Well, another day spent at the base camp due to bear activity. The bears (mamma and her two cubs) wandered back to our camp sometime early Saturday morning. They were spotted swimming in the…
Friday morning we woke to news that there was a mother polar bear with two young cubs near base camp. This of course was very exciting and we all hurried to the big windows near the kitchen to…
Thursday was a very full day of attaching temperature data loggers to rope with clinch ties, cleaning the funnels and baffles of the sediment traps, measuring the lines from buoy to rock anchor…
Wednesday, the entire team set out for Kongressvatnet, the smaller, but very deep lake above Linnevatnet. The hike is about 45 minutes from the south shore of Linnevatnet and the first mile or so…
Tuesday,July, 24, Steve Roof and I hiked up the valley (in this case "up" is south) to service the "Galcier Cam" and check on the lichen stations. The hike was moderatly up hill over fine rock…
Monday’s weather called for rain. This is, after all, Svalbard’s rainy season. We woke to overcast, but no rain. It came eventually but was usually light and manageable. This has been a dry…
Sunday, July 22.
Having located many of the buoys for the sediment traps Saturday afternoon, we set out to recover the traps on Sunday. This is difficulty work due to the icy water conditions.…
Saturday, July, 21. We just got out internet connection at the base camp at Isfjord Radio Station. It took some doing, but thanks to the perserverence and tech skills of Steve Roof, it came to…
Today was spent training for extreme conditions in Svalbard. These conditions could include being attacked by a polar bear or falling out of a speeding boat in the middle of the Barents Sea…
Mike and Matt
After a 3 1/2 hour trip from Maine to Boston and four flights each ranging from 4 ½ hours to 1 ½ hours, I arrived in Longyearbyen, Svalbard at 2:30 am Thursday, July19. Exhausted…
All my bags are packed. I'm ready to go. I am 48 hours away from leaving to Svalbard. I have taken some time to enjoy the beauty of my local bioregion, drank in some sunsets, spent some time on…
field
My formal education and training is in wildlife biology, although lately my interest has been learning about global warming, climate science and its impacts on ecological processes. My…
