Churchill - Day Three

Up very early today - there really isn't any darkness at nght - just about 5 hours of a kind of  twilight, then bright and sunny. We have had extremely good weather - in the 70's today and no bugs to speak of. With temps this warm, they will be hatching and biting in no time.

Another Hare sightng this am.

The kitchen does a prety good job considering all the food has to be flown in - pancakes and oatmeal today. And I was never so glad to see apples and oranges.
Our days will be pretty much the same - briefing after breakfast, get ready, go to field site till noon, back for lunch, out again to site, then back for dinner. After dinner we have a 2 hour hour lecture. The past 2 days has been about global climate change and the evidence that supports it. Tonight we had a "trash dash" - yes I did trash pickup, voluntarily. Then there was a bonfire put on by the staff for the summer soltice- complete with marshmellows and snacks.
Our team spent the day boring holes into white spruce trees on a site named Tree Island. The area is in peat covered ground with lots of boggy, wet ponds. Its not as eay as you think since we need to bore close to the bottom, in 2 different directions, when it is covered in thick branches. We record a lot of data on portable ipaqs,such as location, height, diameter -slow going but great to be outdoors. We had to quit when our borer broke-metal screw part is permenantly implanted in tree. We then helped another team count and record data for saplings/seedlings.

Another cool thing about this place is all the people you meet doing all kinds of science research. Today we talked with people studying zooplankton that re-emerges in the thawed ponds every summer and others who are studying about Dunlin (birds)behaivor by attaching tiny data recorders on their legs.

See photos at bottom