Blog Update August 12

This morning we woke up to wet. It had rained a lot overnight - a lot meaning we fell asleep to the sound of mini hurricanes around our tent. When I woke, Cate was using my feet as a pillow because Alana pushed her so far into the side of the tent during the night to avoid the rain seeping through our tarp. Then Alana, who had comfortably slept in the dry area of the tent, stole Cates crocs to get ready as the rest of us begrudgingly slipped out of our sleeping bags. Since our makeshift table made of bins and wood was wet, all 20 of us ate a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and potatoes over the small table in the kitchen. As per usual, we washed dishes and packed our lunches, then headed to the north gate for some yoga with Carla to help our sore legs. That morning we were headed to W12 - a fen, which is basically like a marsh - to do our transects and take data. The walk there was through many fens and a small stream, but magically my boots didn’t get stuck in any of the mud. We also walked through a big patch of willows, which are notorious polar bear hiding spots. There, I first did DNA with Ryan L. and Sydney, where the three of us dug holes around specific flags on the transect to gather soil for bacterial analysis. We used a hori-hori to dig six inches into the ground, gather the soil, and put it in test tubes. After getting our gloves covered in soil, we obtained 12 DNA samples. Sydney and I then moved onto doing pinning with Vicki where we identified plant cover around the quadrat. It was fairly simple compared to the bog because the majority of plants were carex aquatilis and scirpus caespitosis. Around 12:30 we ate lunch on some of the hummocks on the fen and watched caribou stare at us. At the beginning of the trip we became ecstatic if we saw a caribou really far away, but they have since become bolder and will now walk incredibly close to us. Besides the sight of the caribou, we also watched Sydney dig two giant holes in the hummock with her hands so they were covered shoulder deep in mud. After lunch we split into two groups, one heading back to nester one and the other on an adventure to retrieve Cate’s lost boots from the fox den we visited the previous day. I went on the excursion, led by Manitoba Mike along with 6 others, to find the boots. The walk was about double the length of the way back, but it was mostly beach ridge, so the terrain wasn’t hard. The hardest part was we had to keep stopping when we found caribou antler sheds to get coordinates for another scientist we work with data. Once we found the boots we took a picture with them to commemorate the moment, then took a brief nap on the beach ridge. Leo thought he saw a polar bear in a nearby lake, but it was definitely a bird; it was way too small to be a bear. After our brief nap we continued to walk to the tundra, back to nester one, and arrived somewhere between 3 and 4. In the afternoon at nester, I played a card game called President with a bunch of people in the kitchen, and being one of two people who already wasn’t new to the game, I won every round. Then a few of us went to take DNA, macro, and micro at an inactive fox den. The walk there was also through a fen and I did end up tripping in the mud once :(. Also on the way our GPS died, so we had to try and find the den by looking through the binoculars for the cameras that watch the den. We eventually found the den and collected our data. Our trip photographer was not there with us so I was tasked with the camera, so we spent the next 5 minutes trying to figure out how to take a timer picture in front of the den. I listened to John teach Julie about economics on the walk back. There was also some basketball game going on in the background. That night we also watched the moon rise because it was a blood moon and made the camp tinted orange. Afterwards we spent some time on the observation deck and then headed to our tents to sleep.

Written by Maya