August 18, 2018

Today we spent our final hours at Nester 1. We woke up at 8:00 and had cereal, oatmeal, toast, and French toast for breakfast. After we finished eating we packed all of our gear and cleaned up camp. The first chopper came at 9. Ryan’s field course students were coming into Nestor 1 as we were leaving. It took 5 trips to get everyone and everything out of Nestor 1 and to the CNSC. As we flew over the park, we could see the destruction of the land caused by the snow geese that Jill had told us about. We got some sick pics. Everyone was so estatic to shower for the first time in a week. Once we arrived at the CNSC we raced to the showers and unpacked. We were all very excited to have the scrumptious food prepared by the cooks at the CNSC for lunch. The omnivores had Mac and cheese and salad, and the Vegans had a wonderful bean chillin sauce on pasta. After lunch we went to C5 and C6 (two fens)  to collect data. They were so close together that we split up the group and were able to do both sites at the same time. Probing these sites was the hardest task we have ever done in our entire lives. There were knocks and bruises but after a while we were able to get it done. As you probe the active layer, you go through a layer of clay. The clay sticks to the probe  which makes it very difficult. The fun group took advantage of this and made face masks out of the clay (fun group = Lexi+Ian+Mark+Anna+Aralyn). We had an extremely bumpy ride back on the bus that the CNSC provided for us. We made it back just in time for dinner. We had salad, vegetable fried rice, barbecue chicken, and the vegans had sesame tofu. After dinner we went to Deacon’s (a Junior Canadian Ranger) family’s greenhouses in town. He grows tomatoes, lettuce, raspberries, peas, raddishes, rubarb, potatoes, limes, and many other crazy things. They use some of the food they grow for their hotel that they own in town. Than we split up from the adults and got a tour of town from Terry (a Junior Canadian Ranger). We explored the complex which includes a hospital, a school, pools, basketball courts/gym, a movie theatre, an ice rink, a library, and many other things. When we got picked up by Julie and Mark, we got locked out of the bus but luckily we have some petite members in ISAMR. Sam heroically crawled through an open window and let us in. We drove back to the CNSC through a thunder storm. We began preparing for our departure to the fort. It’s unbelievable that we just woke up this morning in Wapusk, and now we won’t ever see it again for another year, hopefully. Today was a very busy adventure.  

- Alayna and Ian