Journal

Bering Land Bridge
See all the light-tan colored area? That's where the Bering Land Bridge was between what it is now Alaska and Russia. All of that area would have been above sea level. It wasn't just a thin peninsula, it was a vast area for those early settlers to explore and hunt on. As you can imagine, many of their sites were submerged by the rising sea waters. Researchers believe that many of the sites we have today were used only as temporary hunting sites and that many more permanent sites were submerged.

This is it, the last night before we fly out to the remote archaeological dig site. We are flying out about 30 miles northeast of the village of Kivalina, on the coast of northwest Alaska between Point Hope and Kotzebue. It's been a nice stay in Kotzebue, but we are ready to go into the field. To celebrate tonight we had a swim in the Chukchi Sea. I noticed we all had bruises on our shoulders from the shotguns we used in bear training. Swimming in the ocean north of the Arctic Circle is COLD! Afterward we raced for hot tea and a shower in the bunkhouse.

Arctic swim!
Here we are wading through sticky mud into the cold Chukchi Sea. It turns out swimming in the ocean north of the Arctic Circle is quite cold. Everyone said it would be, but in the spirit of scientific inquiry we decided to test for ourselves. Exhilarating!

Tomorrow morning we will head to the airport and begin our final day of travel to the site. I can now travel with my Leatherman tool on my belt - on commercial flights like Alaska Airlines you are not allowed to have a knife while flying. But on a small Cessna like we'll fly on tomorrow, they don't do security screenings.

We'll fly in the Cessna to the Red Dog mine and then from there we'll be flown out in pairs to the dig site in a small red helicopter flown by Stan Hermen. Hermen lives in Oregon much of the year but he comes up to fly scientists around during good flying weather. He's flown for so long that he now gets to choose who he flies and loves to fly with researchers doing archaeology, biology or or other science. He arrived in Kotzebue yesterday right after another mission. On that trip, they were catching birds which fly from Alaska all the way to New Zealand without stopping. Stan flew the scientists to locations where they could catch the birds, and then surgically insert a small tracking device so they could later monitor their migrations to New Zealand.

Our helicopter pilot
This is our helicopter pilot, Stan Hermen. He flies his R-44 helicopter for scientists doing research all over Alaska. He thinks the R-44 is perfect for this kind of research and he loves what he does.

Bill and Jeff, the lead archaeologists, came through today just briefly on their way to the field. Later Courtney, Roger and Steve came through as well. They are in camp tonight with Stan and the little red helicopter, digging the latrine and setting up the cook tent. We hope to see them at Red Dog tomorrow by around 11 a.m., and to arrive in camp a few hours after that. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon we'll be up at the dig site, finally doing some archaeology!

I spent most of today on the phone with a tech guy in California. I haven't been able to make my MacBook send emails through the satellite phone and this guy was trying to help. No luck so far. If I can't get it to work, I won't be able to send emails or pictures from camp - only audio entries. I hope I can work it out so I can report live from the field and answer your questions!

Stuck on the phone
This is not archaeology! I was stuck on the phone for hours today trying to solve some technical difficulties. We're having a hard time making the MacBook interface with the satellite phone. It's tricky because the phone only has a signal for a few minutes while a satellite passes overhead, then the call might be dropped. I should have figured this all out weeks ago.

I took a break to sneak over to the Northwest Arctic Heritage Center where they have a wonderful interpretive center. There were life-size models of a caribou swimming, whale-blubber-drying rack, salmon-drying rack, a real wooden kayak frame and traditional whale harpoon and many other wonderful native crafts. Unfortunately the tech problems took me away too soon. I hope you can go visit Kotzebue's heritage center yourself some day!

Salmon-drying rack
Here is a model at the Northwest Arctic Heritage Center of the way native Alaskans dry salmon on a rack. This fish tastes so good and it's so good for you!

Kayak Frame
Look at this incredible wooden kayak frame. It's all the more impressive when you see how little wood is available up here (there are no trees- just bushes). A skin would be stretched tight over this frame to make it water tight.

Native leather and bead work
Beautiful leather boots to keep the feet warm in Arctic cold.

Caribou model
Caribou are terrific swimmers. They have a heat exchanger to take the warmth from their blood before it goes down into their legs so the heat is not wasted in the cold water. Our local BLM contact, John Erlich, said he recently saw about 2,000 caribou up near where we will be tomorrow night. Maybe we'll see some!

Harpoon
Here is a handmade traditional whaling harpoon. Notice how the tip is designed to come off inside the whale.

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