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.