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Blog Yukon Coast 2012: Herschel Island
Friday, July 28 2012
Twin Otter landing on the 100 meter long beach strip, photo: Stefanie Weege, Alfred-Wegener-InstituteOn Tuesday, July 24, we reached Herschel Island, our final destination at 69° 34' N and 138° 55' W. Months of preparation lie behind us and finally we see all the things we only knew from pictures and stories. We arrived on a sunny day and were welcomed by the park rangers. We spent the first few days getting ourselves, the food and the equipment organized. In addition, we assembled our boat, preparing our equipment and visited our first field sites.
The Small Twin Otter airplane took us from the airport in Inuvik to Herschel Island. That is a fairly small airplane that can take off on 50 metres of runway, but can only fly with approximately 1.2 tons of freight. Our task was to organize almost five tons of freight and people onto four flights. We were blessed by good weather and all four flights were flown on the same day! The one hour flight gave us a first beautiful impression of the Canadian Arctic.
We headed north over the most northwestern Canadian city Inuvik, and then across the Mackenzie River delta plain, with uncountable meanders and thousands of ponds. We reached the Beaufort Sea and headed westward along the Yukon Coast on to Herschel Island. The pilots circled the gravelly landing strip twice (basically a wide beach) before attempting to land.
The rangers on Herschel Island had prepared the strip beforehand by removing tons of driftwood. Our landing felt a little like jumping on a trampoline. The pilots did an unbelievable job! We landed on an airstrip only 100 metres long! Unbelievable what those little Twin Otters can manage, packed to the brim with more than 1.2 tons of luggage!
The island welcomed us with just the perfect weather: sunshine, 20 degrees and a slight breeze to keep the black flies and mosquitos away. But the nicest welcome we got from our two rangers Lee John and Ricky, three scientists Emma, Sascha, and Jeff; and the three carpenters Brian, Ron and Richard, who were building a new cabin in record time of less than 21 days.
Our first days here were dominated by invoking everyone's talents to set up the big Zodiac boat, to build tables and benches, get the first equipment checked and prepared for field deployment, and checking the first field sites in walking distance.
The weather is very nice, between 14 and 20 degrees. Although the first day we arrived was very calm, it can be quite windy here. On one hand that is nice, because the breeze keeps the mosquitos away, but at the same time, too much wind and the waves become too big for our boats to handle and transport our equipment to the study sites.
Map of Herschel, Graphic: David Fox We have made camp in the historic whaler settlement located on a gravelly spit off the north east part of the island. There are about sixteen buildings here, that is if you don't count the sauna and the fish smokehouse. The most important houses for us are the old whaler's warehouse, the weather haven and the trapper's house. In the historic warehouse we store our boxes and equipment. The weather haven is a sturdy tent that doubles as office and laboratory. The trapper's cabin is another historic building, one of the oldest in the whole Yukon. It is where six people in our group sleep, and where we meet every day for breakfast and dinner in the cozy common room. There is a stove and a brand new table for eleven people that David made in less than an hour. There is even a refrigerator running on propane, and two buckets of water for washing our hands and dishes. To keep the snoring noise to a minimum, five of our men sleep outside in tents, behind driftwood fences that protect them from the wind.
Toilets are two unbelievable constructions. They are separate little houses outside and you have to climb a few stairs to enter the wooden cabin. No need to say that there is no running water. Within the toilet house there is a hole and a huge bucket underneath. Every few weeks the house is taken off, and the contents of the bucket burnt.
Boris, George, Michael and Juliane with the brand new Zodiac boat, photo: Stefanie Weege, Alfred-Wegener-InstituteOne very important "building" is the traditional ice house located on the other side of Pauline Cove. It is basically a four metres deep hole in the permafrost. It serves as a natural freezer. There we stored the food we already cooked and froze in Inuvik, among with the 80 loaves bread, 180 bagels, and about 60 kilograms of frozen vegetables and meat. As time passes, and the food will get less and less and it will be replaced by our frozen samples. It took us several trips with our little Zodiac boat to transport and store about 10 boxes of food in the ice house. Every time the ice house door is opened, one must wait outside to let out the potentially deadly gases that accumulated from the surrounding soil. The visits to the ice house are the only time when we need our headlamps, to climb down the huge wooden ladder. There in the darkness, you get a cold shock first, and then the caribou head emerges staring at you. When you turn around you face the huge caribou hind leg. But sometimes you wonder if it's better to stay in the frozen hole next to all the animal parts, or climbing outside onto the calm, green tundra where tons of hungry mosquitos await. After a while, you stop hitting your partner into the face, because there are always sitting mosquitos on the nose, forehead or eyebrow. These are very intelligent animals, one could easily kill 20 in one blow. Some of these little monsters seem to have several lives, however. Two or three seconds after your attack they recover and attack anew. As a side note, our mosquito repellent was found only on the second day, and from now on we all just get a few bites a day.
The first four days were full of new impressions of the arctic landscape, life in a remote camp and new vocabulary especially for tools. We learned new skills while putting together our brand new Zodiac boat with two engines; building tables, benches, and steps in front of the weather haven to keep the mud outside. Duct tape is great for everything from covering nails coming out of wooden planks on the other side, to keeping the bed sheets on the mattresses, fastening inner boots to our Wellingtons, and keeping pants or boxes from falling apart. Not everything has gone as planned, however. Once the brand new Zodiac was assembled, everyone was excited to take it out for a first ride. Something with the engines was just not right. Michael, George and Boris spent three days trying to figure out what was wrong, even asking the rangers for help. After all these efforts, the engines run but we cannot go at full speed and this makes maneuvering a rough sea difficult.
Juliane and Michael coming back from fieldwork with a Muskox in the background, photo: Stefanie Weege, Alfred-Wegener-InstituteThe first grizzly bear was sighted a few days ago. Now we are even more cautious. This very morning we saw a Muskox walking through our camp, right up to the tent where George and Boris were sleeping. We see animals fairly frequently, a caribou grazing on the other side of the bay, Beluga whales swimming in Pauline Cove right in front of our houses, and a bearded seal as well. We hope that bears are not as hungry as we are right now!
It's Dave´s turn to feed us tonight and it already smells delicious! Right after we will have our first bath in the sauna! We start looking like aliens in our mud encrusted bright orange AWI overalls. We are all looking forward to get a bath in the sauna house after leaving the shower behind four days ago in Inuvik. Only the brave ones dared a very quick swim in the very cold bay. Fresh water in the camp is scarce. We try to keep the use of water to a minimum of less than 100 litres a day for all of us. We get the water from a creek on the other side of the bay in about one kilometer distance that always must be transported by boat.
After getting everything running on the campsite the next weeks will be focused on scientific fieldwork and cultural exchange in the format of lots of card games with the rangers. The rangers Lee, John and Ricky have now off for two weeks and Richard, Samuel, and Edward are here with us now. We are very glad to have their invaluable support and keep on working, joking and laughing a lot together. We hope that from tomorrow on, our focus will shift to the science, and we will report more detailed what we will do at our study sites.
Eleven hungry and mud encrusted scientists say Bye Bye!
______________________
Main page of the blog "Yukon Coast 2012": http://page21.org/blogs/60-herschel
Twin Otter landing on the 100 meter long beach strip, photo: Stefanie Weege, Alfred-Wegener-InstituteOn Tuesday, July 24, we reached Herschel Island, our final destination at 69° 34' N and 138° 55' W. Months of preparation lie behind us and finally we see all the things we only knew from pictures and stories. We arrived on a sunny day and were welcomed by the park rangers. We spent the first few days getting ourselves, the food and the equipment organized. In addition, we assembled our boat, preparing our equipment and visited our first field sites.The Small Twin Otter airplane took us from the airport in Inuvik to Herschel Island. That is a fairly small airplane that can take off on 50 metres of runway, but can only fly with approximately 1.2 tons of freight. Our task was to organize almost five tons of freight and people onto four flights. We were blessed by good weather and all four flights were flown on the same day! The one hour flight gave us a first beautiful impression of the Canadian Arctic.
We headed north over the most northwestern Canadian city Inuvik, and then across the Mackenzie River delta plain, with uncountable meanders and thousands of ponds. We reached the Beaufort Sea and headed westward along the Yukon Coast on to Herschel Island. The pilots circled the gravelly landing strip twice (basically a wide beach) before attempting to land.
The rangers on Herschel Island had prepared the strip beforehand by removing tons of driftwood. Our landing felt a little like jumping on a trampoline. The pilots did an unbelievable job! We landed on an airstrip only 100 metres long! Unbelievable what those little Twin Otters can manage, packed to the brim with more than 1.2 tons of luggage!
The island welcomed us with just the perfect weather: sunshine, 20 degrees and a slight breeze to keep the black flies and mosquitos away. But the nicest welcome we got from our two rangers Lee John and Ricky, three scientists Emma, Sascha, and Jeff; and the three carpenters Brian, Ron and Richard, who were building a new cabin in record time of less than 21 days.
Our first days here were dominated by invoking everyone's talents to set up the big Zodiac boat, to build tables and benches, get the first equipment checked and prepared for field deployment, and checking the first field sites in walking distance.
The weather is very nice, between 14 and 20 degrees. Although the first day we arrived was very calm, it can be quite windy here. On one hand that is nice, because the breeze keeps the mosquitos away, but at the same time, too much wind and the waves become too big for our boats to handle and transport our equipment to the study sites.
Map of Herschel, Graphic: David Fox We have made camp in the historic whaler settlement located on a gravelly spit off the north east part of the island. There are about sixteen buildings here, that is if you don't count the sauna and the fish smokehouse. The most important houses for us are the old whaler's warehouse, the weather haven and the trapper's house. In the historic warehouse we store our boxes and equipment. The weather haven is a sturdy tent that doubles as office and laboratory. The trapper's cabin is another historic building, one of the oldest in the whole Yukon. It is where six people in our group sleep, and where we meet every day for breakfast and dinner in the cozy common room. There is a stove and a brand new table for eleven people that David made in less than an hour. There is even a refrigerator running on propane, and two buckets of water for washing our hands and dishes. To keep the snoring noise to a minimum, five of our men sleep outside in tents, behind driftwood fences that protect them from the wind.Toilets are two unbelievable constructions. They are separate little houses outside and you have to climb a few stairs to enter the wooden cabin. No need to say that there is no running water. Within the toilet house there is a hole and a huge bucket underneath. Every few weeks the house is taken off, and the contents of the bucket burnt.
Boris, George, Michael and Juliane with the brand new Zodiac boat, photo: Stefanie Weege, Alfred-Wegener-InstituteOne very important "building" is the traditional ice house located on the other side of Pauline Cove. It is basically a four metres deep hole in the permafrost. It serves as a natural freezer. There we stored the food we already cooked and froze in Inuvik, among with the 80 loaves bread, 180 bagels, and about 60 kilograms of frozen vegetables and meat. As time passes, and the food will get less and less and it will be replaced by our frozen samples. It took us several trips with our little Zodiac boat to transport and store about 10 boxes of food in the ice house. Every time the ice house door is opened, one must wait outside to let out the potentially deadly gases that accumulated from the surrounding soil. The visits to the ice house are the only time when we need our headlamps, to climb down the huge wooden ladder. There in the darkness, you get a cold shock first, and then the caribou head emerges staring at you. When you turn around you face the huge caribou hind leg. But sometimes you wonder if it's better to stay in the frozen hole next to all the animal parts, or climbing outside onto the calm, green tundra where tons of hungry mosquitos await. After a while, you stop hitting your partner into the face, because there are always sitting mosquitos on the nose, forehead or eyebrow. These are very intelligent animals, one could easily kill 20 in one blow. Some of these little monsters seem to have several lives, however. Two or three seconds after your attack they recover and attack anew. As a side note, our mosquito repellent was found only on the second day, and from now on we all just get a few bites a day. The first four days were full of new impressions of the arctic landscape, life in a remote camp and new vocabulary especially for tools. We learned new skills while putting together our brand new Zodiac boat with two engines; building tables, benches, and steps in front of the weather haven to keep the mud outside. Duct tape is great for everything from covering nails coming out of wooden planks on the other side, to keeping the bed sheets on the mattresses, fastening inner boots to our Wellingtons, and keeping pants or boxes from falling apart. Not everything has gone as planned, however. Once the brand new Zodiac was assembled, everyone was excited to take it out for a first ride. Something with the engines was just not right. Michael, George and Boris spent three days trying to figure out what was wrong, even asking the rangers for help. After all these efforts, the engines run but we cannot go at full speed and this makes maneuvering a rough sea difficult.
Juliane and Michael coming back from fieldwork with a Muskox in the background, photo: Stefanie Weege, Alfred-Wegener-InstituteThe first grizzly bear was sighted a few days ago. Now we are even more cautious. This very morning we saw a Muskox walking through our camp, right up to the tent where George and Boris were sleeping. We see animals fairly frequently, a caribou grazing on the other side of the bay, Beluga whales swimming in Pauline Cove right in front of our houses, and a bearded seal as well. We hope that bears are not as hungry as we are right now!It's Dave´s turn to feed us tonight and it already smells delicious! Right after we will have our first bath in the sauna! We start looking like aliens in our mud encrusted bright orange AWI overalls. We are all looking forward to get a bath in the sauna house after leaving the shower behind four days ago in Inuvik. Only the brave ones dared a very quick swim in the very cold bay. Fresh water in the camp is scarce. We try to keep the use of water to a minimum of less than 100 litres a day for all of us. We get the water from a creek on the other side of the bay in about one kilometer distance that always must be transported by boat.
After getting everything running on the campsite the next weeks will be focused on scientific fieldwork and cultural exchange in the format of lots of card games with the rangers. The rangers Lee, John and Ricky have now off for two weeks and Richard, Samuel, and Edward are here with us now. We are very glad to have their invaluable support and keep on working, joking and laughing a lot together. We hope that from tomorrow on, our focus will shift to the science, and we will report more detailed what we will do at our study sites.
Eleven hungry and mud encrusted scientists say Bye Bye!
______________________
Main page of the blog "Yukon Coast 2012": http://page21.org/blogs/60-herschel