Day 3 was amazing! Yesterday night a few
kids stayed up until 2:30 am so we could watch the boat hit ice and it was
incredible! I have never seen so much ice, and in such large pieces. The
coolest part of our late night adventure was that the wheelman, David, let a
couple kids drive the boat… I GOT TO DRIVE AN ICEBREAKER! It was so cool and
how many people in their life can say they have driven an icebreaker. It was
great! After 5 hours of sleep we had a very interesting presentation from
Jordan Grigor, a PhD student from Université Laval. His
presentation was on Arctic marine ecosystems and arrow worms. I really enjoyed
his presentation. We then had a great presentation from Masayo Ogi and Kensuke
Komatsu on Arctic sea ice change and weather balloons. And Hannah is the most
amazing person ever. It is now just a given that all our meals are great here.
After our presentations we sewed mini gloves. A teacher and student, Beth and
Alysha, led the activity from Cambridge Bay. Steve, from Dauphin MB, gave up
after 5 minutes. The activity was interrupted by a fire drill. We then played
werewolf as a group and it was hilariously fun.
Day 4! Today was a little slower but still fun. I started my day
by releasing a weather balloon with Hannah, from Saltspring BC, guided by the
scientists Masayo and Kensuke, who had presented to us yesterday. I had woken
up earlier to see the Bellot straight which was awesome! Then the group started
the day with our 9 o’clock meeting and then had a presentation from Robbie,
Bob, and Robert. The first part of the presentation was on Changing sea levels
in the Canadian arctic. One thing I learned was that melting sea ice doesn’t
affect sea levels but it’s the land ice that melts and causes run off, and
several communities in the arctic have already lost buildings and land to the
rising sea levels. The second part was a technician who does Piston core
sampling, which is essentially a 2000-pound tool to get a 20-foot tube of
sediment out of the seabed. Then that tube is analyzed in a lab to determine
what is in the ground and how stable it is and can also determine how old the
area is. We also had a formal dinner tonight, which was fun; I also got to try
escargot!
The area we are in right now is beautiful and I will snag some
pictures before bed. Also the Internet is very poor and I will try to get photos up tomorrow.
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