Today was by far the hardest day physically since arriving to the North Slope. We hiked over ten miles in the tundra and we are ALL exhausted! Jeremy fell asleep on the couch the moment we got home and Jenny took a nap right after she showered. Hiking on the tundra in Atqasuk is SOOOOOOO much harder than hiking in Barrow. Barrow is really a nice pleasant stroll through the park in comparison. In Atqasuk, there are tussocks. Tussocks are mounds created by Eriophrum vaginatum. Its roots clump together in a ball-like shape that can be anywhere from softball to basketball sized and they are unstable sometimes. There is no way of knowing if a tussock will move when you step on it until you step on it. There's also mats of Carix aquatilis that sit in water a few feet above the permafrost and a few inches to a foot below the water's surface. Like tussocks, the only way you know how far you will press the mat down is to step on it and hope the water doesn't go over your boot tops.
If there's Eriophrum vaginatum, then you know you're going to find tussocks!
So why did we hike over ten miles through the tussocky tundra? Well, we had to stake out the individual plots of the point frame grid so the team who returns in two years will be able to find the same exact point frame plots we did this year. There are approximately 100 plots each 100 meters apart on a 1 kilometer square grid and we left the ATV about two miles from the grid so we don't create a larger disturbance area near the grid.
Traversing the grid, we noted the community each plot was: dry tussock, dry heath, or wet meadow. Dry tussock is a place that is pretty dry with tussock mounds and Eriophrum vaginatum. Dry heath is characterized by having lichen and shrubs. Wet meadows are areas that are generally in the middle of low center polygons and have standing water or have just recently dried out.
Jeremy hammers in the last stake while I classify the community a
I learned a lot today just by walking in the tundra. It seems that everything is related to the ice wedges that form in the soil. Over hundreds and thousands of years of annual freezing and melting, these wedges break the soil and create ice wedge polygons, land masses that are polygon-shaped and broken off from the surrounding land. Every polygon is different and they are constantly changing. The land here was covered by a sheet of ice only 10,000 years ago when people walked across the Bering Strait. These polygons greatly influence the plants living on them and the variation of plants is tremendous based on the location on the polygon. In the middle of a high center polygon, the soil will be almost dry and there will be lichen and shrubs. That area is called dry heath. In the middle of a low center polygon, there will almost always be meadows with standing water and mats. The edges of low center polygons are ridge-like and dry, perfect for Eriophrum vaginatum, creating those tussocks I told you about earlier. Of course, you will find tussocks in high center polygons as well; these are just some examples. Sometimes, the low-tech method of ground-truthing and just visually taking stock of the environment around you is the best way to learn, to experience the environment. Tonight I'm exhausted. My ankles and knees are aching and I have mosquito bites everywhere; however, I know what tundra feels like. I know the different plant communities (at least in Atqasuk) and I can make a case in labeling each one. I think I also have a vague idea of what the Iñupiat saw and felt as they walked the tundra in search of caribou, fox, and ground squirrel. I think it was a good day...and I think I'm going to sleep well tonight!
Atqasuk: August 4, 2010 12:01 am
I took this picture right before going to bed...the sun still hadn't set yet. It would set a few minutes later at 1:16 am.