Fjords, rough seas, sea-ice, ice cream, and other things found in the Arctic Ocean (Part 1: 9/22-9/24)

9/22/15

When I first got on the FF Helmer Hannsen on the morning of Tuesday, September 22nd, my first impression was that of an underground bunker. The smell of fish and salt, the dark, small cabins, the metal hatches, the flickering fluorescent lights of of the area we would be living for the next week seemed like a submarine or a fall-out shelter.

Boarding the FF Helmer Hannsen

This ship was a former fish trawler, turned into a research vessel a decade ago by the University of Tromsø

My cabin for the next week

Of course there's a gas mask cabinet in the hallway

 But then we had a tour of the upper decks of the ship. The upper hallways are well-lit, have wooden inlays, and there are black couches and TVs i many rooms. The mess hall looks like a little diner with swiveling chairs and juice dispensers. Doughnuts and fresh fruit were available. I ate doughnuts and melon and drank peach ice tea and OJ. I didn’t even realize we were moving and had already left Adventdalen until I looked out the window. A couple of us went out on deck and took pictures of the snow-covered mountains. It was incredibly beautiful. Of course, my camera kept malfunctioning.

Through the porthole

Our map of our course

The messhall

Cake Time, a twice-daily occurence

The lounge next to the mess hall

A graduate student along with us on the research cruise is investigating the seepage of methane from sea floor pocks, and so he went with a number of students to take a core of the sea floor in Billenfjorden to take methane samples. i went outside in rubber boots and a helmet with them to watch the process. 

At 1pm we had a safety briefing from the first mate: be quiet, meet on deck in case of emergencies, listen for alarms, both the fire alarm and the ‘channel alarm, survival suits could be found in the cabinet next to the instrument room. 

Lunch was cabbages in cream sauce, sausages in brown sauce, and potatoes. While eating it, I said that my inner ear is so weak, the motion of the boat didn’t affect me at all. The fact that as I write this days later, the mention of these foods begins to make me sick indicates my mistake. Prof. Julian Dowdeswell of the Scott Polar Research Institute sat with us and told us of the centennial of Shackleton’s voyage celebration at the SPRI building, and how the prince of Monaco may come. I may have seen a small bergy bit of sea-ice. Vanilla pudding for dessert. The ship had reached open water, and the rocking of the ship was making trying to read scientific papers a futile attempt. I had a little knob of ginger, but it was only helping so much. I needed to go outside to get some fresh air, but getting from the mess hall area to my room to get my coat was so hard. I made it to the laundry room below where the sudden smell of fish and a large swell sent me running to the trash can to give my sacrifice to Poseidon. 

Thankfully there were sinks and disinfectant readily available. My classmate Marianna came down the stairs as I was scrubbing the floor, and with as much volume as I could, I raised my hand and said: “Stop.” She scurried back up. She was apparently going downstairs to get something for another person suffering from sea-sickness. I made it to my room to get my coat, and then I climbed onto the deck to recover.

 It was nice to stare into the wind, and singing Owl City songs helped. I was not alone. There were a number of fellow sufferers, and I was informed that the day’s lectures were being postponed until the next morning. I was falling asleep outside in the cold, so I went back inside to lay on my bunk as the world rolled back and forth beneath me. It was like a drunken hangover that never ended.  Dinner was served at 7:30pm, Indian curry with rice. Ha, like I could stomach that at this moment. I ate a small meal of rice, cucumbers, and watermelon. After dinner I drew in my journal until I was no longer sick, then went to sleep.

my sea-sick drawings

9/23

Woke up feeling groggy, but overall normal. I felt a little weird eating on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, when most people who are over thirteen and in good health fast. But it was a normal day for everyone else, and I needed energy to work, so I enjoyed a breakfast of toast with eggs and lox and with peanut butter and Nugatti spread. I went back to my room to shower, but the girls with whom me and my room-mate Andy share a bathroom forgot to unlock the bathroom door from our side, so I went outside instead. We were approaching Moffen Island, famous for its walruses. I watched our approach from the bridge-room. With a broken camera and no binoculars, I could only see a pile of grey blobs several hundred meters away on a small island. It was disappointing, and I wasn’t the only person to think so. I tried to get to the foredeck for a better look, but I got lost and gave up. I took a very quick shower, then went to lectures. Sisi and some others saw walruses swim up right next to the ship. I showed my camera to Andy, who held it up, then held it to my ear: I could hear loud crunching sounds coming from within. Lectures were starting, and someone gave me a shushing finger. I gave her the most passive aggressive thumbs-up I could muster. I was in a very bad mood.

After lectures, I went up to the instrument room and was able to borrow a small screwdriver which I used to open the casing on my camera to remove some of the grit. My camera now worked as long as you didn’t try to zoom in and out too quickly, and sometimes required me to manually push the lens back in after turning it off. I also helped to take apart Svenya’s microphone for hearing loss, which the professor had gotten sea water into. Opening and closing it didn’t help, but I at least didn’t break it more. Lunch was stringy codfish with potatoes in cream sauce. Dessert was pistachio and pecan ice cream with chocolate sauce, which I ate quite a bit of. I spoke to Julian Dowdeswell more about SPRI, and tried to impress him so that he remembers me when I send it my application to his Master’s program. There were no lectures in the afternoon and my group, Group 2, didn’t have box coring until late at night. I went outside and took more pictures, read articles, and went outside some more. We were very far north, the islands we passed were barren and vegetation-less. Yet sea-birds and (allegedly) whales were all around us.

''

Sketch of an island we we passed

 

Dinner was pasta, couscous, lox and bread. I wanted to sleep after dinner, but instead I needed to run up and down to try to get my bathroom unlocked. Finally, I was ready to sleep lying in bed, but the chirping of the shallow acoustic profile sensor kept me awake like a singe very loud, syncopated cricket.

9/24

At 1:30AM, I woke up and got ready for box coring. At 1:55AM, we heard an alarm go off, and were panicked wondering what to do. It stopped, and we went back to waiting. Ten minutes after that, an instructor came, and we put on full-body insulated, waterproof suits called Regatta suits, hard hats, rubber boots, and thick, waterproof mittens and went outside. The temperature was a little below freezing, and we were at 81ºN, 22ºE, water depth 323 m. It was dark and cold, but there wasn’t too much wind. We walked along the length of the deck with a long hose to the spot where the box core machine would drop our large container of surface sediment. We waited for around ten minutes as the winch dropped the apparatus to the bottom, it snapped shut, and then was winched back up. It was a full box of soft mud. After our instructor Katrine took a surface sample for foraminifera, I siphoned off the top water and we took pictures (it seemed like everyone’s camera was having issues). Then we sieved the top 10cm with cold seawater. In my thick gloves, I was worried about letting the sieve slip overboard. My right glove got wet, and my hand quickly became numb. In the end, we found very few rocks, but a number of worms and nereids, which I had to fling out with a pencil. 

Our coring sites, The box core (HH15-04) on the left and the gravity core (HH15-08) on the right

Our box core

We then needed to wash everything. This involved shoveling the heavy mud over the side of the ship and then scrubbing the deck with water and a broom. “Don’t forget to do your morning pull-ups” the professor said as I struggled to shovel mud with my numb hands. This was hell. After an eternity, we were done and we could go back inside and take off our suits. I ran around some more trying to figure out if I had a night shift for instrument watch (I didn’t) and then fell in to a fitful sleep. I dreamed of a Japanese woman with waxen skin and a large red oval painted on her forehead who stared at me silently. When I woke up, I could finally feel my fingertips again.

I spent the morning categorizing the rocks we found based on size, angularity, and lithology. Our biggest clast was 8mm long, and most were smaller than 2mm. Evelyn Dowdeswell was impressed with my hand-eye coordination that I was able to transfer from all my ostracod picking.  I went outside to see the northernmost islands of Svalbard’s archipelago, and my camera seemed to be behaving. While I was outside, my group mates were splitting open rocks to determine their lithology. I am crap at determining lithology when I’m on little sleep. Lunch was meat and lingonberries. The new tropical fruit juice was really good. Dessert was chocolate-covered ice cream popsicles. 

Tiny little rocks that we found on the ocean floor

At three, we went outside to do gravity coring. We put on our Regatta suits and walked to the deck to prepare the corer. We screwed the cutter (a sharp metal core with a hollow core) and catcher (a ring of interlocking metal blades that allow sediment to go through one way) into the base of core tube and watched the crew lower the core into the moon-hole - the hole in the center of the deck. It took around twenty minutes for the corer to sink and then be lifted back up. We pulled the plastic core liner out from the metal tube, and I took the collected mud form the catcher and cutter and put int into a labelled plastic bag (my specialty is putting mud into bags). We then measured out the length of the cores, labelled, sawed through at our marks (my poor tired arms), capped them with plastic plugs, labelled, and finally brought them inside to warm to room temperature. 

(pictures will be here soon)

By the time this was done, it was time for dinner: chicken, french fries, onion rings, and more lox and crisp bread. I was exhausted, but I had instrument watch from midnight to 2am. I went to sleep immediately after dinner so I could be awake for it, but it seemed like as soon as I put my head on the pillow it was time to head up to the bridge for my watch. 

To be continued

Santa Claus, Seal Furs, Wet Boots, Reindeer, and the Jewish High Holidays

The last two weeks were fairly light. After several weeks of fieldwork,  we had a four-day weekend and the preceding school days were not particularly strenuous. We had a field report based on our field work to work on, and I also was (and still am) in the process of applying to a Gates-Cambridge grant for the Scott Polar Research Institute masters program. But those things are boring, so I procrastinated on all this by doing other things. I have been busy exploring Longyearbyen and the surrounding area as well as cooking. 

On Tuesday afternoon after school I wandered across the road to the large red pillar behind the UNIS building. There is a metal statue of a polar bear and a "Welcome to Santa Claus Town" post box (?), at least I think it's a postbox. There's a small slot in the front. I have no idea what the purpose of this is, as I can't imagine people coming all the way to Longyearbyen in order to send a letter to Santa Claus. It then started raining, so I went back to the UNIS building for another couple hours. 

The next day, I went to the Svalbard Museum, the museum that takes up the other half of the UNIS building, with my friend Sisi and her visiting boyfriend Conor. The museum was equal parts history, science, and an excuse to display furs and taxidermied animals. The English text along the outside told the story of whaling, hunting (why would anyone hunt a walrus?), immigration from the Pomor areas of Northwest Russia, Norway, and the Netherlands. The captions and photos made the fur trapping business seem senseless and antiquated. And then you turn your head and see a comfy reading corner completely made up of seal fur. Seal fur rug and seal fur pillows. 

Pictured: Senseless whale hunting

Pictured: So many seal furs

The rest of the museum talks about the geology of the island, the stories of coal miners and fur trappers in the late nineteenth through twentieth centuries. In the center of the room, there were a number of interactive flip panels with fur, seeds, taxidermied animals, mock-cabins...a lot of fur with all the information in only Norwegian.

Ah yes, the endemic floating hands of Svalbard

At the very end of the museum, there was a couple panels about the recent history of Longyearbyen. I didn't realize that the airport was only built in the 1970s, and that it along with the Norwegian government's investment in the town dramatically changed Longyearbyen from a depressed company town into a normal (-ish) town. The museum is clearly funded by the Norwegian government.

On Friday, through some confusing turn of events, my friend Mariana and I were allotted one of the UNIS rifles from the weekly lottery and we needed to demonstrate how to properly half-load in order to actually be able to check out the rifle. Any time I need to do anything with guns, I get extremely nervous. So when it was my turn to show half-loading procedure, I was sweating and my heart was pounding. During a proper procedure, you are meant to check that there are no bullets in the chamber three times: once at the beginning, once after putting the ammo into the magazine, and once before closing the bolt. I checked I think at least five times. I also was unable to get a click when I tested the gun by pointing and firing at the ground (yes, you need to shoot the ground at the end of half-loading).  The trigger won't click when you don't close the bolt all the way. So the supervising logistics officer told me to do it again. I was finally able to do it. The officer told me that I passed, but I was very unconfident, so I should not be the one to carry the gun on the excursion. 

What do you know? Mariana didn't pass her rifle test because she didn't check whether the barrel was empty enough times. So I was the only one who could carry the rifle on the hike. I had to wait outside the outdoor store while Mariana bought us nice new thermoses because I couldn't go inside while with a rifle. I then had to go immediately home so I could lock the ammo and bolt in my room's safe (every room in the dorm has a safe for this purpose). 

 On Saturday, me, Mariana, my friend Sarah, and her visiting Swedish friend Sandra,  were driven by another friend, Julianne,  who works for a tour company past the border of town (marked by a polar bear warning - guns required beyond this point sign). It was a bit foggy, but the area we were in, Adventdalen, was really beautiful. It is the main fjord valley that extends out from Longyearbyen and includes the tributary valleys of Endalen, Todalen, Bolterdalen, and a number more. There were a number of vacation cabins that dotted the valley sides, so we never felt particularly distant from town. But man, those cabins are remote, out past the last outpost of civilization.

A very remote vacation cabin

We spent several hours walking through the valley,  finding a lot of reindeer bones and reindeer poop. I don't know if I have ever mentioned how much reindeer poop there is in Svalbard. A lot.

A wall of sediment that is slowly being pushed down a valley

We didn't see any glaciers, though we knew that Foxvanna, the glacier we visited the week before, was very close. We crossed a number of glacial rivers, and saw cloud-shrouded mountains. We stopped for lunch on top of a hill, and we were soon misted by a cloud passing by. The clouds here are so low, you can easily walk up to them if they are resting over a mountain. 

After lunch, we saw a herd of reindeer and decided to follow them for a little bit. So we trekked across the marshy land at the bottom of the valley until we had taken enough reindeer pictures.

Reindeer!

Us following the reindeer 

Around the area where we were taking pictures of reindeer, there was a big pile of wooden pallets with a sign saying it was part of a study of geese breeding. Of course, what else could it be? We then started to work our way back to town. 

Obviously, this pile of pallets is related to geese breeding

Taking a break for a photoshoot with the rifle. Of course the ammo and bolt was in my pocket so it was just a heavy stick. 

                              

The decision to walk back via the center of the valley quickly proved to be a poor choice. The ground was very muddy and wet, sometimes causing you to sink up to the ankle. My boots are water resistant, but can only take so much. I thankfully got to dry land before my socks got wet. Sarah wasn't quite as lucky. 

 The walk back along the road was long, but I entertained people by telling stories from Norse mythology. Scandinavians don't know Norse mythology as well as I thought they would. At around 5:30pm, we finally got back to Nybyen, our dorm building. I wish I could have relaxed in town, but of course, while carrying a rifle I had to go straight back to the dorm.

We saw a rainbow as well.

The next day was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, so in celebration I made round challah bread from scratch.

Yeast and water

the start of the dough

Dough after kneading for a while

After one rising. 

Punching it down to rise again. 

Braiding it into a circle to represent the circularity of time, or something

Baking it in the oven

Beautiful challah

My Rosh Hashana meal of challah, dried fruit and chicken stew, and honey

 I called my family that night, and while it was great to see and talk to everyone, it really made me miss home. Everyone had friends and significant others visiting, and it was hard to be alone on a holiday that I've always been around to celebrate with my family. They were having fresh fruit and delicious brisket, and while the food I made myself was tasty, it couldn't beat a meal shared with my family.

This past week has been good: I've only had lectures in the mornings, and the afternoons have been spent working on my field report and applications, which is normal for me coming from UChicago. Our guest lecturer, Prof. Julian Dowdeswell from the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge is a great teacher, and I'm even more excited to apply to the masters program there. Honestly, not having much homework was making this all seem like too much of a vacation. Well vacation is over. On Tuesday, I'm leaving on an 8-day research cruise and then afterwards I have two term projects and numerous grad school applications to work on. I also am on the Party Planning Committee, need to help Sliced Bread magazine from afar, and I will hopefully be invited out on another hike soon!