Part IV, Day 13: 080802

This morning Steve was able to get himself a bed inside the main PCSP building, while I was not. Still, at this point I have an entire Weatherhaven almost to myself, and the cots are pretty comfortable. Steve gave me his extra-thick Therma-a-rest to make things even nicer, and it’s not so cold here in Resolute as it was the last couple of nights on Devon.

After breakfast, Steve spent his time arranging his trip home, which he needs to get done as quickly as possible. My ticket home is still scheduled for August 5, so I’m in no hurry. Besides, my schedule is a little flexible in that the only pressing need to get back to Guelph for me comes from my deep-frozen specimens; I think they’ll stay super-cold until at least August 10 or 12, though obviously I’d like to get them into something more permanent (like a -80°C freezer) fairly soon. I spent my morning doing laundry. This allowed me to fully appreciate the words of Jorg, my roommate on my first night here in Resolute. Jorg told me about his time on Axel Heiberg island, at a camp for three weeks studying glaciers. Then he said "Such a luxury! To be able to do one's laundry!". I now agree.

After lunch, Steve took me out on some ATVs as promised. His flight is likely to go tomorrow, though there are some scheduling issues surrounding his flight and its likely passenger manifest. We wandered around the landscape mostly on the far (North) side of the runway, visiting some wetlands and a flowing stream that I had not had a chance to visit earlier on my trips with Derek, Günter, and Debbie.

The shore of a pond in a complex wetland. The ground here is saturated with water and extremely soft; I nearly lost a boot going through this.

Yours truly, hunting for watery critters at a tundra pond near Resolute. Steve Siciliano took this picture, while laughing at my odd obsession for tiny, wet, cold invertebrates.

Tomorrow Steve will (hopefully) be on a plane headed home, and I’ll still have a couple of days to kill with something productive. I plan to recruit some other airport-waiting-researcher as a field assistant, and get around out here to some more habitats. In particular, I have not yet visited a nutrient-enriched lake between PCSP and the town, nor have I collected from the marine realms here.