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The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line that circles the North Pole. North of this line, there is at least one day each year when the sun never sets, and at least one night each year when the sun never comes up. We don’t live on the Arctic Circle in Oulu, but you can almost see it from here

We have glimpsed moose (Alces alces) a number of times now, but not up close and not for long. They are fast-moving, shy creatures. They don’t necessarily stand around and pose while you get your camera out. Probably the moose have had better success at watching us. The woods are full of them

Suiting up in an MSD-900 survival suit felt a little bit strange considering that there was no ice for as far as the eye could see. We were miles from the ice-edge as we pulled into Dutch Harbor but there I was pulling and squirming back through the many zippers and pull-ties. This time I would not

I accompanied Eva Hulse and Greg Korosec while we went back to the new Stone Age site that Dustin’s surveying team discovered on Monday. Although it was only a few degrees above freezing when we stepped out the van, the sun shone steadily all day and by afternoon it was in the sixties. A

Four large groups of Finnish school children were descending on the Kierikki Stone Age Center and both the Director and the Curator were away. I agreed to help out in the Stone Age Village for a second day. As each group came, I demonstrated how to make slate beads while one of the other guides

Today in keeping with the educational and public outreach mission of PolarTREC I spent the day as a guide at the Kierikki Stone Age Center in Yli-Ii. This involved dressing up as a stone age person and helping Finnish 5th graders make pendants out of slate. It takes about half an hour of

This morning we went on a tour of Stone Age settlements. Three of our leaders, Eva Hulse of the State University of New York at Buffalo, Jennifer Bracewell of McGill University and Sam Vaneeckhout of the University of Oulu showed us some of the places they have excavated in the past

Latitude: 57 10.174N Longitude: 163 45.851W Alexei Pinchuk peers into a clear plastic bottle that he has taken out of the fridge outside the lab. If you didn't know better, you would think that he was looking at a bottle of chilly water. What he is actually doing is checking on his babies

Mickey was one of the first people my wife, Laura, told about my being selected as a PolarTREC teacher. Laura picks Mickey up most Sundays on her way to church. It's about a 20 minute drive with Mickey each way and you are always mesmerized by the topics of conversation. The day Laura told Mickey

It is Sunday, and we have the day off. Also, it is Mother’s Day and in Finland that's a big national holiday. All of the restaurants, stores, museums and other attractions are closed up tight. There are no cars on the roads. There is hardly a person to be seen. They must all be home, having coffee