(Photo: Wiebke Kaiser) Group picture at the Tiksi activities center Our expedition is finished now. But before we say goodbye we want to tell you about our last days on Samoylov Island and our experiences in the little town Tiksi located at the Polar Sea.

 

In our last days on the island, the winter came back. The peak of the Lena flood was over and slowly the water fell a little bit every day. All water on the island was frozen again as on our first days at Samoylov. So it was impossible to measure the amount of flowing water at the weirs any more.

It was time to leave the island. But due to snow, fog and storm (at the beginning of June!) it was only possible for the helicopter to come with one day delay. Finally we arrived to Tiksi and the next day it was the same: there was so much snow (5 cm) the morning we wanted to fly to Yakutsk. Instead of driving to the airport we visited the local school's activity center. This was a nice welcome and great possibility to get in contact with the local population.

From the beginning of June till September the pupils have summer holidays, but still a group of pupils was there. As an introduction we told them what we have done in the Lena Delta and showed some pictures of our drilling activities.

 

They were astonished about this and said that it's impossible to dig into uk online casino the soil. Afterwards they answered a lot of our questions and showed us some videos about their outdoor activities.

 

(Photo: Wiebke Kaiser) Drawing for an art competition It seemed that they have a lot of fun with their scout experiences and love camping already in April! When we asked them if it's possible to play outside in the winter, they were laughing about our stupid questions – of course it's possible! The only restriction is if there is too much wind. This also reflected our growing understandings of temperature: the thermometer reading doesn't display the temperature as it is felt. There can be big differences.

Furthermore it was impressive to see the nice art products which covered all walls. All the pictures and collage art demonstrate the polar life, flora and fauna. In the end we had the impression that we have seen a lot of happy kids who were proud of their city and seemed to have a very nice childhood in a small environment. I want to say: ´´Thank you´´ to Katia Abramova and Nastya Ananeva for their translation help and Natasha Gukov for her friendly reception! This was a nice ending to our great expedition to the Arctic world.

Saying "Good-Bye" at the school was very short because we finally got there the call telling us to get immediately ready for the airport. The rest of our journey home was without any more adventures and we safely came home to Germany. Goodbye!

 

(Text: Wiebke Kaiser)