Permafrost outreach 2009

It looks beautiful day! We left Buckland 9:30am with morning sunshine.


When we cross at Buckland River, wind start picking up. We throught another windy day?! but not!


When we hit peninsula, no wind, smooth surface, a lot of caribou crossing in front of us.

We made to Kotzebue this afternoon. We stop High school, Elementary and Fish and wildlife office.
Henry, who rescue Emmonak datalogger from Yukon flooding last spring, should be here at 5th grade. Henry's family move from Emmonak to Kotzebue last year. So I am very exciting to see them!
We stay in bunk house at FWS.



In the evening, we had dinner with Schidbach family. I mentioned Henry is smart kid and rescuing logger at Emmonak. Father Bill was principal at school at that time. It was very nice to see a year later at Kotzebue! This is one of the best things for this project. I could meet many nice people in the remote side of Alaska.

We try to across Seward Peninsula today. It extreamly windy cold first half day. We try to find Granit Mountain hot spring the way go up to Buckland. But we missed within 0.2miles. Because poor visubility by the strong wind. We could not see especially near ground. Once we gave up hot spring, we keep driving toward Buckland.
after 5 and 1/2 hours of head wind driving, we made it in Buckland.
We had a great time with Tim (he help me drilling last spring.), Matthew (he participant STEP, UAF last summer), Johney... This is nice warm village for us!

It's unusual morning, after waking up at school, we packed up to leave Unalakleet. before then we stop by Ming's house for full breakfast. Very very nice fresh Unalakleet River trout! with soup. I could eat all bones in the soup! Thanks Ming!


When I back to the trail. It's surprising about no snow! more snow we could see in town but not outside.



When it became closer to Shaktoolik, I was afraid for wind! We did have amazing wind stream at Shaktoolik last year. We stop on beautiful methane bubble lake to prepare wind proof, face mask, etc!

We also stop by borehole site replace our datalogger.


Amazing!! no wind at all in Shaktoolik!


Also amazing, no bumpy at all...nice trail at crossing Norton Bay!
Less than 2 hours, we made it to Koyuk. Principal Kim told us trail to Granite mountain.


We were looking for holes against deep snow at Koyuk! We would like to re-drill here for deeper hole!

It's another beautiful weather! After the gas station opening, we filled tank full and head to the Ocean! We run across Kaltag Portage Trail today. First 10 miles were terrible bumpy trail. Big stress of sled joint! Just before Old Woman Cabin, one of our sled joint finally warned out! But good things, still weather is our side.




After temporary fixing "Eye ring" for sled joint, I stop many times to fix it again and try to keep same speed.
We arrived Unalakleet little pass 5 pm. Middle school science teacher Ming waiting for us. Ming called welder to fix eye ring. BSSD maintenance Brian came to fix for us!!! We could be on schedule.



Ming download our permafrost monitoring hole.

The end of the day, Unalakleet is alway best place in Alaska. You can see sunset to the ice horizen same like we saw last year.

We start joining Anvik school classrooms first things in this morning. At first, I met Julie's k-k3 class




then Jolene's older class. Jolene support our program since she was in Fairbanks. She is Globe certify teacher, easy and great to work with her!






Once we arrived Grayling, we met Mathew's science class and eat lunch!





Skip told us best spot for frost tube!



Then we are on River again...


We finally made Kaltag 6:45pm still day light! about 140miles trip.
We eat frozen "white Castle chese burger" with catchup. 140miles of susturgi surface made super fine bread cram coated deep fly looking food!! Honestly, It really nice, delicious! We should make this even at home, Kaji an me agree this recipe.

I had a problem with Apple blog site, so I switch to Blogger...


Thanks Marion and Jane for nice comfortable stay!

First things this morning, Marion show us the trail head for Portage.


Then we went Chuathbaluk roundtrip (12miles upstream) to fix frost tube and meeting with Linda! She is one of the great science teachers in Alaska. It nice to discuss many things.
Then we back to Aniak (11:40am already!!).



We reached Yukon River! Deep blue sky, crusted snow, great weather! It was best weather so far in this trip. I feel still energy to drill even running longer than yesterday’s distance. We successfully made cross Kuskokwim to Yukon watershed, called Portage trail. It was not bad at all, takes about 2 hours to cross beautiful country from Kuskokwim to Yukon.




Once we hit Yukon River bed, we were flying like kite or surfing on the powder snow to Holy Cross. Then We quick set frost tube to ready other surfing for Anvik.

We are back on river! and very busy day, especially Kaji! He left Anchorage this morning coming in Bethel 8:30am. Then Andrea drive her truck to pick Kaji up. We are rush to prepare to leave. I would like to see science fair at LKSD, but we better hurry, otherwise we could not make 150 miles ride before dark. 9:30am, we are already on trail, windy, cold... this is totally different than the two weeks ago. Until 11:30am, we are at Kwethluk to meet James’s science class. After the Kwethluk, we stop by Akiak to meet principal Nancy Mazurek and Tuluksak principal Mariah Wolf. Then another 50 miles to Kalskag. Trail is getting bumpy by the windy susturgi. Then finally, we reach Aniak at 5:50pm. Science teacher Marion show us the school and install frost tube. we have problem by the cold all of the items such as Generator, drill,,, It only -10 to -20 dF, but maybe we did not use since 1st trip. Anyway, we all done and back to Marion’s house. He made very very nice beef stew, pudding. This is great treats for us and very comfortable house we stay tonight!

Tunnel Man Series Episode 3 is approaching final editing! I can show you some of the snap shot. This episode talks about active layer and ecosystem. Active layer is seasonally freeze-thaw layer that affect soil moisture, type of vegetation, and so on. We have frost tube installed schools over the Alaska, Canada. This movie also shows how to install, to measure frost tube. Stay tune for watching this movie in holiday season!

We are approaching to the final stage of this year’s snow machine trip! One more village to go for total 24 villages in this 3 weeks trip.
The last village is Kivalina, about 90 mile north from Kotzebue. Weather is not ideal situations for snow machine. But we heard weather turning to worse tomorrow. We decide to go and back Kivalina one day trip. We have almost white out. Sometimes we can see sun but sometimes not. Trail condition is not bat. In general, we follow coastline, Kenji did this section in 1995 snowmachining from Barrow. Only concerning is open water. Many open lead is reported near Kivalina. We should not go off shore.





We saw many wild lives the way goes up. About 3 hours later, we made it with freezing cold by the windy gust.
Principal let us warm up and take some warm drinks.
After the warm up, we go to drill site 2 miles away. Drill is not bad and to take 2 hours to establish permafrost station.




After drilling, we check spring site near by (the way back to Kotzebue).
After 5pm, we start head back to Kotzebue. It is getting miserable weather, big heavy snow with wind. All of the trail is already disappeared and looks like nobody here since last fall. Kenji tries to remember the landscape the way coming to Kivalina this morning. Unfortunatlly, white out cannot help his memory much.
However, 7:30pm, we see city light for Kotzebue. It was longest run (175 miles) in this trip. We cerebrate our trip at Bay Side Caffee.

We have a quiet Saturday morning next of John's house (Not School!). This house has big wide window facing to the south. We can see frozen Kobuk River. We go to drill site with John. Drill site is tundra surface with a few spruce trees. Air temperature is a little bit cold (-5dF), it not great temperature for drilling. We did permafrost station and frost tube taking 3 hours.
We move to Noorvik 1pm. Noorvik is hub village for trail system for Kotzebue, Selawik, and Kiana. We pass through the way going to Selawik. We look for Rod (Math/Science teacher). He is in the gym even on Saturday. We are very lucky to find several students help us to install logger and frost tube. High school student (Jerry) helps a lot all the way installation out side of the school! Thank you Jerry!
After the establish site. We go to Kotzebue.

A few days ago, we had big decision to make about final destination. Originally (ideally), we plan to snowmachine back to Haul Road near Jim River (Pump 5). That is about 350 miles from Shungnak. This route have a lot of benefit such as visiting 4 more athabaskan villages, snowmachine able to bring back to Fairbanks ourself (much cheaper), hot spring etc. but also very risky or expecting many stacks!!! Other idea is going back to Kotzebue. This takes 400 miles including to visit Kivalina. Shungnak is final village for separation of these two options. When I check trail condition for the Huslia from here. It is not good situations. because mainly last week's warm temperature breaks many creek ice and new snow covered by wet area...





So we left Shungnak 9:10am for destination to West!!
we rode about an hour to Ambler and immediately starting drilling. We had many technical problems today. Finally, we finish permafrost monitoring station at 1:00 pm.
We head to the Kiana about 85 miles away! Trail was mostly good. We made it about 3 hours.

Science teacher "John Nagy" invite dinner for us. We had extremely great time.