This was a day that we didn’t experience from the outdoors. If it is possible, the weather was even more miserable than yesterday. Horizontal rain/ snow/ sleet, temperatures in the low 30’s, and a no good reason to go outside. In VT, this would have been a nap, sit by the fire, and soup day. Here in AK, it was a lab day with some folks cleaning artifacts with toothbrushes, paintbrushes, and picking stuff up with tweezers.
A collection of artifact cleaning tools from the lab. They are nice and soft to remove dirt without damaging the artifact. Today people were cleaning animal bones, rocks, coal, and collecting fish scales. Tony went looking for lemming bones.
I have been pounding away on the Live From IPY presentation as well as other general paperwork. A little slow, a lot of screen time, but I am hacking my way through the PowerPoint. The presentation next Tuesday, August 5th will be really interesting, lots of great info, interesting stories, and probably a few scientist jokes.
"An archeologist is a person whose career lies in ruins!”
The Live From IPY PowerPoint presentation is coming together nicely.
Today’s journal is about a walk I took over the weekend along the beach from Barrow back to BASC. A healthy little 3 mile hike, the gravelly beach gives you a workout, sort of like walking on a 1m deep pile of wet marbles. Ever since I was a kid, I have enjoyed walking on the beach. Casual exploration. Now, that I am an archaeologist in training, I really keep my eyes open.
The images that follow document a "working” beach, a place where boats are launched for fishing and hunting. This is not a glamorous, lie out in the sun, beach. I think it captures the nature of Barrow pretty well.
Caribou meat is dried and saved for winter.
Throughout the country, you will see antlers on barns, in taverns, and in ski houses. This caribou skull and antlers are drying out.
The seal paw and the skin were on the shore having been skinned from the animal. I bought a small seal skin present, I hope that encourages people to use more of the skins. Larger skins are used for boats.
The native people, Inupiat, are allowed to subsistence hunt and fish without licenses and without limits. Their typical food system is based on local meat from the ocean and the tundra.
The typical object we find on the beach are shells. That is not the case up here, a shell is a rare find. I was drawn to its simple beauty.