Although it has been six days since I posted anything on my journal, it has been far from an uneventful week. In fact, it has been so busy that I haven’t had the extra time necessary to share what has been going on here.
First, I will address the issue of visas. My visa for Russia has taken up the bulk of my available time for the past three days. Due to the late announcement of National Science Foundation funding, the paperwork to go to Russia had already been sent in by the rest of the team. When we requested my paperwork to be added to the existing list, we were told it was not possible. This news was followed by immediate panic on my part and then a frenzy of e-mails, phone calls and road trips to various locations to gather necessary materials. I am happy to say that I just returned from dropping my FedEx envelope into the drop box, where I stood ear cocked toward the box just to make sure I heard my envelope hit the bottom of the metal container. That little thump seemed to lift a bit of weight off of me as I headed back to my car.
Gear. That is another issue. When you are going to the Arctic and Antarctic you need gear. Quite frankly you need good heavy, durable gear. However, where I am going, Kamchatka, Russia, you need gear that you can carry for long distances along with your food, water and necessities for several days at a time. The tents and sleeping bags they make for sleeping on the Greenland Ice Sheet would be rather heavy and would probably require a team of caribou and a sled. Since I will be carrying them on my back, I have been asked to help select some of my gear. Robbie Score from CH2M Hill, the company that will be outfitting me with most of what I need, has allowed me to suggest some of the specifications of what I’d like to take with me into the wild of remote Siberia. So onto the websites I went and let me tell you my favorite category from the menu was ‘ultralight’.
And bears, oh my. Along with a satellite phone and a powerstrip for Russian outlets, I received a Bear Safety Video this week. It is a fun filled 45 minutes of quality viewing. People are generally walking in the woods or fishing alone in a stream and grizzlies just come walking by. No one seems the least bit concerned as the bear wanders near them. In fact they all do as the video tells them, they stand their ground and talk calmly and leave the area without further incident. That is until the last segment, where the advice is that if a bear attacks you in a predatory manner you should fight for your life with everything you have available to you. They take the time to describe defensive bear behavior, when you should remain calm and stand your ground and predatory behavior, when you should fight like crazy. The people in the video can adeptly tell difference between these two scenarios. I put myself in their place and realize that first off, I should never be walking in the woods quietly. In fact, I am imagining how I will always make enough sound that a bear hears me and leaves the area. The answer to this conundrum? Kazoos. Kazoos are rather lightweight and only take a small amount of space in a backpack. I also know a large number of songs that I can play on a kazoo. I imagine that if I buy a lot of kazoos we can all learn to play the kazoo. After all, is there any song you can think of that you couldn’t play on a kazoo? And quite frankly, if you were a bear and you heard kazoos, wouldn’t leave the area. I would. So there it is, another item to add to the gear list.