Sunday, July 1, 2012

Today we traveled a short ways to the local landfill and then to Lake Ferguson to perform water quality tests and weather measurements. We wore over-sized waders and tried to keep our balance while we collected samples - we looked so silly! Group 3 (my group - yay!) took weather measurements with a PASCO Spark probe and reported them to Shelly for tonight's polarTREC entry. After a great dinner together at the local Thai/American restaurant, we exchanged our "tokens" (small items representing us/where we're from) and gave formal introductions. The Danes came from towns near Esbjerg, Herning, and Odense. Most of the Greenlandic students were from Nuuk, Ilulissat, Sisimiut, Maniitsoq, and Uummannaq. We Americans came from Idaho, Colorado, Washington, Arizona, and New York! Everyone had wonderful stories to tell from a variety of backgrounds! 

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Our first day as a whole group was fun! With all of the Danish and Greenlandic students present and settled, Kasper introduced us to Geocaching. To practice using GPS, we wandered out into the area around the field school to find the coordinates of interesting landmarks. Each group shared its coordinates, and we set out on a scavenger hunt to find each other's sites. Kasper told us that we would be placing caches in the Kangerlussuaq area throughout the Field School - maybe some of you will find them! Check out http://www.geocaching.com/ for more details!

Later in the day we visited the community sledge dogs. These dogs are hard workers, but they're still cute! They were shedding, so fur was flying everywhere! We brought our cameras down and took some footage - there were puppies! Check it out. :)

Back Home

Hey everyone!

I'm back in Boise! Internet service is expensive in Greenland, so I wasn't able to post much of my material. Because I'm so far behind, I'll be running a "post-a-day" jam-packed with pictures, descriptions, and videos to make up for lost time. If you want to catch up right away (and if you haven't been following already), check out the polarTREC blog at http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/greenland-education-tour-2012.

Keep chillin' and don't be afraid to post a question!

June 28-29

Some slightly overdue photos for everyone. (; These are a smattering of landscape shots, people, and interesting objects. I hope you enjoy! If anyone has specific requests for objects/locations/etc. they want to see, just post or email me with a comment or question and I'll see what I can do! We might loose our internet for a little while, so I'll be posting whatever and whenever I can - Sorry folks! It's going to be a bit erratic! The teachers will still be able to post some of our material on the polarTREC website, so be sure to keep checking both places!

My messy bunk space : P

Marisa's and my dorm room

One of the many Greenlandic wildflowers (I don't know the technical name for this one, sorry!)

CAUTION: MUSK OXEN AND REINDEER MAY BE RABID!!!

Okay, not really, that's just the foamy result of some microbial activity in the nearby salt lake. Tee hee. :)

The bone of a large animal; possibly musk ox or reindeer (caribou)

A view of the salt lake with the glacier in the background. We'll be visiting the ice sheet tomorrow!!!

The Americans attempt to spell "JSEP". It didn't work so well. >_<

Shelly "Shynes" Hynes, NSF Einstein Fellow, and me! (Rocking the "multiclava" headband!)

The lovely salt lake nestled in its surrounding rocky terrain.

A musk ox footprint on the lake shore (with human prints for scale).

A view into the hills across the lake.

A lone (and very curious) caribou trying to get to the lake (we were in its way).

Looking across a meadow of dwarf willow & birch to see the glacier.

The cozy town of Kangerlussuaq.

The airport

The airstrip (but no LC-130's - I'll try to get one later)

Some "glacier swept" rock faces surrounded by dwarf birch and willow.

Our relative location to the rest of the world (or most of it) :)

Bonus! A few new vocabulary words (with approximate pronunciation):
Haluu [ha-loo] (Greenlandic) - Hello
Morgenmad [Morgen-mad] (Greenlandic) - Breakfast
Frokost (Greenlandic) - Lunch
Aftensmad (Greenlandic) - Dinner

Some fun sentences:
Tuttuttut tututtut tuttutut tututtutut tuttutuuttut. - Dirty reindeer hunters who are eating reindeer as dirty reindeer. (It's like Greenlandic Morse Code!)

Nalunaarasuartaateeranngualiornialikkersaaleraluallaraminngoorasiinngcontaq. - They were talking about making a little telegram station.

Having some technical difficulties. I'll try to get today's post up soon. Hopefully I'll be able to fix the video. Sorry for the delay. Keep checking back!
Edit: having too much trouble with the video. I going to have to stick to pictures for now.  >_<

We had a satisfying morgenmad (breakfast) this morning, but my alarm didn't go off, so Marisa and I were almost late! Need to fix that for tomorrow morning! Not many plans for today...I'll get some pictures of the town up later. (:

My First Pictures of Greenland!!!

                             Our "chauffeurs" to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland this morning.

Some ANG humor

Our newly upgraded bus!!!! Now with sun roof!!! (or the emergency hatch that they broke off on the garage door - nice driving job there ^_^ )

Boarding the LC-130 Hercules air craft at the Air National Guard base in Albany, New York!

A nice pile of luggage!

In the cockpit for take-off #1.

In the cockpit for take-off #2.

A view of the Kangerlussuaq ("big fjord") out the window of the C-130!

Lots of kettle lakes at the edge of the glacier!

Greenland is so pretty - surprisingly not too much ice out here right now!

We've landed in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and disembarked from the LC-130 Hercules. A big thanks to the Air National Guard personnel for flying us in and being so kind and helpful during the flight - they even let us up into the cockpit during take-off and landing! Woo Hoo! So excited to finally be here! Can't wait to share more of my adventures!