Friday, November 21, 2014

An Arctic Adventure

All through high school, I joked with my family that after college I would do Arctic research and live alone in a cabin in the far north studying birds. Well this past summer, I took one huge step towards my old career goals. I did a first field season for my Master’s degree on the beautiful Digges Island in the Canadian low Arctic studying an Arctic seabird. I am now several months into school, but the summer experience is worth sharing.

An unfortunate accident at the end of the season makes up much of what I have told people about the summer, but the group of us up there had an incredible month prior to that (Travis, who was injured at the end of the season, is recovering well now).

The Arctic is a beautiful and harsh place, even in the relatively warm summer months we were there. We flew into the small town of Ivujivk, the northernmost town of Quebec. We were welcomed warmly by all the locals we met, several of whom were a huge help throughout the season – helping move gear, providing boat transportation, providing support during the accident, and being a comforting presence 15 km from our island. The locals that I had the chance to have conversations with were all extremely friendly, and shockingly insightful. The strong connection to the land and animals that they have makes them very aware of environmental changes. The need for and results of our research really interests them. They understand what shifts in ice patterns mean, both for their own hunting and fishing opportunities, but as a global trend. It was truly amazing talking to them.

Living and working on Digges was endlessly exciting. Thick-Billed Murres, my study species, are cliff-nesting birds. This meant everyday working with them was a guaranteed adventure – rappelling down to our three work sites, leaning over the top of 500 foot cliffs to capture birds, handling birds among thousands of murres perched on their cliff ledges, and eating lunch leaning against a rock looking out at the constant stream of birds coming to and fro. Hiking to the work sites was always fun too – regular caribou family sightings, checking out the tiny wildflowers that manage to survive there, watching for the Golden Eagle pair and Peregrine Falcons pairs on the island, and of course, constantly being vigilant for polar bears. We did get to see (a good thing only after he left) one polar bear on the island. Three of us were walking back from a site chatting, looked up when we came to one of the lakes, and an “Oh shit!” came from one of us. There was a large, healthy bear ¼ of the way around the lake. The two of us with shotguns gripped them more tightly, the other guy got out his camera. We slowly kept walking towards camp, and the bear decided he was not interested, and ambled around the lake. On the far side he stopped to look at us, and in profile at 200 meters, he was a very impressive sight.


Words can only do so much to describe Digges, so I will let photos do the rest.


Our first look as a team

A row of murres
My commute to work
Banding and marking murres
Capturing murres
The lakes surrounding our camp (just past middle lake) and a break in the fog 
Luckily I learned to like heights
Another day at work
Gull hoping for some murre egg lunch
My favorite view
Just sitting at his desk
Hatched shell and chick hiding behind it's parents and neighbor

Lake and Ocean
Curious young caribou
The precarious pair (and chick under left bird's wing)
Camp