Category: Arctic

More logistics… and Pretty Babies!

The past week has been crazy.  All of the crew except the GPR people and Dennis O’Rourke are here.  We’ve gotten all of the training out of the way except for ATV driving.  We spent a while on Thursday afternoon as scheduled, but the logistics provider still didn’t have all the ATVs (or even know what they would be) so we weren’t able to make sure everyone knew how to ride what they’d be driving.  Since they may be renting a bunch of manual shift models (and a number of people have never driven anything with a manual shift), it seemed safest to let people learn that before taking them off-road, so the start for the field will be delayed :-(.

We have all the gear piled in the Theater, where we’ll be staging, except for the electronics.  They are still in the lab, where they are being charged.  Laura and a rotating crew person will get them and bring them to the Theater each morning, and return them for recharging at the end of the day.  We also have a generator, but we’d really rather not run it.

On Friday, I had to do a survey of a very small area where a surface current radar is being installed on Point Barrow.  We went out a while ago and picked some spots, and after calculations back at the lab, Hank Statscewich picked a spot.  I was supposed to meet up with the logistics providers out there, to show them where the tent was to go, but alas, something came up.  I ran into one of them at the gas station while getting gas for the 4-wheeler (turned out to be more complex than expected because I filled my 5 gallon can only to find out it leaked and had to run next door to the NAPA to buy 2 new 2.5 cans to transfer the gas into), and we arranged to go the next morning.  I did the survey and went home.  The weather alternated between spooky fog and quite nice.

Foggy day on Point Barrow

The next day I met up with the logistics providers and headed back to the Point for what was supposed to be a 2-hour activity.  I was just going to show them where the tents should go and head back in, but it became clear that might not be the best plan.  I made it home 7 hours later.  The tents are all up and in place.  There are a few issues, mostly relating to them not having actually set up the whole tent prior to shipping, but they were going out today to fix most of them, so we hope to find things in working order tomorrow…  At least the weather was nice except when it rained a little bit.

Weatherports going up

Since that shot my Saturday, I spent most of yesterday and today finishing various things that clients need before I get out of the field and dealing with various work-related issues.  As a result, I missed almost all of the 4th of July festivities.  We did get in for the start of the “marathon” in which crew member Emily Button was running, and the Pretty Baby contest, but Glenn hadn’t really dressed for the weather and the wind & drizzle picked up, so we left and I don’t know how either event came out!  Maggie Rose Solomon won Miss Top of the World (thanks to DoeDoe for posting that on FB ).

Runners at the ready. Emily is in the red jacket.

All the Pretty Babies
When the potato chips aren't enough...

The sun on the breast of the new-fallen snow….

I thought it was bad enough yesterday, when I got in the car to drive to work, looked over and saw this:

But I went to work and went on about the business of getting travel arrangements made for the crew and ordering field supplies and whatnot.  It snowed off and on all day, and was so windy that the crew waiting to install a radar on the roof of the BARC had to call off the lift with the crane due to high winds.

Last night the winds were still in the 20+mph range, gusting higher.  The surface of the lagoon next to my house, which started to have patches of open water in the warm weather of a couple of weeks ago, were showing some chop, and it was rather grim-looking all around.

Chop on Middle Salt Lagoon

Apparently it kept snowing during the night, because in the morning the TundraGarden looked like this:

New-fallen snow in June

I spent the morning in a training Webinar for the Alaska Heritage Resource Survey (AHRS) remote web access system, and the first part of the afternoon taking some officials from the US Department of the Interior on a tour of Nuvuk (many thanks to Scott Oyagak for driving us in his truck, because the wind was pretty nasty) and the Nuvuk lab.  Apparently one of their staffers had been on a site tour I gave in the last couple seasons and really liked it, so they wanted a tour too.  They got to see a lot of ice and gravel, the Birnirk National Historic Landmark (NHL), Nuvuk, Plover Point, and get their pictures taken at the Top of the World, but no bears.

I then got to spend the rest of the day dealing with the aftermath of someone having sideswiped the UICS Ranger while it was parked beside the BARC.  It was on the passenger side, facing away from the building entrance, and we hadn’t driven it for a couple of days, but there was no dust on the new dent, so it was recent.  Looks like someone was backing out of their parking space and hit it.  They didn’t bother to leave a note, or call (the truck has decals).  Pretty lame.  No way they could have done that much damage and not noticed.  Fortunately, it seems like they just made a huge dent in the side of the bed, but the door opens fine & it doesn’t seem to have affecting the driving, as far as Tammy could tell on the way to and from the body shop trying to get an estimate.

Almost all of the travel is arranged, and tomorrow I can update the logistics calendar.  Just hope it warms up a bit for the fieldwork…

 

A new crew

Once again, I have been spending time choosing the crew for the summer season at Nuvuk.  There are a lot of factors that go into the choice, as I explained last year.  Once again, I think (hope) I’ve got a good group.  Most of the high school students have worked on the project for some time, some for several years.  We’ve got one who has been working in the lab for months, and a couple who are totally new.  We start orientation on June 13th.

One of the NSF-funded folks was actually on the crew in 2009.  Dr. Tom Besom was going to be in Kamchatka this summer, but the project sort of fell through, so he’s coming back to Nuvuk.  A good thing, since he is fluent in Spanish (his primary research specialty is Andean mummies) and will be a big help with making sure the Mexican students from the Mexican-American Exchange project who will be joining us get clear explanations and translations.  Krysta Terry was also going to return, but her father has a serious health problem, so she can’t take off for the Arctic.  Even though we have jet service twice daily and three times on Thursdays and Saturdays, it can take a couple of days to get to most place that aren’t on the West Coast; more than that if the planes are fully booked with tourists or the weather is foggy.

I’ve still got to do the final update of the memo we’ve developed for new crew on what and what not to bring (no flashlights), and send that out.  Now the fun of trying to book cheap, yet not horrendous travel for five people to Barrow…

The Snowman at the Top of the World

On yesterday’s trip to Nuvuk we came upon this fellow…

The snowman

just standing there at the northernmost spot of Point Barrow, all alone…

at the Top of the World

First trip to Nuvuk in 2011

I went out to Nuvuk today.  The purpose of the trip was to accompany Hank Statscewich from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who needs to pick out a new site for an experimental current radar.  They have run it near NARL for a year, with no problems, so they want to try it further out-of-town.  Since there is a good bit of archaeology out at the tip of Point Barrow, the idea was that I could help him find a spot that was not likely to have any archaeology.  We’ll still test before anything gets put out there, but still.

It was a sunny day, but there was a good East wind off the ice.  We were heading into it, more or less, going probably 25-30 mph until we got off the road, and the ATVs from BASC didn’t have windshields on them yet (they take them off when storing them so they can fit more vehicles into a smaller space).  That bit was not fun.

The first place we went was on the younger, more western of the two prominent beach ridges, near a weird concrete and steel device that reportedly was brought over from Prudhoe Bay during the gray whale rescue.  It seemed like a good possibility, so we took GPS readings.  It looks like there has been a good bit of er

Looking at the ice on the Beaufort Sea, I was happy to see it was really flat for quite a way out.  That will make it easy for bear guards to spot bears there, if only it will stay that way.

Flat ice on the Beaufort Sea, at the farthest north point in the US.

We looked over toward the ridge with the Nuvuk site on it.  I was very discouraging about it as a site for the radar, but Hank was curious, and enough snow had melted so we could get there without bogging down (ATVs aren’t so great in snow), so we headed on over.  There was some sort of rack that was new since fall, so I wanted to look at that.

Looking SE toward the Nuvuk site.

While we were over at the site, I double-checked how far we had tested in relation to the telephone pole with a light on it, since there is interest in mounting something on that pole, and access will be an issue until we are sure there are no graves right around the base.  We mark the end of the tested area with a line of driftwood, which we move inland at the end of every field season.  It’s only a few meters from the pole, so we should be able to clear that one way or another this summer.

Looking toward the Beaufort from the middle of the site. The line of driftwood on the ground marks the limit of the tested area.

The “rack” turned out to be a table-like construction which was labeled as a survey marker for North Slope Borough Wildlife Department.  I checked with them when they got in, and the survey is due to be completed in four days, so it won’t be a problem for us.  I took a picture of Hank on his ATV while we were there.  Actually, I took several with his camera too, but the image never looked in focus to me, so I took some with my camera just to make sure.

Hank S. at Nuvuk

We stopped at another spot that was also a possible radar site.  Hank will take the GPSs back and do calculations to determine which one would work best for the radar, and then let me know and we’ll test it as part of determining if it can go out there.

The ride back was great, since the wind was at our backs.  Alas, my face is covered with what look like hives, which is what happens when I windburn

The snow is finally melting!!

We had a serious amount of snow last winter, although I’m not sure if it was an all-time record or not.  By a couple of weeks ago I was beginning to get a bit worried.  We’ve started work at Nuvuk in June some years ago, but it was pretty miserable.  We’re starting in early July this year, but at the rate the snow was melting it was looking as if we might still have snow patches on the ground when we started.

However, we’ve had some warm sunny weather the last couple of weeks, and the snow is melting.  Patches of tundra are starting to show through; people are heading inland after geese.  We drove out to the end of the road to take a look at Point Barrow.  I was happy to see lots of gravel showing.  Once the gravel starts to appear, it absorbs lots of heat, and the snow melts faster.  Given another month, we should be in good shape.

Point Barrow seen from the end of the road.

It was misty when we drove out, but I think it was a mist from snow ablating (going from solid to vapor directly).  It happens here a lot on warm days, resulting in mist rising from the ground as well as from puddles  & ponds.

Last sunset until August

Tomorrow, May 11, the sun will set at 2:08 AM and rise 21 minutes later.  It won’t set again until early August.

This does not mean that there aren’t many inches of snow still on the ground, however…

The slog continues…

I am still plowing through the literature seeking out information on C14 dates.  Some of it is really hard to come by, with a date attributed to a house but no  information on the sample, either what it was or where it came from.  Then I look at the information on the artifacts from that house, turn to the plates (not naming any names here, but there are multiple offenders) to look at the artifacts, and see that the plates say they are from a house nearby.  Obviously either the text or the plates are wrong (unless they both are, but I’d rather not go there), so now one is left quite unsure of what was really being dated, and what sorts of artifacts were actually associated with that date.  Cross-dating based on artifact assemblages takes another one on the chin.

Another example from today: a date on wood and skin (what kind? caribou, seal, polar bear?) from a burial for which the description seems to indicate that it was only a few baby teeth!  It’s one thing to have typos in a dissertation, but in published books that people are expected to pay money for?  If people don’t read carefully, and compare about three different places in the book at once, it’s all too easy to accept a date at face value and assume that what is said about what it was found with is correct.  Then it gets mentioned elsewhere, and people read it there and pass it on, and so forth.

Such dates do not get high scores for context or association with the event being dated.  Actually they get zeros, since those factors are unknown.

All this in aid of a handbook article (well, two articles, since this C14 stuff should make an article as well).  On the other hand, a number of people say it should be useful.  I’m sure they’re all really glad that I’m doing it and they aren’t.  Can’t say I blame them.