day 4 -- caribou, fox, and tourists, oh my!

The high light of the day -- this gorgeous arctic fox trotted ahead of us on the road for a few hundred feet, then sauntered off toward the river. Our amazement left us fumbling for cameras, so the photo doesn't do the sighting much justice.


Today was the first day we split up. Meredith and Laura headed out near Eric Post's site to sample boulders along moraines, and Xiahong, Ross, and I went to Vulgaris Valley (see previous post) to do a vegetation survey and collect soil across the east-west running valley. Before we headed out, we managed to do a little cultural exploration -- a trip to the local grocery store! See below for photos of some of our exciting finds, but please note that this is the only store in town, so besides food there are most of the items you'd expect at a five-and-dime: clothing (Puma is in high fashion), shoes, kitchen appliances, fishing poles, glass seed beads for traditional regalia, linens, etc.


This garlic is great! Xiahong put some in our vegetable stir fry dinner. Keep in mind that Greenlandic and Danish are the primary languages. Supporting a vegetarian diet has proven difficult, veganism is impossible if relying on the cafeteria, so we splurged ($60 for 5 people on rice, veggies, and a bottle of soy sauce) to get some fresh vegetables into our diet. Most 'freshies' are imported from Denmark, altough potatoes are grown in southern Greenland, and the KISS staff grow their own personal stash of tomatoes in the windows of the field station.


The fresh vegetable section.


Muskox


Smoked seal meat


Seal blubber? Our dictionary lacks 'puisip orsua,' but puisi means seal in Greenlandic.



The subsistence hunting season starts tomorrow, and we fear this young male caribou won't last long. He was unafraid of the five of us on the shore of the lake, and equally unafraid of the two tour buses and large hiking group that came by as he meandered across the road.


This morning on our way out into the field, there was no blue ice. This large piece crumbled into the Watson river below while we were out and about.


For those of you who think we're in the middle of nowhere, check out the crowd we came upon. Greenland ecotourism is expanding quickly. Thursdays mark the arrival of the Fram, a tourist cruise ship that makes weekly cycles along the coast, and Kangerlussuaq, the only international airport in Greenland, is the point of embarcation. Four tourist buses were blocking the road as we headed out of the field. This is the more people than we've seen in 'Kanger,' a town of 490.

Tomorrow morning we head to the ice margin, where we will camp for two nights. We'll post about that leg of the journey when we return on Sunday. I'm still hoping to see an arctic hare! The subspecies found here stays white all year long and is known for it's fondness for standing on its hind feet to scan the landscape, then staying upright as it hops about!

Life at KISS

Since Simone described today's fieldwork, I'd thought I would write about our home away from home, KISS. The Kangerlussuaq International Science Support (KISS) is where we are stationed while here in Greenland. Above is a photo I took this evening of our building (red front) and our trusty pickup truck. Note my long shadow- I took this photo at about 8:30pm this evening!


The front of KISS.


Our almost-tidy room. We have a desk, some dressers and a fridge. After the first night here, we realized that there is a shade in our room to shut out the sunlight (Thanks Meredith!). Some fun facts about 7/29/09 in Kangerlussuaq: 24 hours of visible light, sunrise 3:41am sunset 11:13pm, length of the day: 19hrs 31 mins. Tomorrow will be 9 minutes shorter!


One of the cool things about KISS is that the halls are lined with scientific posters about Greenland (for those of us that like to geek out!).


Fun photos posted in the hallway of KISS.

day 3: sandflugtdalen, north vs. south slope sampling, and Lake Vulgaris

The day began at the KISS warehouse, home of our gear. The plan was to sample the large sand dune area (sandflugtdalen) to try and determine its origin and if there are layers of organic debris beneath the dunes. We botanized the area, took soil samples, and saw our first caribou!



A story in the sand. . . On the left are arctic hare tracks -- wide spacing indicates running. In the center are arctic fox tracks, also running in the same direction. On the right, fox tracks returning at a gentle trot, perhaps with a full belly?


Blueberries! We found Vaccinium uloginosum and Empertrum nigrum growing in the Sandflugtdalen (long sandy outwash from the glacier).


Fresh caribou scat, an exciting find. The caribou migrate to the coast as the summer draws to a close. The heavier precipitation of the coast provides greater quantities of lichens for the caribou.


Xiahong's big find on the way to Lake Vulgaris -- a young male muskox carcass. Only skin and bones remained, and arctic fox scat surrounded it. Kangerlussuaq is 150km inland.


Laura and Meredith core sediments in Lake Vulgaris (so named by us for the Hippurus vulgaris, aquatic vegetation growing along the lake margin). Notice the ice margin in the background.


Xiahong and Ross collecting soils on the dry, silty south facing slope near Lake Vulgaris. Although the day was sunny and clear and promised many more hours of light by which to work, we had to leave to field to make it to the 'kantine' by 6:30 for dinner.

Day 2- The ice margin!

Ice sheet with Little Ice Age moraines in foreground (gray).


Simone botanizing


Laura, Meredith, Ross, Xiahong and Simone


Air Virginia


Simone's great find!


View from the ice :)

Before I write about today’s excursion, I should back up and give an overview of the trip. Six of us from Dartmouth College are here in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland for ten days to check out the area for the IGERT seminar next summer. The group includes: Dr. Ross Virginia (Department of Environmental Science), Dr. Meredith Kelly (Department of Earth Science), Dr. Xiahong Feng (Department of Earth Science), Dr. Lenore Grenoble (Department of Russian), Simone Whitecloud (PhD student- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) and me- Laura Levy (PhD student- Department of Earth Science).
Today we had an amazing day. We took the day to orient ourselves to the area, with the plan of getting to the ice margin by the afternoon. We started by driving along the Sandflugtdalen, a large, sandy floodplain ~25 km in front of the ice margin. (I’m hoping we have time to explore that area one day while we’re here.) We drove about half way to the ice margin and then parked the car and explored by foot. We could see the ice sheet in the distance and were surrounded by older glacial deposits. While Simone was crouched down, “botanizing”, Meredith and I spent the time looking in the distance at all of the glacial features (“glacializing”?) We were surrounded by a sequence of moraines deposited ~6500 yr BP. As we looked towards the ice sheet, we could see the young, unvegetated moraines of the Little Ice Age. We could also see some amazing patterned ground and some waterfalls that the meltwater flowed over.

This afternoon Simone and I stepped foot on the Greenland Ice Sheet for the first time (Wahoo!) What an amazing experience! The road ended near the ice margin and we climbed down and walked on the ice. You could feel the cold air coming down from the ice sheet and there were numerous meltwater streams that we had to cross (see photo of Ross). You feel incredibly small when you realize how tiny you are relative to the huge ice sheet. We spent a few hours exploring the features of the ice sheet and looking for organic material that could have been overrun by the glacier and then transported to the surface (for radiocarbon dating). We also found a few snow mobiles that were abandoned on the ice.

Tomorrow we are heading in a similar direction to do some more work- I'm looking forward to it.

More tomorrow, Laura

Wild flowers and ice

Recon Day -- we botanized and geologized at Eric Post's research site then headed to the Russel Glacier for our first trip onto the ice. Perfect weather for a long day in the field included low winds and lots of sun.

Naturalist log -- spring is way sprung!

Glacial view from the plane.

Heavy clouds and a bit of a drizzle on arriving at around 6pm, but the weather was warm (55 degrees F) and breezy.
The willows are already going to seed -- I could find no male catkins, only fat females catkins and a few that were already split. My first Northern Wheatear was molting out of juvenile plumage and there were a couple of sparrow fledglings begging to very messy, molting adults (thus the lack of ID). The Cotton Sedge is fully flowering, and a gorgeous large rush with sticky seeds is eagerly awaiting a hairy beast to walk past. Muskox wool is for sale for ~$60US a skein, very soft and subtle in smell.
My first wildlife sighting -- Common Ravens on a grassy bank of the Watson River.
It's 11pm and the clouds are pink and gray. Goodnight!

Transit photos

The cabin is pressurized and the 'loadmaster' monitors the temperature. While normally frigid, the heat of Scotia, NY required a little AC. Notice the creepy wisps of smoke coming from the ceiling. . .

Life on a C-130 is best spent sleeping . . .

Traveling to Greenland

Today we flew from Scotia, NY to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. We arrived at the Air National Guard Base at 5am, put our luggage on crates, went through security and then waited for our safety briefing. We boarded the C-130 around 8:15am. All of our backpacks were hanging from hooks above us and we sat in 4 rows, each 2 rows facing each other. Simone and I had a small window near our heads that we could peek out of- some amazing views! We also got to check out the view from the cockpit, which made our little porthole view seem pretty unsubstantial!
After two 3+ hour legs of the flight, we arrived at Kangerlussuaq. We've all settled into KISS (Kangerlussuaq International Science Station) where we'll be living for the next 10 days. Tomorrow we start to explore the area. More posts soon!