Temperatures climbed into the 30s and 40s (Fahrenheit) and the skies continued to clear, allowing us several long days of excellent flying. Tracking conditions had been poor because sunlight becomes quite flat with low overcast skies, making it difficult to see tracks. Clear skies and direct sunlight made tracks easier to see. However, after several days the warm temperatures began to melt out all tracks, making it difficult to distinguish fresh tracks from new tracks.

Following a trail of polar bear tracks on the sea ice. To find bears for capture, we fly low over good habitat – areas of sea ice with cracks and leads which allow seals to surface, making them vulnerable to predation – and look for bears or their sign. In good light conditions such as this photo, tracks are easy to see. These tracks belonged to an adult female with two cubs-of-the-year (COYs).

We captured several sows with cubs, and an adult female and an adult male that were most likely a breeding pair. As we have all season, we fitted some of these bears with GPS collars which periodically record time, date, location, ambient temperature, bear activity, and salt water immersion (as a record of swimming). This data is stored on the collar and it is transmitted to satellite twice per day, allowing us to track the bear in real-time. We will use these collars to locate bears for recapture in the fall. For the possibility that we may not be able to recapture some bears, the collars are programmed to release in November and fall off the animal.

An adult male bear, positioned on the pads used for BIA, with the mask and bag used for breath collection.

An adult female laying on her side with her cub against her chest.

During this last week, I thought about how brutal this environment would be for any living thing that was not prepared. The sea ice and tundra is a beautiful, intriguing area, and I really enjoy spending time here. However, I know I am out of place. For example, I usually carry some kind of emergency fire-starter while doing field work (thankfully, I have not used it). But here, there is almost nothing to burn – some driftwood pokes out of the snow along the coast, but there is nothing on the sea ice. I enjoy cold, snowy regions and I have spent a lot of time doing winter field work and skiing, and the Arctic is quite different than anywhere else I have been. The environment makes the cultures which have thrived up here all the more interesting.

Sea ice breakup continued. One day we flew about 140 miles northeast of Deadhorse to look for bears and on the return flight, we encountered a new lead of open water that looked to be over a mile wide – it had opened that afternoon. Our pilot calculated the ice in the area was moving about a third of a mile per hour.

We counted nearly 100 seals along a single crack in the ice; 10 are pictured here. They hauled out through the crack onto the sea ice to rest and breathe. Seals do not stray far from their holes; if a polar bear approaches they can quickly escape back into the water.

Our last flight day arrived quickly. We flew in the morning but did not find any bears, then returned to Deadhorse to begin packing up. For over a month, I had woken up every day prepared to fly and to work with polar bears and it was surprising how quickly everything changed. We broke down all of the lab equipment, packed it into crates, and cleaned the living space. Over three days our research team departed on the daily flights to Anchorage. I was the last to leave on Friday evening, turning down the heat in the living space, turning off the lights, and locking the doors behind me.

I landed in Anchorage for an overnight layover and it felt like stepping into a different world. The northern coast of Alaska is treeless and it was still coated with ice and snow, while Anchorage, on the south-central coast, seemed to be teeming with green trees and summer warmth. From Anchorage, I flew to Seattle then Denver, took a bus to Fort Collins, and finally got a ride to Laramie. I am glad to be home.

The sun will be above the horizon in Deadhorse until late July. One day last week we flew all day and had several captures. I finished my labwork at about 2am and I took this picture (without using a flash) of Deadhorse as I left the lab. This twilight is as dark as it got, and by mid-summer the skies will be bright through the night.

The fact that the Arctic is so cold is one of the reasons we are studying polar bears – they are superbly adapted to cold temperatures, but how do they fare in the summer, when temperatures can reach over 50 degrees (unbearably warm for a polar bear)? Summer also means lots of sunshine – on the northern coast of Alaska the sun does not set for about 2 months in the middle of summer. Already, in mid-April, days are quite long.

I took this photo of Deadhorse last night at about 1045pm, as the sun was finally setting and twilight remained. The view is from the front door of our lab.

For lab space, we have rented a large trailer from a charter air service company (Bald Mountain). We are also renting several bedrooms in their living space. The setup is convenient for our research – we can wake up next door to our lab, as well as load up our helicopters for captures in front of the lab.

Our lab space is in the white trailer with several doors. Behind is the large hangar that houses the charter air service company.

Past the hangar, the tundra opens up with lots of drifts and sculpted snow.

I have been up here for several days already, unpacking and organizing our bottomless piles of gear. My two advisors and a technician are set to join me shortly, and we will begin our capture work. However, plans are changing. The United States Geological Survey (USGS), with whom we collaborate for capture work, is already in the midst of their capture work based out of a tiny town about 120 miles to the east, called Kaktovik. One of their crew needs to leave several days early and they need me for an extra pair of hands for a couple days. I had already planned to fly to Kaktovik for evening, to participate in a community meeting about polar bear research – I will stay an extra day to help out.

Simultaneously, one of my advisors and the technician will not make it up here on their scheduled flight; a blizzard in the central Rocky Mountains has closed almost all the roads out of Laramie, Wyoming, and flights out of Denver are canceled. The already-rapid pace of preparations has picked up to accommodate these changes.

The “Welcome” sign at the general store in Deadhorse.

Deadhorse sits at the north end of the Dalton Highway, also called “the haul road.” From my understanding, this highway was built as a service road for the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, which runs from the oilfields of Prudhoe Bay to Valdez where the oil is loaded onto ships. The Dalton Highway parallels the pipeline for much of its long, winding journey. The highway was opened to the public in the 1990s, although it is still mostly gravel and rough driving. The highway begins here in Deadhorse, where I drove past it today on my way to the general store.

North end of the Dalton Highway.

However, we would not be driving to Deadhorse – we have done all of traveling by plane. Alaska Airlines flies to Deadhorse from Anchorage and Fairbanks, and many oil companies have private flights for their workers. The surprising accessibility of Deadhorse – if you are willing to spend days in a capable vehicle or willing to buy an expensive plane ticket – must be due to its role in oil extraction in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. The town itself feels like a giant construction site. All buildings sit on elevated gravel pads, about eight feet above the tundra. Trucks and heavy machinery are everywhere, and equipment is constantly rumbling.

More accurately, the town feels like a cross between a construction site and a lunar module. Everything is built to withstand the fierce winter weather, with windchills that can fall below -100 Fahrenheit. Most buildings seem to have been built for ease of transport and assembly – many buildings are actually a series of connected, insulated trailers.

Our research team was up here last August for our first season of polar bear captures. We caught almost 30 bears (this includes adults and cubs) for measurements. Some adult bears received a GPS satellite collar as well. We tracked these bears via satellite during September. We returned in October and recaptured as many of these bears as possible, to re-examine them and see how they had changed during the intervening 1-2 months. This spring we are beginning another capture season – our first day of captures, weather permitting, will be Monday, April 20th.