winter. Its much quieter than in summer. There are basically no tourists and there aren't nearly as many teenagers cruising up and down "main street". Speaking of tourists, I learned that the number of tourists has increased from about 5,000 per year to 35,000 per year within a span of a few years. That number is expected to double this year. This for a town that has 5,000 inhabitants. As you can imagine, the town is starting to be overrun by tourists, at least in summer. I wish I could've seen it 20 years ago.

As I've written in past entries, Greenland has quite a few social problems that it is trying to overcome - poverty, poor education, and poor health care. There is reason for hope though. Among other things they are opening a university and national art museum in Nuuk, the capital city. This says to me that they are becoming increasingly independent from Denmark. (They have also started a couple of breweries, an important step towards independence!) Hopefully they can do so without selling out to tourism and mining operations.

An interesting note that I learned this week: the Greenlandic word for Greenland is Kalaallit Nunaat, or land of the Greenlanders. Apparently that name didn't exist until after Danish colonization. The word "kalaallit" (or the singular version "kalaaleq") developed a negative connotation during the colonial period, when it was used by Danes to refer to a lower-class of people. This is much like the word "eskimo" in Canada and Alaska, which simply means "raw-meat eater" but has come to have negative connotations as well. Thus the people of Greenland are not particularly comfortable with the name of their own country! Apparently their has been some discussion (I don't know how serious) of changing the country's name to the much more pronounceable Inuit Nunaat, or "land of the people". Poetic, but a little misleading considering that in all of Greenland there are only 50,000 people.

Airport rant

I'm enroute to Greenland at the moment, and things are going pretty much like they usually do. This time my luggage is sitting in JFK airport and I'm in Albany, NY. I don't know what my problem is, but it seems that every trip I take involves some unforeseen delay. Inari is losing desire to travel with me for fear of spending nights at airports, which we've done once before.

Anyway, if my luggage doesn't arrive tonight, as they promised it would, I'm really going to be in a pickle. My flight to Greenland leaves super early tomorrow morning and the next flight isn't until 4 May. I suppose I could manage without those packs until then - it wouldn't be ideal - but I could manage. If they end up being lost, however... Wow, that would pretty much ruin the field season. I must have several thousand dollars of equipment in those packs plus some pretty crucial instrument download cables. Keeping my fingers crossed. There must be a lesson in all this.

On a related note, I've come to loathe people who design airports. At least American airports. Or at least the people that decide to make it extremely difficult for newcomers to find information and get around. Why aren't there more maps and information desks? Why is it that at some airports flight information screens only contain information for one airline? Why did I have to leave security at JFK to transfer from one regularly-scheduled domestic flight to another? I really don't understand the rationale.

Three most hated airports so far:
1. Los Angeles
2. New York - JFK
3. Chicago O'Hare

Hmm.. I see a trend. Maybe I've just become too comfortable with our 6 gate, 2 baggage carousel airport in Fairbanks and the even smaller airport in Ilulissat. At Ilulissat you can walk in the airport and straight up to the tower. There you can ask them to open the door to get to the runway and hangars, and they'll do it without hardly caring what you're up to.

chick chick

According to Jason, I have a bunch of weird hobbies (I guess geekines have to be earned somehow): among others, I collect religious tracts published by Jack T. Chick. These are small comics trying to get people to repent and to believe in Jesus. I don't know why anyone would like to convert after reading one of the tracts, though. The presented religious wordview is awful, and god is portrayed as cruel, unforgiving and mean. Tought luck getting in heaven, if you belong to a wrong religious group (namely, if you are not a Babtist).

My main source for the tracts is a Babtist minister that comes to the university every week and sits behind a table at the student union. I once made the mistake of actually talking to him. Now I just wait until he is preoccupied with something else and try to grab some tracts as I walk by. Two days ago I scored a big time. He was nowhere to be seen and I got to choose from a wast pile of tracts.

Tracts are kind of scary, but hilarious at the same time. Plus, you do learn interesting things: I bet you all thought that the dinosaurs were killed by global cooling, most likely caused by an asteroid hitting the Earth. No, no, how wrong we have been. The real reason is the Great flood. You see, Noah did include dinosaurs as well, but since the flood distroyed all the plant matter, the oxygen levels dropped dramatically. Dinosaurs were quite big animals and did require a lot of oxygen. So the poor critters died because the Earth could not sustain them anymore. (I don't know why god failed to save them by just messing with the oxygen levels. Not to mention how was it possible for anything to survive without any plants...). All this information is accompanied with a picture of a pitiful, coughing dino. Priceless.

Herra hajamieli

Viime kesänä Expressenin toimittaja vertasi Jasonia Professori Tuhatkaunoon. Viime päivinä on tuntunut siltä, ettei arvio osunut kovin väärään. Herra on levittellyt omaisuuttaan pitkin kämppää ja hukannut esineitä samaa vauhtia. Stereon kaukosäätimen söi sohva (kuten ilmeisesti myös rannekellon ja jääkaappimagneetin), sohvan alta löysin niin musiikki-instrumentteja kuin kameranjalankin (tosin vain instrumentit olivat hukassa, kameranjalka ihan siellä missä pitikin, kuulemma). Nyt hukuksissa on muistikortti, jolla on on aikaa materialisoitua ensi lauantaihin, kun toiseksi viimeinen Gröönlannin reissu alkaa.

Luvassa on siis kuukausi yksineloa.

English summary: our sofa is eating Jason's things (wrist watch, musical instruments, stereo remote) and my refridgeretor magnet. We are still looking for a flash card...

Losing blogging virginity

I guess I'm exposed. I never consider myself a closet blogger though; I think you actually have to write something (anything) to be a blogger. I have just been reading stuff. And now all-of-a-sudden I find myself in the batter's box.

Random thought of the day: drinking tea makes you (i.e. me) happier. But it has to be good tea with a lot of honey.

a new author

Inari has long been a blog fanatic. She's been more of a closet blogger though, not really contributing to the blogosphere. Not anymore. Now she'll be writing on our blog. Maybe in Finnish, maybe in English, or maybe in Inarian. Good luck trying to understand her, whatever language she uses...

Springward bound

A strange spring. Maybe every spring is a strange spring. Unpredictable. At the end of March it felt like winter had abandoned us. Good riddance. The birds were chirping; it was hot. Most of the snow melted. Then it was cold again and it snowed. This morning it was well below freezing. What's going on? Did we miss summer? Frustrated and anxious. Tired of winter. Nature was playing games with us.

Then, tonight, I went skijoring with our neighbor's dogs. Remembered why I like winter. Calm, quiet, beautiful light in the trees, fresh soft snow. Peaceful. The dogs pulled hard, really hard, and ran gracefully. At one intersection they went left, I went right. Disaster narrowly avoided. One dog flew into a tree. Oops. We recovered and continued on. Took a narrow trail through the trees. Bad idea. Stupid dogs got wrapped up in the trees. Finally made it through.

A great way to end a stressful week at work. How long until we have our own dogs?

Listening, reading, watching

I've decided to have a monthly post on the things that I'm currently listening to, reading, and watching. I hope this is interesting to others...

Listening to: Eliades Ochoa
Lately I've been really digging Cuban music and I'm just now starting to get a handle on who's who in the world of Cuban music. Eliades Ochoa is a vocalist, guitarist, and tres player (similar to a guitar but with three sets of two strings and it sounds nicer) who played with the Buena Vista Social Club. I'm now realizing that Ry Cooder - the man who organized the Buena Vista album and movie - may have been more important to Cuban music and culture than many of the musicians who developed the unique music styles. So many of the musicians from the Buena Vista project are now enjoying well-deserved international fame. Some of the musicians were in their 70's and 80's when the album was being made and have since passed away. If it wasn't for Ry Cooder their music may have been lost.


Reading: The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
I read this book with my grandma as part of our Nobel Prize reading "club". I wouldn't recommend it unless you like torturing yourself for no good reason. Nobel Prize books are typically not easy reads, but at least you feel like you get something out of them. When I finished this one I was just happy to be done. That's a little unfair, as it did have some good points. The book was essentially about a wealthy white businessman in South Africa and his relationship with the black farmers who worked on his farm - farming was a hobby of his. I suppose the book contained some interesting commentary on race relations in South Africa, but I don't think there was anything revolutionary - at least nothing that I picked up on.


Watching: The Sea Inside (movie)
This may have been the most touching movie that I've ever seen. Don't watch it alone, when you're feeling down, late at night, or without a box of kleenex. Its a story about a quadriplegic man who fights for his right to commit suicide. That about sums it up. After watching the movie I felt that I had a somewhat new perspective on life. The film stars Javier Bardem, now famous for his role in No Country for Old Men. I'm quite impressed with his acting - he did a great job in two completely different roles.

Brush with fame

In case you needed proof that I did actually meet with Angela "The Chancellor" Merkel, here are a couple of photos that I got from a reporter about a month ago.

Photos by Inge Rasmussen.

I wonder what this coming field season will bring.

The things kids do

People say that kids everywhere are pretty much the same. That's probably true, but I guess most 4 year olds don't do this:


On Sunday Inari and I went to see the Junior North American Dogsledding Championships. There were something like 20 competitors ranging in age from 4-16 years. The kids raced with anywhere from 1 to 8 dogs, depending on their skill level. Some of the dogs were really fast and were good sled dogs. Some ran half of the course and then stopped and decided that they'd rather do something else. A couple of the kids were thrown off their sleds into the snow - that's why they wear helmets!


One girl said that her favorite thing about dogsledding was getting to play with her dogs. Most of the kids' favorite dogsledding memories involved getting thrown from their sleds or narrowly missing a tree.

Photographic phrustrations

Since I got into photography a couple of years ago I've really started to appreciate good photographs of people and also of the night sky. I'm starting to get the hang of both of these, but I still have a long way to go.

A couple of nights ago I took these photos of the aurora. They look good when viewed from afar, but grainy and blurry close up. I've tried long (30 s) exposures, short exposures, different ISO settings, just about everything. Not sure if its a problem with me or my camera. I suspect that analog cameras still do much better than digital for low light conditions. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Back-blogging

Sorry about the complete lack of updates lately. I haven't felt very inspired to sit down and write about anything, at least not after spending day after day struggling over words at work. The paper that I've been working on is nearly finished - I hope to submit it next week. That will be weight off of my shoulders. Now that the paper is almost finised I've begun to start thinking about the upcoming field season. I've been looking into purchasing some really fancy audio recording equipment with a small student grant that I have. I could see myself totally getting into it. Next thing you know I'll be out recording birds and squirrels.

Life hasn't only been work work work. I've seen some good music (The Wailing Jennies, a folksy group from Canada) and some really good movies (No Country for Old Men; Juno). And then there's always hockey, broomball, drumming, and soccer. For those of you that have played broomball and appreciate the difficulty of the game, check out this youtube video. Amazing. I didn't know that people could be so good at it.

In early February I went to NASA's PARCA (Pan-arctic regional climate assessment) meeting in Boulder, Colorado. It was a really interesting meeting with good discussions. We debated questions like: How can the PARCA group most help society? (Improving predictions of sea level rise.) What is the single biggest contribution that we can give society? How do we go about doing that? Where should we focus our resources? I realized that the discussions we were having directly affect policy and the future of NASA. Pretty neat. Also strange in a way. I guess not very many people spend much time thinking about Greenland and Antarctica. In a way it makes me feel very isolated from society. Even more so when I hear people talking about business, stocks, and economics, and I have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. In my life I'm happy if the number at the bottom of my bank statements is positive.

I took advantage of the trip to Colorado to do some skiing. It was great timing - Colorado was getting hammered with one snow storm after the other. The snow was really great, so was the company. Jason Stenson wrote about our trip and posted some nice photos.

Slave to science

I've found myself in a somewhat unusual situation in that I am "racing" to get a paper published. We have some really interesting observations regarding calving of large icebergs and how the glacier, fjord, and earth respond to those calving events. Interesting enough that we're going to try to submit the paper to Nature (one of the two big science journals). The problem is that our observations are only slightly more unique than some other researchers, so if we don't hurry up and get this paper published then we may have missed our opportunity to get it accepted into Nature. If it doesn't get published in Nature we can always submit it elsewhere, but of course we want the fame and the money that comes with fame...

My colleagues are letting me write the paper, which could be really good for me. Its not very common for a graduate student to be a first author on a Nature paper - though it does happen. I stress the word "letting" because I haven't really contributed any more to the ideas in the paper than anybody else. I've done more of the work (writing is a lot of work), but otherwise its been a group effort. It's too bad that somebody's name has to be first.

Actually this whole process has been quite strange for me. There are probably five or six groups around the world working on the same problem, and there is a lot of discussion between groups, and so the ideas are really being developed by many people. But then, because of the pressure to publish (and to be the first to publish your results), people are being a little bit secretive about their observations. In my mind, that's not the way things should work. It says something about the problems with science funding and with scientists (we're just as greedy for fame as everybody else).

Anyway, getting a paper accepted in Nature seems to be a somewhat random process. Some papers that do get accepted wouldn't be accepted in lesser journals. And having a paper in Nature doesn't mean that you do better work than people that haven't published there, it just means that you were in the right place at the right time. Of course, being in the right place at the right time does require some skill.

Basically, this means that I haven't had much of a life for the past month. It also means that I'm almost finished with the first chapter of my thesis (I have to write three papers). I'm also hoping to write a paper for a conference proceedings for a conference that I'll attend in August. Maybe this means that I'll finish my Ph.D. faster than planned, sometime in 2009? And then?

Bagh Chal

I recently learned how to play "bagh chal", or the tiger-moving game. Its the national game of Nepal and a little bit like checkers, but so far its been a lot more fun. I especially like that the players have different objectives. Its quite easy to build your own board so give it a shot if you're into this sort of thing.

Start with a board that looks like this:


To play this game you need 4 tigers and 20 goats. (We used quarters and pennies.)

Put a tiger into each of the four corners. One person plays the tigers and will attempt to eat all of the goats; the goats will attempt to surround the tigers so that they can't move. At any point in the game a tiger can jump over a goat and eat it, but only if there is space on the other side of the goat... Think checkers. The goats try to surround the tigers until they are unable to move. If you're the goat player and you've lost five goats you should just give up. It's pretty much hopeless at that point.

The goat player goes first by placing a goat onto any intersection on the board. Then the other player moves one of the tigers along one of the lines to an adjacent intersection. This continues until all the goats have been played, at which point they are allowed to roam like the tigers. The tigers continue to play as before.

The only additional rule is that you are not allowed to make a move that results in the board looking identical to how it looked previously. This means that you can't just keep moving forward and backward.

I've read complaints that the game is too easy for the goats. I haven't played enough to find out if that's true, but it seems to me that there is an easy solution to that problem - play with one less goat.

Life cycles

This time of year I go through all of the photos that I took during the past year and print the best ones as 8x10's. I found a pretty good website for printing photos: www.iprintfromhome.com. I'd highly recommend them. They do a good job and are reasonably priced. They can print in luster, which in my opinion is much better than glossy or matte.

Anyway, in going through the photos I've realized that my life is becoming a record that loops over and over and over. Around this time of year Inari and I usually do a couple of overnight ski trips to remote backcountry huts. Even the destinations seems to be almost the same. In February or March we'll probably go winter camping, freeze our butts off, and then say that we're never doing that again. In May I'll leave for field work and Inari will plant the garden. We'll be busy working on the garden in June. Then comes July, which brings fishing, blueberry picking, the Gulkana Glacier field course, and hopefully a hiking or canoe trip. I go back to the field in August, then to a conference later in the fall, and then hang low until mid-winter.

There is something about the isolation and strong seasonality of life in Fairbanks that makes this sort of cycle almost inevitable. I haven't decided if I like it or not. I also realized the other day the I'm not as attracted to the Alaskan scenery as I once was, its like I've become desensitized. I kind of feel that its time to try someplace new, someplace with more connections to the rest of the world. Then again, I know that once/if I leave Alaska, I'm definitely going to miss it.

Percussive musings

A week and a half ago I played in the end of semester percussion concert with the World Beat Ensemble. It was a lot of fun - getting more comfortable playing in front of people. Even soloing isn't too scary anymore. Been feeling quite musically inspired lately, just wish I had more time and opportunities to play.

The concert was recorded and posted online. If you're curious to hear what sort of music I'm playing, go to http://library.music.uaf.edu/ and search for world beat. In this concert we played Agbeko and Kpanlogo, both from West Africa. I especially like Kpanlogo - its really catchy. That crazy cool instrument that you hear is called the gyil. I'm trying to figure out how to get one sent to me from Ghana (and to convince Inari that we have room for one). There are some recordings of pieces from previous concerts as well: I played Bin Tin, Ijexa, Fanga, and maybe Timini. Can't remember very well these days.

The musical choices aren't always my favorite, but its fun to play anyway. I usually prefer something more Latin - rumba, samba, bossanova.

"If you can..."

Tonight I went to see the Mensah brothers perform. They are percussionists, dancers, and singers from a small village in Ghana, though through music they've been able to move to the U.S. and teach at the University of Colorado. African music isn't my favorite - I prefer afro-cuban music: samba, rumba, latin jazz. Nonetheless it was quite fun and inspiring to watch them perform. Their sense of music is so different than traditional western music, and in my opinion, a lot more fun. Plus I appreciate it their music because I see it as the grandfather of the music that I'm really interested in.

They play because its fun and they have fun because they are playing. It's easy to imagine them at their home in Ghana, playing with their family and friends. They probably didn't have much other than music, but that was all that they needed.

They were selling t-shirts and cd's after the show, just like all other musicians. But, they said during the concert that the money that they make of off sales is donated to an orphanage in Ghana. Pretty cool.

They also said that they bring Americans to Ghana for a month in the summer to learn to dance sing, and drum. As they said, "If you can move your legs, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing; and if you can move your arms, you can drum."

20th century digital boy

Inari and I have re-entered the 20th century. We now have internet at home. Its not exactly anything to brag about though, as the only connection available to us is dial-up. I'm not sure why people even bothered with internet back in the day. Dial up is sooo slow. I'm not yet sure why we're bothering with it either. It does allow me to do some things at home that I'd rather not do at work - like blogging, buying plane tickets, checking my bank account, etc. Now when I'm at work I can focus on work. At the same time, the slow connection basically guarantees that my work won't follow me home very often and that I won't spend too much time surfing.

I was really hoping that I'd be able to use skype via a modem, but so far I'm not having any luck. I've read on some forums that it works for some people. We'll keep trying.

Oregon

It's been a busy couple of months. My research is really starting to gain some momentum. Today I started writing the first paper for my thesis (three are required). It's been quite fun; I've been doing quite a bit of detective work and feel that I've stumbled across some interesting observations. I still have quite a bit of work to do, but I'm getting there (wherever there might be).

Two weekends ago I was in Portland to present my work at the Northwest Glaciology Meeting. It was a pretty good meeting but I didn't get as much feedback as I might have liked. Anyway, I guess meetings aren't about getting feedback, they're about schmoozing. I enjoyed this meeting more than other meetings that I've been to because I feel like I'm starting to know a lot of people in glaciology and have lots of people to catch up with.


Since the meeting was in Portland I was able to stay with friends Jason and Elvira, who had moved there two weeks earlier. Despite their lack of knowledge about Portland, they were great tour guides. We did a little road trip around Mt. Hood and back down the Columbia River Gorge. Its a pretty area - reminds me a bit of parts of New Zealand. And the trees are so big! Well, at least compared to the tiny black spruce outside our cabin.

Best of Greenland, 2 of 3

Lately my blog posts have been few and far between. I'm going to blame it on Harry Potter. I haven't been doing much of anything lately other than working and reading Harry Potter. I'm almost done with book 6 (out of 7), so hopefully my social life will return to normal in the somewhat nearish future.

Well, I have managed to do a few things other than work and reading. I've joined an intramural soccer team, which has been really fun. I haven't played soccer for many, many years, and I usually end up going home sore. The first week I had a bruise on top of my collarbone (I got elbowed while going for a header) and this week the back of my knee has been sore. I didn't realize that soccer is such a tough sport. Or maybe I'm just starting to show the first (?) signs of old age. Anyway, its been really fun and I'm inspired to play more.

---------

Now back to my Best of Greenland series. I didn't manage to get my photos submitted for the show, so I'll have to wait until next time around.

Here is a photo of water-filled crevasses on Ilulissat Glacier (aka Jakobshavn Isbrae). I really like the color. Unfortunately the image isn't sharp enough to print it really big - I tried and wasn't happy with the results.

Best of Greenland, 1 of 3

One of the galleries in Fairbanks has an annual juried exhibition titled "64th Parallel", which is only open to residents of Fairbanks and vicinity. This year's them is IPY - International Polar Year - so I thought it might be appropriate to submit some of my photos from Greenland. I'm planning to submit three, assuming that the frames that I ordered arrive on time.

Here is the first one - a little cliché, perhaps, but I like it anyway.


I really like that the Greenlanders still use the more traditional qajaqs (spelled differently in Greenland than in Alaska). Hunting is done primarily from boats (and with dog sleds in winter). These qajaqs seem to be used primarily for recreation.

P.S. Eemeli, thanks for encouraging me to get a circular polarizer. It really can make a boring sky look nice, as in this photo.

World News Tonight

For those of you that may not have gotten the message, I made an appearance on ABC's World News tonight on Friday. There are two clips - though in one of them I'm just standing in the background pointing at icebergs. If you'd like to see them, click on the links below.

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3573900

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3573668

Media circus

I know I've said this before - but I can't believe how much media attention our Greenland project is getting. Its really getting out of hand. I had several reasons for signing on to this project: I like working with my advisor and didn't want to risk trading him in for another, I wanted to go to Greenland, and I thought the project had very good scientific merit. But I had no idea it would become a news story!

In the three weeks that I was in Ilulissat I talked with 6 different reporters and gave a tour to Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany and supposedly the most powerful woman in the world, and to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister of Denmark.

The reporters were from around the world - ABC News, Aftonbladet (Stockholm's evening news), Tokyo Broadcasting Station, NHK (Japanese), Haaretz (Israeli), and MSNBC. I missed an interview with a Norwegian reporter because of troubles with our flights, and I've also been contacted by the Oregonian. This is really insane. At first it was quite exciting to know that my work was receiving so much attention, but now I just roll my eyes when I hear that a reporter wants to talk to me. But then again, I am funded by public money and think that the public should have access to our research findings, so I cooperate as best I can.

I've already made an appearance in the Aftonbladet; the article is in Swedish, but there is a close-up of yours truly. In the article I'm compared to Professor Calculus from the Adventures of Tintin. That didn't mean anything to me, but Inari found it pretty funny.

I'll let you know when I make any appearances elsewhere.

I couldn't find any photos of me with the chancellor, but I did find this, which basically says that I will be giving a tour to Angela Merkel. I had dinner with the dignitaries - it was an informal dinner, which meant that you didn't have to wear a tie. I ended up borrowing a suit from somebody that works at the German embassy in Denmark. The next day we flew out to our campsite and I talked with the dignitaries for about 15 minutes, explaining what we are doing and why its important. Her critics claimed that she went to Greenland just as a publicity stunt, and I think they are probably right. She said that she wanted to meet with scientists - she met with two of us for a total of about 30 minutes - and I was picked because I was the only scientist in town at the time. On the other hand, a good photograph makes for a strong political statement.

Getting educated

Last Thursday was the first day of kindergarten in Ilulissat. Here, the children start their school career by wearng traditional Greenlandic clothing. They're traditional in the sense that their origins are very old but, as you can see in the pictures, the clothing has evolved considerably through the years. At noon the children and parents gathered outside the school, and one by one they were introduced and welcomed to the school and given a Greenlandic flag. The proud fathers documented the event with the cameras, just like they do everywhere else in the world. I thought it was a very nice tradition and I was happy to witness it. Most of the kids were very shy, but a few had big grins on their faces.


From what I've heard, the education system in Greenland is very poor. They are just now in the process of developing their first university. Many towns don't have high schools - the towns are just too small. Even the kids in Ilulissat, the third largest "city", have to go to boarding school in the town of Aassiat once they turn sixteen. The poor education system is a big reason that I'm here right now. In addition to my research, I'm spending about two weeks working with the municipality's "science interpreter". I've been told that even though there are many scientists coming to Ilulissat, the local people don't gain anything from the visits, and in fact they are often the last ones to find out about the research results - when they are discussed on the BBC. So we are trying to bring our science to the community and especially to the children. We want to teach them science as well as the scientific process. I'm working on a poster that will be displayed at the schools and in the town museum. We've also organized a public meeting with myself and a couple of other scientists. And, just yesterday I learned that I will be giving a presentation at the local school - a chance for the kids to practice their English and to learn about the interesting glacier in their backyard. I just wonder who will learn more - the kids or myself

A bridge, nostalgia, a wedding

Wednesday night I went to school to pick up some equipment to take with on my trip to Greenland (I’m en route right now). My computer was on, so I quickly checked the news on CNN. I couldn’t believe what I saw – Minneapolis had made international news because of a devastating bridge collapse, a bridge that was something like 10 blocks away from were I used to live. I felt shocked; it touched close to home. I’ll probably always remember reading about it, just as I'll always remember where I was when I heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center.

On my way to Greenland I made a short visit to Minnesota. Travelling there and (and to other parts of the civilized world) always gives me fixed feelings. I’m not particularly fond of the cookie-cutter design of many parts of the U.S., and when I see those areas I’m happy to be living in Fairbanks in my little cabin in the woods. That was my feeling on Thursday evening after arriving at my parent’s place in Maple Grove. Friday, though, I went to Minneapolis to meet up with Cuong and Joe and some of their friends. We went out for a dinner and then saw a play – a really funny satire of the pyramid business scheme for selling beauty products. Afterwards, while talking on the street corner on a warm summer evening, I really missed living in Minneapolis. I’m not sure if it was Minneapolis itself, or just the city culture. I often feel torn between where I would really like to live: a city, with its culture and architecture and busy-ness and closeness, or a rural area like Fairbanks, with its quiet and beauty and space and wilderness. Maybe my ideal home would be in a dense city with no suburbs that is surrounded by complete and easily accessible wilderness…

I was passing though Minneapolis to attend my friend Sing-Wei’s wedding (to Nate, whom I’ve just briefly met). The day of the wedding was one of the only rainy days all summer. The ceremony was outdoors, but they managed to squeeze it in between rain showers. At the end of the ceremony they released some monarch butterflies, some of which weren’t very eager to leave their warm little “cages”. Its interesting attending weddings after being married. I almost feel like I’m welcoming the newly-weds into some sort of club. A club that doesn’t have rules, just feelings. I’m pretty sure I know how Sing-Wei and Nate feel right now, and that’s a feeling that I didn’t know existed a few years back. I also wouldn’t be surprised to learn that their new pet names for each other are “husband” and “wife”. It’s a funny thing when you get to say “Hey wife, should we have dinner now?”.

The wedding was fun- it was especially nice to catch up with old friends, though I would’ve like to talk more with Sing-Wei.

My 15 minutes

I've just received word that one of my glacier calving videos (see 19 June 2007) will be airing on the Lerher News Hour on PBS this week as part of a larger (~10 min) story on Jakobshavns Isbrae. I don't know much more at this point, but check back to find out when it will be showing. As I don't have a t.v., I would really appreciate it if somebody would be willing to tape it for me - especially if you have the means to do it digitally. I assume that the story will also be posted online at some point (http://www.pbs.org/newshour).

Update: The clip was aired on 1 August 2007, and can be found online.

Mt. Prindle, a Carhartt wedding, and canoeing

Yikes, I can't believe its already been a couple of weeks since my last post. There are so many things going on these days its hard to keep up.

Two weekends ago I went rock climbing at Mt. Prindle with friends Laura and Pierre. We left Fairbanks Friday evening and drove north on the Steese Highway for about two hours. We then turned onto a logging road and continued on, fording two streams in the process. It was quite clear that the car couldn't make it past the third stream, so we took our bikes off the roof of the car and rode a few miles to the end of the road. From there it's a 7 mile hike up and over a couple of hills to the base of the climb. We ended up hiking until 1 am (in full sunlight!) . Saturday we woke up late in the morning, discovered that we didn't have a pot (my bad), ate cold oatmeal (yumm...) and continued on to Mt. Prindle. We relaxed in the sun with the mosquitoes on Saturday evening, climbed Sunday morning, and were back in Fairbanks by midnight on Sunday evening.
Mt. Prindle has some impressive rock outcrops, the highest of which is over 300 m high. Unfortunately most of the rock is completely covered with lichen, so the climbing isn't as nice as it looks from afar. Anyway, it was fun to do a long climb - something that you can't do in many places around Fairbanks. I've only done a couple of multi-pitch climbs before. It takes some getting used to. I was a little nervous at first, but once I started focusing on climbing (and not looking down) everything was fine. Pierre is a very good climber and did all of the leading, so there really wasn't much for me to worry about. I'm just glad that he led and not me!

This past Saturday Inari and I attended our friend's wedding. It was truly a Fairbanks wedding - the guests were asked to wear Carhartt's and bring some food to share. It was complete with piñatas and a group of about 30 youngish people (mostly geology graduate students) dancing in the rain. These dancers included the bride, who was wearing hiking boots under her traditional wedding dress. A lot of old friends were in town - it was good to see everybody.

On Sunday I went on a short canoe trip on the Chatanika River, and then remembered how much I enjoy canoeing. I then proceeded to buy a roof rack for our car, 2 nice life jackets for paddling, and a paddle for Inari. We went again on July 4th. I'm hoping to squeeze in some more paddling trips this summer, but there isn't a lot of time left! I'm going fishing this weekend, and Inari's sister Anu is coming in a few weeks... After that I'm off to Greenland again and won't be back until early September. Phew!

What is productivity?

This past field season was a struggle and so it was quite a humbling experience. Last year everything went really well, so I kind of expected more of the same... The instruments that we left running over winter failed, and nearly every instrument that we brought with didn’t work as it was supposed to — at least not at first. This included a wind gauge, a precipitation gauge, a marine radar (for tracking iceberg motion), an automatic theodolite (for optical surveying), several GPS, and an ablation meter (measures ice melt rates). On top of that we had some pretty bad luck with weather during the first two weeks at our camp. The first night that we were there we had 60+ knot winds. Martin lost his tent in the wind and broke his glasses when they were blown off his face. All of the tents suffered some damage. A week later we got hit by another storm. You could hardly stand up outside, let alone try to do something productive. This was also probably the first time that I’ve ever slept with ear plugs. It was really something. I’m sure I’ll remember it fondly some day. Check out this poor tent:

In the end we managed to accomplish most of what we had set out to do. At any rate, it gave me a new perspective on how difficult field work can actually be. I was certainly feeling pessimistic about our work for a couple of weeks.

During the last two weeks — we were out for a month — the weather cleared up. Actually, it was amazingly beautiful weather. It was actually hot, and there was very little wind. That’s quite unusual, because large glaciers often have strong winds blowing down-glacier. We had a lot of time to relax during those two weeks. I passed my time by reading Finnish children’s stories and cleaning up all the dirt. Its really a dirty place.

We also played network video games (not really),

ate narwhal,

and formed a band (photo for the c.d. cover).

Return to summer

I sometimes think that glaciologists - especially those who chose to live in Fairbanks - must be really stupid people. I spend my winter in the dark and cold, and once spring arrives I travel to Greenland so that I can sit next to a giant ice cube all summer... Well, that's not to say that I didn't enjoy being in Greenland, because I did. But its also really nice to be back in Fairbanks. Everything seems so green, and its warm and the flowers are blooming and the birds are chirping.

I've started keeping a journal while doing field work because after a while the days blur together. I'll try to type up some of my entries and post them here. Maybe they're interesting?

For now, I'll leave you with a link to a video that I put together. About once a week we witnessed a BACE (bad ass calving event), during which a large part of the glacier tongue would break off and roll around in the fjord, making a lot of noise in the process. The icebergs are huge- the ice cliff that you'll see in the video is 80-100 m high, meaning that the ice is on the order of 800 m thick. Try picturing that rolling around in your neighborhood! This particular calving events lasted for about 20 minutes; I took one frame every 10 seconds and compressed the whole sequence into about 20 seconds.

For an avi file, click here. For a wmv file, click here. Sorry if they don't work on your machine.

Squirrel fever

There seems to be two cultures of people: those that think that squirrels are a nuisance and those that find them adorable. Most Fairbanksans seem to fall into the first category. Winters are cold in Fairbanks, so of course squirrels like to crawl into peoples' walls and steal insulation. I'd do the same thing, so I really can't blame them. Some people have been known to set traps or shoot squirrels with BB guns. I even know somebody that shot a squirrel with a rifle, though the perpetrator admitted to feeling guilty afterwards.

Inari falls into the second category. She made a bird feeder that just happens to have a large enough opening to double as a squirrel feeder. I do think squirrels are pretty cute, but I'm not convinced that intentionally attracting them to your house is a good idea. Well... Sometimes you don't always have a say in these things. So I just accept it and use it as an opportunity to play with my telephoto lens.