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My First PolarTREC Journal Here in southcentral Alaska, where I live and work, fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium) is a common and beautiful wildflower. As the fuchsia-colored flowers give way to fluffy white seeds that float on the wind and the leaves turn crimson, we know that summer is

In the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to work with amazing researchers and familiarize myself with all of the projects that they are involved with here in the arctic region of Northern Alaska. As I learn what the research entails, I have become astounded by how technology helps drive

The most apparent form of life on the North Slope are plants. When I look across the tundra from my WeatherPort, most of what I can see are plants. The Arctic has a very short summer season, and even in early August, it's beginning to move into the fall season. When the weather turns cold, it's easy

In the lab, we've spent the past couple days sorting plant matter from the plots we harvested. As I mentioned in a previous post, a majority of the shrub found in our plots are alders, a nitrogen-fixing plant. When we sort, we have to isolate structures found on the roots of the alders, known as

Yesterday was a sunny and warm day here in Nome. I continued to explore the community. I visited the library, the Carrie McLain Museum, and met more of the research teams. You can tell that everyone going on the expedition arrived the night before because the town almost seems crowded now. The extra

Today was lovingly referred to as a "plucking" day. In the previous journal entry I described how we hiked to a research site and removed a square meter of brush and tundra turf. Today we began to process the material which requires many people because there is so much plant matter to identify and

In just a couple of days I have traveled from Toolik to Barrow to Atqasuk. Journeying from truck to small airplane to another small airplane and even an ATV. This is the life of field researcher. You have a tight agenda, with limited time to complete all the work before the short summer season ends

I had the opportunity to work with Jackie Hrabok-Leppajarvi (a reindeer epidemiologist!) and the students of UAF's Ecology Explorers. The 13 local kids participating in this summer program were excited to learn about the Healy and what we will be doing for research. They were an amazing group of

I left my house in New Hampshire at 2:30am EST on Monday, July 29th to begin my PolarTREC expedition. I flew from Boston to Seattle, Seattle to Anchorage, and then Anchorage to Nome with a short stop in Kotzebue. As I flew into Nome on Monday night, I looked down to see herds of Musk Oxen on the

Today was my first day of harvest at our research site, known as Sag 1. This site is next to the Sagwon River and a two hour drive south of the Toolik Field Station. The site was not located next to the road, so we had to hike out to the location with all of our equipment. We set up quadrants that