I met up with the team of researchers from the US Geological Survey who had been performing polar bear captures out of Barrow already for two weeks. That evening, after looking over our gear and getting caught up, I went over to see friends who recently moved to Barrow from Wyoming. It was great to hear about their new life in the area; moving from the mountains to the tundra is certainly a big change.

The next day I began flying in the helicopter for captures. We started in Barrow, fueled up in Deadhorse, and ended the day in Kaktovik, near the Canadian border – we covered almost the entire northern coast of Alaska. Since then we have been based out of Kaktovik, and we have had good weather and have been flying a lot.

It is great to be back out on the sea ice. Although I am out of place here, I really love this environment. In this picture we landed on a small pan of ice about twenty miles from shore; the pan was surrounded by pressure ridges and rubble from ice sheets smashing into each other.

The captures have been going well. We caught the largest bear I have seen, an adult male who weighed 1,147 lbs (I am not sure what the largest bear caught in the southern Beaufort has weighed). His neck was several times the size of my waist, and I could not fit both hands around his snout. It took several people to position him for measurements. We have caught several bears which were sampled in 2009, giving us excellent data on changes over time in the same individual.

We have also caught a lot of cubs-of-the-year, or COYs, including this litter of three. Cubs are born around January 1st. Litters of three are fairly uncommon for polar bears in Alaska, and usually include one cub that is noticeably smaller than the others – in this picture, the cub in the middle only weighed 12 lbs, nearly 10 lbs less than the other two.

A few of our several iceberg choices in Bay of Sails.

Icebergs are moved by wind and currents, and when they come in contact with the seafloor, plough across it leaving a swath of destruction. Cape Evans, on the eastern side of McMurdo Sound, is bathed by plankton-rich water from the open Ross Sea, providing a good food resource to benthic communities during the summer months. But at Bay of Sails, on the western side of the sound, the water has spent a long time circulating in darkness under the thick ice of the permanent Ross Ice Shelf, so it is very oligotrophic, or food-poor. I am interested in the differences between how these two communities recover from iceberg disturbances.

Though the benthic communities locally are not eating well, we are!

To start this effort, we did a reconnaissance helicopter flight. Scottie, our pilot for the day, flew us in beautiful loops and spirals over the dozen icebergs scattered in the bay. We were looking for a berg that was grounded on the seafloor, was in about 50 m water depth, and was close enough to other icebergs that we had alternate target options. Since the bathymetry in this area is poorly known, I had to guess at depths based on distance from shore and iceberg height. I selected a moderate-size, tabular-looking berg about 2 km from shore. It was a good choice, but a better one was about a km further offshore, as we discovered from our initial survey with an extremely high tech weight on a tape measure.

Marco and Henry think a better iceberg is that way.

However, the helo landing site is that way.

Okay, I guess we’ll go home for now.

Parallel with selecting the camp location, we have been packing up camp gear. 335 pounds of food, 330 pounds of water, sleeping bags good to minus 40, tents, fuel for the stove and heaters, sleds, safety supplies, another 1485 pounds of stuff. And then there is the science equipment – drills, electronic gear, the ROV itself, power supplies, batteries and generators, all in all 760 pounds of toys. Then there is the 1000 pounds of people. Not to say we are fat, but several of us are up to three desserts per night. Yow!

How much stuff will fit in one helicopter? 1200 lbs in an A-Star, and 2000 lbs in a Bell212.

All of this is sorted into classifications of Can Freeze, Do Not Freeze, and Keep Frozen (some of the food). Bags and boxes are weighed and tagged. Hazardous material is certified as safe to fly. Much of the Can Freeze camp gear has gone already in an overland (well, over-sea-ice) traverse to a fueling depot about 10 km from Bay of Sails. The helicopters will carry it the rest of the way to us.

Like an n-dimensional puzzle, it all unfolds to a full field camp, dwarfed by the landscape.

My bedroom.

It’s a little nerve-wracking, making sure we remember everything, and enough of it. I have lists, and lists of lists, and I wake up in the middle of the night to make more lists. Remembering to bring all the things we needed to Antarctica was bad enough, but the field camp list must be pared to a minimum yet not leave out anything. We will get a resupply flight after a week, to bring us more water, so we do have that opportunity to fix any bads, but it would be very unproductive, not to say embarrassing, to have forgotten the batteries to the joystick to drive the ROV.

Team SCINI at field camp I: Kamille, Dustin, Isabelle, Francois, Stacy and Bob. Doh, Dustin has forgotten his black Antarctic uniform pants!

Tonight as the sun dips to touch the horizon I think that we have all we need to survive. But I am worried about the engineers getting their stuff packed; they are still out doing tests at 10 pm, 12 hours from when it must be on the helo pad. I am beginning to think that procrastination and engineering must go hand in hand. I think a walk up Ob Hill is in order to reduce my stress!

The view of Erebus and Terror from the top of Ob Hill, colored by a midnight sun.

The edge of the sea ice viewed north from the helicopter just 30 minutes outside of McMurdo.

View from the helicopter during our trip up the Ferrar Valley.

The 90 minute helicopter flight to Beacon Valley allowed me to reflect on the conveniences one takes for granted such as running water, warm showers, and simple means of communicating back to one’s family and friends. I will miss that. I won’t have such niceties until I return to McMurdo but at the same time the thought of my science objectives and potential for discovery that will occur between now and the next time I set foot in McMurdo has me excited to begin the field season!

Helicopter “zero-eight-hotel” leaving our Beacon Valley camp after dropping us off at the start of the field season.

We arrived into Beacon Valley to one of the most eerie / thrilling experiences of the entire Antarctic adventure. After the helicopter drops you and your camp gear off and fades away in the distance you are left in a totally foreign and cold environment.

Total silence.

You realize you are very much isolated from what we call the “real world”.

Lead driller Tanner (blue jacket) and others looking for clean glacier ice for our initial drill site.

Initial drill site. Excavation down 20-30cm to the buried glacier ice. Note the unweathered rocks “coming out” of the ice surface. As the ice sublimates (evaporates) the material in the ice moves towards the surface.

The following day the field team excavated glacial sediment to expose buried iced in search for good drilling locations (i.e. regions of clean ice). Today the helicopter transported the drilling equipment to the site, we set up the drill, and we took our first core of beautiful glacial ice this afternoon. The drill is working perfectly and we are all in good spirits.

Drilling operations.

Field freezer. Our temporary repository for ice cores before being shipped back to McMurdo.

This morning at breakfast we received word that we were within 20 miles of the last known location of a bear we are targeting for capture. Over the previous 24 hours we had cruised through several hundred miles of open water, and we hoped to be approaching the edge of the retreated sea ice; however, with only 20 miles between us and the bear, it was only open water in sight. We cannot dart a bear on small pieces of ice with much open water in the area – there is a possibility that a bear may run into the water to swim away, which is dangerous if the animal is going under the anesthetic. However, by the end of breakfast ice had been spotted, and we were still hopeful.

By 9am I went up to the bridge to see what the conditions looked like and await the daily flight briefing. This far north and west, sunrise is late – official sunrise today at our location was 947am. Thus the bridge was still dark and all the lights were dim red. This provides enough light for crew members to perform their jobs but it doesn’t force their eyes to adjust to bright light, which reduces their vision in the dark. Two huge floodlights lit the path in front of the icebreaker. Loose pieces of newly-formed ice, most no larger than several feet across, gently rolled over waves, but there was no thick ice in sight. As we moved west by southwest the ice seemed to get a little thicker so the flight briefing went on as planned and by just about dawn, the first helicopter launched.

The helicopter deck of the ship. To the right is the hangar. After landing, temporary wheels are attached to the skids of each helicopter and they are rolled from this deck into the hangar.

The first helicopter, carrying scientists from USGS and USFWS, radio-tracked our target bear and made visual contact. Unfortunately, the bear was standing on a piece of thick ice around 15 meters across, which was much too small for a safe darting operation. The helicopter gained altitude and scouted the surrounding area but did not see any promising ice. They returned to the ship and we had to make the decision to forego this bear and start cruising towards the next animal. Temperatures have been hovering in the low 30s (Fahrenheit), which is simply too warm for much formation of new ice. We need our bears to move onto thicker ice, or for the temperatures to drop so the new ice increases in thickness. The next target bear is over 100 miles to the north and seems to be quite a distance in from the ice edge, hopefully on thick ice remaining from last winter.

As we began cruising north from the location with poor ice, the ice immediately became thicker. Looking aft from the helicopter deck, we are leaving a trail of open water through about 3-6 inches of sea ice. By now I could walk across the ice and in an emergency, a helicopter could probably land on it. However, conditions still are not good enough for a capture operation.

As we began cruising north I took my lunch to a port-side lower deck and watched the ice go by; almost immediately, it began getting thicker. By evening we will be in position to launch for the next bear, but we will not have enough daylight. Thus we plan to launch at dawn tomorrow, and we hope to find thick ice from last winter to work on.

Standing on the bow of the boat you can hear the ice breaking; up to now, it has mostly been a gentle swish of thin ice getting pushed underwater. Turning around, you are faced with this imposing wall topped by the bridge.

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.

Nineteen of these subunits are populations of several hundred to several thousand bears; the 20th subunit is the Arctic basin, the area surrounding the geographic North Pole. Bears have been observed almost all the way north to the pole, but it is unknown if any bears are actually residents there. You can see a map of the subunits at this website: http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/population-map.html.

Some of the most well-studied polar bears are in western Hudson Bay, where bears come ashore near Churchill, Canada, during the fall months. Bears in the southern Beaufort Sea are also well-studied – this is the subunit of bears on which we are focusing. It is difficult to study what may be the most mobile mammal on earth; in some areas polar bears have home ranges over 500,000 sq km. Because bears move over such a large area and because they travel on variable sea ice, they are difficult to trap. Instead, finding and darting bears from a low-flying helicopter is the most common capture method.

We are using this helicopter this spring as a platform from which to dart bears. The pilot maneuvers the helicopter low and close to the bear, then a gunner leans out the window on the far side and uses a specialized firearm to shoot a dart into the bear. The dart contains a drug that immobilizes the animal and puts them under anesthesia. Here, the helicopter is parked in front of the lab with covers over the engine and the base of the rotors; space heaters beneath the covers keep critical components warm enough to start in the morning.

We are using this helicopter to aid in spotting bears, and to carry personnel and gear. It is smaller than the darting helicopter. The white tank attached to the belly is an extra fuel tank, giving us an additional 30 minutes or so of flight time.

The sea ice at this time of year is very interesting. Almost the entire Arctic Ocean is frozen over, creating vast ice sheets. Ocean currents and wind push these sheets against each other and they break and crumple into jumbled ridges where they meet. This leaves a totally flat landscape punctuated by randomly-strewn ice chunks, some bigger than houses. It is an otherworldly place to fly over, and to walk through.

This is me crouched in front of some ice blocks near our last capture site, on the sea ice about 30 miles north of the coast of Alaska.

We have been down for weather for several days. After working in Kaktovik last weekend, we used a charter plane to haul all of the USGS gear to Deadhorse. We set up all of their base equipment and got out for a capture on Monday afternoon. It was about 0 degrees (Fahrenheit) and mostly sunny. The weather began to turn that night, steadily becoming warmer, windier, and cloudier. Several inches of snow fell yesterday afternoon as well. All of these factors have reduced visibility to the point where we cannot fly. However, the skies are clearing this afternoon, so we hope to get back out today.

Dr. Pekar as the helicopter landed at the Offshore New Harbor field camp.

The excitement built when a distant dull hum steadily became a louder roar as the helicopter approached and finally landed at our camp. Eight of us strapped ourselves in for a most memorable ride.

Flying in the helo.

I had only been in a helicopter once before and I couldn’t wait to see the view unfold before my eyes. We were going to be flying over New Harbor, a sight we had seen from afar every day since we had arrived at our field camp. But this time, it would be different. Once over New Harbor, we would fly through the Ferrar Valley, over the Ferrar Glacier and eventually to the Friis Hills field camp to visit with Dr. Allan Ashworth and Dr. Adam Lewis who were looking at 20 million-year-old glacial lake sediments for fossilized plant leaves to better understand Antarctica’s role during that relatively warmer time period of Earth history.

Looking up Ferrar Valley, flying over New Harbor.

Shortly after take-off we were already getting a much closer view of New Harbor and the Ferrar Glacier as we quickly approached Ferrar Valley. As we sped past glaciers seemingly falling off the sides of mountain tops, the vastness of the Transantarctic Mountains opened up. We were in the Dry Valleys.

The banded mountains of the Dry Valleys.

The mountains were huge and banded with different colors, each color a different rock type. As we soared higher and flew deeper into the mountains, the enormity of Antarctica showed itself.

The East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

The largest continental mass of ice on Earth, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, could now be seen. We were only seeing a very small portion of it, but it extended as far as the eye could see beyond the mountain tops. This is the source of the ice producing the glaciers that we could see all around us.

Friis Hills field camp as the helicopter touched down.

The helicopter landed at the Friis Hills field camp, and the first thing I noticed was how the Dry Valleys got its name. It was dusty and gritty, very different than what I was used to out on the sea ice. The rotor blades of the helicopter blew sand and gravel into the air. Sand and stone were everywhere. But it hasn’t always been that way. We were meeting Dr. Ashworth and Dr. Lewis. They had agreed to take us on a tour of their research site and explain to us what they were studying.

Walking through a former glacial lake.

Dr. Ashworth and Dr. Lewis explained to us that in the past glaciers cut through the surrounding hill tops, and that 20 million years ago it was a relatively warmer time in Earth’s history. And because it was warmer, some of the ice from the glaciers melted to form lakes. By studying how these glacial lakes formed and what kinds of vegetation were in these hills of the Dry Valleys, Dr. Ashworth and Dr. Lewis hope to better understand how Antarctica responded to this warmth.

The most exciting part of their tour was to see the 20 million-year-old leaf fossil impressions that they had dug up at their research site. The leaves themselves are gone, but what is left is the impression that these leaves made in the lake-bottom mud. The leaves of bushes bordering this lake were blown into the water when they fell off the branches. They then sank into the mud on the bottom of the lake. Shortly afterward more mud accumulated on top of the leaves. The leaf material then disintegrated but a mark was fossilized in the rock where the leaves once laid.

20 million-year-old leaf fossil impressions.

We made our way back to our camp. This was the last time that the entire team would be together out on the sea ice. Andrea, Shakira, Joanna, and I were flying back to McMurdo Station on the helicopter that had taken us around during the day. We had a few minutes to gather our belongings, load up the helicopter, and have a group photo taken, by the helo pilot no less (thanks Paul!).

The Offshore New Harbor Team.

I had mixed emotions as the helicopter took off. I could see how tiny our existence on the ice was as camp soon became a little speck on the horizon behind us. The only way to notice it as we got further and further away was by following all of our tracks on the ice surface that we had traveled to get out to the transect lines where we were collecting data. All paths lead back to camp. We were 17 people in the vastness of Antarctica. 17 people working together to accomplish a common goal. We were successful against early setbacks and I was proud of what we had done as a team. The data that we collected will be used to identify a drilling location to obtain sediments to study our past climate in order to better understand our future changing world. And I was a part of it all. I felt extremely lucky to have been selected to join the Offshore New Harbor Expedition and very honored to have shared that place with every other member of the team.

Offshore New Harbor Field Camp from the air.

This new path with no track in the snow was not going to take me back to camp. I was beginning the long journey home. Back to McMurdo Station, fly to New Zealand, and then make my way back to New York. I am going to miss the Offshore New Harbor Team and the many good friends I’ve made at McMurdo. But thoughts of family and friends I haven’t seen in many months flooded my mind. I have missed them immensely. I am ready to leave. I am ready to return home. My work here is done, for now.

McMurdo Station from the air.

Mary and I have flown with three different helicopter pilots – Morton Hauerbach, Ønstein Holmen, and Peter Haj. All lifted off and landed in some austere, beautiful and remote locations, often under challenging conditions of wind or the absence of flat space to set down. We flew to Mark Fahnestock’s camp which was perched on a rock ridge above the calving face of the Jakobshavn Glacier with Morton. The door was off the helicopter so Mark could load the reflectors and place them onto the glacier while the helicopter hovered just above the ice. The open door caught the wind off the glacier like a sail when we landed. I imagine it must have been an instance of precision flying to set the reflectors out safely and successfully, which they did.

Shooting an iceberg out of the helicopter.

Ønstein took us to Sarah Das’s camp out on the Greenland ice sheet where they were studying a surface lake, which had drained before them two days before we got there. The science team hired the helicopter for an aerial survey of the surrounding area to find more ice-top lakes. The perspective from the helicopter is deceptive when flying over the vast white plain with no visual landmarks. While we found the drained lake with GPS technology, we flew around a few times before recognizing those tiny dots below where, in fact, tents and people waiting for us.

Peter flew Tom Neumann’s geology team along the ice edge looking for rocks for a day. We tagged along. Tom and his group peered out the windows looking at places where they might find rocks entrained in the ice. They never considered where we might land! Peter once set us down on a spot so small the ground fell away at the exact spot that the skids curved up. We landed in a spot so windy, Peter had to tie the rotor down while we were on the ground. Another time, Mary and I had to duck behind a rock and cover the video equipment with our bodies as the helicopter landed feet away, then jump in while the rotors were still spinning.

Here is a video montage of some of our helicopter time.