Permafrost outreach 2009

It was last working day in Canada today. We had to drive a little bit more...
At first, we drove about 60km to Ross River in the morning. Ross River is native community almost head water for Yukon River watershed. Village is located on the permafrost but about 6m of thawed gravel layer making us to confused the presence of permafrost. We saw big & tall white spruce with dry forest floor sounding the village. This is typical sign of the absent of the permafrost. However, school had been serious permafrost degradation problems. This beautiful Ross River School builds 5 years ago, but already many cracks in the building and still moving!
Brian (Science teacher) shows us quick tour in the building and we had a great time with local students. EBA have a plan to drill at the school next month. They agree to use this drill hole for our outreach program! So we do not plan to drill here in Ross River today.

After the Ross River School GPR demonstration, we drove back to Faro. Many stormy clouds developed around road. We were little worry about field demonstration in Faro this afternoon. In the sky, also we saw abnormal number of crane flying! What a interesting place here!
We made it just 30 minute before presentation for Faro school. This school had also been permafrost problems. We had a fun time with extraordinary students. They were so good manner and knowledge about permafrost! After the talking, we all went out to the drill site. We demonstrated GPR and drilling. Many students were first time to touch permafrost. We believe they enjoy it. At the end of field demonstration, we set datalogger and back to school. Then we drove back to Whitehorse this evening with excellent feeling because of meeting with outstanding Faro’s students and great success of this program.