The Northeast Science Station: Pleistocene Park
We landed. It's in the 80s, hot for this region. Two men, dressed in fatigues board the plane to check our passports. After visiting each passenger they lead us into a one-room building with a floor mostly covered by piles of cardboard boxes, as well as passengers waiting for their flight. A small isle to the right of people and boxes allow for us to walk into an opening. The same security pull out a binder. Once our names are matched to those in the binder and we are given the all clear and security takes pictures of our passports. The incredibly welcoming Zimov's met us at the door. Combating a swarm of mosquitoes, the Zimov hastily carry our luggage to the official Pleistocene Park Truck. We are then driven to the Northeast Science Station.
Although most buildings are abandoned in Cherskiy and large miscellaneous metal items liter the ground, life bustles on. Mothers walk their children down the street, neighbors laugh, people repair their trucks and work on their houses.
The Northeast Science Station is busy with scientists from across the world. A videographer from California has just spent the last several weeks traveling with Nikita to Denmark to transport 12 baby bison by truck and barge to the park. Sergei, the patriarch of the Zimov family, believes if he brings the area back to the same state as it existed during the last Ice Age, we could slow the melting of permafrost. Bison are just the beginning. Sergei wants to ultimately bring back woolly mammoths, or similar animals, to inhabit Pleistocene Park.
The main building, once a radio station, balances a giant satellite atop its head. It has been converted into a meeting room where all visitors eat together promptly and without question at 8:30am, 2:00pm and 8:30pm. Here, scientists from across the world collaborate. The first group we meet: oceanographers from Germany currently measuring carbon and methane levels down the river from Cherskiy to the Arctic Ocean. Last week, they were shocked by the extremely high rates of both carbon and methane resulting from permafrost thaw. They will continue their research here for the next several weeks before returning to Germany.
Pleistocene Park Truck
A Gift
Personalized and All
Former radio satellite, current Northeast Science Station.
Note: Amanda and team are still in transit and we will be publishing a couple of journals that she prewrote. Feel free to write any comments or ask questions and she will respond when she has internet and is at the research station.
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