Churchill Day 2: eaten by mosquitoes but not polar bears

Fireweed
hedysarum

So, yesterday we arrived safe and sound in Churchill. We were given a tour of the beautiful Northern Research Centre, complete with dorms, a cafeteria serving delicious food, a huge work lab, classroom, computer lab, gift shop, etc. etc. (Pictures to come next week - my apologies for forgetting the computer connecter cable). The landscape is very flat but quite beautiful, complete with peatlands, shrubberies, some scattered small tree stands (we are right at the tree line) and tons of beautiful purple wildflowers called fireweed and hedysarum (above). Oh and mosquitoes, did I mention mosquitoes? And blackflies. They both really add to the landscape.


Yesterday and today we scoped out the area for good peat coring sites. We are looking for areas with a lot of actively growing Sphagnum moss, good hummock and hollow dynamics (little raised and dips in peat), and moisture variability. The goal is to return with about 8 peat cores along several transects from several different sites, as well as to obtain about 60 surface samples from the top layer of peat. The surface samples will tell us when the peatland stopped growing (we will radiocarbon date each sample to determine this), as well as what types of testate amoebae are living there now so we can create what is called a transfer function. A transfer function basically is something that allows us to look at the types of amoebae living on the surface now and correlate that to what types of moisture conditions are present now - and then we take this information and apply it to what amoebae we see further down in the peat core so we know what past moisture conditions were like.


The work we are doing here that applies directly to my research is the testate amoebae surface sampling as well as an addition of data from the GPR unit. Unfortunately, the GPR unit IS NOT WORKING. We are all extremely frustrated (especially me since this was my piece and I ordered the equipment). So, unless some miracle occurs my research initiative here is shot.


In more upbeat news, today we saw 1. a caribou, 2. polar bears, and 3. beluga whales! The caribou was cool, the polar bears were wicked cool but very far away (saw them from binoculars), and the belugas topped my list. We saw the belugas from a ferry headed over to the Prince of Wales fort, which used to be a trading post in the Hudson Bay trading company way back when. It was complete with cannons, and built in a star shape in order to attack those evil French who came to invade during the war. Anyway near the ferry there were about 6 white shapes at a time, multiple times that were coming in and out of the water for air. Apparently belugas are very friendly creatures (as well as quite beautiful!) I think they were the highlight of my day! The polar bears were seen a bit off in the distance, on an island we could see from the fort. They looked like white dots, but I could see their polar bear shapes and noses from binoculars! Better too far than too close I suppose.


All in all it was sort of a touristy day, which was nice and relaxing and a good introduction into the town and the landscape. The peat coring will begin tomorrow, so more on the science then. Well, I am off to a talk about some of the research done here, more later!