ColdPhoto

PHOTOS

2008-07-08T23:13:00.001Z

Go back to the previous post and see photos, now with the magic of color!

Apologies for not posting photos of Svalbard yet...simply have not had the time. Soon!

Velkommen

2008-07-07T06:22:00.002Z

In the illustrious words of MC Frontalot, “Just get in the ring.”

This blog has muddled itself into obscurity over the last year; this I know. It’s finally time to recap the last months and hurdle full-steam back into ColdPhoto: no longer a year in the north, but many years in the north.

Despite the fact that I wasn’t keen to blog about my life in the geology world (no insult to geology but rather to my odd internal categorization of “things to blog about”), I had quite a number of interesting adventures (geology and non-geology) over the last year. In the fall I visited friends in Hawaii and Indiana, and over winter break I got to spend a frigid weekend in the Joshua Tree desert with some old friends from Longyearbyen. Early spring found me skiing for the first time in Bloomington, Utah (see the last post), and mid-March I shipped myself to Boulder, Colorado, for an intense week-long training certification in Arctic survival.

The course included wilderness first aid, bear safety, basic survival skills, and most interestingly aviation crash safety and rescue. This aviation training deserves special mention as I breeze through the rest of these trips. After discussing the theory behind putting a helicopter into auto-rotation, learning crash positions, and being shown countless nightmarish photos of Arctic crash sites (fun, I know), we went outside and took turns strapping into a mock-helicopter and timing how long it took us to escape. This included not merely unbuckling and stepping out the door, but breaking through windows, grabbing survival gear (first aid kit, inflatable boat, etc), and finally – most valuably – doing everything blindfolded, and then doing everything blindfolded in snowmobile gloves (huge things that give you zero dexterity with any sort of strap or buckle).

The most important message from this exercise was the importance of memorizing your surroundings – even little things like “in which direction does my seatbelt unstrap” cost time and energy in the mild panic of our testing. The course, titled “Learn to Return”, also offers a longer version of the aviation safety which includes being strapped in a helicopter cage and dropped upside down…underwater. Excellent training but I’m rather glad I didn’t have to do that part. Our helicopter training, however, took special significance for us with the grim news of a crash in Antarctica, which killed two German polar scientists in March.

The next major event in my life was another surgery on my accursed foot. After having quite a bit of pain, I was disturbed by a new sort of crunching in my foot and went to an orthopedic surgeon to check out my Norwegian bolt. As it turned out, the multiple holes drilled in my foot resulted in the bolt slowly getting jarred loose – it was still in the bone, but sort of bouncing around. So, in April, I went back into surgery to have it removed.

YES - this foot please, not the other:

Ready to go!

I was able to stay awake for most of the procedure, but was put to sleep after they found they had to remove more bone growth than expected. After a irritating 2 weeks on crutches (only two weeks this time, and it still managed to drive me out of my mind), I discovered that although the bone was going to be fine, the surgery had cut a nerve line and I can no longer feel the right side of my foot. Luckily I can still move all my toes, which was the major concern, and now a couple months later I find myself with a gnarly scar and not much sensation at the surgery site, but essentially able to run freely. And yes…of course I kept the bolt.

What’s next…this brings us close to the end of the school year. I went on many excellent geology field trips this year, but none so epic as the week-long department field trip to Zion National Park in Utah. The trip occurred immediately before I was to end my stint as the geology technician, so despite going a little out of my mind with the stresses of moving and orchestrating the survival of 12 geology students in the desert, it really was a spectacular trip. In all, we visited Snow Canyon, Zion, and the Valley of Fire, with no casualties. Success!

The geology kiddos:

The day after we got back, I jumped on a plane and flew to Halifax in eastern Canada for a much-needed vacation. Being the geology technician this last year was immensely educational, but I found living in the outskirts of LA uninspiring, and was more than eager to get back to the sorts of adventures I became accustomed to during my Watson. In Halifax I stayed with my friend Lisa, who I had worked with on the Canadian Coast Guard. While I primarily enjoyed sleeping and taking walks to the lake with her dog, the most exciting part of the trip was when I drove out to Prince Edward Island and backpacked across the northern coast solo for 4 days.

The weather on my first day out was gorgeous.

That day, I and my 50lb (20kg) pack went the 12km from the point of Robinson Island to Stanhope Beach. This nearly killed me (I blame my out-of-shape bad-foot leg), and upon reaching the campsite in Stanhope, I found that the campsite was closed, and that there was no water, and that there was an abundance of mosquitoes. Then it began to rain, and I discovered I had forgotten a can opener, making dinner somewhat useless. Being too tired to hike back out to my car, I spent a fitful night in the campground, only to wake up at 4:30am (worried about getting caught) to pack out, in the rain.

Trying not to fall over:

Eventually I was picked up along the road by a nice old lady who must have thought I looked as beaten as I felt by that point. This gave me the energy to continue on to Cavendish, where I spent the rest of the day hiking sans pack.

I left Canada thoroughly rejuvenated.

Through the rest of this June I have been preparing for my next foray into the north and taking a few small trips. I got to see my brother and my good friend Pete in the Bay Area (San Francisco). (Side note: My brother Dane is on the crew team at Stanford, and is currently in England for a race before heading to Switzerland with an archeology project. My brother is AWESOME!)

Me and Dane:

Most recently I spent a couple days hiking through Joshua Tree, this time earning myself some mild heat stroke with my friends Zach and Cameron. 120F (49C) weather is one very good reason I look forward to colder climates.

The Joshua Tree desert:

Ok! That brings us up to the current project! I am writing from the decks of the RV Lance on my way to Hornsund Fjord, Svalbard. I am returning to the island as a research assistant to a little auk seabird project – the same research I was involved with in 2005. We will be living at the Hornsund Polish station until mid-August, when I will travel to Longyearbyen and look for work on Svalbard or in Tromso. Or possibly Alaska…

The auk research team this year consists of Nina Karnovsky (the Pomona professor leading the project), me (fancy title: Field Director), and Derek and Julia, two undergraduates at Pomona. Right off, I encourage you to check out www.project.pomona.edu/arctic which is our research blog – it’ll include posts from everyone on the team. I don’t want these two sites to duplicate each other, so here’s the deal: the photos on ColdPhoto are exclusively mine, and can’t be found at the Pomona site. On the other hand, some of the photos and stories on the Pomona site will be taken by me, but not duplicated at ColdPhoto. ColdPhoto also, being my personal site, will revolve around Me and not the little auks.

We left California early Wednesday morning – picked up in a stretch limo, nonetheless. Ridiculous. We flew from LAX to Newark, then directly to Oslo, and finally on to Tromso – remarkably smoothly, and discovering all of our luggage in the Tromso airport. In Tromso we were greeted by Daniel, an old friend of mine from Longyearbyen, and Jorg, a collaborator on our dovekie work.

The last time I was in Tromso, I was on crutches, flying to Drammen to suffer out the end of my foot recovery before flying to Siberia – and the last time I had explored the city was the day before my first surgery in April 2007. Being back a year later, able to walk properly – well, it is something I have been waiting for for over a year. We had dinner with Joachim, Lene, Pierre, and Johanna, more friends from Longyearbyen that you may remember being featured on ColdPhoto.

On Friday the team explored Tromso before loading our gear on the RV Lance and heading into the north. Our first stop was at Byornya – Bear Island – where we dropped off a small Polish team, including one woman I had met in 2005. We have seen quite a few whales, and tons of birds, and just now we have passed our first ice flow. Derek and Julia are beyond excited and absolutely everything on the ship is bringing me back to my days on the CCGS Amundsen.

Tonight we will reach the Polish station – I remember the last time I saw it 3 years ago, driving out on a zodiac to the ship that would take us to Longyearbyen. That was the moment I knew I was in love with the Arctic, and coming back to that place is like going home.

Well Then

2008-02-20T02:44:00.005-01:00

SWEET STALKING MONKEY! Apparently there are still, on average, at least 30 of you visiting this site every day. And I know you're not just my parents, because the technology says you come from 6 different continents! Who do I know in Columbia? Or, let's see, SUDAN?

Ok so its been awhile since I've written. Let's move on.

Since I last wrote I have taken time off from my geological duties to visit Indiana, Hawaii, and most recently Utah. If you can't go international, go national! In a couple weeks I'm going to Colorado to learn how to survive helicopter crashes (yes, seriously). While in Utah, I tried my hand (feet) at skiing for the first time. Crazy, I know! Of course I mean cross-country skiing, because the idea of strapping sticks to my feet is crazy enough without then throwing myself off a mountain.

This is approximately how well it went:

Snowshoeing seemed a bit more my speed. (Photo courtesy of Nina Karnovsky.)

As for relevant updates: adventures are in the works! I'm not completely at liberty to discuss things yet, but for those of you desperately clicking the refresh button, waiting for something exciting, you will be rewarded in, say, about 3 months. Until then, I continue doing the geology gig, trying not to go out of my mind while surviving suburbia, and spending all my money on airplane tickets.

Maybe I'll write something about the Colorado thing. Look for that mid-March.

Oh yah...shameless self-promotion: here. And here.

For anyone still reading

2007-09-09T02:15:00.000Z

I know I said I would continue writing. I didn't mean to take a month. But things have been happening.

To answer your first burning question: I have a job. And it issssssss:

Geology technician!

Yeah, I hear those quizzical grunts. I'm the new geology technician at, actually, my old university (Pomona College - for you foreigners, college out here is the same as university, and this is quite a good one despite the fact that not many people have heard of it). And yes, I know I've never really talked about geology extensively before, because yes, I'm a photographer- ecologist- journalist- healthcare researching- animal wrangler, not a geologist.

But who cares about all that! I can be a geologist if I want to! And so it is written, and so it is done. Most of what I do involves running the department, from managing all the technology (XRD, laser particle analyzer, rock saw, computers) to being a web editor to being driver/cook/manual labor/babysitter on field trips. Its varied enough to keep me interested, the department has a lot of good people, and I get to learn stuff.

I also have a new home. And it is innnnnnn:

Los Angeles! (Claremont, specifically).

Ugh, I know. Well, my new place is nice, I live in the garage of a nice house. Just kidding! Or not, actually, I DO live in the garage, but in an awesome extra room with a LOFT, which is the most fantastic place to sleep ever. Its like living in a tree house. A ridiculously hot treehouse, however, as its been 100F (39C) more often than not the last few weeks.

So, here's the plan. I'm going to be working here for a year. Then I'll either go to grad school or get myself to Antarctica. Now, my creepy website-stalking program is telling me people still visit this site, so I guess I have a good reason to keep writing. But now the theme will revolve around the wild and crazy world of GEOLOGYYYY EDUCATIONNNNN!

It's good to be settled. Now I just need a social life. I'm still wondering where the line is for sketchy old alumna/staff hanging out with students. I mean, they are basically my age, but I'm supposed to be a professional now. And stuff.

Loose Ends

2007-08-15T05:43:00.000Z

Remember Penteleikha?

Yah! Those were fun to wake up to in Canada, when I noticed my skin coming off! Now, I've gotten blisters on my feet maybe...maybe twice in my life before, and not for lack of trying. I simply do not blister. (Incidentally, I've never gotten poison oak before either, which seems a rather extraordinary stroke of luck that makes me believe I may be immune). So, seeing those puppies was actually sort of terrifying.

Some last views of Cherskii, while I was waiting for the helicopter:

(That says "Cherskii" in Russian.)

(The Arctic Siberian Airport.)

NEVER AGAIN:

(At least for a bit.)

I get a lot of questions about my living conditions in Russia, which I really found quite comfortable, barring my food situation. So, to satisfy some of those questions, here's a photo of my Russian bedroom:

Now...technically that bed is about an inch of foam covering a sheet of plywood, which is really more comfortable than it sounds. Laying on there diagonally I just about fit.

Speaking of that, I've got an announcement for America: TALL PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE TOO. Walking around foreign countries, I expect to get started at, for whatever reason that might make me look unusual. But my god, people here at home are ruder than I remember. Who runs up to people and says, "You're really tall!" Uh, thanks for the news flash? What sort of training do American's get as kids that slack-jawed stares and idiotic comments are the first response for people of unusual size? My family is perfectly proportional but sometimes it feels like going into town together is like putting on a show, let alone when there's just one or two of us walking around. (I think I've brought this up before, but I'm 6'3", and my family is sized around that, my bro and dad signficantly taller than me and my mom slightly shorter). Oh, and here's a good one! People that walk past you then IMMEDIATELY start going on about "Good christ did you see how tall they were!" We're not deaf!

Somehow I'm oddly reminded of a VERY odd experience I had my first time in London, coming home from Norway two years ago. I had to spend the night in a hotel and took the tubes to get there with my massive amounts of luggage. Exhausted, I ended up on a train seat next to a man who, after staring at my arm for five minutes, said "You have realllllly nice skin."

CREEPY!

Well there's my little rough-transition rant. But that business is nothing new. As for otherwise in this coming home transition, things haven't gone all that bad. I'm still having a hard time with how much food there is here - not even in a "American glutenous" way, but just coming to terms with the fact that I don't constantly have to strategize where my next meal is coming from, and I can eat until I'm full.

Other things I've noticed:

I'm no longer afraid of the dark. Disclaimer - I was never particularly afraid of the dark, but I wasn't a huge fan of running around at night. Now it doesn't faze me at all (internal disclaimer - as someone living on a farm, I should never, ever had seen "Signs"). [Additional note: don't watch John Carpenter's "The Thing" if you plan on going to one of the polar regions]

I wake up almost instantly. I know exactly where this comes from - living with the Canadian coast guard and our wicked sampling schedules. That was alarm rings BOOM dressed fully conscious in about 5 minutes, ready to go haul and filter water for the next 6 hours. 2am or 6pm or noon, gotta be ready to go.

I've been horribly spoiled by freedom. My internal tolerance for boredom has become slim. I'm reminded of a small tantrum I threw in the Norwegian hospital, a few hours after my second surgery (no one saw it, I do have some measure of pride): the nurses pushed my bed from the emergency ward out to radiology (I wasn't allowed to get up yet), where I was left for about 30 minutes by myself. Sick of the entire scenario, I began singing "bored bored bored" to myself and used my hands against the wall to push my bed up and down the hallway.

There is a very significant chance that that was the drugs talking at that point in time.

Finally:

There are a great deal of people that I need to thank for everything thats happened this year.

For the funding (Thomas J Watson Foundation)

For support at home (Mom, Dad, Dane, and extended family)

For my advisor and constant source of contacts (Nina Karnovsky)

For the people that trusted a very random American enough to take her in and give her a job (Christine Michel, the Canadian Coast Guard, and ArcticNet; Peter von Staffeldt, Arne Munk, and the Ittoqqortoormiit School; Jorgen Berge, Piotr Kuklinski, Marek Zajaczkowski, and the University Center in Svalbard; and Sergei and Galina Zimov and the Northeast Science Station)

For the people that gave me a home (CCGS Amundsen and crew; Eric and Therecie Pedersen and family; SITO and UNIS; and the Zimov's and Sergei and Ana Davydov)

For the families and friends of friends that took me in, in times of dire need (Anna Prokopowicz; Marisa and Jon Kjartansson; Lisa Delaney and family; Sarah Terry; Nina Seifert and Philip; Carol Svea and family)

For the hospital care (The Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh (Scotland), Longyearbyen Sykehus (Longyearbyen), Universitetssykehuset Nord-Norge (Tromso), and Sykehuset Buskerud (Drammen))

For friends at home that put up with random and occasionally panicked conversations (you know who you are)

For new friends met along the way (too many to count and I'd never want to leave someone out)

And for everyone who made this impossible year happen.

A Year

2007-08-07T18:24:00.000Z

Well, I guess I dropped the ball with the blog. Just because I'm not doing something fantastically exciting anymore doesn't mean I'm going to stop writing...although I imagine my readership will drastically decrease. I will say this - it shouldn't be long before I start doing something else ridiculous, so if you're interested in that sort of thing, I recommend checking up here periodically to see where I've flown myself.

I've been in California for about a week now, and the Mexican food is as beautiful as I remembered, as is the Jamba Juice. My arrival in LAX was only slightly marred by my ONLY luggage mishap of the year - and a fairly minor one at that. They managed to send my camera gear to the wrong part of the terminal. It is miraculous that my luggage and flights this year have all essentially been made intact.

The week began with a slew of doctor's appointments, luckily curing me of my Siberian deafness (yeeeah...I had lost my hearing in one ear, but no worries, we're good now) but unfortunately not killing the everlasting pain in my foot. It seems heat makes it significantly worse, rather than better. Ah well. The weekend was spent in Claremont, home of my alma mater, attending the Watson conference. Essentially, a bunch of brilliant amazing people gathered in a shell-shocked mass to talk about their utterly priceless years while attempting to empathize with 50 other people who did equally insane, yet totally different things. AWK-WARD! I kid, it was awesome, there was free food. But especially after Siberia, I'll be honest - I don't really deal well with people yet. One on one I can do, and nameless crowds are ok, but constant cheerful chattering and smiling...not so much.

Ergh, that doesn't sound so nice, I'm sorry. I'm actually liking it here better than I thought I would. I've just never been the socialable one. And then theres my consistent shock to overhear people speaking English. I'm starting to learn how to drive again (it was only a little...eh...the first time). After getting back from the conference, I took myself to the beach on a cloudy day, fell asleep, and promptly earned myself one of the worst sunburns I've ever had in a long, painful history of horrible sunburns. My skin really was built for northern fashions. I seem to exist in a permanent state of red now. Not attractive, but just wait for the itchy flaking leper stage.

WELL, on that note, let me apologies again for not emailing/calling/blogging anyone and everyone that I was so excited to be able to contact again. I seem to have lost the ability to communicate to anyone not within 5 feet of me.

Patience, my good people.

Are you wondering what wonderful thing I will do next? That, it would seem, is the question of the hour. A mystery to us all.

Day 364: Tomorrow

2007-07-29T03:38:00.000Z

It is about midnight, the night before I will fly home. I've spent the last few days in Halifax, Canada with my friend Lisa, after arriving safely from Siberia. The trip was intense, although all in all everything ended well. I left Cherskii Tuesday evening, arriving in Yakutsk late that night to find the hotel had no record of my reservation, and no one on duty who spoke English to any useful degree. After awhile, they tried to give me a room for about $300, at which point I mildly flipped out and they woke up a manager to give me whatever I wanted.

The next day began an utterly grueling 48 hour journey. The final dregs of my banking account have gone to Mother Russia, in her exorbitant fees to transport my excess luggage. During the first leg, between Yakutsk and Moscow, I realized something: I am tired of traveling. Not forever, but right now, I am tired. Two hours into the flight, I realized I still had four more hours to Moscow, 4 more five-hour flights, and 3 customs officials to fight through. Every time I got on a new plane I turned back my clock, finding myself progressing almost not at all through the day and having no idea what time my body was actually on. I was in disgusting shape by the time I hit Canada.

Ever since then I've had a lovely time here. We're gone swimming in the lake everyday, I've got my first sunburn of the year, and I've rediscovered food. But to summarize my pre-home epiphany: this is nice. I am tired of moving. The novelty of flying a bazillion miles to far-away places has worn off. I missed my only brother's high school graduation and all of his senior games. I haven't seen any friends in a year. My foot hurts. I'm ready to be done.

But don't let that make you think I haven't enjoyed myself. I wouldn't have traded this year for anything. I'm just glad I've come to terms with going home, even if I have butterflies in my stomach tonight. I'm sure I'll be wanting to move on again soon enough, but for now - I'd like a bed thats not a piece of plywood, and to be able to understand what people are saying, and to make friends that I don't have to say goodbye to in three months.

People often remark on the bad luck with my foot. I have a hard time saying "bad luck". It's a thing that happens - things happen, especially in this crazy journey. I never thought I'd buy a snowmobile. I never thought I'd live in the shadow of a mountain and not be able to reach the first bouldery plateau. I'll go home with a permanent souvenir of this trip - a three inch bolt in my foot.

And when you think about it, how cool is all that, really.

Day 358: California, Here We Come

2007-07-23T05:39:00.000Z

Home is a week away. An extremely busy week, but only a week. Bizarre.

Tomorrow will begin my next completely ridiculous plane-hopping journey. Although most of the time my traveling agenda meets some semblance of rational thought, this time it does not. I am within a few short hours of Alaska and the western US, but Russian-American relations being what they are, the only way for me to get home is going west, instead of east, literally taking me around the entire world. Well, technically I lie. It is possible to charter a private plane for a few bazillion dollars to get to Alaska. Or I could go through China or Japan for another extraordinary amount of money.

Here’s what I’ll be doing instead: Cherskii, helicopter to Srednekolymsk, sketchy plane to Yakutsk. Yakutsk to Moscow (I did manage to find a direct flight this time), Moscow to London, then to St. John’s (Canada), then to Halifax, then to Toronto, then to Los Angeles. Admittedly, the Halifax bit isn’t 100% necessary, but to stop in Canada for a few days costs exactly the same as to fly only slightly more directly to LA from Moscow. Another 8-stop airplane jaunt, all told! I think 8 is like, my average. If I ever need to do something as simple as fly back and forth across the US it’s going to feel like the easiest thing ever. And that would have things like, signs in English.

Random photo of Cherskii ruins:

At least this time I don’t have to stop at the St. Petersburg airport. I don’t think I told this story when I came in. When I landed in St. Petersburg, I assumed I would see some English, as you do in most major international cities. I got off the plane, was heavily scowled at through customs, collected my luggage, and ended up in a tiny lobby. I found a sign that I vaguely understood to be an information stand for passengers with connecting flights, and the little lady inside spoke enough English to tell me that I should wait and someone would come get me to drive me to the airport, which made me wonder where in the world I was if not already at the airport.

A few minutes later, a stewardess came and asked if I had another flight, then quickly turned and had me follow her outside. There was a dirty old white van, into which I shoved my luggage with a few other people, and was given the honour of front seat (walking with a cane has its advantages). We took off. A few minutes later, I realized I was sitting in a dirty old van with 5 Russian men jabbering on their cell phones and nothing whatsoever to reassure me that we were going to the “airport”, particularly as we started to drive through a field.

Luckily we did end up at the airport, another terminal which was oddly a 10 minute drive away. There I found no one at all who spoke any English, and no signs in English, and no gate numbers, so the whole experience was decently nerve-wracking. I’ve found vigorously pointing at my ticket and looking confused at least makes people nod if I’m in the right place.

Moscow airport felt like heaven after that, so I have higher hopes for the return trip.

Here's a photo of me in front of Sergei's satellite:

Last Wednesday was Sergei Z’s birthday. To celebrate his birthday and his son and new grandkid coming, they had a little party. I was invited over as I was cooking my pathetic dinner. So I went over to where Sergei Z and an unknown guy were outside cooking some meat. After some pleasantries, including trying to teach me “happy birthday” in Russian (don’t ask, it has a lot of n’s and y’s and z’s, I think) Sergei quickly shooed me away: “This is mens gathering. The womens are inside.”

Inside we packed 11 people around their little kitchen and I listened to a lot of Russian. Eventually Sergei Z, who I had been sitting next to, moved to the corner to smoke, and called Marat over to sit next to me: “Marat should talk to you. He needs to practice English and also to talk to girls.” Wow, way to scare the BEJEESUS out of this poor guy, who rather does need practice in both of those things.

A few days ago I walked to town at midnight to get some photos. As I was kneeling down to get a photo of an oil tank in the trees, an ENORMOUS dog jumped out and started running towards me. I love the dogs here – all you have to do is act like you’re happy to see them, and they’re your best friend. He followed me all around town and even barked at other dogs that tried to get near me.

I eventually got to the old military base – you can’t see too much of it from the road, beyond two huge radio arrays, guarded by some howling dogs. (The photo below can actually be clicked to make it bigger, so you can see the dog better).

An American taking photos of Russian military equipment at midnight: because that’s not suspicious, or anything.

The next day I came back during the day, and to my astonishment the dishes were not abandoned, as I had assumed, but spinning around reading my thoughts or whatever they do.

Across the street is another piece of machinery, which I believe had something to do with tar, considering the dump behind it:

Burnt accounts:

I’m afraid I don’t have too much else to write about. After trying so hard to get into Siberia, its hard to believe I’m leaving already. I never got to see the reindeer herders, which I’m disappointed about, but from talking to the Sergei’s, they rarely see them anyway. I can’t afford to hire a helicopter to take me out over the tundra to find their camp, which is essentially the only way to find them. As a nomadic people, they don’t use boats, so even searching along the rivers might not get you anywhere close. All the same, Cherskii has certainly been a fascinating area.

I still have a few posts left in me before I get home – I’m sure I’ll have something to say about my flying adventures, and Canada, and my thoughts on going home, and maybe get some more photos out here. But all in all, I think I’m ready. I’m trying not to think too hard about “the end”, which inspires a sort of panic, and there’s plenty to look forward to.

I am so, so sick of canned beans and dirty water.

Day 352: Which Way to Go-Go-Go

2007-07-17T01:17:00.000Z

Only a week more in Russia. I think…that’s ok. For the weekly wonderful tales I tell, on a day-to-day basis there’s not really enough to keep me occupied, and with the ever-looming stresses of moving back into the US, it feels time to get there and get it done. Doesn’t mean I’m not TOTALLY FREAKED OUT about moving back, especially after another American friend of mine, recently returned from Norway, commented on how he didn’t like moving back very much at all – and he moved back to the relative calm of Seattle (is it relatively calm there? I guess I just assume LA is the most ridiculous place ever), making me wonder how in the world I’m going to deal with the people of Los Angeles.

Although, those that know me better know I don’t actually live in LA at all, but on a farm a bit south of Santa Barbara. Most likely I can handle Ventura. I suppose technically I’m of an age where I don’t live anywhere, but take advantage of my parent’s address while homeless.

But I’ll save the throes of my philosophical waxing for a later date, perhaps nicely told in the environs of a panicked airport stopover. I still have a few days in Canada with a friend, which should provide a decent buffer zone to the heat-shock of CA.

Back to our present local. There’s been a few small adventures the last weeks, which under the pressure of mild hyperbole should be interesting to write about.

When the birder’s were still here, they told me that there was a small lake about 10 minutes walk up the road, which I hadn’t seen before. So I decided to go have a look. About 20 minutes down the road, no lake. I felt like an idiot. Can’t find a lake. So I continued on my way, determined to make an interesting walk of it regardless, and ended up walking all the way to town, swerving south to return along the airport and take the coast back home.

The walk to town is a long dirt road – nothing terribly unusual. When you turn to the airport, the area is filled with the typical junk of the region – weird bits of machinery, old housing, all sorts of random things. By this point I had only seen 3 people, none of which approached or even hardly looked at me, but I still felt as if I was going somewhere I shouldn’t. I can’t really explain that – just shyness on my part, going somewhere I hadn’t seen before? I decided to tough it out and ended up walking through a (currently empty) quarry/construction zone near the airport. The weird thing with these places is that its very hard to tell if they are abandoned or not. I have been scared of out my wits before, coming across piles of random timber that I felt CERTAIN were empty, only to find a family of campers inside.

I often wonder how my impression of “Russian-ness” affects what I see. I had a perfectly lovely walk, saw interesting things, gorgeous view of the river. Coming alongside the field of oil tanks, I noticed a thick wall of barbed wire running hap-hazardly through the forest. I had sudden visions of the KGB jumping out, confiscating my camera, and sending me to jail for eternity. Probably the most ridiculous unlikelihood ever, but I completed my walk as silently as possible.

On another day, I decided to make a more thorough investigation of the satellite dish near the station. This enormous contraption sits unused, a startlingly decrepit display of technology. The dish is about…eh, I’m going to estimate about 10-15meters high off the top of a small building. When I first arrived in Cherskii, Sergei Z drove me home along the dirt road which enters the station alongside the satellite. Stunned to see such an impressive device after driving through the shambles of town, I asked him if it was still used. “Not so much,” he said with a wink, “I use it to talk to God.”

So I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to climb it. Luckily, the popularity of concrete and rebar ensured that the old building wasn’t about to immediately collapse, and I got up to the base of the dish before losing my nerve to my intense fear of heights. (Ironic, I know.) The building was locked up, but I was given an impressive view. Although the building was in disrepair, the dish looks in too good of condition to be abandoned, and I hope they can fix it up.

Later in the week I decided I was going to find that lake. As it turns out, I was supposed to turn off a tiny dirt road/path, which I had not done before due to the presence of a large house on the path. Being more inclined to not be shot for trespassing than to find a lake, I had ignored it the first time, but this time was assured that the house was abandoned. Walking out, I found the house far more fascinating that the potential lake. The building had been coated in a heavy, fuzzy orange foam-material. It was the most bizarre thing, as through someone had sprayed the house down in this…foam, and meant for it to seal the place up. You could see the dim outline of windows and doors under the foam.

I didn’t know what to think. Was it merely a method to keep the neighborhood hooligans out? Or was there some kind of…who knows, gas leak, or viral plague, locked up inside? I found a door not covered by orange foam and tried to get inside. Inside THAT door was another heavily padlocked door with a sign written in large Russian letters saying something very firmly with lots of exclamation points. I decided it was time to leave.

The lake, although reported to have an accessible Arctic tern nest, was almost completely intolerable due to mosquitoes. The path to the edge, as so many paths in this area, was defined by the trail of completely random garbage, including a baking tray, a car muffler, a bale of wire, and about a million cans of mackerel.

Has anyone ever seen “Solaris”? Not the George Clooney one but the original Russian one. I was walking along the river the other day and was very tripped out to see that the surface of the water looked EXACTLY like the surface of the mystery liquid in the original Solaris. Weirrrrd.

Another mini-adventure: I took another walk out down our dirt road and turned up another small dirt path. I determined that if I was going to come across someone’s actual home, I could see it far enough in advance to turn away. I did see a building in the distance, but it looked to be abandoned. When I finally reached it, it certainly was – the thin, scarred ravages of large metallic building that had been oddly ripped to shreds. There is something very bizarre about sitting on a hill, in the midst of a massive forest, walking among the remains of destroyed building, as the wind whistles in odd ways off the metal, and the heat of the sun makes the panels pop like foot steps. Small signs of the life that used to be here – a rusted boiler, an ancient “no smoking” sign, patches of molding wallpaper – give a sad life to the place.

One of the things I had been hoping to learn more about in Cherskii was the gulag that existed here decades ago. Cherskii was in fact home to one of the most infamous gulags, or work/concentration camps, during the time where prisoners where sent to Siberia to work out their lives and in all likelihood die of cold, starvation, or disease. Today, however, there is nothing left of the “gulag” – it is not some huge old building, but rather this location, where small wooden huts would have housed piles of cramped prisoners as they worked in the mines, or in cutting timber, or other hard labor. So, while I cannot show anything directly in photographs, I often wonder about the junk I find in the forest – in all likelihood, some amount of it is left over not from the greater days of Cherskii, but the remnants of the gulag station.

Two days ago, having been quite restless, I went for a walk at 2am to get some interesting light – “sunrise”, to the nearest sense, as the sun is slightly below the horizon at midnight now. There is nothing exciting to tell about this experience, beyond the calm of that dawn light – the pleasant windless silence, as the sun darts between the trees to the north. It feels like autumn, and home.

The weather has been quite strange this week – rain for the last two days straight. Sergei Z’s son is supposed to come today with his wife and fresh baby – Sergei and Gaya’s first grandchild. I wonder if the weather will delay their helicopter. They will move into the house with the computer I use for the internet, so I will not be so free to use it when I please. I hope to send out at least one more Russian post before leaving next Tuesday. I wanted to get this text out before they came, and will try to post photos soon as well, if there is time.

To part: a visual that I will not be supplying photographs for. Sergei Z’s most favorite outfit, apparently, is an old t-shirt and bright, flowered boxer shorts. The first time I saw this outfit, I had come in their house to do my laundry and he and Gaya were sitting having breakfast – perfectly content to invite me in. I quickly ran out again, deeply chagrinned that I had caught him in his pajamas. No. The next day I saw him, utterly unconcerned, outside fixing a flat tire in the same ensemble. Later in the week, in the same outfit, he came in my house and raided my refrigerator (which holds some of their leftovers as well as my food). There is nothing lewd about this display beyond the utterly bizarre experience of watching a gruff old Russian scientist go about his business in slippers and flowered boxers, and who’s only words are “I AM HUNGRY, YES. GOODBYE.”

Day 347: Newz

2007-07-12T11:51:00.000Z

Today I worked miracles in the kitchen and the apopcalypse did not occur.

Galina hurt her back pretty bad yesterday, to the extent that, to my terror, an ambulance pulled up this morning. Having no clue whatsoever what was going on, I wondered if I was going to lose some signficant percentage of my neighborhood. Luckily the people seemed in no hurry and apparently it was just a house call by the doctor.

I'll take this moment to make a small, hm, not exactly complaint, but observation. I've told Galina and everyone about a MILLION times to let me know if they need help with anything, such as, oh, with lifting something heavy that will throw your back out that you should probably let the big twenty-something girl do. But my services go largely unused.

Anyway, I decided to make cookies for Gaya (probably spelled wrong, but the nickname for "Galina" is pronounced Guy-a), since they're something I can usually pull off. However, I failed to consider that it being Siberia, I lacked about 50% of the ingediants. With eggs and butter already mixed, I used the power of my mind to determine the rest. Sugar is sugar, so no need for brown sugar, and vanilla essense is basically like, a spice, right? So is cinnamon. So vanilla essense is just cinnamon. And since I don't even know what baking powder technically is, it can't be all that important. A hammer and a chocolate bar made chocolate chips, some rough math figured out the celcius stove, and to my utmost surprise, I made edible Siberian cookies from butter which came from an unknown animal.

In proper news, there's been some pretty exciting things going on, science-wise! In my region of the world, the best-preserved mammoth ever discovered was recently unearthed, renewing hopes for cloning. Read about it here!

In other crazy animal news, on one of the creatures I like to recognize when it comes up, check out this giant squid that washed up! Here! Slightly older but related...here!

But honestly, if you haven't heard of these things yet, and you're getting your current news from some girl in Siberia, you should...I don't know. Work on that.

Thanks to people who point these awesome things out to me!

The winds here have been very strange - changing direction frequently during the day, altering the temperature drastically. There's a fire to the northeast, bringing a thick coat of smoke when the wind is from the north - Siberian smog. With a sudden change in the wind, the tin roof shudders and threatens to flap off, in unseasonably strong winds. The wind and the smell of fire make me nervous, like an animal. I am restless.

My Russian name is "Larisa", since the common nickname for Larisa is Lara, which is close to my name.

Whoa! Moments before posting, another interesting news story has been forwarded to me: Norilsk, another Arctic city in Russia, has the dubious honor of being the most polluted place in the world. Some people are taking advantage of that harvest. Read...

Day 345: Faster than Without Water

2007-07-11T00:26:00.000Z

You know, I’m glad I have the kind of life where I can frequently shift my priorities from “I wonder if anyone is going to read my blog today” to “I wonder if I’m going to break my leg and be eaten by a bear today.” Especially when those last two are indistinguishable. Leg breaking = bear eating. It puts things in perspective.

Never fear, I have not broken anything recently, nor have I had any negative encounters with bears. What I did do is peak a Siberian mountain that was ridiculously difficult considering its frustratingly pathetic appearance.

Before everyone starts saying “Psh, that’s nothing, you’ve never tried Mt. Killseveryone” I’ll have you know that I am a decently experienced hiker, throughout California’s significant mountains, so I’m going to go ahead and make a big drama about this trip despite the fact that no, I might not have tried Mt. Killseveryone and it may indeed be very much worse.

So much for disclaimers. So there I was, staring up a thousand foot cliff of shards…oh wait, no, I was staring up a gentle green slope. But lets start at the beginning.

There’s some kind of special bird that nests in the rocky slopes of some Siberian mountains, and the Swiss birder’s wanted to try this mountain to see if they could find any. What with there being no roads in this region, we decided to drive a little boat to a small settlement near the base of the mountain to start the trip. I came along for the view and to get a bit of exercise. Here’s what the mountain looks like from the station:

Not exactly Kilimanjaro. I shouldn’t even embarrass mountains by calling it a “mountain”, it’s really more of a glorified hill. The top comes in at mere 580 or 620 meters (1700-1900 feet), depending on if you believe in a hand-held GPS or the Russian government. The mountain, local river branch, and nearby settlement are all called Panteleihka, or “Mountain River”. So if you say you’re going to Panteleihka, who knows what you mean.

The day we went out was very cloudy and nice and cool, perfect for a little mountain climbing. We landed at Penteleihka (the “village”, which around here defines anything between 1-10 buildings). Our boat was docked to a huge half-sunk barge, embedded half on land and extending nearly to the center of the stream.

Settlements along the way:

Docking:

The village appeared to be nearly deserted, which it nearly was. According to our guide (Sergei D) the village was very old, established around 360 years ago. Many of the buildings had been built by the Cossacks throughout that long period. After the ravages of the end of the Soviet Union, the village had been mostly left to decay. During the summer, a few families live there for hunting and fishing, and during the winter only one or two people hang around for winter hunting.

Sergei D led us to one of the summer families, who lived in a small green house adorned with metallic sheet posters depicting various Russian themes. I should mention that the mosquitoes were already going crazy over us, and I was very thankful for the cool weather which made wearing a hat and my faithful gloves bearable.

So we met the family – a hunter who’s name I believe is Slava, and his wife Vera, and their teenaged son who’s name I couldn’t make out. They live in Penteleihka (village) during the summer, and for the rest of the year they live in Cherskii where Vera is a math teacher at the school. Vera spoke a small amount of English, and we were invited inside for coffee. The house – a small single-room box shed attached to a screened-in outdoor kitchen – exemplified the extremely basic living conditions typical of the region. The two small beds doubled as seats for the table, which we were ceremoniously seated around and offered drinks and snacks. After this ever-awkward ritual – my god I wish I spoke more Russian – Sergei D announced that he would be leaving us now, and that the family would lead the birders and me to the base of the mountain path.

Vera:

Green house and posters:

Outdoor kitchen:

Son inside:

Dining table:

We set out through the forest, Vera and I leading the way with the Swiss birders, the son, and Slava coming behind with a rifle. Sergei explained that it was “very small chance that problem with bear” and I was perfectly inclined to believe him, knowing that the area only held usually harmless brown bears. Only a about a hundred meters into the forest on a barely-discernable hunting path, we saw evidence of some of the larger mammals of this region – enormous moose tracks in the mud, literally big enough to twist an ankle in. As much as I would love to see some animals, the ever-thickening underbrush made me more worried about running headlong into a moose than a bear. At least I’m vaguely the size of a small brown bear. I might be able to take one on.

Starting off:

Moose:

A few minutes through the forest brought us to a plowed out road typical of the wilderness regions. Repeated running of massive tractors over the frozen ground has permanently scarred the terrain with huge muddy ruts. There are some areas in permafrost regions where a single vehicle driven across the tundra leaves its tracks behind for decades (you can see many examples on Svalbard). This road was only drivable in the winter, when it freezes and snows over into a semi-level highway. This “highway” led from Penteleihka (village) to the region’s electrical source – a nuclear power plant 300 km away.

Everything was feeling pretty good, barring the marauding mosquitoes, and I had started up a basic form of communication with Vera, who seemed to have taken a particular interest in me, especially after her shocked discovery that I was only 22. A few minutes down the road, I recognized a pair of massive, decently fresh bear tracks under my feet. They were certainly in the area.

Poor little dried salamander:

The journey continued, and the base of the mountain seemed to get no closer. After branching off the road and following another small forest path, we were lead to a pile of old wooden boxes, which – if I interpreted the conversation correctly – were left from old geological expeditions a few hundred years ago.

"Stalin" carved into the wood:

Interesting side note – I might not be able to speak Russian, but I’ve gotten pretty good at communication with the bare minimums of English and general gestures. One of the birders spoke a bit of Russian, but I was amazed to find that when Slava and Vera couldn’t understand him they turned to me to interpret, and visa versa. And it usually worked.

Slava:

A Swiss birder:

The Swiss birders by this point had seen a number of things to photograph, and the family seemed to be getting somewhat impatient. Once along the road again, it became clear that the rest of our journey would follow no road – we needed to branch off perpendicular from the path to head up a small saddle and hit the lower base of the mountain. Vera drew us a small map on the back of a box of matches (sweet, although completely unnecessary) and she and her family took off at speed up the mountain. Apparently they had decided, having come this far, to complete the peak themselves.

Drawing the match-box map:

The first low foothill seemed like a fun adventure. There was no path whatsoever to speak of, and we had to just force our way long the least vegetated areas. Luckily, it was a treeless area, so most of the plants were less than 2 meters tall and it was easy to keep track of each other.

At the top of that ridge, we could see that there was another level of foothills to cross before truly reaching the base of Penteleihka. Things started being less fun. Although it was steadily up hill, it certainly wasn’t remotely steep, but the vegetation was fierce and the bugs worse. Before parting, Slava had indicated that I should take off my wool hat – something I was perfectly desperate to do already in the heat of hiking, but it helped keep the mosquitoes off my scalp and forehead. I preferred boiling to the itching insanity that I knew would come.

As we got higher, I could smell the rain starting to fall in the distance, and it looked like it would take a few more hours to get near the mountain. Having come this far, we decided to go for it anyway. Well, to cut out some hours of slogging up the foothills, eventually we did indeed reach the base of the rocky mountain skree.

Incoming rain:

At this point, having reached the rocky slopes, I was somewhere in between one birder and the other – one had gone ahead and started looking for the special bird, the other had fallen behind to photograph some birds on the foothill. My bad foot was starting to tell me that it was not happy with the situation, so I decided I had gone far enough, especially considering that we still had to hike home.

So much for that! After a bit of a rest, the second birder caught up and asked about starting for the top. At my hesitation, he said “I’m Swiss! I have to go to the top!” Well I can’t turn down that kind of challenge, so up we started.

The view was simply stunning the whole trip up. It wasn’t so hard, not too steep but threateningly rocky. During our frequent rests we could see a huge rain storm slowly sweeping across the taiga – its so flat, its impossible to take in everything. Unfortunately for the birder, there were no birds at all in the rocks. Fortunately, a heavy wind picked up to drag away the mosquitoes.

Awhhh:

Once again to cut out some time of hiking, we finally reached the top, where we were greeted by Slava’s family. An old wooden observation tower was at the peak, which we all climbed up a few feet before getting terrified back down again by the rickety wood. Scads of photos were taken with every combination of camera and people. It was a wonderful feeling – the view was incredible, the rain was just starting to fall, and we had an awesome bonding experience with Slava, Vera, and son.

At the top, looking a little rough:

The whole gang:

Rain coming:

Decently tired but ready to start the downhill trip back, we parted ways again – the family took the same eastern route down, while we decided to take a western route so the birders could check another side of the mountain. Hoo boy. Initially, this bought us down through a similar rocky skree as we came up through. We hit another saddle and starting walking on moss, which felt awesome to our tired legs after fighting to stay upright on the slippery slopes. In the distance we could see the road to get back to Penteleihka (village) and we plowed forward.

At the base of the saddle, we entered a nightmare. The vegetation got thicker and thicker, until we were plowing through shrubbery with no clearings in sight. For hours. Other than steep slopes, it was some of the worst possible hiking conditions have ever been in. It’s not like wading through grass – its like trying to walk through a solid hedge that your grumpy neighbor has installed to keep the kids out. Except underneath you have absolutely no idea what you’re walking on – it might be moss, or a huge hole, or a pile of barely-balanced rocks. Or your legs can’t even break through the plants so you balance on a pile of spindly branches. And interspersed are thorny vines, huge clouds of bugs, and piles of mystery animal feces that clearly came from something very large. It’s vaguely comparable to wading through waist-high snow over unknown terrain…except you’re not going to freeze to death, I guess.

And out here the distances are very deceiving. It was the never-ending hike of torture through this shrub land. At one point we started heading toward what looked like a clear area, only to find the ground beneath us turn to bog as we ran into a swamp. Heading back into the vegetation, I could only be thankful that there are no snakes in Siberia. I couldn’t see my feet, I could hardly see anything below my waist, and in the many, many times I fell down everything would disappear completely. Sometimes the others would fall, and it looked like some giant green hole had simply swallowed them entirely. By this point, the only thing running through my head was a string of increasingly nonsensical curses against the mountain, my feet, and everything within sight or thought.

Finally we came across a very faint path through the brush – a very old branch of the road we were trying to reach. Although covered in vegetation, it allowed some small area that was easier to walk through. By this point I was exhausted. My bad leg had given up on me long ago and I could barely rely on it to stay balanced in the tricky terrain – I am frankly amazed that I didn’t end up breaking an ankle. All in all we got back to the road, which meant we only had another hour of hiking to go before getting back to the village.

A photo that very accurately depicts how I felt at the time:

Let me tell you, I thought I was pretty tough but I have never been so close to my body absolutely refusing to follow orders. I hit the point where it hurt more to stop than to keep plodding on, then I hit the somewhat startling point of realizing that I couldn’t make my legs do what I wanted. They would go neither faster nor slower and progressed on autopilot.

Despite the dire scenarios running through my head, we did make it back to the village, ending a 9-hour, 18 kilometer (about 7.5 miles) journey, smelling completely disgusting, covered in bug bites, and with aching feet. We were treated to a dinner of fish stew by Vera and Sergei D came to collect us. I fell asleep in the boat on the way home as it started to rain on me.

Slava and Vera wave goodbye:

Near home:

All in all, a pretty awesome day!

I guess that’s my sort of thing, as long as the leg-breaking and bear-eating doesn’t happen. Well, it seems pretty awesome now, after recovering from a sleepless night tormented by fingers stiff with mosquito bites and a cramping leg unused to strenuous demands for the past seven months.

Usual end-of-blog random comments:

I found a copy of “Never Cry Wolf” by Farley Mowat in my cabin. Everyone needs to read this book. Forget the movie, read the book. It’s brilliant.

While I only have a few interesting things happen in the typical course of a week, I tend to get behind in talking about them. Technically, here’s what’s actually happening in my life: the birders left today, leaving me the only visitor for the rest of my time here – a mere 2 weeks. I’ve gone on a few interesting walks recently, the photos from which I will share with you next time.

If anyone knows of any awesome jobs, let me know because apparently I need to enter the real world soon.

Day 342: Fighting Technology, for You

2007-07-06T05:54:00.000Z

Let's see if we can get some photos out here...

Alrighty then! Here's some interesting stuff around where I live – this is my favorite dog here, Grey:

His name is actually “grey” in Russian, which I can never manage to remember, but since I mostly talk to him in clicks and whistles or English I don’t really think he cares what I call him.

He’s my buddy! He knows how to shake hands and eats our trash. I tried to throw out some chicken bones the other day and Galina stopped me to put them in the dog’s bowl: “Your dogs can’t eat chicken bones. Our dogs eat anything.”

Sergei’s other dog, Black – he’s pretty cool too, but Grey hangs around my cabin more:

In a corner of my dining room is a display of a bunch of postcards, a painting of the station in winter, and this photo:

That’s the families that were living here 30 years ago – the women at the top are Galina and Ana, the wives of Sergei #1 and Sergei #2, respectively. The guy in the front left is Sergei #2. I don’t recognize Sergei #1 anywhere, and I suspect he’s the one taking the photo.

I should really start calling the Sergei’s by their proper names: Sergei Zimov and Sergei Davydov.

Sergei D. and Ana have a Dalmatian, of all things. His name is Neilsen and he likes to attack everyone and the neighbors hate him. For some reason he really likes me, probably because I’m not afraid to pet him and let him get within 5 meters of me without screaming and throwing things.

So - photos from the failed boat trip. Before the engine stopped working, we were moving along at a pretty good speed. Here's a photo of me doing what I do, courtesy of the Japanese lady scientist:

Goign past the airport, a pile of old planes:

From towing the boat home, Sergei Z and Sergei D working from the smaller boat:

From the leisurely tour of the Cherskii coastline – here’s some buildings in Cherskii:

The loading dock/industrial zone:

I really wish I could post larger pictures so you could see these people better - there's actually a guy in this massive crane moving coal onto a boat:

A family on a boat watching our progress:

From stopping at the lake where the Ross gulls were - Sergei waiting for the Swiss birders to crawl back to us through the bog:

Object of my intense lens envy:

We stood on top of a smoke house to scout out the birds.

Next door - my dream home...

After dropping off the birders, on our way to Pleistocene park - a house on the river:

A Yakutian family:

The Yakutian worker's home at the park - a sort of bunker on wheels. Do you remember Martek from the solstice festival? His name is actually Marak, and he's living and working out here now too.

Their outdoor kitchen:

From my mosquito complaints, looking grumpy:

Look's like I managed to beat the internet! Just for fun, since who knows when I'll get this business to work again, here's Sergei Z handling some bison fossils:

And here's a falcon being chased by some sparrows.

More exciting stories soon! Hopefully this time with photos correctly distributed.

Day 339: A Very Siberian 4th of July

2007-07-04T07:31:00.000Z

Not many fireworks.

The computer and internet are being especially uncooperative today, so I'm afraid its all words on this one.

I was going for a walk yesterday and there’re two things I’d like to share with you. The first: I was walking along through the forest, la-dee-da, when I heard a loud rumbling noise. I froze. What was it – a bear? Thunder? Volcano?? I couldn’t figure it out. Finally I looked straight up, and saw a jet passing far overhead.

It’s been that long since I’ve seen a jet.

(Just so you know, a volcano isn’t completely out of the question – Kamchatka isn’t that far away, and they’ve got all kinds of volcanoes. But no…there’s none around here.)

The second: I hate mosquitoes. I thought I was going to be able to handle them ok, but I’m beginning to understand the tales of men and animals being driven insane from the bugs. The weather here is proving to be properly Siberian – wildly variant. After those days of 32C, this week has hovered around 4C, a ridiculous jump (something like going from daytime high of 95 to 38F). In a weird way, its just about autumn already – winter starts with the first snows in the end of August. Anyway, the colder temperatures slow down the mosquitoes a bit, but without a strong breeze they’re utterly inescapable.

Fortunately, the cold temperatures make it tolerable to wear tons of clothing and gloves, leaving only a bit of my face out, but they’re insatiable! I feel like a vagrant with a nervous disorder in my fingerless gloves, nervously swatting and twitching and pawing at my face. And there’s nothing you can do! They bite your eyelids, lips, fingertips, and heaven forbid you sit around barefoot somewhere, I’ve even got some on the bottom of my feet. What kind of mosquito can hack through foot callous?

Siberian mosquitoes, that’s what. It’s horrible - I’ve gotten to that comfort-zone part of my time here where I know the lay of the land and want to walk around everywhere – it’s not too far into town. But it’s seriously barely worth going near the forest unless it’s windy or raining. This only heartily reinforces rain as my favorite weather. Oh! And another thing! I started jogging to try to make my bad foot less bad, but it’s difficult to breathe because of the amount of bugs going down your gullet at that speed.

I will say this – I was getting fed up with my long hair in the heat, but it’s fantastic for keeping off mosquitoes. Although a bunch of hair hanging in my face significantly contributes to my shambling vagrant image.

Apologies for the tirade. Unfortunately the next story also involves a minor tragedy in my life. The botanists and bird watchers all wanted to get up to the Arctic Ocean, a few hours north on the Kolyma. Up there you can find true and proper tundra terrain. Sergei has a larger boat that’s able to handle ocean conditions, and I was ecstatic that there was enough room for me to go along for a few days camping along the Arctic Ocean.

The winds here control the weather – from the south, it gets warm, from the north, it gets cold. We got a day (this was last Wednesday) with good weather and good wind directions predicted for the next few days, loaded up the boat, and set off – 9 people all told. Traveling along the river-coast, we got an excellent view going past the airport, all of Cherskii, and the nearly-abandoned loading port.

About a half an hour after leaving, about a kilometer beyond the loading port, our engine went KA-CHUNK! And started pouring out smoke. As one of the people sitting on the engine cover, this was fairly exciting. Sergei quickly turned everything off and pulled the engine open. It was dead. Dead dead dead.

At this point we weren’t that far from Cherskii, but sitting in the middle of the 4km-wide Kolyma slowly floating north with the current. Sergei got out his satellite phone and called Sergei #2. And then we waited.

For probably about 2 hours. We made some dinner and enjoyed the scenery, including a distant taiga fire. Unlike the huge forest-fire fiasco that’s been concocted in the US, the taiga out here is allowed to burn naturally to clear out the underbrush and do all the stuff the local ecology is designed to withstand and even require.

Finally Sergei #2 showed up on the other little boat. As we watched, Sergei #1 jumped off the bow into the little boat. Being a man of few words, he hadn’t really informed any of us of the plan, so we were relieved to see him tie a line between the boats rather than taking off into the distance. Then the little boat revved up, and slooooooowly started tugging us back home.

The 11km trip home took about 3 hours. We were all pretty grateful that the boat broke so close to home instead of way out by the ocean. We were given a leisurely tour of the Cherskii coastline – here’s some things I saw:

(NOT! Stupid computer...)

Of course at one point we all had to pee pretty fierce. The Sergei’s pulled up to a loading dock and told us to figure something out around a big pile of coal – males to the north, females (i.e. me) to the south. The Japanese lady stayed on the boat – I don’t know if she had a problem with the situation, or didn’t want to leave the boat unless absolutely necessary because she didn’t know how to swim (for god’s sake people, teach your kids how to swim). Turns out I was one of only a couple who weren’t prudes about peeing outdoors, although semi-abandoned industrial zones are a new one for me. China: teaches you how to pee anywhere, anytime.

I’m sure you all needed to know that.

Well, eventually we got home, and it being pretty late we had dinner #3 and planned to try again the next day. Here comes the tragedy: Sergei determined that the big boat was truly dead, and that they would have to take two smaller boats, both of which hold 4 people max. As the lowest-ranking and least financially-contributing, I got the short stick. And since the second boat needed the neighbor to drive, Sasha the Russian post-doc got kicked out too.

I understood the situation of course, but I was seriously bummed, probably the worst I’ve felt since getting here. No one’s fault in the least and it couldn’t be helped, but I was just so looking forward to seeing the ocean and the true tundra and going camping in an abandoned gulag prisoner’s hut. Aghhh it would have been a phenomenal thing.

In retaliation over the next few days I threw myself into organizing piles of crumpled receipts and completing my financial report for the year. Tons o’ fun. Speaking of which: Norway, curse you for taking all my money.

As it turns out, the small boats can’t handle the ocean waves very well, so they were only gone one night and didn’t even reach the ocean. But they did stay in the abandoned hut.

A few days later the bird guys wanted to go to a special lake where they thought they could find some Ross gulls, a special kind of bird that only breeds in this region and for awhile some people didn’t believe they actually existed. I got to tag along to drop them off and continue to visit the workers in Pleistocene park with Sergei.

Stopping at the lake, we climbed on top of an old smoke house to see if we could find any of the birds in the distance. Sure enough, there was a pair flying around – useless for my camera, but the bird guys decided to spend the next few hours slogging through the marsh with their insane lenses to get some good shots.

So hey, I got to see a Ross gull. They’re very pretty, with a black ring around their neck and a light pink underbelly.

Well there was more but its not really worth saying without the photos to go along, so I guess that's it. Bah.

Listen!

2007-07-01T09:32:00.000Z

Want another perspective on where I am? An audio perspective, perhaps? Then turn on the internets and get yourself to BBC Radio 4 on July 2 to listen to "BBC guy" (as seen on ColdPhoto) talk to Sergei (also as seen on ColdPhoto!) and tramp around Pleistocene park. Although you'll never be able to tell, for a large part of the outdoors bits, you are actually listening to me as well! Sort of. Me trying to be very quiet and likely edited out of the background, at least. I'm right there with them.

So, if you're interested, go here for the blurb (half-way down the page, conveniently titled "Pleistocene Park"), and go here for the channel for listening. I believe the time is 9-9:30pm, July 2, British-time. Someone - let me know how it is.

Day 333: Techno-Polka

2007-06-28T06:10:00.000Z

Last week – June 21, to be exact – was the summer equinox, longest day of the year. While Cherskii is certainly an Arctic outpost, it’s only about 69ºN latitude. The sun is in the sky 24 hours a day during the summer, but the sun is close to the horizon at midnight, rather than high in the sky like it is in Longyearbyen. I live slightly below the crest of a small hill, so a midnight the sun does appear to “set” – although the sun is clearly shining on the land directly across the river, only a few hundred meters away.

Anyway, the equinox! After a bunch of days of not much - reading, writing, etc, I noticed a whole bunch of people walking around near our group of cabins. Turns out there was a celebration going on for the equinox festival on the hill down the road. A friend of Sergei’s son recently came to visit, so he came by and we went to see what the festival was all about. I believe his name is something like Martek, but my spelling and hearing are not to be trusted.

So often at these sort of “traditional” festivals, I feel completely turned off because they feel like they’re created for the benefit of tourists, or a sort of meaningless show, and sometimes its hard to figure out the difference between true traditions and what attracts spectators. Not so here – Cherskii doesn’t exactly have a thriving tourist industry. As the only outsider in the crowd, I got a spectacular opportunity to witness some culture.

In a clearing at the top of the hill, there are a series of totem poles carved with horses and birds, and inlaid with metal numbers for the dates. Although very reminiscent of Native American totem poles, I’ve been told that these (and the practice in general) are very modern here, put up within the last few decades. Regardless, they are the site of any major celebration in town and provide an awesome view of two joining branches of the Kolyma.

A huge rainbow-colored banner was hung up, in front of which a stage hosted songs and dances preformed all throughout the day. My escort provided a limited explanation of what was going on. Not necessarily specific to the equinox, the songs varied from Yakutian folk ballads to patriotic Russian marches. Not having a very detailed clue to what was exactly happening, I’ll let some photos speak for the experience.

The performers ranged from a group of older women singing heartily about Cossacks, to two ultra-skinny adolescent girls squeaking out Russian pop, to leather-clad dancers performing to a hunter’s animal calls, to tiny toddlers running around in a bare-semblance of organized performance.

BY FAR, however, my favorite event of the stage occurred as follows. A young boy, perhaps 11, took to the stage in normal street clothes with a microphone. Out of the loud speakers suddenly blared Eminem’s “Slim Shady”, sped up and overlaid with a techno-polka dance beat. Techno-polka is the only way to describe it. Then, out of the blue, this kid starts rapping a traditional Russian ballad about farming, and busts out jigging. The crowd LOVED it and everyone started dancing.

My hero:

I have no idea what that had to do with the equinox.

Off stage, more amazing things awaited. Like most festivals anywhere, there were carts set up with various things to eat and drink. I basically don’t carry a wallet with me anymore, so I didn’t get to partake. But I did get to witness a bigger selection of the local population than I’ve been able to interact with before. It’s not so often that the townspeople collect en masse.

It was very hot that day, and the styles ranged from skimpy-to-a-socially-questionable-scale on the women, to grandmothers covered in traditional robes, to the universal male dress code of shirtless. From my extraordinarily vague knowledge of the fashion world, I get the impression that a number of super models are Russian. I have to say, a surprising number (statistically) of the girls in the crowd were very good looking, and extremely skinny (mostly in a body-shape way, not in a malnutrition way). Although I wonder about the fact that there wasn’t a stitch to spare on many of them, and while on the other hand American fashion trends aren’t something I necessarily support, a crowd where most females aged 10-50 are wearing skin-tight clothes is both visually unappealing, and makes you think about the social factors at play.

Interesting. In comparison, I may as well have been wearing a potato sack.

But to continue to other remarkable events. After Martek and I got tired of the singing and dancing stage, we went over to a crowd of men where a crude ring had been set up with stakes and twine. Inside was a heavy table with big pads on the top. As we watched, two burly men came over, vigorously grasped each other’s hands, and began a muscle-glistening arm wrestling match. Although I couldn’t make heads or tails of the pecking order, two guys in the random matches kept beating everyone who came up to try.

After the guys got tried of being beaten by these two, a sort of lull came over the crowd, and I waited for whatever was going to happen next. What happened next was awesome – the WOMAN’S arm wrestling matches started. Although it took a bit of coaxing from the crowd, two fairly rugged-looking women, the middle-aged house wife sort, walked forward and went at it. Only a few women stepped forward to compete (no, I certainly did not). My favorite match was between a stout woman and a pretty, more-delicate-looking woman in light flowery dress. Turns out that little flowery number contained ripped biceps.

So the arm wrestling finished soon after, and the ring was cleared – for the proper wrestling matches. When I say “proper”, I have no idea what I’m talking about – it wasn’t boxing, but whether it followed any formal definition of the wrestling world I have no idea. Two men, stripped to the waist, would jump in the ring with a referee grabbed out of the crowd of waiting competitors. Never having watched any sort of fighting match before, I didn’t think I’d be too interested – but it was fascinating. A really, really fun sport to watch - crowded around a shabby patch of dirt, yelling at the fighters with everyone.

The wrestlers clearly weren’t trying to hurt each other – just flip their opponent into the dirt, in a method that seemed to primarily involve grabbing the other’s leg and turning him upside-down. The worst injuries were from people skidding out of the ring, bowling over kids and elders, earning some minor road-rash. In general I have a low opinion of fighting sports, but this was just fun – no one got angry, there was no actual “fighting”, and none of the losers ever seemed upset beyond minor disappointment, always finishing the match with a handshake and a hug.

Headlock:

One young fellow, perhaps 19, was obviously trying to step out and prove himself – in a polite way, but he was clearly eager for the crowd. With a few exchanged winks amongst the gathered contestants, he was pushed into the ring with a guy built like a barrel. Although muscular, this skinny young guy didn’t stand a chance. After putting each other into a head lock, barrel-man picked him up, flung him over his shoulders, and ran around the ring with him over his head. Hilarious.

Well, that was that. The next notable event of recent times was the arrival of 5 scientists last Friday – 2 Japanese, 2 Russian, and 1 American from Georgia, all botanists come to work on a plant survey of Asia. We hit it off pretty well at first, and I was excited to have some people to talk to and maybe start doing some field work with them.

Unfortunately, when I went out with them the next day, it became clear that they really didn’t need me – they didn’t even need the Russian post-doc they had with them. I ended up rambling around the mountain taking photos for nearly the entirety of the 8 hours we were out there.

We drove quite a ways out from Cherskii to another low-lying mountain across the river plains to find somewhere relatively free of trash. The Jeep (I think it’s a Jeep, but built like an Explorer) we use around the station has an interesting tendency to turn off if you go in reverse, or if you don’t rev the gas when you try to start moving. We got half-way up the hill when the road got too rough, and we decided to turn the car around, park, and walk the rest of the way. This was on a dirt road with ruts half a meter deep in the middle of the taiga. The car said no. Pavel, the leading Russian, managed to rev the car forward enough to turn it into the forest, then let the engine shut down and just allowed the car to free-roll down the hill back onto the road. No problem.

Another interesting note – around here people drive on the British side of the car, but the American side of the road.

Anyway, we set off. Their work mainly consists of selecting patches of vegetation, approximately 3x3m, and identifying every single plant in the section. Ideally, they select plots that represent general areas (taiga, forest taiga, grassland taiga, slopes, river banks, tundra, etc) then correlate the identifications with satellite images. The extrapolations involved seem rather broad, but that’s science I guess. Without an extremely detailed knowledge of Siberian plant species’ Latin names, I couldn’t help much except for carrying lunch.

Flower related to the California Indian Paintbrush:

Now, I know I’m a nerd, a big science nerd, and I’ve gotten all excited about jobs that involve being covered in bird poop and filtering water and staring at amphipods all day. But nothing beats watching three grown men, in a flurry of excitement, crouch around a single little yellow flower and babble in Latin.

Looking back at the station:

Around the mountain, there was a nice breeze, so it wasn’t too hot and the bugs stayed off of us. Towards the top, cleverly camouflaged with green paint, was an enormous decaying Russian radio sensor from the 1960’s. I felt like James Bond. The Russian post-doc – Sasha - rolled his eyes and, making quotations with his hands, called it a “Russian weather station”.

On top of the hill:

Down the other side of the hill and across towards a gold quarry, it got absolutely miserable. Hot and endless bugs, and with nothing to do I tried to cover as much exposed skin as possible and wait to go home. Saw some interesting birds, went slightly crazy and used cranberry juice to draw animals on my pant legs. This part of the land was turning from the mountain rumble we were previously in into taiga forest, possibly one of the more difficult places to hike I’ve been in. The innocent-looking vegetation easily goes thigh-high (not including the trees), and the ground is an ankle-wrecking maze of tussocks and ditches, completely impossible to see from the top. The only option is to plow through hoping not to hit too deep of a pothole. My bad leg was not happy when we got home.

Some birds:

The hike:

A bug that would like us dead:

The Japanese woman scientist seems to have made it her personal mission to kill every bug that comes near her. That endless task is somewhat maddening to witness.

Slap.

Slap.

Slap.

Slap slap slap slap.

(times a bazillion)

Well! Two vacationing Swiss birdwatchers arrived on Tuesday as well. More about them, and adventures since, next time.

Here's the whole contingent gathered for dinner in my living room/dining room, where we eat three meals a day together. Left to right: 2 Japanese scientists, 1 Russian post-doc, 1 American professor, 1 Russian scientist, and 2 Swiss bird watchers.

Other things I keep forgetting to mention…the Frozen Five got back to Longyearbyen a week or two ago, 100% successfully. Belated congrats to them!

I have absolutely zero contact with current events here. The internet really isn’t good enough for me to spend time on news sites. If something important happens, someone please let me know.

This is why I never sleep without a blanket anymore:

I will be in California in exactly one month.

Day 330: Because the Internet is Working

2007-06-25T01:32:00.000Z

And I have some extra photos on my jump drive, here's a little photo post before the next essay.
Old stuff first: the helicopter I flew 2 horus to Cherskii on, after the suspicious little airplane took me to somewhere 3 hours from Yakutsk.

Even older news - amazing that its been three weeks since! - getting the cast off.

I don't think the tech appreciated me whipping out the camera and asking (joking!) if he'd ever used that saw before, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

My cabin and sweet ride:

(The sweet ride does not, in fact, go anywhere.)

Settlement on the riverbank about an hour out from Cherskii:

Sergei coming out of the tank for a break:

Sergei #2, a mammoth expert who helps run the station and lives next door to the Sergei above, with mammoth, bison, and horse bones.

Bear damage:

Fixing a loose bolt in the tank. With a sledge hammer.

Eating fish at the fisherman's house:

Old man crossing the yard at the cattle village:

And that's all for today.

Day 329: Permafrost

2007-06-24T10:37:00.000Z

To start things off right, a photo! Of the wicked thunder storm we had a few days after I got here:

Look for more photos at the bottom of the post!

The day after Tank Adventures we got ready for another boat ride, a much longer one this time. As it turns out, I don’t live precisely on the Kolyma river – well, it is the Kolyma, but it’s a branch of the river rather than the proper thing that travels in front of the town of Cherskii.

When I originally flew in on the helicopter, I thought we were passing over a huge lake. As a LAKE, it would have been one of the biggest lakes I’ve ever seen. As a river it was unimaginable for me. The thing is about 4 km (ehh…2 miles) across. I realize there’re plenty big lakes and rivers out there, but they don’t enter my world too often.

But a river it was, and after an hour or so of traveling through side branches we entered the main channel. Another gorgeous day – just enough clouds to give the sky some texture, and the place is so incredibly flat that every time we jumped a wave it seemed like you could see to Moscow. After the half hour or so that it took to just cross to the other side of the river, we traveled close to the banks out of the main current (which we were going against) and tried to peer into the heavy willow-covered bog to look for moose.

This time we had another little boat following us with some of Sergei’s neighbors. They came along as a sort of safety net in case our engine stopped working (hm…) and because we planned to visit a few of the little settlements along the way. While Cherskii is the major center for the region, there are a number of families scattered around the nearby wilderness that periodically visit town by boat, but otherwise nearly exclusively live off the land. A majority of the people living in and around Cherskii are Yakutian natives.

Cherskii used to be a thriving city of over 10,000 people, with prosperous gold and diamond mines and fishing exports. Sergei and Galina have lived here for nearly 30 years, and recall a time when the city had a first-rate school, with guest professors from all over the Soviet Union. As I mentioned before, the town is now in shambles. Over half the city has been abandoned, with all utilities shut off to converse money for the town. From a distance, the huge cranes in the port suggest a significant market, but now all but one or two are shut down. In the hills behind the town (near where I live) a field of 50 or so enormous cylindrical tanks used to hold oil and fuel for the airport, which supported multiple flight every day to Yakutsk, Moscow, and even Alaska. Now the tanks are empty, and the highest travel seasons only bring 2 helicopters a week from an equally small settlement halfway between Cherskii and Yakutsk.

Despite the obvious and unabated decay of the region, which clearly correlates with the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent loss of government financial support, there seems to be very little yearning for the old days, among the people I’ve been able to communicate with. Once again I desperately wish I spoke Russian well enough to explore this issue further. I’ve gotten past “hello”, “thank you” and “good health” which isn’t really enough to support a good political discussion.

Our first stop was what Sergei optimistically called a “village”, which proved to be a small water-logged plot of land with 4-5 buildings in various states of repair. Here we found a small herd of cattle, roaming freely through the buildings. Literally through the buildings. Sergei explained that the village was something of a historical artifact. It had been established nearly 300 years ago, and the cattle were the continuation of the herd that had supported the 2-3 families that had lived there ever since.

While BBC guy and Sergei went off for a little interview, I put on some rubber boots and unsuccessfully tried to cross a small stream to a Russian monument. Instead I mingled with the cows and omnipresent mosquitoes, watching an extremely old man slowly cross back and forth from a brightly painted house to a telephone pole, clutching a worn string that seemed to have been strung up for that exact purpose.

Further down the river in another side branch, our next stop was a much smaller settlement – only two buildings tucked away in the willows, the home of a single fisherman and his family and a pack of mangy dogs, their enormous fur coats reducing them in the summer heat to sitting in various corners worrying at pieces of fish head. The buildings were on a small spit of land, fronted by the river and backed by a small lake fed by other branches of the river. The collection of random junk everywhere is astounding – things that would have been trashed are kept, necessary for random eternal reuse.

While the main house was further back from the river, we hung out around the shabbier building that was used for work and “quick food and quick drinking.” Part of the building appeared to be held up by the interior of an old semi-truck. Fish were everywhere – drying in cages out in the sun, shredded pieces rotting under the little sidewalk made out of old snowmobile tread, and their scales splattered all over everything. As Sergei and the others conversed with the fisherman and his wife (old friends, apparently), I stood around and looked extremely awkward taking photos of everything. As much as I try to look normal and only wear practical clothes, it feels blatantly obvious that I’m some kind of rich foreigner eyeballing the natives. The ginormous camera doesn’t help.

Eventually I was ushered into the shed by the tattooed fisherman, with a cheerful “SIT DOWN!” half-way completing his English repertoire. Crammed in on a bed and some dragged-in tree stumps, we packed 8 people around a tiny table for a small meal. To eat was fish, fish, fish, alcohol, and some bread. The first fish was dried in a way I’ve never seen before – thin strips of skin with long rows of meat that had been sliced into sections and totally dried. The next fish was an entire half of a semi-dried fish, which was slammed down and vigorously chopped into sections to be passed out. This fish had to be dipped in salt, which was poured onto a little piece of old newspaper for communal dipping. They weren’t too bad, if you completely ignore everything you know about hygiene. After the group quickly exhausted the vodka, the fisherman went to a back room and pulled out a huge recycled jug of something yellow – homemade sake.

Eventually we got back in our boat and continued upriver. After two hours, we came up along side a small cliff on the east side of the river. As we got closer, you could see a series of undercuts going along the bottom edge of the cliff – the melting permafrost. This section of the river is one of the famous grounds for witnessing the dramatic action of the permafrost, and the mountains of fossils it throws up.

What began with some unimpressive undercuts exponentially increased, along the cliff edge, into an amazing display of a veritable mud-glacier. Huge sections of land were undercut and cracked, separated from the land like a giant handful of dirt viciously thrown into the mud. Unlike most geological phenomenon, this section of permafrost was decaying before our very eyes – tumbling and sloughing off landslides of mud and ice, threatening swaying trees on the upper edge, which crazily swung in every direction as the land beneath them disappeared.

It was certainly the clearest display of permafrost I could imagine. At the top was a layer of about a meter of regular sediment, beneath which was – from our vantage point – up to 30 meters of what appeared to be frozen mud. As Sergei tried to explain, however, its not technically frozen mud but actually ice. Not being well-versed in permafrost studies, I’m not terribly good at describing it – visually, it looks like a mud glacier, with – as Sergei described – ice wedges thrust through that truly are pure ice (although disguised by the constant mud splatters). This section of permafrost, on the edge of the river, melts at a rate of about 3-5 meters a year – as in the river gets 3-5m wider every year as the bank retreats. Having been here for over 30 years, Sergei could point to a far-out section of river, where he remembered the bank used to be.

Although it would be easy to take this dramatic image of the melting bank as alarming, despite the effects of global warming the process is quite natural. As for how much it’s increased in the past decades, it’s hard to say.

One thing this melting does do is constantly expose new bones and bits of prehistoric animals. Sergei estimated that there was a mammoth skeleton every 30 meters. We drove alongside the cliff for a few kilometers, looking for a mammoth skull to fall on us. Despite his estimate, we didn’t see anything obvious. Part of the problem is the amount of money that mammoth bones, and particularly tusks, are worth. Fossil hunting is a major source of income for some people in the area, often cleaning out some areas of anything major as soon as they’re exposed.

However, we eventually stopped the boat against the cliff, and in another stunning lack of judgment we all got out to scamper along the edge of the permafrost overhang. We walked along, one hand brushing the mud-glacier to keep our balance in the pile of mud giving us a few feet of edge to walk along. The overhang was so drastic as to be cave-like – I easily could have walked under the cliff, nearly upright, a dozen meters under the mud ice. Tiny trails of muck hung down from the ice – the remnants of Pleistocene grass. The entire area stank as billions of tons of ancient matter slowly melted and finally began to decompose. Among other things, we were smelling mammoth dung.

Once we got out of the boat, the fossils started showing up. I immediately found the finger bones of a small mammoth (one bone equivalent to the size of my entire hand), while our boat rested on a shattered shoulder blade.

The area, though, was unquestionably perilous. Other than the land-slide mud cliff and threatening over hang, the tiny boundary between the river and the cliff consisted of a thick, deceiving mud – quicksand. Tussocks of harder mud and old grass piles made jumping around not too difficult, but you had to keep moving constantly unless balanced on something firmer. BBC guy, stopping to record the sound of the ice melting, got into a bit of trouble and nearly lost his boots.

SO MUCH FUN. Sergei, once again, is insane. He calmly dragged BBC guy up the cliff, while I kept my distance on another side of the cliff to keep out of BBC guy’s sound recording. There’re bones everywhere! Stunning view, stunning place.

On the way home, we stopped at the fisherman’s place again for dinner. Fish fish fish. Fish (sturgeon) stew, home-canned river salmon, and more dried fish. After dinner one of Sergei’s neighbors went swimming. Although I plan to try at some point, so far the threat of mosquito bites over my entire body has stopped me.

After dinner, we headed home, taking the fisherman’s wife with us so she could get some things in town. With her she carried a big bag…which, it was soon revealed, contained her CAT. I can imagine no greater hell for that cat than being stuffed into the bottom of our aluminum boat in a spraying cold river with a loud motor. So the lady took out the cat and curled it in her jacket. Here it is, I thought. The cat is going to kill someone. Instead, it fell asleep after she smothered it with kisses.

Even though I look ridiculous and can hardly communicate with anyone here, I’ve been struck at how kind the people are to me once it becomes clear that I’m shy and not much of a threat. As we cruised along the river in the cold wind, the fisherman’s wife kept giving me little handfuls of pine nuts out of her dirty pocket, as though I was a lost squirrel.

Despite being nearly a week behind in the news, I’ll stop here and pull together some photos for youuu. I’m sorry they all have to be super small now to upload at all.

Sergei: the man, the legend.

Half-sunk barge outside my cabin:

THE TANK:

Exploding some trees...

Cutting up dried fish:

The Kolyma River, around 10pm:

Permafrost mud-glacier!

Awesomest photo ever - Siberian fisherman makes fun of me:

I will say this – it has been unbearably hot the last few days. Like, 35C (90F). Today the temperature finally dropped to a more normal 15C (60F) and I’m no longer dying.

In other news, happy birthday Mom!

Mammoth knuckles.

Day 322: Pleistocene Park

2007-06-17T10:58:00.000Z

AHHHH I FINALLY GOT A PHOTO TO LOAD!!!

I give you the Northeast Science Station!

My cabin is the second from the right, with the light-green roof.

Well this is incredible. Transfering photos from one computer to another is quite a process, and I didn't plan on it working so I only have a few photos on my jump drive now. But now that I know it works, more will come soon!

Until then, the update I prepared earlier:

I know I’ve had some amazing photo opportunities this year, but the ones from this last week have just blown me away. After some pretty secluded days to myself, a radio reporter from the BBC came to visit the station. In the few days of his visit, Sergei (the station director) took us out on some expeditions around the Kolyma river. The results were, in my favorite word, ridiculous.

On Wednesday Sergei took us up the Kolyma in his little 2-seater aluminum boat, where I adopted a seat perched on top a pile of life vests (unworn) and the satellite phone. We drove about an hour upriver through the curves of an off-branch of the Kolyma. There’re no roads in the region, but water is so plentiful that the land is more accurately sets of islands, rather than land with rivers. Sergei’s been given control over a plot of taiga that has been deemed the Pleistocene Park, a sort of nature preserve where he is working on a variety of projects relating to the flora and fauna of the Pleistocene era, particularly what would have existed roughly 10-15,000 years ago. For the less paleontologically inclined, think approximately the age of the mammoths, the end of the ice age, and beginnings of homo sapiens.

The weather was just about perfect, and racing along the river was incredibly fun in our rickety old boat. It’s rather startling how this place often reminds me of California – the summer smell of the plants and heat on the water is nearly identical to a place I used to visit in the summer near Merced. As we approached the park, we came across three moose! Who ran before I could get photos. Moose have been nearly completely hunted out of the local region, and only a few exist in and near the Pleistocene park now.

As we crossed the boundary of the park, we had to ram the boat over a sort of floating-log fence, which unconvincingly was meant to keep the monitored animals within view of the observational tower. I should give a bit of background on Sergei’s project. Essentially, he plans to introduce a number of large animals to the area in an effort to manipulate the local ecology to mimic the conditions of the Pleistocene era. Right now they have a few moose, a herd of horses, and a herd of reindeer in the park, and are working on bringing in bison and musk ox from Canada. Right now, the land is largely forested, covered in somewhat unfavorable tussocks and difficult vegetation. The plan is that the movement and behavior of a certain saturation of large animals (approximately 20 individuals per square km) will rebuild the landscape into grassland savannah, as it would have existed to support the fauna of the Pleistocene era. Once the park builds up stable populations of large herbivores, they plan to introduce bears, wolves, and eventually tigers.

While there is a sort of fence around the park, which is about 50 square km, it is hardly what I would call contained. The water level changes drastically within a year – we actually boated in through a slight valley that is usually dry. The observational tower is a sort of terrifying 35m high ladder, with what might generously be called a platform on top. (I didn’t touch it.)

My thoughts on the project are conflicted. It’s a fascinating, long-term idea, but everything about changing an ecosystem on that level seems…extremely questionable. True, the moose, horses, and reindeer are native to the region, although all have been imported from other parts of Siberia. The bears and wolves would be the same. The bison, musk ox, and tigers might technically be called native, but none have existed in this area for quite some time. So, while we might say that the “introductory” species issue here might not be so much of an issue, we certainly are talking about drastically manipulating the local ecosystem – essentially eliminating a good part of the vegetation and altering the physical landscape. All this would be achieved by the animals, from their movements plowing up the land and their feeding encouraging a certain set of vegetation. In the Pleistocene Era, and in theory at the end of this experiment in a number of years, the land would look something like the African savannah, except with different animals. And maybe greener.

One of the big missing pieces from the Siberian Pleistocene ecosystem is mammoth. Sergei would LOVE to have a mammoth. Or a herd of them. What with the remarkably intact mammoth (and rhinoceros) remains found around the park, cloning a mammoth (or prehistoric rhinoceros) isn’t completely out of the question, although entirely good genetic material hasn’t been found yet.

While Sergei doesn’t have a mammoth, what he does have is a 12-ton Soviet era tank.

This scientist has a TANK. We stopped the boat for a walk around the southern edge of the park, looking at some of the forested land that Sergei hopes to change. Then we returned to the northern edge, where he keeps his equipment and two Yakutian workers camp out with some dogs. Here we got to check out his snowmobile collection: one that looked like it was from the 1950’s, and one brand-new one that had been mauled to shreds by a bear before ever being driven. To my private amusement, the bear had left muddy pawprints on the handle bars, as if when frustrated at driving he had erupted in rage and ripped the thing apart. And then we got to see the tank.

The thing was – obviously – enormous. The gun turret had been replaced by a crane. As we paced to keep from sinking in the boggy, bug-invested mud, Sergei climbed into the monstrosity, hauling up with him our boat’s battery, which doubled as the tank’s battery (what feat of engineering masterminded that exchange, I have no idea). Once the engine began churning, the BBC guy, me, and the Yakutian workers (who were coming along to fix a section of fence) climbed on top and found somewhere to hang on for dear life. I don’t know what lapse of judgment convinced me that clinging to the top of a tank, fingers ensnared in the engine ventilation mesh, was in any way a good idea, but with Sergei stoically entrenched in the cramped interior, off we lurched.

Riding a tank through a forest is insane. It’s just insane. Sergei drove like a man with a vendetta against trees. Oblivious to old pathways in front of us, he chose instead to verve off and pulverize everything in our path. The entire purpose of the tank is to mimic the damage that a mammoth would cause, so, in Sergei’s words, “the mammoth is not careful, we are not careful”. The muddy taiga is littered with potholes and little lakes, and while not exactly mountainous the Park is hilly. The tank just…took it all at full speed, threatening to throw its terrified passengers in every direction.

This whole time, while trying not to fall off, I kept thinking: where did this man get a tank? Turns out it’s the sort of thing you can buy as easily as a car once the guns are taken out, he says. But jesus, its not like the Russian military hands out instruction booklets, “You and Your Tank”. Or maybe they’re just in Russian and I haven’t gotten my hands on a copy yet.

The first 20 minutes or so were very exciting. It’s like riding an incredibly destructive rollercoaster without a seatbelt. Excitement, however, slowly turned into mild terror and an ever-growing undercurrent of horror. As we snapped through trees, sometimes the older ones would explode into a hail of branches – I got a pretty good blow to the skull and whipped in the face a few times from springing branches.

Also, those trees, as it turns out, are filled with bugs. To the brim. I cannot express how many bugs are in those forests. In all my life, even living on a farm, I have never been so literally covered in bugs. Some of you squeamish people might not want to hear this, but it was mostly spiders. Thousands of them raining on us. Luckily, spiders really don’t faze me, and I didn’t recognize any poisonous ones. So I tried to ignore the ones in my hair and blew the more annoying ones off my camera. We were going fast enough that there was a decent breeze to keep the dark clouds of mosquitoes off us. The one thing that made me squeal like a little girl, though, was when I saw a tick crawl down the neck of the BBC guy. I HATE ticks. One of the few bugs I really can’t handle having on me. Luckily I didn’t find any on me later at home.

The horror wasn’t from the bugs. As our trip across the park got longer, our whoops of excitement were silenced as we crashed through endless trees, leaving a 3 meter wide wake of destruction behind us. I felt a bird’s nest crash next to my hand, the little brown-speckled eggs cracked open to expose the half-developed chicks inside. The Siberian taiga supports a hardened population of relatively small trees – this sort of environment can’t support the kinds of giants like the California redwoods. After a while, it was merely heartbreaking to plow through the struggling trees and their inhabitants.

Well, while we took our tank tour, we did come across the herd of horses. Actually the first wild horses I’ve seen…a fairly motley dirty lot. After we dropped the workers off at the fence, we headed back into the thick of the forest.

A few kilometers from the boat, the tank stopped working.

We sat on top of the tank in the middle of a swampy area, completely beset by mosquitoes, as Sergei muttered Russian at the engine and tried to figure out what was going on. A few km isn’t so far to walk, unless its covered in thick vegetation and a few meters of mud and water, and you have to carry an enormous battery to start your boat up again. After climbing inside the boiling hot engine (the thing’s so huge you can climb around the engine compartment) Sergei, wonderful man, managed to pull apart the fuel filter, clean it out, and replace it. As we waited, a young moose came up near the tank to watch us – apparently it remembered Sergei, who used to talk to it when he first delivered it to the park. About an hour and a bazillion mosquitoes later, the tank was running again.

The boat ride home was gorgeous on the perfectly smooth water.

And that was only Wednesday. My narrative of Thursday will have to wait a bit.

Sergei is a crazy old Russian with incredibly thick curly hair that seems to block all the mosquitoes from his head. He’s rather brilliant in his way, and given to such grandiose statements as “I only publish in Science or Nature” (if you’re not a frequent reader of scientific journals, those are two of the most highly-regarded places to publish) and some more questionable quips – such as, during our boating outing, when he asked me to prepare what his wife had packed for lunch, saying “If there’s a woman around, I don’t touch food.” His wife (Galina) seems to do an enormous amount of work, from all domestic duties to taking dictation for his science papers, in addition to helping to run a number of the science experiments. When I asked what she does around the station, Sergei interrupted, saying in his very Russian way, “She is a scientist’s wife! No – she is wife of a GOOD scientist! This is very important.”

All the same, I like them both very much, and they seem to have taken a shine to me and are very kind. Galina found some eggs in town today and brought me some. Speaking of food, I’ve become a genius at the fried canned beans/sausage/corn medley. Also, being short on fruits, Galina gave me a bag of cranberries harvested from the forest last season, and along with some old apples I got in town I’ve mastered cran-apple jam. They have something around here called kasha that they eat for breakfast, which is like super-delicious cream of wheat. I got a bag full (“bag” meaning old shopping bag unceremoniously filled with a shovel of raw kasha) and it’s SO DELICIOUS.

I am seriously not into the culinary scene. These small accomplishments are stunning. I got a whole froze chicken out for dinner tonight, and after it defrosted I realized I have absolutely no clue what to do with it.

A few hours later…

Whoa! I stuck it in the oven for a few hours, and out came roast chicken!

Day 316: On the Banks of the Kolyma

2007-06-11T11:04:00.000Z

Hello again dear readers! I’m writing from Cherskii, Russia on the magnificent banks of the Kolyma river from my little cabin. While my new home has many charms, good internet is not one of them. Unfortunately, the Russian dial-up connection not only does not allow my personal computer to connect, but also drives me to the edges of sanity with its snails-pace. So we have two problems. Firstly, at most I will only be able to upload a few photos, if any, to a post. Secondly, I am working off a Russian computer, and Blogger insists that it runs in Russian, so I need to memorize the right buttons to push to publish to a page. Difficult times.

But enough of that boring business! Much more interesting are the events of the last week – what things to tell! Since you cannot have photos, you will have to deal with my words for now…an odious ordeal, but use your imagination.

The majority of my trip through Russia was spent in wild gestures and confused stares and vicious abuse of my luggage. Amazingly, you can traverse the majority of a continent without actually speaking to anyone. Occasionally, this even came in handy – an example of dealing with Russian security forces:

Airport security (in Russian): What’s this weird, metallic thing that looks like knives in your luggage? [pointing to an x-ray screen]
Me: I don’t speak Russian!
Security (in Russian): Ok, you can go. [waved on]

Wow.

I spent two nights in Yaktusk waiting for my flights to Cherskii. My hotel was clean enough, if, by my conventional standards, rather…unsettling. Getting breakfast was a relatively painless affair, thanks to a copy of the menu in English. While waiting for my food (a highly anticipated plate of eggs and bacon), an old Russian man, complete with tarnished military metals, approached my table and started talking to me in Russian. I tried to explain that I didn’t speak Russian, but either he was hard of hearing or (actually, probably and) he equally had no idea what I was saying. Undeterred he took a seat across from me at my little table, where we sat in awkward silence through our meals. I offered little smiles and tried to be polite, but I had no idea what to say or what he expected from me. Eventually I fled back to my room.

My original plan was to boldly walk around and see some bit of Yakutsk, but being paranoid with safety I opted to play the day safe. Some reading (and luckily a stint on the internet, on the hotel’s one-and-only computer) brought me to lunchtime, which I had eagerly anticipated. Lunchtime, back in the hotel’s mini restaurant, was a complete disaster. The same little waitress, treating me and everyone else with barely-concealed contempt, was utterly unmoved by my inability to read the lunch menu, which was completely in Russian. I had absolutely no clue what anything said, and tried to convey that to her, hoping for some kind of suggestion. I got the icy stare. So I did a point-and-shoot at the menu, figuring that I’d get something edible at least, and was determined to put down whatever she brought out.

When she emerged from the kitchen, my worst fears were realized. The plate she put before me contained an incredible display of what I had passionately hoped I didn’t point at. In a small, fish-shaped plate was a scoop of…stuff. Starving and determined, I took a big forkful and shoveled it in my face. I was immediately forced to press my tongue against the roof of my mouth to keep from vomiting. I’m sure these complaints will fall on unsympathetic ears for some readers, but what was placed before me was a sort of cold salad consisting of shredded pickled beets and unrecognizable old pickled fish, heavily doused in a sort of sour-milk herb crème sauce. Hunger won out, and I tried to convince myself that eating was better than being picky. Three teary-eyed mouthfuls later, I decided barfing in the restaurant was not going to make old Icy-Eyes love me any more. It was the fish I couldn’t handle. I think it was pickled, or some other ungodly preparation. The one piece of fish I found untouched by the rotten-milk sauce was a sort of dirty-grayish color. I assume that means it was pickled, rather than merely raw and slightly decayed.

My plans to stay inside were thwarted – I had to go out and find food. Not finding a market, I went to a “Max Food” to see what I could see through the window. It looked pretty casual and empty, so I decided to try to get something. While standing in line, the woman in front of me turned around, smiled, and said “bunch of Russian I don’t understand basketball?” Understanding the universal language for tall people, I shook my head and smiled back, desperately trying to remember “no” in Russian. “Nyet, nyet basketball” I eventually got out. This inspired a string of excited Russian, which forced me to shrug, smile, and say that I don’t understand. This produced a blank stare, so I pointed to myself and said “American”. I guess she understood and smiled broadly, and I think she said something to the extent (in Russian) of “is this food good to you?” At least, that’s what I think she might have said. I shrugged again, which made her laugh heartily.

Overall, I was extremely struck by how much it reminded me of the cities I lived in in China – the same sort of architecture and, frankly, general grime, and – I hope not to offend anyone – the remarkable similarities in appearance in the people. I had originally assumed that I would blend in fairly well pretending to be Russian as long as I didn’t open my mouth, but I stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the Yakutian natives.

On a few flights, I was one of less than half a dozen women. On all flights after Moscow, I was certainly the only foreigner. The flight between Yakutsk to…eh…place I really can’t name because it was sort of a surprise stop, and the ticket only says it in Cyrillic…was on the sketchiest flying contraption I’ve ever set eyes on. We had to load our own luggage on a rickety old plane, where our check-in luggage was loosely held down with a net in between the pilot and the passengers. During the flight, one woman’s little dog ran up and down the aisle, yipping at everyone.

We landed in Mystery Location on a dirt runway – actually a first for me, I’ve landed on snow and ice but never dirt – and with a few bounces (4) and a slight spin-out, I found myself in the middle of nowhere. The only place to go was over to a helicopter, into which the 10 remaining passengers loaded their luggage, climbed inside and held on for the 2 hour trek across the Siberian taiga.

As it turns out, my new home is in the taiga – a flat land covered in trees and lakes. For everyone worrying that I will surely freeze to death in Siberia, never fear. While it is the coldest place in the northern hemisphere, its also has the most extreme variation – right now its about 20C (eh, 65Fish) outside, and will probably get up to 35C (90F) before I leave. No snow and ice here. I should have sent home all of my winter gear.

The land is beautiful. Cherskii is in ruins. Once a town of nearly 10,000, the collapse of the Soviet Union completely obliterated its financial support, and the 3000 or so remaining people are a collection of old townspeople and settlers drawn in from the wilderness. There is literally nothing for 500km in every direction. I live at a science station about 4km outside of town, right above the enormous Kolyma river. I’ve been given my own little cabin to live in, and frankly I love it. The seclusion of the area fits me very well. There’s electricity (most of the time) and running water - which is pumped directly out of the river, so it has to be boiled to use, but remains a nerve-wracking distinct brown color, which I suppose is safe enough and rather tasty if you close your eyes and pretend its an exotic tea.

The debris of greater days is seen everywhere. From my window I can see three half-sunk barges in the river, and neighboring houses are shoddy at best…apparently not abandoned as I originally assumed. All the same, the view is stunning – the land is so flat, I can predict the weather nearly a day in advance – you can see everything that’s coming, and the twist of the river miles off. There’s birds I’ve never seen before, mosquitoes the size of my thumb, and – most awesomely! – huge old fossils everywhere! Mammoth tusks and femurs line up against the wall of my cabin, while the station director and his wife have prehistoric rhinoceros skulls and bison horns in their living room.

Food is a bit of an adventure – I’ve figured out enough basic cooking to take care of myself, and assumed buying and cooking my food wouldn’t be too much of an ordeal. As it turns out, the “market” in Cherskii is a mash-up of tiny stores hidden away in the bottoms of old apartment buildings, run by people selling random bits of life from clothes to expired food cans to tire irons. Its not so simple as picking things out of a market, and I require the help of the station director’s wife to ask for things. Most unexpectedly, however, is the severe lack of supplies in town. Let alone particular tastes, the most basic items are simply, and absolutely, unavailable. Eggs and potatoes are non-existent, two of my (and really, I assumed everyone’s) staples in an extremely simple diet. The one thing I find cheap and plentiful and clean in every store are rows and rows of alcohol.

For now I spend my days walking around the area where I live – I’ve been told there are no snakes, no poisonous plants, and the bears and wolves are nothing to worry about, so I’m fairly safe exploring the limited roads. I’m looking forward to meeting some of the other people who will visit the station this summer – for now, I’ve been largely left to myself. For now, I focus on conditioning my foot, which remains a rather incredible source of pain. The scar is healing, though, and I’ve started running. I expect it will hurt for quite awhile yet.

I will do my best to give news at least once a week. I am truly in the middle of nowhere, and as I look out my window it seems rather incredible that I’m writing to an international audience at all.

Argh...technical difficulties uploading photos. I really hope I'll be able to show you what Siberia looks like soon.

And now, I need to go boil some water for tomorrow.

Day 311: In Which I Desperately Need to Learn Russian

2007-06-07T00:13:00.000Z

I'm in Russia! Yakutsk, to be exact. I'm a bit overwhelmed by the last few days, so this post is here to say: I am fine, somewhere in the middle of Russia. I have a bunch of stories to share about the journey over here, but they will have to wait until I'm a bit more settled in Cherskii. Tomorrow morning I fly to that final destination. Turns out its another location only accessible by helicopter (like where I was living in Greenland). This year, once again, is kind of ridiculous.

Russia is very...Russian.

Ah yes, the foot...the cast is off! It feels amazing, if by amazing we mean very painful and sort of gross. Photos soon, of course. Luckily its nothing to worry about - the bone is finally totally healed, and the doctor said I should expect pain for another 4-6 months. He also said as long as I don't care about the pain, I can do whatever I want without damaging my foot. The bolt is there to stay. So I guess we're good to go!

Well...there it is. Time to go start reading a Russian dictionary, because I've been unable to speak to anyone except for the hotel manager for the last 48 hours.

Day 304: Things!

2007-05-30T10:43:00.000Z

It's been awhile since I've written, but really, there's not a lot to talk about. It's raining a lot in Drammen so I don't get out much. Most of my time recently has been spent coordinating everything involved in getting to Russia. While I have purchased all of my airplane tickets, I'm still waiting for one to be delivered. Nerve-wracking. I'm also trying to arrange for a hotel in Yakutsk, where they INSIST that I fax a reservation form to them. This is a problem since I don't have a fax machine, and after some appreciated help from Katrine in Longyearbyen, Yakutsk doesn't seem to receive faxes. Phone conversations and email inquiries are...questionable. Yay Russia!

Once, long (about 13 days) ago, there was a holiday on May 17th that was a pretty big deal for Norwegians. Their independence day, from what I gather. I got to experience it in Drammen with the family I'm staying with. The following photos are out of date, but its what I have for now.

First we went to the town square and got places to stand to see the parade. Let me tell you, hanging on to crutches and standing on one foot in a crowd while using a 2-ton camera is not easy.

Joachim's little sister - a member of the family I'm staying with in Drammen:

Everyone was dressed up so nice! The Norwegian national outfit is very nice.

So...a lot of what I have here are pictures of random people gathered for the parade. Observe:

Another addition to the "children dubious about Laurel" series:

There was lots of Norwegian spirit everywhere:

On babies:

Twins:

My mini-Norwegian doppleganger #2:

After while the parade came around our part of the road - quite an extensive parade, I must say. A lot of bands and schools and kids.

Observing:

Sullen:

The politi come by to keep kiddos in line:

The mom and daughter I'm staying with - she's very kindly holding my crutches for me for a minute...

Then, a big fancy band:

And another...

And finally, a lot more kids:

A shot of the people I'm staying with, beautiful people (but missing a couple brothers, off in different places...)

After the parade we drove up a huuuuuge spiral tunnel inside a mountain! It was awesome! Up at the top we had ice cream, and I got to take this photo of DRAMMEN:

Norway's a pretty nice place, everywhere!

Day 297: GREAT SUCCESS

2007-05-23T17:59:00.000Z

I'm going to RUSSIAAAAA! (said like Borat, of course)

Fantastic day. FANTASTIC. After a few million years of problems (ie six months) I've achieved two things today: I got my Russian visa, and I figured out how to replace the blogger header with a specialized image. Hope you love it.

The header will probably change soon until I find a background I really like. I like this one, but the black and white is sort of misleading...since I really don't like doing black and white photography. But what won't change is I'M GOING TO RUSSIAAAAA! In exchange for a very signficant percentage of my bank account. I hope my friends at home have some nice couches for me to sleep on.

For people interested in this sort of thing, here's my route to my final destination in Siberia - we can also note that this comes in at a close second as the most long-winded, complicated route of this year (the road from northern Canada to northern Greenland continues to reign as The Most Ridiculous Journey Ever).

Anyway, here it is: Oslo (Norway) to Copenhagen (Denmark) to St. Petersburg (Russia) to Moscow to Krasnoyarsk to Yakutsk to Cherskii.

I'm afraid thats all for now. The official departure date is June 5. The official cast-off date is June 4!

EXCITING.

Day 293: Goodbye Longyearbyen

2007-05-18T22:00:00.000Z

Well, here we are again. I've left beloved Longyearbyen for Drammen, a city outside of Oslo in southern Norway. It's ridiculously warm and green here.

First - in keeping with tradition, a tribute to some of the fantastic people I left in Longyearbyen, taken from my going-away dinner...

I miss you already! Especially Greeny, who now lives with Daniel - look how much it grew!

But moving on. Some last looks at Longyearbyen - the day before I left it was very foggy, and bizarrely it reminded me very much of California. Probably because it brought out the sea smell, which smells nearly exactly like the fog near my hometown.

About, eh, three weeks ago, the day before I left for Tromso for my foot surgery, I took my last photo trip around Svalbard. I decided my foot was broken anyhow and headed for surgery, so I walked into town with Pierre and then scootered across the the fjord one last time.

Heading out:

Precipices, which will probably start some wicked avalanches soon:

One of those very avalanches:

One of the old coal mines, with the surrounding red stones revealing the fire damage that occured a number of years ago. Coal mine fires burn extremely hot:

Looking towards town:

Coal transport system, which I am consistantly amazed has not be pushed over by avalanches:

West side of town:

If I remember correctly, this was one of the first warmer-but-not-quite-melting days - enough so that people were eating outside the restaurant:

From the back edge of town, looking up the valley:

Various buildings in town:

That last one is the hospital, with a coal-miner sculpture in front.

Mountains across the fjord:

UNIS park:

Do you remember this shot from January?

Here's the April version:

The funny fortress looking building below the coal plant is the Syssleman's office.

So, scootering across the fjord next. Reindeers!

Old abandoned boat:

And more old coal mining equipement:

A parent pulls their kids behind a snowmobile to their cabin:

And there it is: Longyearbyen. There's no doubt I'll be back someday.

Moving to Drammen with everything I own while on crutches was epic, to say the least. Luckily I had people help me to the airport (eternal thanks to Katrine and Daniel) and then ran into an old friend from the Norwegian coast guard on the plane, who helped me get through Tromso. On the flight to Oslo I met a random person - a Norwegian TV host, apparently - who helped me get to the baggage claim. I will say this for Norway - its a lot easier to be comfortable letting strangers carry your bags than most other places.

Yesterday was May 17th, a big day in Norway - from what I understand, their Independence Day. I have photos from that, so I'll bring those out and talk about the day on my next post. Today I took the train to Oslo and went to the Russian consulate and stood in line for three hours to apply for my visa. I guess more people go to Russia than I thought. They - thank god - stayed open a half an hour longer than they were supposed to because their were so many people, and I was the second to last person to get through. The speed of visa processing is directly related to how much money you give them, so mine should be ready next week...

Awesome moment of the day: I managed to be one of the few people at the consulate who actually had my entire aplication in order without any mistakes. While the Russian guy was going over my application, he stopped at the "Name, address, etc of where you'll be staying in Russia". I don't know if him shaking his head and laughing is a good sign. They probably don't get a lot of applications for remote Siberian outposts.

Ah, and finally the foot update. In a cast, on crutches, same old thing. Hurts in creative ways, swells up a lot. Makes me a lot of old-lady friends when I walk down the street.

Alright then!

Day 288: A Year

2007-05-13T23:11:00.000Z

A few days ago I realized my home university - Pomona College - has its graduation today (today in the California sense, 9 hours behind Norway). I cannot believe its been a year since I graduated. If any of you new graduates are reading this, I hope senior week was super and graduation goes smoothly in that horrible heat. I'm super bummed I couldn't be there to say congrats to a lot of old friends - not sure when I'll see a lot of you again. Regardless, all the best.

Unfortunately I've been very stressed out recently trying to get ready to leave and plan for Russia and deal with my foot, and this website has suffered for it. I hope to write something more meaningful/visual soon, but that may not be until I settle in Drammen. Right now I really have to focus on getting my luggage to a semi-managable state and get that visa and not let my foot drive me insane. Or the ever-more-looming question of what I'm going to do next.

A year. Man.

In other news...Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Day 283: Rebellion

2007-05-05T14:56:00.000Z

Ok...so I started this post a few days ago, and here's what it looked like then:

"Everything hurts. My body's staged a successful coup against my brain and I've been reduced to a bed-ridden belligerent brain in a useless body. So! Thank you friends who are doing my laundry and food shopping. It is sincerely appreciated.

There's a bit of good news behind the rebellion, however. First, crutches are apparently excellent exercise and this must mean I'm growing some kind of muscles in places that clearly never had the chance to shine before. Secondly, the motivation behind the coup was that I had to run (haha...run) around town a lot yesterday to conduct a few matters of business INCLUDING picking up my Russian paperwork! I can finally begin the process of applying for my visa. Or...figuring out how to haul my body to a place where I can apply for a visa. Regardless, things are in the works. The brain still has some tricks up its sleeve."

Clearly I was on some kind of painkiller.

Anyway, feeling better now after doing mostly nothing over the last few days. Also going insane from being inside. The first week was sort of ok, now I feel like I'm rotting.

Here's the big news, which comes hand and hand with the Russian paperwork news: to the best of my logistical reasoning, it is necessary for me to move to Oslo. Next Wednesday. I'm planning to move to Russia the first week of June, and with my busted leg the safest place to apply for my visa is in Oslo.

Considering my usual time line, this feels very sudden...I ususally know about a month in advance when I'll leave a place. I love Longyearbyen. I know I'll be back someday, but this sudden rush to collect everything and deal with Russia and not being able to walk has recently been fairly overwhelming.

To pile on some more bittersweet, lets go through some more of those photos I took awhile back when I could get outside...

During one of those beautiful days, I went on another little trip by myself - first up along the upper road next to the old coal transport system above town.

Old coal processing plant:

Coming back to the fjord, a shot of Longyearbyen's one lonely little iceberg - very little ice in the fjord this year. Climate change, people.

The next part of the trip gave me one of the best views I've had anywhere near Longyearbyen. I went across the fjord and started following some tracks up the mountain - thinking I wouldn't get very far - and to my amazement I and my scooter were able to make it all the way up to the plateau of the first mountain across from Longyearbyen.

Adventfjorden:

The mouth of the fjord, the point where the airport and Svalsat are:

Long tiny trail of coal transport structures stretching out to the mines in adjacent valleys:

Me and my rifle...

Later, on that gorgeous day when I sunburnt one cheek and frostbit the other, we did some amphipod sampling out in the fjord.

Mikko helping to set up the phytoplankton sampling net:

The winch hauling up the net:

Yah, that's about all I have from that experience. The camera kept freezing and we were working. But here's some from the next day, when we went out again:

Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous:

Mikko and Henrik, driving the boat:

We had to make our little zodiac do a bit of icebreaking...

Finally, in slightly more recent photography, some of the stunning weather we've been having:

That nearly concludes the backlog...one more set and then this leg better start working because I need to take more photos.

If you're a Svalbardian, hopefully I'll see you on Friday for a last hurrah.

Day 278: Old Stuff

2007-05-04T09:10:00.000Z

Just because I sit around in my room all day doesn't mean I have all the time in the world for this website! Wait, yes it does. But I use a lot of that time responding to my email backlog and...sleeping, and...that's about it.

When we last met, Dane had just left. During the course of his time here, we visited Bjorndalen, which I loved. So a day or so after he left I took a little midnight trip out to Bjorndalen by myself to catch what looked to be some very nice lighting. For everyone at home freaking out about me going by myself, I had a rifle, and the area is "heavily" populated (by humans) so its really quite safe.

From the opposite side of town, the old coal processing facility:

To get to Bjorndalen, you have to drive along the back edge of the airport runway. There's a big fence so hooligans stay out, but I've heard of people seeing polar bears on the runway before.

Approaching Bjorndalen, sunset photos:

That last one I took on my stomach. That's not so easy in a scooter suit with a rifle over your shoulder.

The Bjorndalen student's cabin:

Coming around back home again, the airport fence catches the sun:

I took the upper road back to town, on the hill behind the old coal transport system. Looking back at the modern coal processing facility:

And out into town:

Annnd back once again:

Short update, but it's something! And since I won't have any new photos for awhile, I have to make the backlog last.

My foot feels like it has a bolt in it. Doesn't hurt, but very weird.

Day 275: The Rock

2007-05-01T16:17:00.000Z

To start things off right, here's a photo of my foot in the hospital and the cripple-crutches that cramp my style.

Even better, here's an artistic interpretation of me on crutches on a balloon for my mini-welcome back party. Some people are awesome.

"Jei!" is something like "Yeah!" in Finnish.

Once upon a time, I was a semi-normal person and did things like leave the building. If you remember, a few weeks ago my brother was here. We need to conclude that business - some good photos from those exploits.

The weather on his last day was pretty gnarly but we had to go out for one last scooter trip across the fjord - I've had the worst luck finding seals, I've seen them from afar many times but nothing good enough for a decent photo.

The scooter track along the riverbed to the edge of town:

The ice edge in the middle of the frozen fjord:

Unfortunately, no luck with seals. The main activity planned for this day, however, was an indoor activity - one I had never heard of before coming to Longyearbyen.

Kayak water polo!

Pierre invited Dane to play, and I came along as the photographer. Dane plays water polo (among a million other things) so we thought he might enjoy it - which he seemed to.

Bear with me for the million photos I have of this game - normally I'm not so into the sports photography thing, but I took a LOT because it was interesting photography and my bro was playing. If you're someone who played in this game, let me know if you want copies of any of these photos - or let me know who you are because I have a few hundred (literally...) photos not included here that may be of you.

The pool in the sports hall is pretty nice - huge, and with this awesome view:

Sigrid:

Pierre tries to drown Johanna:

Dane warms up:

Pierre - sort of the coach - explains the rules and safety procedures...

And then the game begins!

Almost immediately double disaster strikes...

The reason I don't like playing this game. I hate flipping over. The usual protocol for flipping over is slapping the underside of your kayak, which calls someone else's kayak over to you. You then slide you hands along the underside of your kayak feeling around for the nose of another kayak, which you use to flip yourself upright with. Terrifying, all in all.

Various photos of game play:

Daneeeee:

A final, full-pool view of the game...

A Finnish player makes some dives before the next sport:

After kayak water polo comes...underwater rugby! Lots of bizarre sports in this place.

Underwater rugby works as so: there are two weighted baskets at the bottom of the pool on each end. There is a weighted ball that you try to put into the other teams bucket. There are no rules other than you can't touch someone who's not touching the ball. So, if someone is trying to drown you as you're holding the ball, you either give up the ball or don't breathe. Interesting.

The field:

Gameplay!

Chaotic!

Dane's team:

Back at the barracks, everyone helped prepare a special dinner for Dane's departure - the first barbeque of the year!

On the menu...whale burgers! Mink whale, I believe.

Pierre plays chef:

The weather wasn't that super, but it worked.

Pierre, Dane, Olgeir, and Johanna waiting for burgers...

Olgeir, Ragga, and Dane take a turn watching the fire:

And THAT, FINALLY, concludes the visit of the brother. Seems like it was quite awhile ago. The 3am sun after dropping him off at the airport:

Someone made the observation that it seems like only a few weeks since being no sun and now its all sun. This is entirely true. The first sun was (in theory) expected March 8th - bad weather that day meant we didn't see it until about March 12. Midnight sun was first seen April 19th. The switch only takes about a month - very fast.

And to finish things off right, here's a photo I took of my foot today when I took it outside for some air. The weather was spectacular so my friends put a chair on our porch for me to sit outside for a bit.

That's some good advice on that cast, there.

Day 274: The Bolt, Version 2.0

2007-04-26T17:22:00.000Z

Awesome.

It looks bigger than the last one because it is.

So, I'm back in Longyearbyen, alive. Currently exhausted from trying to move around a bit too much. I'm going to have some wicked shoulders after this business. The second surgery on Friday ended well enough, with some...adventures. Instead of using a normal local anesthetic, they injected something directly into the nerves behind my knee to essentially paralyse my leg. It didn't work. So they had to put me to sleep - something I hate (it makes me panic) - but they hit me with a pretty heavy dose so I fell asleep real quick.

When I work up I couldn't move or feel anything below my knee, because the nerve-numbing thing finally kicked in. Which was good because I had zero pain, but somewhat nerve-wracking because it took much longer than expected for me to get feeling back in my leg. I spent the night in the hospital and got home to Longyearbyen Saturday night. In very random news, I sat next to two people from California on the plane. That's really rare up here.

What else...on painkillers, which makes me somewhat less than intelligent and sleep 80% of the day. My building-mates told me to stop looking out the window because it makes me look like a sad cocker spaniel and I'm depressing them.

I'm going to go stare out the window in my room.

Day 270: Chivalry is Dead

2007-04-25T22:33:00.000Z

Where...to begin. I'm nearly two weeks behind on photos now, but that's going to have to wait, just like your entertainment via this website, because things have run amok, TO SAY THE LEAST.

As I mentioned before, I was scheduled for surgery in Tromso to bolt - literally - my broken foot back together. I theory I should have been back in Longyearbyen by now, but I am still in Tromso. My surgery was bumped from the original date to a day later - Wednesday - and ended up taking three hours instead of one. I opted to stay awake for the procedure, actually a fascinating experience. Eleven stitches and a plaster cast later, I was doped up and slept out the afternoon in the hospital.

Before being checked out, the doctor wanted some more x-rays to make sure everything was in place. So I was sitting in the waiting room, getting my IV-drip antibiotics, and the doctor comes in with a "I've got some bad news."

The bolt was put in wrong. Instead of laying straight in the bone, it's angled so it comes in the top and goes through the bottom. My only option is to re-do the entire surgery, which will happen on Friday.

I am distressed on a variety of levels. I find myself facing two surgeries in one week (turns out local anesthetics can't stop your bones hurting. Drilling hurts.); orders not to walk, period, for two weeks; an impossible non-waterproof cast; and, wow, about a million other things. I'm torn between focusing on the most amazing opportunity and experience of my life and a potentially life-long injury.

Well, that turned out more down-beat than intended. All in all I'm in fairly good spirits, I tend to get over things pretty quick. Although that could be the painkillers talking. Talk to me in a few weeks when I've gone bonkers from staying inside for so long. The people I'm staying with in Tromso are awesome, and despite the surgical problems, the doctors and nurses at the Tromso hospital are incredibly nice.

Having a two-inch bolt in your foot feels weird.

Christ! That thing seriously is a bolt.

Re: dead chivalry - flying out to Tromso I had to wait for awhile in the tiny holding area after security in Longyearbyen. There's only enough chairs for a little over half the people on the flight, and everyone packs in there. When I got there all the chairs were full. Despite the broken foot, I'm young and can handle standing around for a bit.

But honestly, what happened to people giving up their seats for old/injured/pregnant etc? I always give up my seat in any public transportation if theres anyone around who looks like they need it more than me.

Eventually, a 50-something Norwegian housewife figure came up to me and offered me her seat. I hope every twenty-something snowboarding dude in that airport was embarrassed.

Day 263: Heads Down Thumbs Up

2007-04-19T20:24:00.000Z

Welcome to the land of the midnight sun! We've officially entered the other half of my official title (Life in the Midnight Sun and Polar Night: Images of Arctic Survival). Which, technically, I also saw in Canada at the tail end of summer. It's a strange life, this constant light. Difficult to fall asleep, too easy to wake up. But the bonuses - you can go on expeditions anytime of day (some of the best trips are in the middle of the night) and you learn to fall asleep ANYWHERE. Another thing with this light - I can get sunburnt and frostbitten simultaneously. I am quite pleased my freckles are starting to come back.

So, the rest of the brother's visit.

One of the big exciting things I had planned for his visit was a dogsledding trip, something I had never done before but I figured had to be done. It has since come to my attention that the next time I move out here (yes, there's going to be a next time) I must acquire sled dogs.

Harnessing up these wild dogs. They have two speeds: go, and anchored.

They were loud and peed a lot.

Awesome dogs.

And off we go!

I'm not going to lie to you. It was pretty much the most amazing thing ever. Silent, unlike the snowmobiles. For the first half Dane drove and I rode in the little sled-sitter.

My view:

We went down one of the valleys closed to snowmobiles, so somewhere I'd never been before. We started out with decent weather, but coming up the valley - facing a small glacier - the wind was pretty fierce.

Looking behind:

Some photos of the bro and I together, courtesy of one of the tour leaders:

Such happy doggies:

During our breaks, the dogs ate a lot of snow to cool off. We've heavy.

After the next stop, Dane and I traded places - I drove while he rode in the seat.

Don't ask how I took the following photo. It wasn't my wisest moment.

Proving that fact, after this photo:

I fell off. Now, technically, I had stopped the dogs with the snow anchor and I guess wasn't paying enough attention, so when the front dogs started, they ripped out my snow anchor, and I fell off. Dane tried to turn in the sled to grab the anchor, and tipped the entire sled over. Meanwhile I tried to catch up to the sled in a few feet of snow (with one useless ankle) falling down about three times in the process. But I guess dogs don't run all that fast and I flipped the sled back over and jumped on and it was pretty crazy!

So we all got back to the kennels in one piece.

Some of the dogs were packed in a doggie trailer to return to another kennel.

I'm glad I finally got to go sledding - one of those Arctic activities that I really had to do. Someday I'll do it for real - with my own dogs. Now that will be...interesting. The first few times.

You know, I've still never been skiing.

On his second-to-last day, we took advantage of some beautiful weather to take a little trip out to Bjorndalen - a very common destination out here, but I had actually never been. Its a valley beyond the airport (which is about 8km outside of town) with a lot of cabins. In advance, apologies for the billion photos of my brother. Unless you're my parents, then you're probably pretty happy about that.

UNIS has its own cabin for students out in Bjorndalen. Its a gorgeous area and a gorgeous cabin. From what I hear, having a student's cabin is a common thing among Norwegian universities. Going out to the family cabin is a normal weekend activity for many people.

I let the brother carry the rifle. We can't leave town without polar bear protection, which means a firearm with the power of a shotgun or .30-06.

I...really cannot describe how awesome this photo is. All the people I normally hang out with:

(Pierre, Johanna, Dane, Ragga, and Olgeir)

Looking around the Bjorndalen cabin:

Snacking on leftover food from the last campers:

Reading the guestbook:

The cabin has beds for 13 people, but considering floor space it could hold lots more. I've heard of up to 25 people staying at once. I'm hoping I get to stay there sometime before I go.

While sitting around I asked if people could tell that Dane and I were siblings. In response, Pierre took this photo:

I guess that's a yes. But I prefer this one.

Back outside we took some dumb boys with guns photos.

Unlike the US, every guy in the Scandanavian countries (that I'm aware of) is required to do a year of duty in the military. Hard to imagine. On the way home, we visited the Longyearbyen shooting range to practice our polar bear deterant techniques.

Gorgeous view from the range:

Your first line of defense against a polar bear: the signal pen.

It makes a bright light and a big bang. Pretty much only useful if you're far enough away from the bear to have the presence of mind to screw a little flare onto the end of a pen. In training we're advised to shoot in front of the bear, not behind, to scare it away rather than towards oneself. It happens.

Then the real shooting.

Which is extremely loud, so we all had hearing protection.

Dane and Johanna:

Me and Dane:

Olgeir was about a million times better than any of us. He does some hunting in Iceland. I usually think of myself as a pretty decent shot, but this day I was embarrassed.

Juice boxes, the poor student's target:

Technically, this is the best way to shoot:

But by the time you're forced to shot a gun at a polar bear, you're usually not in the kind of position to lay yourself on the ground.

Speaking of which, I'd like to share the most insane polar bear story I've heard in Longyearbyen - a legend around UNIS. Go here and scroll to the story at the bottom of the page. A fellow that works in the UNIS logistics department - Stefan - shot a polar bear in self-defense in 2005 with a very powerful handgun. The bear was shot from 1.4m (4-5ft). 1.4 METERS. I don't know a lot of details on the story, but thats...on top of you. You need nerves of steel and one wicked handgun to get out of that.

I also encourage you to check out Stefan's photo homepage and look at some of his photos from the 1980's for a view of a slightly older Spitsbergen.

Good god...I can't finish this tonight. I hope you people appreciate how much time it takes to process this many photos for this website. So I'm only about half a week behind now with still the last day of the brother to write about, then some more modern things.

Big news of the day: I've been scheduled for surgery in Tromso to bolt my foot bones back together. I'll try to write once more before I fly out on Monday. Never fear, I'll only be gone three days. Wish me luck.

Day 259: The Brother

2007-04-15T12:10:00.000Z

I've been told that this website is a major source of procrastination measures for many of my friends. Glad my experiences are being put to educational usage.

So the brother got here last Saturday, and the week has just flown by. We've managed to pull off some pretty good times, though, despite some patchy weather. There was a bit of a thaw scare (for me) a few days ago, which thankfully did not culminate in a disastrous river like last time. I fear the next thaw will be the last for the usable snow. Anyway, the first day he was here we took a bit of a drive around Longyearbyen, then went home to help prepare the massive Easter dinner we had planned for our kitchen.

Clockwise from the lower left: Ragga, Sigrid, Paal, Dane, Pierre, Olgeir, Tone, and Elisa. We had fancy lamb, fancy potatoes, garlic bread, veggies, and a dessert ensemble:

This is big news around here.

Another photo of Paal and Dane (the brother):

The next day we went on a little scooter trip up Adventdalen to see what we could see. That was mainly a lot of snow and mountains in beautiful weather. For the most part, the past week was very lucky with a lot of super, cold sun.

Although, as it turned out, I may have given Dane a bit of frostbite. I blame all the stores being closed for Easter and me not being able to buy a proper wind-proof face mask. It was just a mild sort of sun-burn case below the eyes, gone now.

We went farther up the fjord than I had been before, and it was just lovely.

Brother trying to warm his poor little fingers without his atrocious gloves. He bought some supposedly good gloves in California which were basically useless out here. Eventually I let him wear my nice scooter gloves, and I tried to wear his gloves since my scooter has handlebar-warmers, and I'm more used to the cold. My handlebar-warmers melted straight through the gloves.

We also stopped at the Russian airplane monument again, as described in a previous post.

Ptarmigan tracks next to the flower offerings:

Reindeer across the gully:

Going back to Longyearbyen we stopped at the limited remains of a German war plane that crashed in the fjord during World War II. The only bits showing over the snow now are the undercarriage - the entire plane is upside down.

Coming back around the fjord, across from Longyearbyen - great picture of "arctic smoke":

Annnd with some real smoke:

Old mining bit you've seen before:

Ridiculous scooter tracks - turns out my scooter just isn't powerful enough to do much of anything with two big ol' people on it. We can just about handle going along on flat ground, as long as we don't try to turn to much. I feel like I'm hurting it. Which I probably am.

Another short scooter trip later in the week - Dane's first time up the glacier, always amazing.

Good old Nybyen:

And the brother having a look around.

We managed to accidentally time our trip with the arrival of a massive tourist troupe. Hm.

My poor little brother gets tuckered out from so much excitement. Most days he pretty much passed out right after dinner. Not that we actually had that crazy of a time, but our meat-and-potatoes meals seem to inspire instant slumber. And then him tossing and turning on my floor half the night unable to sleep. (Yes, I made him sleep on the floor. I even eventually found him a blanket.)

During our little travels, we had some relatively close encounters with the reindeers. Here they are:

And to cap this edition off, a photograph that I like very much:

I am currently trying to stay awake to send my brother off to the airport at 3:30am. Tomorrow will be a long and horrible workday. But soon enough I will have time to finish displaying his epic visit to the north - this only shows about half the week yet. Some particularly succulent photos are on the internet horizon.

Day 255: Jerky

2007-04-11T18:34:00.000Z

Blame the brother for me having no time. But having him here is pretty sweet, so lets see what's been up.

Quick thing, one of the many things I haven't written about - last week the peak across from our barrack collapsed in a roar of rock. Luckily, to my knowledge, no one was hurt, but here's the view from our front porch:

Last week was Easter/spring break around here, so a lot of people were gone. I spent a lot of the week working on fixing a massive bibliographic disaster for the professor I work for, but had a few adventures as well. Last Wednesday Pierre, Johanna, Olgeir, and I went for a scooter trip over the mountain range north of Longyearbyen to the coast, and back around to the west across the point back into Adventfjorden.

Stopping for a beef jerky break, shipped straight from California. The ultimate survival food.

Looking across the pass to the ocean, where we were heading:

Our first stop was to visit an amazing frozen waterfall in a crack in the mountains - we were able to drive right up undernearth it.

Continuing our journey, we made a stop at the most awesome cabin I've ever seen - an incredible sweeping view of the ocean, and the perfect homey-wooden cabin feel. We delivered a newspaper to some of the people living there to remodel the floors, and I failed to take photographs. Moving on, we began trekking over new snow into this stunning valley:

Which ended us in an impassable narrow gully about to plundge down a snow cliff. Luckily Pierre noticed, and stopped, and in the process of trying to turn around Olgeir's snowmobile got stuck:

Pierre gives a lecture about the dangers of running your snowmobile in reverse in the field:

Once on our way again, coming into more familiar territory on the west coast, we were rewarded with this view:

Me and my faithful scooter:

The final leg of the trip brought us around the point across the fjord from Longyearbyen - by this time it was around 8pm, giving us "sunset" light (its now light all the time). Longyearbyen is totally on the wrong side of the fjord. Across on the other side its light all the time, and the view is incredible.

Old mining buildings:

Pierre:

Another cabin that I would love to own:

So that was the first adventure for spring break. The second was last Saturday, the day my brother arrived. He wasn't due until the evening, so we decided to make a run to Barentsburg, as the weather was so perfect.

The obligatory top-of-the-glacier shots:

Pierre and Johanna being attractive:

Scootersuits - always hot:

Olgeir talks about the fjord:

We've visited Barentsburg before, so I'll try to keep these photos different than the ones I took last time. Entering the town:

Proof that the weather up here changes instantly - Olgeir and Lenin about five minutes later:

Pierre ruins a mature photograph:

A rare, entirely illegal cat:

Olgeir and I decided to walk around town while Pierre and Johanna visited the museum. The following are scenes from that walk:

Walking through the coal processing area:

A cage for unknown purposes:

View from the other edge of Barentsburg:

Buried stairway:

Miner's hospital:

Me, in Barentsburg - in front of the Barentsburg hotel:

On the way back home we stopped at a small abandoned coal loading harbor - actually, the same one we stopped at when I went to Barentsburg last time. Some old Russian boats:

Haunting abandoned constructions against this cold land:

Arctic smoke (fog coming off the fjord) rising in the distance:

The insides of the building hint at the last few decades:

Writing on the walls:

Outside, we see signs of the life that is still around - fox tracks:

And our own set of photographers:

Well that catches things up a little at least. Perhaps I'll write more later tonight. Although as I mentioned, there is no longer any night here - we're still a week or so away from the midnight sun, but it is light out 24 hours a day now. How quickly it changes.

Day 248: My 100th

2007-04-04T08:39:00.000Z

Indeed, this is my 100th post. Is that lot or a little? I suppose it boils down to one every 2-3 days, so let me be forgiven for the past week. Looking back through the blog (as I must, because geeze...100!) I realize how much I forget to remember about the places I've been. Not that I don't remember things, merely that I get so caught in where I am at the moment that I have to be reminded of some of those past experiences. Apparently, they were awesome.

I just got an email for the Watson people (my magnanimous funders) with instructions for arriving in California for the August conference. Terrifying? Yes. As is the fact that I still don't have a Russian visa. Or titanium in my foot.

On another note, it has once again been proven that the Arctic is the most incestuous social circle ever. One of the head scientists from my time on the CCGS Amundsen is coming to UNIS to speak at a conference. An old acquaintance from my university mentioned knowing an Arctic explorer who I had heard stories about in Greenland. Some Polish friends of mine from working at Hornsund two years ago came through Longyearbyen a few days ago on their way back to Hornsund, and we had a lovely reunion.

Adam, me, Sebastian - Sebastian and I once had an interesting run in with a polar bear...

I will say its a bit odd that I'm far enough along in my semi-adult life to have old friends.

Did you know my room smells like the inside of a exhaust pipe? It does. I hardly notice anymore. That would be the fault of all my clothes, which I wear everyday, driving my snowmobile that runs like a lawnmower. A fume machine.

Well the big news for this post was supposed to be the departure of the Frozen Five. Unfortunately I'm about a week late for that, as they left last Thursday. The departure was quite an event - not huge, persay, but permeated with that spirit of adventure that you may have found around Scott, Amundsen, or Peary. A huge sense of enthusiasm mixed with pangs of wonder...when will we see them again and what condition will they be in?

The teammates gather for final packing and goodbyes outside of UNIS:

Ulli with his ever-colorful ensemble:

Nice tie.

Spirits appear high, and the team dog is definitely ready to go:

The final strap-downs:

The first step?

And there they go.

I strongly recommend you keep up with the FrozenFive updates on their website. Best of luck to them!

My own mobility-challenged activities seem particularly so these days. A quarter of a year in a cast. Christ.

More views of other parts of town:

Reindeer, which I am now making an effort to capture on film.

Three reindeer and a ptarmigan...if you can spot the ptarmigan, I tip my hat to you.

Looking across the fjord to a scooter training course:

Birdie:

What seems to my eye to be a glaucous gull.

Well, there it is. 100.

Day 241: Neighborhood #2

2007-03-28T17:45:00.000Z

I'd like to list a few things I find awesome/fascinating about this place.

1) You are encouraged, nay, required to eat chocolate. Not as a treat, but as a survival mechanism. The sugars keep you warm. Also, they put a sort of chocolate frosting spread on bread, like most Americans use butter. For breakfast.

2) You're more likely to be attacked by a polar bear than robbed. Admittedly, the threat of being attacked by a polar bear is relatively high here, but this place is ridiculously safe otherwise. Someone I know in town lost their jacket and wallet. The next day they found the jacket and everything else on their kitchen table - someone had come into their house (of course the door was unlocked, no one here locks anything) and returned everything, nothing missing.

3) You know exactly who the tourists are, because they're the people you don't recognize in the store. See #2: you know where everyone lives.

Speaking of the store, if you want to see some photos of our one and only provide-all supermarket, here's Svalbardbutikken (click on the links near each photo for real photos). Fancy! Bankruptingly expensive!

4) Everyone is an adventurous, outdoorsy, independent spirit surviving in the high north while simultaneously being part of a space-and-time-bending gossip network. You know stories about people you've never even seen.

5) You wear the same clothes every day. No one cares.

6) My internet thinks I live in Tromso, due to our insane submarine fiber-optic cable connection to the mainland.

7) They put cucumbers in "Mexican" food. No.

8) The sled dogs probably won't kill you, unlike most Canadian and Greenlandic sled dogs, which definitely will.

SPEAKING OF WHICH...

Last week (or so...) my friend Christiane volunteered for a day to take over a friend's job feeding some else's sled dogs. She invited me along so we could have fun running them around and remember what its like to have pets and animals you're allowed to touch.

The kennels:

We had to feed four dogs, two males and two females, all of whose names I've forgotten. After they were done we were going to take them out and run them around the yard. These animals are ridiculously strong and full of energy. And poop. Which we would also clean up later.

Preparing food:

Other food options, for other dogs:

Hunting is legal here with a license for certain species within certain areas. Seals make great dog food. The kennels are run sort of like a barn - people can rent spaces for their dogs to stay. Svalbard is fairly strict about animal control, in terms of introduced species. The dogs around here aren't allowed free rein. In the past, there have been problems with packs of dogs forming and hunting reindeer and causing significant havoc. Actually, around here cats are considered more dangerous than dogs. Cats are completely illegal on Svalbard, for any purpose. Apparently they destroy some of the local bird and small-mammal populations if they get loose. So there's very few pets in Svalbard, and its been a long time since I've seen a cat.

Here's a bunch of photos of Christiane and I playing with the dogs:

ATTACK!

VANQUISHED!

All in all...thanks Christiane for a super time! Sometimes I forget how much I miss having pets (I had about a million at home).

In more recent news, crazy weather continues. The temperature has dropped again for a few more weeks it looks like, and we've had a LOT of snowfall recently - which I here is quite bizarre for this time of year, especially since one would not expect to see such precipitation in an Arctic desert.

Here's some beautiful snow swirls in some powerful winds, that really has to be seen to be properly appreciated - the flying snow looks like a river:

Life has been busy and stressful recently. Partially this is because of an increase in work after our monthly sampling, which is starting to calm down. Next week is spring break for UNIS, which hadn't really occured to me, since technically every day is spring break in my life!

Mikko and Henrik waiting for our boat to start before sampling:

Its not so often that I actually get cold out here, but that was one of the most painfully cold experiences I've had here. Not that it was all that cold that day, but the boots on those suits are atrocious and my feet froze.

Last thing...my little brother is coming to visit! I am unspeakably excited about this. Probably everyone here already knows that, since I bring it up about every five minutes.

Little is a relative term.

That was taken the last time I saw him in July...a few days before I left for the Arctic.

Oh California.

Day 238: Nemesis

2007-03-25T21:39:00.000Z

This weekend we had our first major thaw, marking the true beginning of spring.

I hate it.

May I introduce The Icy Death, or, The Road Outside. Completely impossible to traverse in a cast, equally frustrating by scooter.

It rained on Friday and Saturday. Rained! Coupled with the strongest winds I've seen here (up to 22m/s - 40 mph) within a few hours we had entire exposed hillsides and massive human-eating potholes in the snow. The road turned into a river. The disappearing snow, as it turns out, revealed a landscape where previously safe pathways literally sent people up to their chests in slush. Driving the snowmobile got considerably more adventurous - zero grip on icy patches, and skidoo-like sprays through unavoidable ponds. (Apparently, my scooter can hit a foot of water at 50 km/h and make it out.)

The next day, we had a snow storm coupled with strong winds for a nice total whiteout. The temperature's dropped back down now, so things are turning into solid ice. I seriously dislike ice. I'm not built for ice. I loved the cold and snow, but this whole icy-melting thing, not so much...oh yah, and it looks like avalanche season is here (or more than usual, I guess, since its always here).

But back to happier, colder days...last week I took a short trip through Adventfjorden with my Finnish buddy Teemu.

Heading east up the fjord:

Mine 7, one of the few coal mines still running around here:

Mountains I can't climb:

One of our goals for this trip was to visit a monument for a Russian plane that crashed in Adventfjorden. In 1996, a Russian airplane filled with coal miners and their families hit the mountain Operafjellet, killing all 141 people onboard. Coupled with other economic problems, this disaster was part of what lead to the abandonment of Pyramiden, a Russian coal-mining settlement similar to Barentsburg, in 1998. The crash appeared to be due to a maneuvering error by the pilot. The crash is the worst plane accident in Norwegain history (read more here and here).

It is a simple, if chilling, monument.

The view and my tough little scooter which hauled two gigantic people up this rocky hill:

While we were walking around the area, I was estatically treated to the sight of four white ptarmigans - perhaps not so rare to see this time of year in this area, but certainly something I had been looking for and had never seen before.

Can you spot them all?

Heading back west out of the fjord, we swung to the north side of the bay to go around the north-west point of Advetnfjorden (Revneset). The view directly across from Longyearbyen:

Approaching the point - some old coal miner's cabins and other random - mostly abandoned - buildings:

As it turns out, once you round the point, there's no where else to go via scooter. So we had a bit of a snack and took some photos.

In extremely bizarre coincidence, it turned out that the professor I work for had decided to return from the field work in Rijpfjorden a few days early due to bad weather forecasts. While we were out at the point, we saw his helicopter approaching the Longyearbyen airport.

This place is so small that I was able to correctly guess that the helicopter was coming from Rijpfjorden and most likely contained the people from my lab. Not a lot of helicopter activity around here that doesn't involve someone you probably know.

Finally: I recently realized that I've become so desensitized to reindeer that I haven't even posted any photos of them. They're everywhere. The middle of the road. The middle of town. The airport. They're like funny cows. Anyway...here's some reindeer casually walking away from my scooter.

Day 234: Clips and Phrases

2007-03-21T19:09:00.000-01:00

The professor I work for recently returned from Rijpfjorden with the rest of the team, so this week has been a bit busy. We went out in the local fjord again this week for the Adventdalen sampling - lots of things to filter and sort.

Today all of the students here for the short-term course left, signficantly freeing up my dorm building and once again driving home the temporary nature of everything in my life. Ah well.

Here's some photos of the areas I frequently drive around to get to UNIS or for work or whatever.

Scooter road to Longyearbyen through the river bed:

Looking back at Nybyen:

The 20 layers:

Lompen center (shopping center):

Driving out to the coal cleaning/transport center:

The old transport line out to all the old mines that ran until the 1980's, I believe:

The horses that live out by the airport on the outskirts of town - honestly, I'm surprised they do ok out here, but I guess that's explained by the ton of hair (I have a horse at home, for those that don't know me, and she the exact opposite of these ponies).

View across the fjord at the scattering of cabins and old coal miner's buildings:

And heading back home:

That about wraps it up. I'm at a bit of a loss for words today.

Ah yes, check out some of the photos posted at ArcticNet under "New Photos" to see some of my work (0164-0160, 0149).

Also, for an epic tale of the field time in Rijpfjorden, read Mikko's contribution to the student IPY blog. Trust me, its worth keeping up with - he'll install one part a week over the next three weeks, and next week's episode should be thrilling (I had a sneak-read of the whole thing).

Day 231: Ketchup

2007-03-18T21:16:00.002-01:00

Ugh. I'm running about a week behind on updates for this thing. I prefer to write on things while they're fresh. But the photo backlog is immense, and this past week has been somewhat dramatic.

As it turns out, my broken foot continues to be so, and I'm being scheduled for surgery in Tromso to bolt the thing back together, probably sometime in the next week or so. This means a trip to the mainland (the Longyearbyen hospital doesn't have the facilities to do surgery), surgery alone in a foreign country (something I'm not especially thrilled about - not that I don't trust the doctors, but the language exchange isn't exactly seamless), and another 5 weeks laid up. I'm going nuts not being able to hike. But hey, I'll be made of titanium. Bionic woman and stuff.

Last weekend was the culmination of Solfestuka with Ta sjansen, a sled race out across the fjord. We finally had the sun come out and it was a perfect day. Basically the entire town came out. As I started racing across the fjord on my scooter I suddenly hit a patch of actual sunlight coming around the mountain. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. You really don't realize how much you miss it - it was one of the moments that assured me I'm in love with this place.

Longyearbyen is located in a little valley and is one of the last places on the island to get real sunlight. You can tell the sun is back, but the surrounding mountains keep it out.

An hour before it actually started, the scooter's started piling up.

People came in by all manner of conveance.

Scooters, of course:

Pulled by dog on skis:

Snow buggy (like tanks for snow):

Manual labor:

And dog sled:

The flamboyantly dressed announcer began the first event, a children's sled race:

Dudes:

I was struck by how much this whole thing resembled a day in the park - families hanging out, little picnics:

And children everywhere.

People just kept showing up. The town must have been nearly empty. It was really wonderful - with such a small community (about 1500) everyone knows everyone. You can actually have these massive sorts of events and it has an enormous sense of community about it.

The main event for the day was a big sled race. For this, there were five teams contesting, who had been encouraged to build their machines for speed and/or laughter.

Getting ready - pushing the sleds up the hill:

Before the race, Ulli (one of the Frozen Five) explains how his stuffed bear will insure victory:

It was bright enough out to need sunglasses. Ridiculous!

A few straglers coming out from town - its really a rather large distance to walk.

The scooters compile into a collection of...a lot:

Puppy:

The track for the big race:

The first team, named the Arctic Bunnies, quickly developed problems on their way down:

That would be Regga (the Icelandic girl from my building) getting left behind her teammates...

Eventually the whole thing sort of got...creative.

The next team, made of people from town, had an impressive showing:

But Ulli's team, on the Baby Bullet, blew everyone else out of the water. On their welded monstrosity (the head of which was a huge auger) they tore down the track without steering or brakes threatening to put a hole though anyone who got in their way.

Next came another towns-people team - what appeared to be the plumbers, as they rode essentially a full bathroom down the hill.

The final team, however, won for most amusing.

Looking up the hill, the crowd realized that the team participant's appeared to be signficantly disrobed. They rode their make-shift Finnish sauna, complete with working heated-stone steamer, down the hill at remarkable speed. Unfortunately, they quickly suffered a casualty:

But were hardly slowed.

After the finish line, they joined the bathroom team for a photo op.

By far the fastest, the Baby Bullet team picks up their winnings:

A nice little barbeque - whale burgers! Delicious.

And then everyone prepared to head home.

Check out the medic's tires:

My fellow American's, Jeff and Colin:

After driving around the fjord a little, I arrived back in town at the tail-end of a snowmobile drag-race.

And that...was Solfestuka!

Day 226: More Things

2007-03-13T15:09:00.000-01:00

Some unexpected complications have recently prevented me from updating as much as I would like. Regardless, here we go.

Ok, so, last week was the Solfestuka. On March 8th, the sun could in theory be seen from the town. Unfortunately, the weather said no. All the same, most of the townspeople met at the old hospital steps for the ceremony of welcoming back the sun.

Some photos of the scenery:

The church, in the general vicinity:

The most awesome location for a preschool ever:

A bunch of school kids were around to participate in the going-ons, and some of them were in a formation holding umbrellas. I'm not really sure what this was about. Something...sunny.

Tons of cute kids running around. Most everyone was decked out in some kind of sunshine paraphernalia.

Kids galore:

Kid, totally passed out:

My mini-doppelganger:

Class lining up in their positions:

So many people! Lots of kids=lots of parents.

The head of ceremonies did a little interview with the young man who drew this year's logo, a happy-looking sun. From what I gathered from my translator, this fellow gave an entertaining interview...something to the lines of: Announcer - "Hey there! How did you decide to draw this sun?" Kid - "Well...I drew a sun. Then I put legs on it." [in a tone of speaking to an idiot]

MORE KIDS:

The highly-exuberant head of ceremonies:

Some Norwegain fellows from my building singing along with the songs:

A song and dance about the sun:

Cute, cute cute:

One of the hundred kids eating snow during the ceremony. Snow-eating seems to be really popular in the younger population.

I have to say, on one level, the ceremony was a little sad - it was very obvious that the sun was not going to show, and yet the master of ceremonies kept calling for the kids to wave and sing louder to make the sun come out. It got to the point where I began to wonder if they had installed a big stobe light on the mountain top, or something, to reward their screams. But no.

I think there's about a 50/50 kid to clothing ratio for most of these:

Local scallywag climbs a roof:

Kid climbs shoulders:

Man takes photos from convienient window:

Kid gets TOTALLY ADORABLE:

And then dubious.

All in all, a lovely if sunless ceremony!

Later that day, the town had an enormous sun cake given out to everyone who showed up - this record cake was measured at 6.96m.

Which, after my first bite, I realized was made of something like pure nuts (to which I am allergic, but luckily in the vomiting-way, not the dying-way). So I took a break to sit outside. On the steps, I kept hearing someone...I don't know, sniffing, or coughing, and I realized I was sitting next to a baby.

So that happened. Later I took this photo, proving Americans and Norwegains can be friends:

But we already knew that!

Day 224: Everything is Temporary These Days

2007-03-11T15:51:00.000-01:00

This week has been extremely busy and very amazing. We've just finished the week's festivities for Solfestuka, the festival for the return of the sun. The organizers had asked for volunteers from UNIS, so I worked for two of the events in exchange for some concert tickets. The first event I worked with was a Liv Mari Schei concert. This young woman sings songs about coal mining. Very mellow sort of Enya-like stuff, not really my kind of music, but it was interesting to see an artist from Longyearbyen.

It was held in the SAS Radisson's bar, a nice little place. About 80% of the people in this photo are related to UNIS:

By far one of the most fantastic things this week was getting into the Dum Dum Boys concert. I hadn't really heard of them before, but the bits and pieces I found online sounded pretty good. They're extremely popular around here, and they were sold out of tickets except for 25 that they would sell at the door. I assumed I didn't have a chance, and forgot about it, until a friend called me the afternoon before the concert. A bunch of UNIS students had camped out outside the restaurant the night before, and if I went I would be 10th in line for one of those final tickets. So instead of sitting in my office all day, I sat in the snow for about 6 hours in line for concert tickets.

Lene, the fantastic friend who told me to drop everything and sit outside all day:

We actually made it into the local newspaper (look here - I'm sitting on the far right), and some of the people were interviewed by the radio station. Someone had a set of battery-powered speakers, so we plugged in some music. They had dug out a sort of couch in the snow, and got the restaurant to deliver food to us outside, so really, it was pretty good time out in the cold. The people who had spent the night outside brought a stove and even made eggs and bacon for breakfast. Just like camping out for tickets anywhere!

And it was completely worth it - definitely one of the best concerts I've ever been to. We nearly had a riot at the door because some late-comers weren't too cooperative about the line we had arranged. The restaurant actually called the police to decide who would get in, and luckily the people who deserved to get in (everyone who had bene sitting outside for at least 4 hours) got their tickets.

The next day (March 8th) was the official day for the return of the sun. Everyone was supposed to meet at the steps of the old hospital for a ceremony and to greet the sun. This did indeed happen, minus the greeting the sun part:

No sun whatsoever.

[several hours later]

It's my bedtime. More exciting updates tomorrow, with photos galore.

Day 221: Let's be honest

2007-03-08T18:59:00.000-01:00

I've had a few posts like this before, so let me once again put this out there - the following pictures are not for the delicate. Don't worry, I didn't loose a leg or something. This is a story...about a couple of seals. A couple of seals that woke up as seals, and ended up as seal jerky.

My friend Pierre informed me that some friends of his had shot a pair of seals and I could come watch the skinning if I wanted to. Which of course I did. Unfortunately I missed the first part because I went to some night lectures at UNIS (this was the night of the IPY opening). So all of my photos are significantly internal, we might say.

Pierre with some blubber:

Eyeballs:

After they take off all the meat and organs, the skin is left with a heavy layer of blubber. To get that blubber off, the skin is nailed to a piece of wood and hauled upright. Most of what I saw was of that long process.

Lifting the remarkably heavy skin:

Stretching one out a bit:

Starting to clean:

Pierre and a friend continue cleaning off bigger chunks of meat on theirs:

This guy does a good job:

Funny story...seal meat stinks really bad.

I didn't really get into it because I wasn't wearing the right clothes (ie things I didn't mind ruining) but the smell sticks to everything - its that special seal oil.

Once they clean the skins, they'll preserve them with salt for awhile, like so:

But until then, there's lots more of this:

After all that business was done, Pierre brought home some meat, which we are currently curing into seal jerky in our attic.

Delish.