High Arctic Scenery

Photos © 2006 Seth White

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It's March 10 2007, just about 8 months after I went to Thule. I just spent this Saturday afternoon at "Icefest", an event to mark the start of the International Polar Year (IPY), which officially began March 1. More about this effort can be found at any number of websites, but something you should know is that the United States is lagging behind nearly every other country involved in terms of funding. Our congress has only put forth a pittance (for example, less than half of what Canada has delivered), and it can't even deliver THAT in a timely manner. Here we are with IPY officially underway and major IPY projects such as POLENET (which UNAVCO is involved with) are still on hold, and may not even be funded this year. There have been rumblings of extending the IPY program another year, mainly because the US just can't get its damn act together to support this critical period of research. Anyhow, UNAVCO had an Icefest table with stuff from our polar group, including a computer with a rotating slideshow of polar photos and little captions describing highlight from science projects we've supported. We had some photos from Thule in there - which made me think I ought to finally start a new webpage with photos I've been meaning to post for months. So here you go. As always, drowsiness is a common side effect of reading this website, so don't read this before operating heavy machinery or performing surgery.

The above photo shows a desert area near Thule as we flew to the Green Valley study site. In the distance is Saunders Island. If you look closely at this picture you can see faint stripes in the ground below. A very typical feature of High Arctic landscapes is patterned ground.
Part of the project is studying various types of patterned ground, patterns which include stripes, nets, and polygons. The underlying mechanism behind formation of these "periglacial" features is freeze/thaw action of ground ice and water, but exactly how the different types form and how long it takes is not completely understood. One of the team's study sites is about 15 miles from Thule in an area they have dubbed the "Polar Desert". Here is a picture of some extremely well defined stripes in the Polar Desert site. Stripes are found in soils on a certain slope, and it is thought that polygon and net features are transformed (or "pulled" by gravity) into stripes as the slope of a hillside becomes steeper. Our GPS measurements showed small downslope displacements of points in these stripes, and Ron has installed precision extensometers to measure how fast the stripes themselves are spreading apart. The stripes themselves stand out because small rocks and soils tend to fall into the stripes, providing a home for plants like the yellow Arctic Poppies.
On our way to Green Valley, we stopped near the Pituffik Glacier for Birgit to do a bit of water sampling work. The rest of us had a half hour to just sightsee, which we did. This was an incredible spot, with the gigantic glacier to our left behind a rushing river, grounded iceberg bits in front of us on the beach, and a sheer cliff wall to our right. This is the towering terminus of the Pituffik Glacier. One of the iceberg is dotted with a flock of seabirds.
Another pic looking out to the sea.
Here is a particularly pretty bit of ice on the beach, one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip.
Here is Derek, an undergrad research assistant, perched on the edge of one ice bit. These chunks of glacier ice were composed of small, crumbly, pebble-like pieces.
I really didn't get a good aerial photo showing the fluid appearance of the hillsides near the Green Valley study site, but this one is OK. In places you can see clear streamlines in the soil, formed from the slow but perpetual downslope flow of the soil. In other places it is much more dramatic, especially on the solifluction lobes we were studying. From the air, these lobes looked like oozing blobs of molasses, fanning out as they travel down the hillsides. I was surprised at how gelatinous these things were - our velocity measurements actually showed faster flow in upstream necked-off areas, and we saw slower flow and bunching-up behavior in the downstream, fanned-out areas.
Our campsite was at the end of the valley, almost overlooking the sea, and the daily commute to the study site was about a 1.5 hour hike up-valley. Here are Ron, Derek, Ross, and Birgit walking back after a day's work. Note the shotgun that Ron's carrying. We also had a rifle and pepper spray with us. Although we never saw a polar bear, Birgit did find a fresh track in some wet sand near our camp. When this project began it was claimed that there were no polar bears near Thule anymore. This is generally true, but obviously not strictly so! So Ron insisted on being armed in the field, and each season the group borrows a few guns from the Danish Chief of Police on base. It struck me as funny that at an active U.S. Air Force base you have to get guns from the Danish Police...but then again Thule is a highly unusual place.
Here is that polar bear track we found near the Green Valley campsite.
So here was the point of my job at Green Valley: measuring displacement of small rocks in two solifluction lobes. Well OK, Ron and Ross are doing the work in this picture, but that's beside the point. The GPS antennas screw into 5/8" threaded rock bolts, which you install after drilling a hole in the rock. You want a rock that is big enough to drill into without splitting, but not so big that it doesn't flow along with the rest of the soil (if a rock is too big the water-soaked soil will flow around it). So we re-measured the set of rock bolts that Beth installed last year, and then installed a few new bolts in strategic locations. We are planning to go back this summer with the group to re-occupy these sites and confirm/expand the velocity measurements.
Here are my boots, submerged in the mucky surface of the solifluction lobe. Since we were there in July, near the height of the yearly surface melt, I took Beth's advice and bought new rubber boots for this job. Good choice... although a couple times I felt like the muck was going to pull the boot right off my foot! I ended up getting a pair of $60 boots from Sportsman's Warehouse near Denver. I mention this because the music they play over the store's audio system is abominable. It's 100% Christian Rock. I don't have any philosophical objections to this music; I hate it simply because the music itself SUCKS and the lyrics are beyond trite. I mean, can't these people find new and creative ways to sing songs with Christian themes? Every last band has the same homogenous poppy sound, and every last sonce just goes on and on about how much the lord fills them up inside. OK, right, fine already. It's even worse than the regurge-o-tron machines that spew out generic country lyrics. At least it's still better than hip-hop morons that write entire albums about how many ho's they pimp, how many niggas they shoot, how many drugs they do, and how dangerous they and their homies are... and then never fail to thank God on their album liner notes. And these losers end always their interviews with the word "Peace!". Yeah sure whatever. At least Christian Rock people are more or less sincere.
The obligatory picture of our campsite. Note the lush, mossy surface in the foreground. The main reason that Green Valley is, you know, green, is that millions of birds come here each year. These birds fish in the sea...and when all that seafood comes out the other end of those birds it aids plant growth
While we were camped Ron mentioned there were old Inuit dwelling sites not far away. I was pretty keen to see what he was talking about, so one evening after dinner we walked to the end of the valley, overlooking the sea. There were several of these depressions in the ground, which had been used as summer hunting sites. As I understand it, they dug out these areas and then placed whale bones in arches overhead. Skins were then used to cover the bones...and voila'. Even though they had filled in quite a bit with soil and plants, you can still see the general shape of the place. There is a roughly circular main area with a noticeable raised part, with a narrow entryway extending out towards the sea (which is behind me in the picture). There were several other ones nearby but this was the most distinct. How cool is it to see this stuff?
From this site the view out over the ocean on this evening was a pretty one. The sun was setting, lighting up just the icebergs in the distance.
So after a few days camped in Green Valley Air Greenland came to pick us up. Half the crew went back to Thule while three of us stayed and hiked up to a small hanging valley they'd named Musk Ox Valley. A herd of these things often hangs out there, hence the name. Birgit wanted to sample a small pond, Ron wanted to take look at some soil features, and I took the opportunity to just walk along the valley...
Here is Birgit, taking water samples from this little pond. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I think this picture turned out really nice.
So we had about an hour until the helicopter was to come back for us. This hour was one of the most exhilarating times I've ever had. The morning was completely warm and still, and there were hundreds of dovekies (little auks) flying around. These birds are somewhat "aukward" fliers, looking like small penguins that have managed to flap hard enough to get airborne. They weren't feeding, just cruising around in huge swarms, repeating the same circular flight pattern again and again. So I walked along the valley keeping an eye out for musk ox, just listening to them fly and chatter. I didn't see any musk ox this day, but as I was walking I heard a sound of rushing air behind me which quickly got louder and louder. It made me pause, as it seemed like the sound of a glider about to pass overhead. A second later a formation of dovekies flew no more than 5 feet above my head. They weren't chirping, they were just speeding along in one giant smooth formation. That instant was one of those rare moments when it completely sinks into my head just how fortunate I am to be alive, and in such a place. It doesn't happen often, but it does...and I hope it continues to. Anyway, here is the end of "Musk Ox Valley", a steep slope leading down to a small beach. What a beautiful spot.
Here is a bunch of dovekies flying in a pattern out over the water at the end of the hanging valley. A little later on I stopped for a minute, and as I was looking around I heard a sharp sound like a rifle shot. The iceberg in this photo had just split in half, with pieces bobbing in the sea and a miniature tidal wave headed towards the shore. Another thing I noticed while sitting down was the sound of bird chirps coming from inside the loose boulders next to me. Evidently the dovekies nest in there. It was strange to hear birds just a few feet from me but not being able to see the birds doing the chirping. Then I realized exactly what that arctic fox I had seen a few minutes earlier was hunting when he was rooting around in the boulders on the other side of the valley.
Here are some dovekies resting from their exhausting rituals of flying around in circles. I tried to creep up closer, and managed to get a good spot. But before I could change to my zoom lens they all decided to fly away. So this is the best picture I got. I had heard that the Inuit used to build stone walls and hide behind them with nets. They would do this so they could reach up and snag dovekies flying overhead. It seemed strange to me that enough of these birds would fly low enough over such walls to get snagged this way, but they sure do. So soon after flying over those innocent-looking stone walls the birds would find themselves in a pot of boiling water. Once cooked, you just crack open the bird and eat whatever you choose from inside.
A sun-bleached caribou antler we found at Green Valley. Just another remnant of days gone by.
At the North Mountain study site (on a small mountain, surprisingly, north of Thule) an arctic hare had taken up residence amongst the sample plots. He/she was not terribly afraid of us humans so I got a few decent pictures. It was a warm calm day and so the mosquitos were out in force. This poor thing was definitely suffering - you can see them on its nose and head. The arctic hares, by the way, have a peculiar upright posture when they hop around unlike the more horizontal, crouched position of the garden variety jackrabbits we have in Colorado.
As Ron and I were driving out to an overlook over the fjord, we saw a little plover running along the ground. So here is that bird. I suppose this was a new mother, since before long a little fuzzy chick appeared which she took underneath her wing.
A pic of the fjord from that overlook on North Mountain.
Here is another photo of that fjord, not taken from North Mountain but rather from BMEWS. I can't recall the name of the fjord, but it's a moderate-sized German sounding name. Whatever. Who really cares. I'm sure the Inuit had a name for it too, but again, who cares. Wherever I go I always look at postcards in stores, since the photos are (usually) much better than mine. But even the best ones still can't capture the grandeur of seeing these things in person. If I start to bitch about my job on this website (and I believe I do on very rare occasion), feel free to email me. A blank body and subject line consisting of "just shut up" will suffice.
And now, the floral section of this webpage. First off is some soft black brainy mossy stuff. It is soft, and by soft I mean VERY TOFT.
A member of the Arctic Poppy Family, named Billy, who was not sure which way he was goin'.
Small white bell-shaped flowers. This obvious description is brought to you by my faulty memory, which can't remember its actual name that Derek told me along the way.
Guess what: more scrubby plants! I thought this one was nice because of the dim grey light.
This plant, if I recall right, is purple saxifrage, one of the more robust High Arctic plants. I guess this stuff is found at the far north tip of Greenland. By the way, the northernmost point of land is a tiny island just off the northern tip of Greenland. This island is so measly that it can easily be obscured by sea ice, but a few people actually found it and hiked out there a few years back. The southernmost point of land is Mount Howe, which is only 300 km from South Pole.
And now, The Larch.
Actually this is a willow tree, believe it or not. Without exaggerating this is just about the tallest tree you will see at Thule.
More purple stuff. According to Homer Simpson: "purple is a fruit".