Steffi installed a weather station on top of slump D to monitor irradiance, wind speed, precipitation, ground- and air temperature to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of a thaw slump. (photo: J. Wolter)It is unbelievably beautiful up here! We have begun to forget our city routines and are starting to enjoy nature in all kinds of ways. We often get to see seals, beluga whales, and muskox. Fortunately no close encounters with bears... yet! We're getting better at noticing changing wind direction and rising waves. This will be useful as we'll spend a lot of time at one field site that is about three hours away from our camp on foot, but just fifteen minutes by boat. So we keep a watchful eye on the waves to ensure that we do not have to walk back with all our equipment and samples on our backs. We're fortunate that the weather so far has been good. It's been unusually warm with temperatures up to 20 oC, and we try hard not to burn up – sometimes using unconventional sun screen of which there is plenty of up here: mud!

 

Juliane has already started her work on ice-wedge polygons, to define and sample the vegetation. Most of the time you can see her lying on the ground and looking at tiny plants. If you watch her and her excitable nature, you realize that not everything is just green. There are details and colors in the flowers that makes the vegetation up here so special. Juliane intends to use the vegetation data and reconstruct past climate in the area using sediment cores.

 

Boris fixing the side scan mount on our research vessel the AWI Christine. (photo: S. Weege)Our boat engine problems have persisted for a number of days, and a lot of effort has gone into trying to figure out what exactly the problem is and why we couldn't go faster. Luckily we had some help! The Canadian Coast Guard Vessel Wilfrid Laurier anchored off Herschel Island on their way back to base. The crew took the opportunity to visit Herschel Island. One of their engineers was so kind to help us with the Zodiac, and finally our boat is running like it should!

 

Boris was beginning to get impatient at his inability to start using his brand new instruments on the boat, and we are now looking forward to be able to handle rougher seas while getting to and from our other field sites. Boris' new side scan is capable of acquiring high resolution bathymetric (underwater depth) and side scan data (to create an image of the sea floor). The instrument is mounted on the boat. Our goal is to find out more about sediment pathways in the nearshore of Herschel Island.

Steffi’s flume site. The sensors mounted on the weir in the foreground allow measurements of flow volume, pH and conductivity. The automatic water sampler is shown next to the fuel cell in the background. (photo: B. Radosavljevic)As the boat is now ready for action, we were also able to get Steffi´s field site prepared. It is located at one of the many thaw slumps along the island shore. Thaw slumps are features of thawing exposed ice-rich permafrost headwalls. At one of them we set up two weather stations, one video camera, two time-lapse cameras, an automatic water sampler, and a sediment flume. The sediment flume is basically a weir equipped with a bunch of sensors that enable the calculation of discharge, conductivity and pH. Steffi is attempting to enhance our knowledge of erosion dynamics in thaw slumps and what kind of material, especially how much organic carbon (what was original stored in the permafrost) is entering the nearhore zone as permafrost thaws.

Slump D: Steffi’s site. The picture shows a thaw slump and associated drainage. The thaw slump headwall (background) is very ice rich and about 30 m tall. (photo: B. Radosavljevic) It's a fun and unbelievably dirty job to build a little dam to slow the flow before it enters the flume. We always return mud encrusted from Steffi's site. A sauna and a quick swim in the cold arctic water helps to get rid of the mud, but the salt crust remains. It feels great to be a bit cleaner for our delicious late dinners, and enjoy a sunset of sorts for an hour at about 3 am. As you can tell, our rhythm has shifted a bit. We hardly ever get up before 9 am, but we often work until 9 pm or later, and have dinner after that. During and after dinner we plan our schedule for the next days and check the equipment that we planning to use the next day.

Sometimes the Herschel Island rangers invite us to try arctic delicacies: fresh fish caught in Pauline Cove. It doesn't take long for everyone to gather around the fire, a guitar appears, and songs and laughter fill the air. Our Inuit hosts share stories about their life in the north, hunting, encounters with bears, and how their community has changed over the years. We were fortunate to also have traditional drum dancing showcased just for us. Meeting such warm and friendly people is truly the best part of traveling this far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward showing us the traditional drum dance in his traditional coat made with wolverine claws. (photo: B. Radosavljevic)

Wonderful BBQ evening with fantastic smoked arctic char. (photo: A. Konopczak)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stefanie