7 February 2017 Listen

When I graduated from college, I flew to Hawaii to volunteer for the National Park Service. I wanted to spend my summer on tropical beaches and my newly minted Ecology degree was my ticket to the dream vacation, er, job, of monitoring sea turtles from remote beaches in Hawaii. As with lots of field work, it ended up being mostly hours of monotony. I sat night after night on the beach, staring across the ocean, hoping to glimpse a turtle. While I eventually saw many, it wasn't the interactions with the turtles or hours swimming in tropical waters that had a lasting influence on me. It was the hours of waiting.

Waiting allowed me to pay attention. Each night, the stars moved ever so slightly. The moon waxed and waned and changed the shadows on the sand and the reflections on the water. With the moon, the tides changed, as did the sound of the waves and the shape of the beach. Each change would have been impossible to notice after only a few nights on the beach, but after an entire summer, they were as obvious as if someone rearranged the furniture in my home.

Today I visited an exhibit at University of Alaska's Museum of the North, titled "The Place Where You Go To Listen," which reminded me of my experience doing field work in Hawaii. Composer John Luther Adams translated the natural patterns of Alaska (the sun, moon, aurora borealis, and seismic activity) into music that reflects the current conditions outside the museum. With enough time in the exhibit, your ears distinguish subtle shifts in the noise. You can literally hear the sun set and the moon wane, but you need time and patience to listen. Can you hear the changes in the music?

In our lives, we often forget to pay attention, to listen. For scientists, living in the field gives us the gift of time to notice patterns, which can be as insightful as the data we work so hard to collect. Time to observe, watch, listen, to truly learn and experience a place. How will the smells, sights, sounds, flora, fauna, hydrology, and geology change each day in the Arctic? What will I notice? What will I connect with?

To learn more, visit the website for the exhibit. https://www.uaf.edu/museum/exhibits/galleries/the-place-where-you-go-to/

PolarTREC 2017-2018 teachers and staff in front of the Museum of the North.