Field Season Looming

It's going to be summer next week and then it's going to be crazy, hectic busy, and then it's going to be over the week after that. At least, that's how it feels. I'm planning my field projects and I'm already trying not to think long term planning because I'm going to be gone almost every single week, starting the last week of May. It's not going to be the kind of field season where I go far, far away, drop off the planet, and stay there for 5 months before returning to the real world (which morphs into the unknown in my absence). No, this is the kind of field season where you spend one week at site A doing a project involving one taxa, the next week at site B involving and entirely different taxa, off to site C immediately thereafter to deal with yet another taxa, and so on. And yikes - how many people do I have to coordinate with and arrange equipment for? It's going to be an adventure, as is always the case when your transportation methods include (but are not limited to): snowmachine, hiking, helicopter, and raft. Right.

I expect I will come out the other end with crazy stories and beautiful pictures and absolutely ready to hole up for the winter doing mellow things. Right now we are all scrambling - we've got 13 million acres of land to traverse and take care of (that's six times the size of Yellowstone National Park) and 3-4 months to do it in. So right now, I'm logistics girl - 'cause I need to line it all up so that then I can just let it flow.

Last Field Excursion

Calving Glacier

Our last field trip of the year to collect oceanographic samples proved to be glorious with plenty of sunshine and few animals willing to show us their stuff. We saw seals, sea otters, orcas, and a myriad of birds. And we pulled up a couple of jellies on our equipment unintentionally - they made a mess. Luckily, one of our interns & one of our volunteers were around to tag along and see what the place they've been staring at through the glacier cam all summer looks like up and personal.

A male killer whale (you can tell by the height of the fin) with a wavy fin.

Yours truly (in the yellow cap) pulling up the plankton nets

A glacier cam in the wild (spiky thing on highest point)

Oceanographic Data

Yesterday we went out in the bay to do some fieldwork and collect oceanographic data. It was a typical weather day for this area, soggy. Our orange mustang safety suits were drenched from the rain as we visited station after station (as marked only by coordinates). The morning was so foggy that we navigated solely by GIS as the landmarks were completely absent from sight. My boss had told me not to worry about bring warm gear as the mustang suits would keep us plenty warm. I am ever so glad I ignored her advice. Her son, along because all of our eager interns were on a trip somewhere, had followed her advice and was distinctly cold and rather miserable. I would have offered him up my gloves but they clearly wouldn’t have fit him.

Despite the wetness, we were rewarded at the end of our survey with our last two sites being quite close up to this massive calving glacier. The boom of ice calving off it in chunks reverberated through the landscape creating distinctive wakes. It is awe inspiring to be in the presence of a calving glacier in the absence of human made sounds. It is humbling to watch geology in action. Chunks of ice larger than our boat crashed down & we kept our eye out for nearby icebergs – these have a tendency to roll and we didn’t want one rolling over on top of us. After we pulled up the last of the equipment we stood rain soaked on the deck, watching the glacier calve amongst the harbor seals hauled out on bergs and sea otters floating along past, tucked up in sleep.