Day Three Churchill Canada 6-21-11

We did a lot of work. Cored 9 trees twice each. The hard part was getting through all the growth around the bottom to get to the truck of the tree. Boy am I tired tonight. We had a bonfire because of the summer solstice. That means today is the longest day of the year. We roasted the biggest marshmallows I have ever seen.
The sun set at 10:30, but it still is not totally dark. They are having about 21 hours of sunlight right now.

Day Two Churchill Canada 6-20-11

Churchill was nice and warm and sunny today. I spent the morning learning to use the equipment that we will be using to collect the data. This included GPS, a hand held data collector called an iPAQ, a tree corer (drill a hole in a tree to tell how old it is and how much it has grown each year) and other stuff. Then we went out in the field and practiced. We only went around the back of the building but the girl who works here had to go with us with her shotgun. We call her , "the girl with the gun". That was in case there was a bear, but we didn't see any.
The work we are doing is going to be hard work. We have to measure the tiny little seedlings of white spruce and collect all kinds of info on them. Tomorrow we go out and do it for real.

Day One Churchill Canada 6-19-11

Hi,
I made it to Churchill and am now sitting in my room at 11pm and it is not dark outside. We are having almost 24 hours of light. It gets sorta dark about 1:30am and by 4am it is bright light again.

As I was flying in I saw hundreds of whales at the mouth of the river. They are coming in to have their babies and eat the fish that swim up the river. It was very cool.

Found out I probably won't see a polar bear. The ice on Hudson Bay just broke up last week and the bears are out on what's left of the ice about 5 miles from shore. Turns out polar bears can swim a long way and when it melts they just swim in.

The research station where I am staying is between the northern most edge of the boreal forest and the tundra. As I look out my window I can see the forest. For those of you who don't remember, a boreal forest has trees with needles not leaves.

Tomorrow we go on our first research trip. We are going to be collecting data about the trees.
I'll write again tomorrow. If you have questions, please post a reply and I will answer them.

Earthwatch 2011

I am preparing to head to Churchill Canada for an Earthwatch expedition titled, "Climate Change at the Edge of the Arctic Circle". I am flying to Winnipeg on Sat, June 17th to catch a plane on the 18th to Churchill. Plane or train is the way you have to get to Churchill. It is located on the Hudson Bay and the research station where I will be is 25 miles north of there. Churchill is the Polar Bear capital of the world and I had to sign a paper saying I will not leave the compound without one of the researchers, because they have bear deterrents and I do not. This is going to be a crazy week because I still have a lot to do to be ready to go. Stayed tuned for the next installment.