Agashashok, Noatak National Preserve

Bear training began the day.  I'm a novice with bears, to put it lightly, so the training was much needed.  Watched a nice 1980 training film that was actually really helpful, giving good information on bear behavior and what each means and the proper reaction to take.  Then came the guns.  Twelve gauge shotguns.  I won't be carrying one in the field but received the training anyway.  So. Much. Kick.  I shot with buckshot, not slugs, but that was enough.  Managed to hit the bear target full in the heart and lungs with four shots 20 m away.  A "charging bear" target was hooked to the back of a four wheeler by a rope that zooms the target towards the shooter.  Sonny nailed this task easily putting three dead center of the bear.  I didn't shoot at this one.  Fish and Wildlife are a little strapped for cash and ammo so shooting at this target is reserved to qualify for your primary shooter certification.

From bear training to bush plane.  Two first in one day.  With Bob, Gwen, and I, our monitoring gear and camping supplies, it took two planes to shuttle us from Kotzebue to our site in the Noatak.  Flying over the bay and to the foothills of the Brooks, the plane was bounced around like an beachball in the wind.  Nothing nerve racking as the pilot didn't even have his hands on the controls, feeling free to let the plane bob and weave as it wished.  

The views were incredible.  From flat tundra of Selawik to rolling treed mountains  of the Noatak.  Able to spot a few bears from out the window on an elevated open tundra area.

A small gravel bar in the river was what the pilot had to work with for a landing strip but it seemed like a routine, if easy landing to him.  No trouble at all.  The planes were unloaded quickly, with the second arriving a few minutes later and bags were ferried quickly from its cargo area.  Not much chit chat, time was settled for our pick up and then the planes were off.  Out of sight and ear quickly, fading into the clouds closing over the small mountains.  

Our campsite nesteled on the shores of the Agashashonk river.  We camped on a gravel bar to try and keep the mosquitoes down as the wind is much stronger near the river.  However, this ment we had to cross the river every morning to get to our sample locations.  Bob and Gwen making the trip across before one of them has to come back and grab me.  

The first day consisted of a short hike to lower spruce plots to dig out resin bags, take a few water samples, and gather soil samples.  Not too strenuous of a day but the mosquitoes were out in force.  A cloud follows you around, with them taking advantage of any patch of exposed skin.  

The first few morning began cold and foggy, with temps dropping at night.  Happy I went with the 20 degree bag and not the 30.I did wake up at around 1 am the second night and took a quick stroll around.  The morning routine consisted of making some oatmeal, talking about research and varied topics with Bob and Gwen at the "mess tent" and outlining the plans for the day.  We typically are not in too much of a hurry to get going in the mornings.  Not like we have limited sunlight or anything.  The third field day involved trekking further up to the second tier of spruce plots.  My comfort in bear country is growing daily.  We all make plenty of noise and have bear spray strapped to our shoulder bags but I am no longer afraid of running into a bear.  Just cautious enough to hopefully prevent an encounter.  Bob denotes that an encounter is any aggressive interaction with a bear.  He says he hasn't had one in this area his whole time on the site.

Day four dawned with a big trek into the alpine, about a 7 hour round trip with sampling.  Our path took us through stunted spruce, riparian zones with thick alder and willow, before emerging on high scree slopes of granite.   A panorama looking back down our study site from the high alpine. Sneaking a photo of Bob on the high alpine, Gwen pulling out ressin bags, and me in my very stylish mosquito net. 

Some of the best views of the entire trip to date.  Panoramas in every direction with only a few light rain showers dampening the mood.  We took our samples, trecked to the top to view the other side, a vast tundra littered with ponds that stretched until meeting the edge of the brooks range. 

Following our day in the alpine, we had a lot of resin bags to process and soil samples to dry, keeping us in camp all day.  The wind that typically kept mosquitoes from getting to bad failed to blow and Gwen, Bob, and I got swarmed.  Doing lab work with your pants tucked into socks, shirt into underwear, and a headnet on was a new experience.  Tip, thick socks DO NOT stop mosquitoes.  I have the ankles to prove this point.

The one benefit of having a day in camp meant I could do a little hiking on my own in the evenings.  I had been eyeing a route all week and decided to climb a nearby scree slope to check it out for next time Gwen and I travel to the Aggy. Everything looked pretty doable and got some really nice views of the valley in addition to checking out the longer hike.  

Woke with a startthe second to last night in camp.  My tent was shaking, there was a low rumble, but no wind.  I was really confused about what was going on until the morning when Bob and Gwen said they heard it too.  We had felt the shocks of an earthquake.  I've never been somewhere quiet enough to hear one as it happened.  It's almost like hearing the lowest register on a pipe organ.  A smaller tremor happened again the next night and was a good sendoff  to the first week of Noatack work.

Kotzebue

Kotzebue will be the "home base" of opperations for flying between Selawik and Noatak sites.  Not too much goin on in town and watching the ice flows seems to be a popular activity.  The flows move quickly across the shoreline of Kotzebue, flushed out from the interior bay by the Noatak River.  Think of sweeping a large pile of glass across the floor and you'll get close to the sound of ice flowing by.

At most, it looks like I will be in Kotzebue about one day every week between trips, mainly to restock on food and ship samples off to varied labs for further processing before heading back out into the field in Selawik or Noatak.   The view from the Fish and Wildlife bunkhouse isn't too bad and will make spending the few nights in Kotzebue a welcome break.  Flushing toilets and a decent mattress go a long way.

Speaking of food, groceries are seriously expensive and much more than I had even anticipated.  My first night in town, picked up a few items, hardly enough to fill my backpack, and was hit with a $80.00 bill.  Tortillas for $7.00 and any fruit or vegetable costing anywhere from $3.00 to $5.00 a pop adds up quick. 

I've alredy met a good group of people in Kotzebue through a weekly yoga class and spening time at the Fish and Wildlife and Park Service offices.  Nyssa, a Park Service employee who teaches the yoga class was nice enough to show me around town and some good spots to get away from the constant noise of Kotzebue.  No one seems to be up before noon here but 4X4s and barking dogs make up for the late start.

Circle road is a nine mile loop that makes its way across the tundra before looping back across the airport runway to the opposite side of the village.  Yeah, you can walk and drive across the airport runway here.  A stop sign and raising gate keep you from being run over but not much else keeps you from being in the wrong place a the wrong time if you aren't paying attention. 

First Trip To Selawik

Fog kept our plane grounded from Kotzebue to Selewik.  Things are pretty informal at the airport so the pilot just came in and informed us of the delay.  There are only two flights all day to Selawik so not too intensive of a schedule to keep.  We boarded the plane and taxied before again being sent back due to fog in Selawik.  For the third time, we boarded the plane which forced me to fold in half over the seats and cargo to make it to my seat.  I sat directly behind the pilot for the flight and notice him taking an iPad from his bag and using a navigational app to supplement the planes instrumentation.  They may do this on larger planes but was kinda funny to see the mustachioed pilot velcro his to the controls.

The airport in Selawik was non-existent, with the pilot setting down the American Flag painted plane on a thin spit of gravel out into the bay.  Locals dressed in street clothes on four wheelers with each of them having a cigarette  from their lip, unloaded our bags from the plane.  They lifted them from the belly to about 5 feet from the plane where we then loaded them into a trailer hooked to a four wheeler.  Frank, Sonny as everyone calls him, was there to great us at the airport.  He is a local from the area but works part time for the Fish and Wildlife Service.  He took most of the bags, along with Bob and Gwen while I waited for him to come back.  A woman, Dellia pulled up on a 4X4 and there was another man on riding on the back over the left tire with a cig hanging out of his mouth too.  She informed me that I was staying by their house and took me along riding over the right tire with my bag on my back and some instruments on my lap.  There are zero roads in Selawik, rather a network of wooden catwalks connect building due to permafrost.  Four bys fly around these and there is no apparent minimum age for driving one.  Pretty sure I saw a group of twelve year olds flying around corners.

We stayed in a plywood bunk house with a large storage area, hotplate, one bedroom with a questionable mattress and small office.  Strange enough, it had internet.  Slow, but more connected there than in Kotzebue.  All the gear was crammed in, leaving minimal space to move around.  Sonny came back around a short time later and we donned our thick survival type suits (not the gumby esk kind) and hopped on the boat for the first taste of field work.  Perfectly sunny, a bit cold, but nice to be out of the village and on the maze of rivers.  Without Sonny, there is no chance we would be able to find the sites or make it back to the village. Everything looks like everything else and there are minimal, if any landmarks to keep you oriented.  

I managed to find a little nook between all our stacked gear to fit my sleeping pad catch a  little fitful sleep.  The floor was so dusty that my eyes were watery red balls in the morning when I went to brush my teeth.  Still better than the bed in my opinion.  Loaded up the gear after an oatmeal breakfast to hit the one of the two upriver stations and make basecamp at the cabin to conduct experiments and travel to the furthest upriver station.  Each station usually consists of taking light profiles, installation and downloading data from monitoring probes, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, and a plethera of other measures.  Even with the sun out, I got off the skiff at the cabin shivering uncontrollably.  This with the thick space suit and practically all my clothing on.  Sitting in an open skiff when it is 30 degrees out for two and a half hours gets you pretty cold.

The cabin is much more posh than I was expecting, with the compound located on a small lagoon including a few outbuildings containing research equipment, a tool shed, and even a sauna.  Too bad the sauna has become a storage area.  Swallows are abundant in the area, with most of the buildings having two or three birdhouses on them.  The dip and weave, catching mosquitoes out of the air.  I found a small decked area to sit for a while and stare at the far off mountains and the swallows dove ever closer to me to pick bugs out of the air near my head.

Most of the time at the cabin was taken up filtering samples and performing primary production studies.  Water samples are collected from a depth of one meter and then placed in bottles to incubate in the lagoon.  To the left is a photo courtesy of Sonny showing Gwen and I grabbing the bottles out of the water and getting ready to start a new set.  

Following our fourth day at the cabin, Sonny took us back to Selawik. The river wa unusually rough due to wind and currents, producing whitecaps on a river about 500 ft wide.  Gwen and I sat at the front of the boat and were bounced and thrown about for three hours. My body was really sore the next day from the constant jarring.  Spending another night on the storage floor in Selawik didn't help much either.  

I walked around before heading to bed to see the small city and maybe meet some people.  Selawik is an interesting place.  Dogs are everywhere and always barking, garbage and broken down snowmobiles, or snowgos as they are called, litter "yards", and the entire community is under an unofficial, "you should boil water cause our sewage system doesn't really work," stipulation.  A very different way of life that was not what I was necessarily expecting to see in a subsistence tundra village.  Instead of a proper landfill, it seems that locals take their trash out to certain spots in the river and dump it.  Old stoves, tv's, bags of garbage and other items littered certain parts of Fish River close to town.  But, the people of Selawik are some of the nicest you would ever want to meet.  When I was walking around, one kid ran up to me to walk with me and show me his action figure.  Then, seeing a bike in a puddle, fished it out and wanted me to carry it home for him.  We got to his house, he grabbed the bike and ran inside.  On the other side of town, another kid, named Peite (not sure on the spelling but that's how it sounded) wanted me to walk him to church.  I followed him down winding paths through the brush, over a bridge that stops halfway in the middle over the river and then you have to balance on a 4 x 4 the rest of the way, and on catwalks before we got to his church.  He just ran inside and waved at me through the window.  A very interesting place for sure.

Got out onto the river around 6:00 am the following day to hit the lower river stations and tundra pond before the river got too nasty to make work impossible.  Returning from sampling, we scrambled to get the gear together to make the 10:00 am flight but no one was round to four wheel us to the airpor.  Fortunately, Sonny noticed another plane come in about an hour later, zoomed over to tell the pilot to hold for us, and we got out on the later flight to avoid spending another night in Selawik.  The plane back to Kotzebue was even smaller, with most of the samples and gear taking up a majority of space.  On the way back, one of the kids on the plane was blasting rap so loud in his headphones that it could be heard over the engine drone.  50 cent is alive and well in Selawik apparently. 

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Whistler, BC was relaxing but rain came down in sheets for nearly my entire visit.  Most of my time was spent drinking coffee and reading "crack books," as my friend Jen calls them.  Highly addictive but no redeeming intellectual value. Sun showed its face for a few hours on my last day and I stretched my legs a bit,  biking the Valley Trail which winds through forests and around numerous lakes.  The next day my journey to Alaska would begin.

Started the morning off by taking the Greyhound from Whistler.  The bus packed itself full after Squamish (halfway between Whistler and Vancouver) so basically had to fold in half to fit into my seating area.  The man in front took pity on me and moved his chair to the full upright position so my chin wasn't on his seatback.  Seriously, chin on the seatback.      


Meandered through Vancouver's Chinatown, heading towards the Sky Train after arriving at Greyhound's bus depot.  Really wish my camera hounden't been safely stored in the clothing stuff sack.  The vibrant open markets and strong colors would have been something to capture.bringing me to the Vancouver airport and my next bus leg. 

Arrived at Vancouver International Airport after a short tram ride from downtown Waterfront Station.  Boarding Quick Bus, the journey was strange in that it involved a massive bus, yet only 10 other people traveled from Vancouver.  So much for efficiency of public or mass transportation eh?  I took the first seat up front to be able to look out the window during the drive and just think.  No music, no books, just thoughts.  Noticed the bus driver had a few quirky mannerisms that ended up entertaining me throughout the drive.  

Mannerism #1.  He seemed to be practicing a speech in his head.  Hands subtly moving, swaying gently back and forth, and brow significantly furrowed in concentration.  But, he would snap from the trance, realizing his actions and back off the display only to unconsciously return to the behavior.  

Mannerism #2.  He was a snacker.  But not junk food.  Oh no, our driver was a health snacker.  Multiple little bags of carrots, fruit, and unknown health items grabbed from his bag when he needed to refuel so as to not run out of energy during his speech practice.

Mannerism #3.  After every snack - he ate all the above on individual occasions and multiple bags of each - a stash of flossing picks would appear, one carefully chosen, and aggressively flossing would ensue.


Admittedly, I can't blame the man for having a routine on the ride.  With no music and scenery he has most likely seen a thousand times, a distraction on the journey is needed. 

I spent 10 minutes in the Seattle airport before I decided to splurge a little and get a hotel for the night.  Alaska airlines doesn't allow check in more than 4 hours prior to departure, stymieing my airport sleeping options.  I chose Motel 6.  Mistake.  Should've splurged a little more.  Here's the rundown.  According to the Motel 6 website, free wifi, complimentary breakfast, and prompt airport shuttle were all available.  False.  Airport shuttle took nearly an hour to pick me up after I called, a warning of impending doom.  Checked into the room and greeted with stained covers still on the bed.  Good thing there were two beds in the room so no worries right?  Just sleep in the clean one.  Not gonna justify that logic in hindsight.  Hair in the shower and sink too.   Found a credit card in the room so brought that down to the front desk and asked how to log onto the free wifi.  Oh, its $5.00.  I guess not a big deal but felt like a classic bait and switch.  Just about to hit the pillow when a party started in the room beside me.  Thud of crappy techno music and girls going "Woooo!"  From the safety of my room, heard another guest tell them to keep it down, promptly followed by a "F**K OFF!"  The morning spread consisted of watery coffee.  Ideal continental breakfast.  


Flight into Anchorage from Seattle went smoothly but unfortunately didn't get to see much out the window aS thick clouds prevented my view.  Did snap a few gloomy photos from the plane on the approach.  Also, TSA hired a few new employees, puppies.  A little in training bomb sniffer was runnin around the terminal as happy as could be.  

Boarding the flight from Anchorage to Kotzebue, it was very apparent that everyone knew one another, including flight attendants.  Like an idiot, I managed to sit in the wrong seat, being asked to move by a twelve year old.  Watching luggage transfer into the plane's belly, tables, boxes of Gatorade, Ikea shelving , and a small toolbox sat snugly in with typical luggage.

The ground below was hidden by cloud cover but the sky did break as Kotzebue neared, exposing an endless expanse of tundra and ice clogged inlets.  No sign of human occupancy anywhere until reaching Kotzebue.