Toolik track housing

Just like in the 'burbs in the lower 48? :)

Hello, Foxy.

It's a few weeks ago, now, that a fox was hunting some creature under the snow right outside the window of the dining room. But still worth posting, I think.

There are muskox in this picture

 But you can't really see them on my phone camera. Can you spot them?

"Winter Strikes Again!"...

 ...would be today's front-page headline of a Toolik-centric newspaper.

Some people are getting annoyed...it warms up and things start melting...

And then it drops below freezing and snows again.

Then the sun comes out and it warms up and starts melting again....

And now today it's darn cold and snowing again.

There are a lot of people here who are really into the distinct Alaskan winter and summer outdoor recreation activities who are therefore super annoyed that this shoulder season is dragging on and on, with not enough snow and cold left to ski, snowshoe, icefish, or snowmobile,  but just enough to make hiking, running, and jumps in the lake difficult or impossible.

I personally don't care too much because it's still easy to take my daily walks, and as long as the snow keeps visiting, it keeps the summer bugs away. But I'm sure they will get here eventually....

Raven Triptych

 "Raven In A Nest"

"Raven Leaving A Nest"

"Raven On A Conex"

Cornelius's poop?

I am told by the camp EMT that this fat ground squirrel lives under one of the camp buildings. We try very hard to make sure no wildlife has access to our food waste. But the plumpness seen here, and in springtime no less, is very suspect if you ask me. The EMT says this guy is called Cornelius.

Walking on  the boardwalk after the Cornelius spotting, I got to see even more of him. Or one of his friends. I think. I'm not actually entirely sure what squirrel poop looks like so I'm open to correction.

Ducks on a cold pond

 Brrrrrrrrrrr.

Cloudy morning on the Dalton

Taken last week, when I got to go out with the camp naturalist on his daily drive to watch for/document arriving migratory birds and other Arctic wildlife. While he was recording the song of a type of sandpiper (you can see in the Toolik Naturalist Journal the specific kind, way better photos than mine, and an account of all we saw that day...and every other day...by clicking here), I was mesmerized by the clouds....

Brooks Range

I'm probably going to end up just posting random pretty pictures of the world I'm living in right now. So here you go. Since I took this, it's snowed again and all that bare tundra is once again blanketed...for now....

A Tower

Water being precious here at Toolik, we are encouraged to use one of the many "towers" situated around camp. Calling them that makes using a long-drop, outhouse toilet sound way more interesting and appealing than it otherwise would. I'm a fan.

Boardwalk

Tonight I finally wandered out into Toolik's backyard, which has this really charming boardwalk system that provides tundra-protecting access to a whole bunch of science projects that are set up in the hills. The boardwalks were almost completely covered when I first got here, and now (2.5 weeks later), they are kind of, mostly, revealed...but the funniest part of the walk is not pictured here, because whenever I hit a patch of snow where the boardwalk is still obscured, I would end up post-holing like CRAZY, a couple of times to the top of my thigh. There was one time I was not sure I would be able to get my boot out. It will definitely be more relaxing to walk on the boardwalks once the snow is entirely gone, or almost so.

Two  different boardwalk views:

That's if for now! I have a bunch of one- or two-picture posts on deck that I'm going to run with for a while. Short but sweet?

Imnavait Creek

At least for now, I have Thursday mornings off of work, so I let the science coordinator know I was interested in hitching a ride along on any outings that happen those mornings and available to help in any  way. There was an opportunity right away, on my first Thursday morning in camp. A couple of hydrologists here to get a long-running stream-melt project on track for the season needed help doing some digging at their site in Imnavait Creek Research Area, just 8 miles north on the Dalton from Toolik (though those 8 miles happen to go directly east instead of north). So with the two of them and the two science staff here, I packed a lunch and hopped in a truck for a field trip.

It was a chilly day (less than 20F) but brilliantly blue, the Brooks Range shining in the sun.

The hydrology equipment was about 100 yards away from the road, so we put on snowshoes/skis to make our way over to it.

And then we started digging! The project is collecting stream water as it flows down the valley during the spring melt, so in addition to digging out the equipment  installed there, we also needed to dig pathways in the snow to allow/encourage the water to continue flowing well past the collection site instead of collecting and stagnating right where the equipment is sitting, which would compromise the content of  the samples collected.

After a few hours of digging, we'd moved a pretty impressive amount of snow, and everyone was ready for a lunch break.

The rest of the group was going to stay to continue digging all afternoon, but I needed to return to Toolik to report to my actual job for the rest of the day, so I stole away for my last 45 minutes on a pair of borrowed cross-country skis (thank you, Hydrologist Sveta!) to go a bit further up the valley on a peaceful, lung-expanding mini-adventure. What a vista!

Then I got to take one of the trucks on my own back out of the research site...

...and onto the Dalton back to camp. It was my first time being a driver on the Dalton, and it was kind of a thrill.

And so I had my first little adventure away from camp. Hopefully the first of many!

Local walk

Though I've been busy enough with (and tired enough from) work that I haven't been going out on daily walks, I did get a bit of a leg stretch on my first Sunday afternoon in camp, following the road that goes north along the east side of Toolik Lake.

I was technically leaving the station boundaries so finally got a picture of the entrance sign:

Camp looks so small from a distance!

Small-scale was beautiful as well, the snow having melted off in some patches.

The lake is still very decidedly frozen. Hard to believe that it will mostly likely melt enough for the bold and brave to jump into it later this summer. For now it just looks like part of the frozen tundra.

And the snow accumulation is still impressive! But I'm super grateful for a ploughed road to walk on.

Water and sauna

Because we are on BLM land here at Toolik, all grey water (used water from toilets, showers, dish-washing, hand-washing, and everything else) has to be trucked out of here at enormous expense. So efforts to conserve water are constant. There are "towers" (raised outhouses/drop toilets) in a bunch of places around camp, and we are highly encouraged to use those rather than the the few flush toilets available. Lots of us don't have water in our housing areas and keep pee bottles in our rooms that we can empty into the latrines as needed. Letting yellow mellow is the standard for when we do use the flush toilets. And showers are very limited. The standard is two, two-minute showers per week. 

To help keep water use low without us all stinking terribly all the time, there is a completely fantastic lakeside sauna that is fired up at least twice per week. There are men's hours, women's hours, and then co-ed hours. The idea is to go into the sauna and sweat it out for as long as you like...

...and then go outside onto the deck (protected from view of the rest of the station, so that anyone who wants can do this whole process au naturale), soap up with diluted Dr. Bronner's, and then use water pumped up directly from the lake (and heated in the sauna in pitchers with you, if you like) and use that to rinse off. I LOVE outdoor showers and this version of that really takes the cake. What a view!

I felt like a million bucks--clean, ruddy-cheeked from the heat of the sauna--as I made my way back through camp, with million-dollar views in every direction.

Sauna time was the first camp activity I participated in after arriving and it was such a great experience, I plan to be there whenever it's offered from now on. Well, until the bugs come out in force in the summer. Then we'll see. :)

Toolik Field Station

 My job for the next couple months is Kitchen Assistant at Toolik Field Station, a site for a variety of Arctic research projects (click here for the station website and TONS more info) on the northern slope of the Brooks Range, sandwiched between Gates of the Arctic National Park and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (If you type Toolik Lake into Google Maps you'll be able to see where I'm located in relation to...everything else on the planet.)

I'll give you a whole bunch of glimpses into my time here in the coming weeks. But to start, you can see how things appeared to me as I was first settling in.

Standing at the edge of Toolik Lake looking back at camp:

And then looking back at the lake, still frozen from the long, cold winter:

Caribou crossing the tundra in the distance...

My cozy room in a dry, double-wide trailer. Though I have to go elsewhere for running water, I do have electricity. And even Wifi!

And the lovely view out  my window of the Brooks Range. 

Not too shabby a start!