Saturday, June 30, 2012

Just pics

Not much to report on, so here are some pictures I've taken in the last couple days:

Old gold dredger 


Red-necked phalarope swimming in Horse Tail reeds

Second day of salmon season -- busy beach!

Big sky

Grayscale

Sea glass in the rough

Days are getting shorter! It almost looks like sunset!

The daily grind

The breaking news yesterday was that there was a polar bear about 10 miles east, on the beach of Cape Nome. Although it was too far for us to go out and see, everyone was pretty excited about it; the report said it was spotted trotting along the beach and then got scared off and started swimming away, and has not been seen since.

The rest of yesterday wasn't quite that exciting, but interesting nonetheless. I was assigned a sort of practice job to re-write some technical project descriptions into short summaries to post on the website, and then spent most of the afternoon watching training videos of lectures about the archaeology and natural history of BELA.

After work, although I was pretty tired of lectures I was up for one more after dinner -- a team of scientists  from the Korean Polar Research Institute was speaking at the University of Alaska campus in Nome, so I accompanied some of my coworkers to go hear their talk. It was pretty interesting stuff; they apparently have research stations all over the arctic and two in the antarctic, and here just outside of Council they are studying permafrost in the tundra.

The talk was basically about how the arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe and the ground here contains more CO2 than the atmosphere -- and that CO2 is being released into the air as the permafrost melts. Scary stuff. We also found out that the Korean research vessel will be coming to port in Nome next month and we may have an opportunity to go tour it!

Today has been about the same -- finished up the writing assignment this morning, and I got briefed on my schedule for next month. Let me tell you: it's going to be one hell of a month. I'm scheduled for B3 aviation training on the 11th, followed by a trip to Shishmaref (a small Inupiat village about 120 miles north of Nome), then a few day trip with an NPS media specialist (I think?) to the village of Wales to interview the reindeer herder and see that part of the preserve, and then couple days after, a week in Serpentine.

Needless to say, I am stoked to be spending almost an entire month getting dropped off in obscure places in the backcountry. Along with the excitement however, comes the harsh reality that, A) I need to learn a lot about the camera ASAP, and B) I only have one chance to get the shots, since I'll only get to visit these places once and for a very limited amount of time. (It's funny -- the camera issue is making me more nervous than the living-in-the-tundra-with-bears issue!).  I feel so inadequate. I know I'll be able to do it, but it's going to be so much harder than if I actually had previous DSLR experience.

At any rate, it's going to be the adventure of a lifetime. I still can't believe that I'm not only getting to see some of the most remote and unique places in the world, but I'm getting paid to do it! A month ago I never would have even imagined I'd be doing this right now. So I've gotta say, the daily grind isn't so bad here.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Road to Council

When I first heard we were taking a staff trip to "Council," I wasn't sure what that meant. Like, tribal council? No, as it turns out, Council is a small fishing village about 73 miles east northeast of Nome, and our 7-person staff was taking a day trip out there for photos and for us to become better acquainted with the area. 

So, late Tuesday morning, we all piled into the big government-issued Suburban SUV and began a long day of bouncing down 146 miles roundtrip of dirt road. That's a lot of dirt road.

Possible Pacific loons in the back

Red-throated loon
Our first stop was at a bridge perhaps 10-20 miles outside of Nome where we did some birdwatching. There were a bunch of glaucous gulls, red-throated loons, and what looked to be Pacific loons, although I'm still not entirely sure. Also some some Eiders (Spectacled, I think?) and the usual little red-necked phalaropes in the water.

It was here that I had my first go at the NPS camera, a good Nikon DSLR. It took me a while to remember what little I know about manual photography, but after a while it became a little easier. I still have a lot to learn as far as what settings to use in which situations, but hopefully I didn't look like as much of a newbie as I felt.

Train to Nowhere
We continued down the road watching the landscape become somewhat greener, more mountainous, and hilly, all 7 pairs of eyes trained on the tundra looking for grizzlies, moose, foxes, or any other cool wildlife we were likely to see. We didn't see anything though, besides the occasional ground squirrel, so at noon we stopped at this site called "Train to Nowhere," aptly named for the rusted train ruins left deteriorating along the side of the road.

Semipalmated Sandpiper
After lunch we continued along our way. The conversations in the car were quite hilarious. I learned two new terms: "i-newbie-aq," a play on the "Inupiaq" to mean someone who is new to local native culture, and my favorite, "termination dust," which is not the nuclear fallout it sounds like, but the first snowfall that terminates the mining season.

Golden eagle chicks
As we got closer to Council, we began driving through mountains and along cliffs. At one point, we stopped on the roadside to photograph a golden eagle nest with two chicks!  

My favorite wildlife spotting of the trip though, was the red fox one of the interns saw coming out of its den on the side of the road. We came to a screeching halt in the car and backed up slowly so as not to scare it off, but soon realized it wasn't in the least bit concerned.

In fact, it trotted around a bit, and eventually went back in one of its holes (it had about 3 in the hillside!), but we found it in the exact same place on our trip back. Beautiful animal, and I was super happy with the photos I got of it.

Council
Eventually we made it to Council. As it turns out though, there is a river between the road and the town so we didn't actually get to go into the town, just look at it from afar. But hey, there were TREES! Real, live trees. Conifers and deciduous species growing side by side along the river giving the landscape a deep green hue and filling the air with the tangy organic scent of leaves and bark. You don't really notice the smell of trees until you haven't been around them for a while.

Dilapidated house
The old buildings were pretty cool too. Many were abandoned, but the village is still used for the fishing season and the occasional traveler passing through.

And so we headed back, another 73 miles of dirt road. Still no grizzlies, but it was neat passing through old ghost towns, mining areas, fishing villages, and driving along the Iditarod trail. I definitely have a new respect for the Iditarod racers now; driving along a road was pretty easy, but I can't imagine doing that by sled in the middle of winter!

Arctic tern fishing
Finally we made it back to Nome at around 5pm, back to the flat, treeless tundra and the cold Bering Sea. I was pretty sleepy after the long car ride, but after dinner I joined a couple of my coworkers for a bike ride back down to the salmon fishing area I had been to the day before.

It was way more crowded this time -- seems word got out about the salmon down there, and unfortunately we didn't catch anything. Nonetheless, I enjoyed a chilly walk along the beach, collecting sea glass, and enjoying the sun, now that it had finally come out.

That was all yesterday. Today was much more mundane. Spent the day at the office, worked on my pictures, started some planning for the new visitor's guide, and then distributed posters of the ranger program schedule throughout town. The rest of the week should be pretty laid back and we're hopefully getting our preserve flyover tour in Monday. Fingers crossed!

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

First full week off to a good start

This is just a quick update because it's late and I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow, BUT, the week has started off great!

This morning everyone was in the office, which really changed the atmosphere. The visitor's center was about as busy as it gets (5 visitors by noon!), and everyone was in an overall sunny mood despite the dismal weather outside.

In the morning I tried to learn a bit from Phil, the SCA intern who basically has the same job as me. He's a photography wiz though, and all I really learned was that I know absolutely nothing about film, photography, and editing, especially on a Mac computer. I have SO much catching up to do. I'm not sure if it was obvious that I didn't understand half of what he explained to me, but I tried to pretend I was at least competent enough to repeat all the steps he showed me in compressing files, stitching panoramas, and rendering raw footage. Ack!

When my supervisor Jennifer arrived, she started me off with some totally riveting online government courses about awesome subjects like security procedures and why you shouldn't give your password to people. Then I took some more courses on interpretation and the history of NPS policies. It was about as exciting as it sounds so I'm going to stop there.

What was more exciting however, was the meeting I had with Jennifer, where I learned more about the details of my job. She told me that I would be using InDesign the most, probably, and she would give me a whole tutorial. Much more reassuring! Even better, she pulled out a map and showed me that I will be traveling and backpacking through at least 4 parts of BELA: Serpentine Hot Springs, a lava field area with archaeological sites, the maar lake area, and a rarely visited site near the village of Wales. In this last area, I'll be working with a ranger from another park and interviewing a 91-year-old reindeer herder! It should also be noted that Wales is the westernmost village in AK and Russia really is visible from the coast on a clear day. Go figure!

As I suspected, most of our fieldwork will be done in the next 3 months or so while the weather is still decent, and then the winter will be spent putting everything together.

After work I was pretty tired from staring at a computer all day, but Kathi, my floor-mate at the bunkhouse, convinced me to go on a bike ride with her down to the mouth of the Nome River. I'm glad I went, because even though it was a bit of a ride (about 2 hours round trip, into the wind and uphill one way), we found a good salmon fishing spot that we're going to return to tomorrow on the beach. It's just now the beginning of the salmon season, and fishermen were pulling up 7-10 salmon an hour.

Well, tomorrow we're taking our staff trip out to the village of Council and then fishing after work, so it should be another exciting day. Rumor has it there are actual trees in Council (I haven't seen a tree since I got here), as well as areas where you can see Horned Puffins and Beluga Whales. I shall have my camera ready.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Birding in the rain

The day started out lazily, with everyone in the bunkhouse sleeping in after our busy Saturday. I spent most of the day reading, writing, and finishing organizing my room. It's really hard to stay organized, because A) I will be moving downstairs in about a month and don't want to fully unpack, and B) there's nowhere to put anything. Nonetheless, it looks and feels a little more like home now.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

When in Nome

Once again, I have more to write about than I could possibly fit into a post, so instead I'll share some of the pictures I took during my very busy day yesterday.  
View of Nome from the hill
Started off the morning with a tundra hike with ranger Katie and one of the other temporary staff members, a teacher from Pennsylvania (coincidentally, the same part of PA where I worked last summer!). We drove up to a place called Newton Point just outside of Nome, and hiked up the slope.

Distant mountain range
It was rather cold, windy, and stark, but as we proceeded I began to realize that the real diversity of the landscape lies in the plethora of tundra flora covering the soft ground. Dozens of species of wildflower, low-growing willows, grasses, mosses, and lichens grew on top of each other.

One of the most exciting moments for me was coming upon a pair of Long-tailed Jaegers -- a bird I've always wanted to see before! They must have had ground nests somewhere nearby because they were dive bombing us until we moved on. 
An antler fragment on the hill

Snow! In June!

 Once we reached the ridge, it was even colder and windier, but the view was spectacular. Beyond a field of blue wildflowers stretched the Alaskan tundra, disappearing into the distant blue haze.

We were enjoying the view when suddenly I spotted a large brown object on the horizon. My heart sped up for a second as it began lumbering away, so I quickly pointed it out. We are deep in bear country here, and had been taking precautions the entire hike up, but I still wasn't sure what we would do if we actually saw a bear. Well, we all took a closer look, and then relaxed -- it was a herd of muskox!
I was super excited. They were all just laying down in the grass, doing whatever muskoxes do.

Rock formations, and Cold War missile detectors in the back

Moose scat

Some species of Avens I think

Unidentified cool flower
After our 2 hour hike, we hurried back to town, arriving just in time for the annual Midnight Sun parade. It was easily the strangest parade I've ever seen, but quite hilarious and nice to see people actually out and about.

Downtown Nome

Start of the parade

The Christine Rose is a gold dredger featured on the
Discovery Channel show

Thar be pirates in Nome

Advertising for the Polar Bear Swim later that day

String band float

Richard, a bank robbery character
After the parade, everyone meandered down the road to the local Wells Fargo, where a mock bank robbery was scheduled for high noon. All the children were incredibly excited; apparently this tradition has been going  on for something like 20 or 30 years.

Setting up for the robbery


Wyatt Earp reenactor
 Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the bank robbery because I couldn't see it that well, but they had some sort of little story about bad guys coming to town and Wyatt Earp killing them all. Lots of fake gunshots and smoke, and the kids loved it.

After a lunch break, I joined the NPS staff again for a trip down to East Beach for the annual Polar Bear Swim. It was somewhat far away, so they all hopped onto a four-wheeler and I followed on Katie's bike. By then, the weather had turned for the worse, and it was cold, rainy, and windy, but nonetheless a massive crowd was gathered at the edge of the sea when I arrived. I opted to stay dry and take pictures for everyone.
Some of my coworkers getting ready for the plunge
It was quite an event. After getting the crowd pumped up, a siren started and there was a mad dash for the sea and then an equally mad dash to get out of the sea. Up on the beach there were bonfires for everyone to warm up, and fundraisers selling towels and shirts to the freezing cold participants.

The kids loved it

Some people even stayed in to play...

... others got out as quickly as possible
After that, I biked back to the bunkhouse and got soaking wet in the heavy drizzle that was now coming down. I relaxed for a while and then in the evening joined the staff for a trip to Folk Fest at the local elementary school.

It was a lot smaller than I expected, but it was neat to see all the local artisans and craft-makers selling their wares, as well as listen to the local musicians (including "Eskimo Elvis" whose signature song was a tune-less "ay-ay-ya-aye" and some really good string bands).

Well, sorry for such a long post, but it was a very long day and probably more excitement than I'll have for the rest of my time here! :) At any rate, tentative plans for today include exploring, possibly fishing, and possibly birding. Should be fun!

Saturday, June 23, 2012

Connecting the gold dots

(dramatization)
When I was flying into Nome from Anchorage the other day, I was seated next to a frumpy, lovebird-ish couple in their mid-60s. I chatted with the wife a little bit and found out that they were from Ohio and had never been to Nome before. "We're here for 2 months for a GPAA program," she said so proudly that I didn't bother to ask what GPAA stood for.

Well, I soon forgot about the conversation -- until today when I suddenly connected all the dots:

First, when my supervisor was initially giving me a tour of town, she mentioned that Nome is in the middle of a sort of "second" gold rush, triggered by the Discovery Channel show, Bering Sea Gold, now in its second season. Apparently after its first season, people started flooding to Nome to make their fortune through gold dredging in the Bering Sea and Norton Sound, since the Discovery Channel "characters" were doing so well.

The second "dot:" So yesterday when I was at the Nome Visitor's Center, a man was asking Seth about where it was legal to use metal detectors for gold panning on the public beach, because he had heard it was illegal everywhere. Seth later found out from the DNR that it actually IS legal, but DNR had released this interesting statement to Nome prospectors online:

"The DNR has received numerous inquiries this month about how to obtain a gold claim offshore of Nome, Alaska. These inquires are from viewers of the Discovery Channel’s reality series - ‘Bering Sea Gold’. Many of the viewers who have contacted DNR have indicated they would like to acquire their own gold claim in the Bering Sea so they could mine their claim like the miners in the series....
...Regardless of what the Discovery Channel Series may convey, gold claims in the Bering Sea are not available for the public to acquire. The only areas for the public to mine are the above two recreational mining areas. ..."
And the final "dot" that brought it all full circle: today during lunch break I thought to Google this "GPAA," that my airplane buddy had mentioned, and bam!: Gold Prospector's Association of America. She and her husband were coming to Nome for a nearly $16,000 "Alaska Expedition" to pan for gold with this organization. 
Bad drawing of a gold pan

I didn't realize before I came here that gold mining is such a prominent industry in Nome. In fact, it's the primary industry. You don't really think of gold mining as a modern thing, but here it is nearly as booming a business as it was a hundred years ago. People are literally coming from all over the country to seek their fortune in this tiny bush town where it's not even legal to do the kind of big dredging that will get you enough gold to pay off the expenses of coming here.

What an amazing place this is! I have so many more stories to tell already, but I think those will just have to wait. Tomorrow there's a lot going on -- the Midnight Sun Parade, followed by the annual mock bank robbery, then the Polar Bear Swim in the Bering Sea, Folk Fest, and a tundra hike in the evening (which is only a figure of speech here -- it'll be bright as day all night!).

Thursday, June 21, 2012

First day of work gets a thumb's up


Despite not having slept in something like 40 hours, I woke up just before 6am this morning. Maybe it was because I went to bed at 9 last night, or the fact that it was bright as day all night ("sunset" was at 1:47am, "sunrise" was at 4:19am). Either way, I was awake and pumped for my first day of work.

As it turned out, however, nothing went as planned. I got a call right before I left the bunkhouse from my supervisor, saying she was having medical problems and wouldn't be in until later, but I should head over anyway and someone would show me around.

The air hung frozen with a heavy mist as I trudged down the muddy semi-paved road to work. I found the National Park Service office easily and upon entering, I introduced myself to the first person I saw, a man in NPS uniform. "Oh, you must be Andrea!" he said, which immediately put me at ease -- I was hoping my arrival wouldn't be a complete surprise, without my supervisor there.

He introduced himself as, one of the interpretive rangers, and then introduced me to his colleague,  and the superintendent who was carrying around a big chubby baby, who smiled a lot.

I was shown around the visitor's center, which was really a small room with a couple display cases of Native American and paleontological artifacts, and then the office where I'll be working, a room of about equal size arranged with some computers and shelves full of craft supplies, files, and books. The rangers didn't really know what to do with me until my supervisor arrived, so they put me to work reading the interpretive guide for the center.

Around mid-morning, a Kawerak group (a daycare program for native children) arrived for their weekly ranger program, so I sat in to watch. They were absolutely adorable, and extraordinarily well behaved -- at least in the beginning. The ranger gave a basic talk about camouflage on the local wildlife, and then I helped them out with a couple activities, like making polar bear masks.

After lunch, I was informed that that my supervisor would not be coming in at all, but there was more reading material for me and I could help out with various tasks. So I spent the rest of the afternoon reading about the Bering Sea in between accompanying the ranger to the Nome Visitor's Center for an interpretive talk about Yellow-billed Loons, and then a trip to the local library and post office to pick up the NPS's mail and packages.

And that was pretty much my day. Not incredibly exciting, but I learned a lot, did a TON of reading, and I can tell that even though this is going to be a REALLY long 9 months, I think I'm going to like this job. Hopefully my supervisor will be better tomorrow and I can get started on things. Overall, first day of work gets a thumb's up!

Landing



Short clip of landing in Nome yesterday. This is the entire town, end to end.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Welcome to Nome!

After 18 hours, 2 layovers and a cargo stop in Kotzebue, I've made it to Nome. It's definitely not like the Anchorage area, which was full of beautiful snow-capped mountains and vast evergreen forests. 

Nome is all brown and grey and flat, and kind of perched between a big brown tundra and the coast of Norton Sound on the Bering Sea. I mean, everything about that just sounds cold. And it is. It's about 42 degrees and cloudy right now. Even the buildings look cold. They're mostly wooden or aluminum sided, many rusted, wind-battered, and dilapidated, paint peeling, siding falling off, and piles of junk around them. 

My supervisor gave me a quick driving tour of town after she picked me up from the airport. Most important things are within walking distance, like the grocery store, hospital, restaurants, and my office where I'll be starting tomorrow. It'll take me a while to get the lay of the town, even though it's really small, but hopefully it won't take too long.

The hall
After that, she dropped me back off at the bunkhouse and said, "see you tomorrow!" So now I'm sitting here in my little bedroom awkwardly wondering what to do with the rest of my day.  So here are some pictures. Above is the hallway. It's a lot like a dorm. Temporary guests (interns and researchers) get the top floor where I am right now, and more permanent staff get the bottom floor, where I'll be moving eventually when someone else moves out.

My temporary room
 My room is super tiny and crammed with two beds.

Shared kitchen upstairs

View out my window. 

On the right side of the horizon is a big graveyard

My room looks out on the southwest corner of town, over some rundown buildings and a big graveyard in the distance. There are lots of dogs around town (mostly husky/sled-dog breeds) that bark a lot and I was warned not to get too close to them. There are two outside my window that have literally not stopped barking since I got here. 

At any rate, that's a little snapshot of my initiation into Nome. Maybe I'll take a nap now. Or muster up the courage to go find the grocery store. Or maybe I'll just hide in my room for the rest of the day. Who knows!