Saturday April 30, 2010 – Last sampling day of the trip

With our new ice camp all set-up yesterday, this morning we were ready to go back out on the ice to collect our last set of samples for the trip. When we left building #36 it was foggy with a few snow flurries and it was a relatively warm -8.9°C (16°F).  By the time we got out on the ice and waited around, (Brower, one of the members of our logistics crew, went back to pick-up the electric generator that we forgot and that runs our sampling pump.) the sun came out; the wind picked up; and the temperature dropped. Again it was breath takingly beautiful, but it felt considerably colder. We passed the time waiting by hanging out in the tent, eating pretzel m&m’s that Steven had brought but that we ate all up before he could get any, and telling stupid jokes.

Did you hear the one about the baby polar bear that didn’t think he was a polar bear?  Why don’t you think you’re a polar bear the polar bear daddy asked?  Because I’m fricking freezing said the baby polar bear!

Yeah, not so funny but it passed the time. Soon Brower had returned and we were back in business.

We quickly collected our water and loaded it on the sleds. All week we’ve been having trouble trying to keep our heavy coolers filled with water from falling off the sleds. Today was no different. No more than 2 minutes after leaving, we noticed that our coolers were about to slide off. We stopped and re-tied them properly. The trick is not to pile them up on each other but to spread them out on the sled. Of course we figured this out on our last trip of the expedition. After re-tying our sled we made it back to our lab without incident and quickly began processing the water.

The right way to load a sled.

After working out all the little filtration problems with the previous two samples, everything went smoothly. It kind of reminds me of making pancakes. Have you ever noticed that no matter how many times you’ve made pancakes before, the first batch always turns out funny?  It seems like the same is true for filtering water. We finished in record time and were able to sample Zac’s experiment a little early. This made Tara and Karie happy since they are helping us measure the activity (productivity) of the bacteria, and this involves a 4 hour incubation step. The sooner we get them samples the sooner they can go to sleep!

Still, I missed lunch and working on the ice and in a cold room just a touch over freezing all day sure does build-up an appetite. At the cafeteria they were serving Beef Burgundy one of my all time favorite meals. Boeuf bourguignon it was not, but it sure was tasty, warm and completely satisfying.

Beef Burgundy dinner at the Ilisagvic college cafeteria.

After such a huge meal and long day I went back to my room planning to catch-up on computer work and to go to bed early. But at around 10:30 Zac and Steve called me to tell me that they were heading into town to hear a local band that was playing at the roller rink and did I want to join them? The band is called “The Barrow Tones.”  Now how could I pass that up? So we picked-up Adriane who also wanted to go and off we went to find the roller rink. When we arrived, we learned that the band wouldn’t start playing for another hour and that was just a little too much for us. However, we didn’t leave before hearing the band rehearse and soaking in the scene. Think heavy metal in a 1970’s disco. Instead of enduring that, we retired to Steven and Zac’s hut for Mint Milano cookies and quiet conversation. Still, it was well past 1am by the time I got to bed.

A Second Sampling Day – January 28, 2011

Today was our second scheduled sampling day.  We started off the day with the most amazing start of the twilight time ever.

Dawn! Around 10:30 am Barrow time.

I managed to take a picture but it doesn’t begin to do it justice.  The temperature has actually warmed up quite a bit, which means it can snow, and it did.

Snowy morning

But that didn’t stop from heading out to our ice camp and sampling.

This time I decided that I’d better drive my own snow machine.

Marc driving himself on the snowmachine this time

I tried to get Zac to take the sled musher position, but he declined. Actually, he was going to ride the sled (I think he was going to fake falling off to even the score), but he was drafted to drive Tish Yager (our lead PI on this project.) Does anyone else think this wasn’t the best idea? But Tish was smarter than I was and opted to ride on the back of the snow machine instead of the sled. Even so, having heard the story of the previous day’s adventures, she held on so tightly that if she fell so would Zac. They arrived at the camp intact.

Today, on their own initiative our fantastic support team had actually gone out to the camp early to set things up, so by the time we got there the propane heaters were running and the tents were already warmed. This really made our jobs a lot easier. The YSI instrument even seemed to behave itself today. I’m still not confident in our results, but at least they were in the right range today. The good news is that the salinity gradient we thought we observed and that worried us appears to have been an artifact of the misbehaving instrument.

We finished sample collection in record time, just under two hours and headed back.  Zac and I spent the rest of the day filtering water in the temperature controlled room.  Under normal conditions I would call this room a cold room since we have set the temperature to match the ocean temperature which is -1.8°C (~29°F), but compared to outside air temperatures it is a warm room.  Outside temperatures today were about -20°F and the wind made it feel like -40. Strange to go into a freezing room to warm up, but that is what we did today.

Everything went smoothly filtering water and we were done by dinner time. Having missed lunch again and spent the whole day at below freezing temperatures, dinner was again large and satisfying. Today at the cafeteria they had salmon.

Tomorrow will be another lab day. No weekends for us I’m afraid.

marc

 

Ice Camp! – January 25, 2011

We’re getting there!  With our team mostly in place (Debbie Bronk and Karrie Sines arrived today), we’re now only missing our fearless leader Tish Yager. Tish, due to family obligations, couldn’t arrive until Thursday.

Today, after a brief meeting with our logistical support team, it was decided that we would set-up our ice camp in the early afternoon. The crack in the ice is still a concern because it indicates that the ice is still moving, but the experts think that the risk of the fast ice breaking-up is small. We’re watching it carefully, but moving forward with our plans.

The logistics team took care of most of the work setting up camp, but Zac and Tara went along to lend a hand and to advise the team on the specific location of the tents, the ice holes, and the placement of the heaters and generators. It is important that any potential contamination of our samples is minimized and so that our sampling can be conducted as efficiently as possible. The trip went smoothly, our camp was established, and I heard that the camaraderie was good.

Tony’s joke; told while drilling an ice hole.

How do you catch a polar bear?

Put some frozen peas around an ice hole, wait for a bear to come take a pea and kick him in the ice hole.

Say it out loud and you’ll get it.  I know…., you had to be there, but Zac took videos.

Sunset from our ice camp.

Imagine the situation, out on the ice in the extreme cold and surrounded by the beauty of an Arctic winter day, its enough to drive anyone a little cold crazy.

After several hours on the ice, Zac is cold crazy.

Meanwhile, the rest of us remained on the station setting-up our labs and making sure that we would be ready for tomorrow’s planned first sampling. Not so exciting, but it really is satisfying to finally see the results of the months of planning realized.  And we’re even more excited to generate the results from our winter experiments.

We are guessing that we’ll see major differences in microbial activities and communities in the winter compared to the spring and summer. We are especially eager to observe how the bacteria are using various forms of nitrogen. Nitrogen is a limiting nutrient for phytoplankton and phytoplankton form the base of the food web that ultimately feed all the larger organisms including whales and humans.

One of the central hypotheses of our project is that if the permafrost melts and releases large amounts of nitrogen-poor humic materials that are stored there, this will increase the use of dissolved inorganic nitrogen by bacteria.  If this occurs, potentially there will be less nitrogen available for the phytoplankton in the spring when the lights come back on and consequently less food for all the larger organisms. Our experiments this week should tell us whether the logic of this idea is correct.

With the ice camp established and our labs set-up, we’re ready to start collecting samples tomorrow. Wish us luck!

marc