Marilynn in her super-suit. This is our finest hour. Water sampling at 2 am on the Arctic Ocean.

Ta-ta for now.

This afternoon Heidi and I will be heading out of Windy Camp for about two weeks, for a spa vacation on the Kent Peninsula. We are both really looking forward to our yummy dehydrated food and some tundra peace. On the other hand we have made friends with some people in camp that will be gone when we return, for example, Dick the Australian cowboy helicopter pilot. We'll miss his stories (eg. 'the time I punched a demon-possessed ptarmigan', 'the beer commercial', and others) and amusing flying style...'he flies like he stole it' -Pete, helicopter engineer. We have also had to say goodbye to our good friend Stephane the pilot, who has an unbelievable ability to place our boat on the shore PERFECTLY every time, therefore requiring much less muscle power on our part. We're looking forward to seeing him again in August but wish he was around to keep an eye on us during our tundra adventure like last year.

Take care, everyone, and we'll post when we get back.

Scarves of Serenity

It is bloody windy. We were hoping that we wouldn’t have to use our new windproof neckwarmers until August, but alas, they made their debut last night. Following Kathryn’s suggestions, our stylish ‘Scarves of Serenity’ are made of two layers of windproof fleece, complete with a drawstring at the top, and a snazzy trim of polar bear/igloo flannel (good for boogers). Amidst the chaos, all we need to do is to pull the neckwarmer past our eyes so that it overlaps with our toques, and, presto, two shivery sticks on the tundra become two serene sticks on the tundra! Although it was a bit cold, it was the first day we didn’t have to be covered head to toe for the bugs…yahoo?

Difficulties at Night

Since we switched to working nights, Heidi and I have found some tasks more difficult than normal. For example, brushing our teeth in the morning (evening). It seems that it doesn’t matter how early we get up, the helicopter is always ready to take us a half hour ahead of when we expect to leave. We have also found it difficult to sleep, with beavers practically flying through our tent several times per day and helicopters slinging stuff all evening. We have commandeered a superior tent, so now we don’t have to deal with leaky screens, leaky roofs, and smoke detectors inspired by leaks. We have found it difficult to eat. We had to deal with bugs when we were working during the day, and we’ve developed methods to deal with that, but it seems that we don’t get hungry at night, possibly because we are too cold/buggy/rushed to be ready before helicopter comes, or maybe our bodies think that we should be sleeping, not eating. The lack of non meat items available at dinner (our breakfast) has made it difficult for Heidi to pack lunch, so when I panicked when I realized that I had forgotten my lunch, Heidi comforted me with ‘Oh, don’t worry, you can have half of my pickle and cheese sandwich’. well, at least she’s got three food groups covered. We are more or less surviving on a diet of cookies and cinnamon buns purloined from the ‘land of milk and honey’, Boston Camp. We find it difficult to remember to drink. We have no excuse for this, other than digging through bags to find our bottles. Heidi and I expect to have kidney stones and diabetes by next Thursday.

PS Moms: We are joking about the kidney stones. and diabetes.

Let me start by explaining that Heidi and I, with the exception of a small nap, have been working for 24 hours. It is all part of Heidi’s master plan to switch to the night shift so that we can get helicopter time when we need it. Ask us in a few days how we enjoy eating breakfast for dinner and dinner for breakfast. We really weren’t sure if we should have eaten a meal last night or not, and if we should, what time should we eat it at? Since I dropped some chemicals on Heidi’s snacks, we had to resort to emergency cookies. At our first lake I tested my skill as zooplankton collector and failed miserably. Never in my life would I ever imagined it possible to haul a zooplankton net and bring up ONE zooplankter. I thought my eyes were getting silly because it was ridunkulously late, and I should have been curled up in my sleeping bag (that I am slightly allergic to, damnit!), but, nope, that was by far, the most unsuccessful zooplankton haul ever.

Since we were working at lightning speed (go team!), we had a bit of time so we took our helicopter pilot friend Stephane to the fish fence so he could get his picture taken with one of the big fish. Heidi climbed up the fence and nabbed the biggest, meanest, wiliest arctic charr in the trap, and was skilfully passing it to me when it jumped out of the net into no-fish’s-land between the wings of the traps. Pretty much the worst place the fish could have jumped into. After they caught the fish, I shot a movie of Stephane with the fish…

Stephane (holding the fish): So, here we are, with the biggest fish here…(chokes on mosquito and sends a gob of spit flying…all caught on tape)…at which point Heidi and I hit the tundra laughing. We could roll around on the hummocks well because we were still wearing PFDs. In any case, we think Stephane enjoyed his initiation to charr wrasslin’.

Quote of the day/night: H: Who would have thought we’d be hauling boulders across the tundra (see earlier blog entry referring to anchors and their lack of hookiness)? M: at two o clock in the morning?!

Paul's 20-minute fight with a lake trout ends in success


Let's take stock

Experienced blog readers will be familiar with this phrase. In the logistically demanding routine of Arctic field work, we say this at least twice a day. Well, we are about to start Golder's water sampling tomorrow. We will be working the night shift because the camp and helicopters are so busy. Good thing it's 24 hour daylight! In any case, we went to take stock of the water quality equipment today.

Item #1. Boat. Well. To avoid the problems of last year (see earlier blog entries) we had a boat from Golder checked and sent up especially for water sampling. Unforturnately, the boat was accidentally slung into a broken piece of drill casing the other day, taking the leaky red boat status (LRB) to an extremely leaky red boat (ELRB) status. We tried to patch it but to no avail. So, we have a boat that will likely sink. Although I am not the most cautious of people, I decided this boat was bad news. We are now sharing a boat with another crew that's doing the day shift.

Item #2. Water quality meter. Well. To avoid infinite problems with calibration that we had last year, we had a brand new meter bought and sent up. Unfortunately, it weighs 50 lbs. Now, why would someone design a field meter that weights 50 lbs? I have no idea. Also, the data logger won't connect to the probe unless it's fully charged. Because there are electrical sockets on every lake, of course.

Heidi: Let's take stock. We have no boat. Someone else has a fully functional boat that we can probably share but we will need to get mixed gas, because the boat we were expecting to use takes straight gas (see earlier entry regarding sheep and shepherds). The water quality meter does not work unless fully charged and unless we have a lot of siksiks trained to run on hamster wheels, the meter is useless. We can share a water quality meter with the day shift crew as well. Hopefully. Unfortunately, it's nickname is the horrible meter (Horiba meter). In other news, our radio doesn't work, making it difficult to communicate with the pilots.

Marilynn: It's fine, I'm sure it's fine.

Today, Marilynn and I walked about 6 km of tundra while sampling streams. Marilynn is learning about hummocks and their devlish ways. On these walks, we often use our wet wader boots with plastic bags over our socks so that we don't have to haul hiking boots along. At kilometer 5, we paused.

Heidi: We are about to enter the willow bloodbath. Remember, don't step on top of the hummocks, aim for the holes. Prepare for 10 minutes of horrible-ness.

Marilynn: Heidi, when we get to the end of the willow bloodbath, are you planning to climb that sheer, slippery bedrock cliff in felt-bottomed wader boots?

Heidi: M, it's really MUCH easier if you think of wader boots as your spidey boots. If you think you will stick, you will stick.

Marilynn: I am dubious.

Heidi: As well you should be. Aim for the lichen. It's stickier.

These bugs are ridunculous.

So this is the latest quote from Marilynn, "Heidi, I don't know if I can take many more mosquitos" Paul, the Golder guy we're working with phrased it like this, "I am being totally annihilated." Yup, the weather is awesome. Hot, hot, hot. And, unfortunately, no wind. We gauge the progress of the day by what body parts are on fire. Today, after a 2 hour walk across the tundra in the buggiest bugs ever, we got back to the fish fence and decided our hands and face were never going to feel the same. Solution: we stood in the stream with our heads underwater and our hands on the bottom to numb the bug bite wounds. We call it the fish fence ostrich. The charr wrasslin' is more difficult with nitrile gloves on, but those little babies are surprisingly bug-proof. This morning, I decided to try citronella. I didn't think it was going to work, and neither did anybody else. Paul told me to let him know how it went. Thirty seconds later I was rolling around in the stream in agony washing it off. Turns out I have a skin sensitivity to citronella. Hmmmm. But, our gear FINALLY arrived with bug jackets! Yes! And a new dip net. Paul had taken to hunting down the charr in the stream with his bare hands. Which, astoundingly, actually worked once or twice.

Stephane our helicopter pilot friend is back! YAY!

Ahh, the age old question. When falling asleep, do you put your sleeping bag over your head and roast to death or listen to bugs buzzing in your ear? Speaking of which, this was another quote of Marilynn's today, "Heidi, just so you know, there is a dead and bloody mosquito in your ear. It's kind of gross. "

Heidi in Paul's back-up waders (notice the good fit)

Charr Chaos 2-Double O-Seven is Here!

Hello everyone! We're back. The ice is melting, bugs are flying (correction, LOTS of bugs are flying), and we are fishing. This year got off to a more sane start, with our carts already built, less food to dehydrate, and more chopper support. YES!!!! For new readers, you should scroll back through the archives to get a feel for the project and our dubious talent for songwriting. For old readers, you may be somewhat relieved to hear that we have not been driven to song adaptation (yet).

So, this year Kathryn has a full-time job in BC. This unfortunate (for me) circumstance necessitated an alternate crazy girl #2. Marilynn, my office and lab-mate from New Brunswick, is up with me for 6 weeks and Roshini, my insane roomate from New Brunswick, is up with me for the last 4 weeks. Marilynn came out to Edmonton to start the marathon of cooking and dehydrating in early June. She also sewed us wind-proof neckwarmers (see earlier blog entry).

Our arrival in Windy Camp was somewhat less eventful than last year. We had flights in with Miramar so we didn't have to shout for Fred in the Cambridge Bay airport. However, we discovered upon arrival that the majority of our gear has not arrived and is archived in a warehouse in yellowknife. This is most unfortunate as we have: a) no waders; and, b) no bug jackets. Not to be deterred by minor setbacks, we purloined some excess waders and pulled out our new whizzy bug hats (best twenty-five dollars EVER spent). We don't really have most of our fishing gear yet, so we have been spending the last couple of days at the fish fence helping the golder crew out and opportunistically sampling charr and trout - YES. We'll be in Windy Camp until the 24th, mostly sampling water for Golder and then we head out for our Nauyuk Lake adventure on the Kent Peninsula. It will just be me, Marilynn, the bugs, and the charr for a couple of weeks and we're really looking forward to it.

We will leave you with a parting shot of our first charr of the year. This one mananged to flip so violently on the table that my camera and the pit tag needle flew away at high speed. Fortunately, the camera is shock proof.

We hope you are all enjoying summer as we watch the first spring flowers come out.

PS. Zippy (the only quasi air-tight boat) was slung full speed into a broken drill casing yesterday. Zippy is no longer air tight. Or water tight. Sigh.