July 2, 1999 23:15 BC I

Day 3, the first real day in the field. Amazing what 24 hour sunlight does to enliven the body. Yes, I was groggy when I woke at 9, but after getting up, I was quite chipper. Oh, by the way, the Arctic is not all that cold. Doug and I had our polar sauna cranked last night. The tent must’ve hit a good 70° F. Very very warm. Sweating just as bad here as at home. but hey, it’s better than shivering. I may not need Mr. Bronger’s bag after all. We headed off around 10 and went into the river cut. We examined a bed with some nice shallow marine fossils, like bivalves and stars. This bed is the Hassel Formation. We headed upstream and had to make a crossing. The rivers were quite violent and too wide and deep to simply jump or wade, so we had to make a rock bridge. We made it up quite far, a few hundred meters beyond the toe of the glacier. On the opposite bank, I spotted two musk ox and told John, which he confirmed were indeed musk ox. Pretty amazing creatures. We got back to camp around 5:30. Along the way, after reconstructing our bridge, Chris fell in, but avoided injury and serious wetness. Dinner was huge. Two mammoth helpings of spaghetti, parm. cheese, beans, Resolute peanut butter bars (yum...), peaches, and MilkyWay. Satisfying. After dinner, we overheard John on the radio asking for a chopper. Apparently there is too little access to the rocks he needs and we’ll be moving camp soon. Doug and I decided we wanted to climb the rise to the sought of camp. it was a long long climb up there with a steep river cut one third of the way through. The peak had a plethora of false summits, but we finally made it to the top and the view was incredible. Clear sky, sun on the glaciers, and we could see all of the fiord and surrounding peaks. Worth the climb. However, now it’s worth my sleep. We have a 7 o’clock start tomorrow.

July 3, 1999 23:08 BC I

Another beautiful day in the High Arctic. Lots of sun (well, 24 hours of it) and warmth. We got up about seven, but were a bit sluggish about it. You know, stiffness after a hard day in the field. John didn’t say anything, so must be it was okay. Doug has the most difficulty getting up. As we left for the field, we saw musk ox on the plateau across the river. Actually, they were there when we woke, too. Three of them, just hanging out, out for a day of musking. Our first site was a just downstream from camp. We search for fossils in the sandstone but didn’t fin anything. We continued downstream and looked at several of the members of the Kanguk Formation. I found a nice concretion in the river bed, and John said to split it open and have Karrie look at it. Lots of nice big crystals. After some more fossil hunting, we spent a good hour-and-a-half building bridges to cross the river. Finally made it over, but I got my right foot a bit wet. Once over, there was a sandy paleosol at the Hassel/Kanguk contact and that was the focus of the day. After searching for fossils, John took over collecting samples. The age of this boundary is disputed, so by studying the soils, one can determine relative climate and time. Doug had to run back to camp to get the tape measure, and when he came back, he motioned above us. There, staring down at us, where the musk ox, all three of them. They wouldn’t go away, so John had to fire the gun. That did it. All this beautiful sun has its negative side affects, and no, I’m not talking sunburn. The river was swelling due to increased ice melt, and we could no longer cross. We climbed a steep scree slope to walk down river, and there were the musk ox again. And again they wouldn’t move, so again John had to shoot his gun. The power of these musk ox is incredible. They climbed a 1000 foot hill in a matter of ten or fifteen minutes, some it at full gallop. Incredible. Got some nice photos of them. We hiked nearly all the way down to the fiord and still didn’t have a good crossing. The river braided out, but the river was still very very strong. We couldn’t build bridges, so we got our feet wet. To cross a raging glacial melt river, simply cross it and hope that you don’t put your foot in a hole. The final crossing was the hard one. the water was deep, fast, and powerful. John went first, and barely made it. Karrie went next, but didn’t make it and was totally drenched. We got her before the river took her away, though. I made it no problem ‘cept for wet feet. Same with Doug and Chris. Karrie went down again and was dually soaked. We were all tired after that. Long walk back to camp. Dinner was great: rice with chicken, water chestnuts, bamboo shoot, and peas. Tonight was our wash night. Well, as best you can clean yourself here in the Arctic. My back is killing me. Punishment for throwing at least one ton of rocks into the river. Time to go to bed. It’s 23:40 Axel Heiberg time. ‘Nite night.

July 7, 1999 22:25 BC II

So much for leaving New York’s nice summer weather. We enjoyed our seventh consecutive day of gorgeous weather. I spent a lot of the day in just my vest. Since we’ve enjoyed seven good days, that means we’ve been in the field for a week now. We’re only supposed to be up here for four-and-a-half weeks, so we’re almost 25% of the way through. All’s going well, too. And I’m not thinking of home or any of that much at all. Surprising. We went right back to drilling today, working our way into the Deer Bay. Since shale usually doesn’t get along well with the drill, John concentrated on drilling concretions in the Deer Bay. He let Chris drill for about half of the day, but took the drill back when the cores started getting fugly. While John was orienteering one of the cores, I dazed off into sleepiness, and he woke me up. Rather embarrassing. He didn’t say anything, though. Just to stay on his good side, I busted my butt the rest of the day. I moved from being the water boy to being the pumper. It’s a bit more active, but not any more exciting. Orienteering is the worst, though, because there is nothing for us to do. To remedy that, however, Doug and I started building a trail along the river. The trail is really good now. Dinner was a bit lousy, but edible nonetheless. Beans, corn, mashed potatoes, Tang (of course), hot chocolate, Milky Way and graham crackers. No crumbs or spots left on my plate. As we were cleaning up after dinner, we started tiling the kitchen floor, and before long, the while thing was tiled. John was impressed. Doug left part way through that to start on the part of the trail that descends down to the river. He and heights don’t get along, so he was intent on putting in stairs. After awhile, tiling the kitchen lost it’s allure, so I too left camp and joined Doug. Now our trail boasts a nice set of stairs down a rather steep section. The girls will definitely be impressed, but we’re hoping John will appreciate our hour-and-a-half of labor. He’s going to say something, that we know. Back at Glacier Fiord when we all took the Arctic Plunge, my boots obviously got wet. However, there are a few places that have yet to dry, namely the toe. Now, the plunge was several days ago, so the boots should be dry now. There are not, though, so we have called the phenomena, “most foot,” and from this entry into the future, I am going to keep track of the drying, or non-drying progress. Even if the toe dries out soon, I’m writing La Sportiva, because these boosts should not be doing this nor should they have come unwaterproof as soon as they did. Other than that, and some lack of side padding, I love my Makalu’s. Our first dinner, long ago in Glacier Fiord, had muffins, on of which was a very hard bran/high fiber muffin. Needless to say, no one was fighting over that (nor the veggie-McMuffin), so we tossed it. We were then joking around about a wolf that would come along and try to dig into the food pit. See, when Doug and I made that food pit, we dug out a hug rock resulting in a deep and rocky food pit. With rocks piled over the food scraps, the only way our fictional world could get at them would be to burrow in from the side. This would be a multi day even fro Mr. Wolf, and when he finally arrived at what he thought would be a gold mine, all he would reap from his exhausting efforts would be the moldy remains of that fiber bomb of a muffin and that disgustingly nasty when fresh fake meat thing. Mr. Wolf would be utterly heart broken. He burned oh so many precious Arctic calories to achieve nothing other than a bad case of canine runs and a tummy ache. Wounded pride would be just the beginning. How could he, Mr. Wolf, predator of the Arctic, return to the pack with news that he spent days digging only to retrieve a bran muffin and fake meat? Obviously he couldn’t. He’d be the laughing stock of the pack. Besides, what wolf eats fake meat? Certainly not him, nor his canine cronies. The defeat was too much. He could not return to the pack, that was decided. Nor could he wander and prey on his own, especially now that he had the ups and downs. He’d be a polar bear snack before he knew it. Besides, look where solo hunting had gotten him now. Mr. Wolf had only one path to choose, and that lead straight to the cliff beside the river. He had failed miserably as a wolf. The glacial water surged below, raging with white peaks of sloshing frigid water. he could hear the low rumble of the boulders giving way to the river (or was that rumble the bran muffin, still churning and burning a river through his innards?). There was no turning back now. With his tail tucked in between his legs with shame, Mr. Wolf took a triumphant leap off the cliff and plummeted to his icy grave. Moral: if humans throw out whole, uneaten food, there is probably a good reason why it’s being thrown out.

July 18, 1999 22:15 BCII (Expedition I)

Sunday. What a day. The day didn’t start all that exciting, but it ended up being great. Got out of the ten earlier than I normally do. After breakfast, Karrie, Chris, Doug, and I went out into the field to continue measuring while John manned the radio. It rained a little bit while we were out and was fluctuating between cold and cool. We measured 50 meters toward the Awingak and looked for fossils. Needless to say, that was a boring two hours. We came back to camp and were told to go hunting for glendonites in the lower Christopher. However, we weren’t doing that for long when Karrie said the chopper was coming. I was the first one out of the river cut and into camp and got my stuff together as the helicopter was landing. John said there was a weight problem and he was only going to take me. Why he chose me, I don’t know, but this was the best thing to happen to me on this expedition next to getting on the team. The others stayed behind to continue work in the Christopher. We took off and headed west over Iceberg Bay. On the north side of the bay, we did some scouting and found what looked like the contact for the fossils. We landed and climbed up a gully through basalts, shales, and in between, a paleosol and a thin sandstone unit. There was plant material in the sandstone, but not any animals, unfortunately. We collected samples from the paleosol and the sandstone. John kept the chopper in the same general area for awhile, and we did land once more, but did not find the sandstone unit. With the bay to our backs and a wall of mountains facing us, we rose and rose and rose over the mountains and over to the very bergy Agate Fiord. We searched several locations by air, yet found nothing worth landing for. Again we rose, but this time flew over the fiord and up a huge glacier covered with sealed crevasses. We kept going northeast and flew over another, even larger glacier over which deep blue rivers flowed and cascaded and fell over the edges of the ice. We continued up river cuts rarely seen, John said, because this area is almost always covered with snow. John saw a side river cut he wanted me to look at, so we landed and I gingerly traversed a sandstone cliff about 40 about the swelling river. That was a lot of fun. However, in science’s interest, we still did not find anything. We flew over the rivery glaciers again and out East Fiord through an enormous glacial valley through the basalts. The floor was littered with moraines and lakes, and anhydride salts were rising up, too. We jumped a ridge over to Agate Fiord again and then across the bay to Expedition. I saw all of Dragon Cliff and Twisted Ridge as we flew across the fiord toward the Kanguk Peninsula. We continued over to the south side of Strand Fiord where we landed for the last time. Here we found a very thick paleosol sandwiched between shale with the basalts above us. This was a bit confusing, John said, because of the shales on both sides of the paleosol. Again, we found nothing. On our way back, we flew up some river cuts, and I saw a herd of musk ox. The ride got a bit bumpy over Expedition Fiord. Southeast of the ride across the river, there is another river which has several waterfalls. Looked very nice. Our pilot was telling us that last week he was working down at Lancaster Sound with a guy doing a polar bear survey. Out over the ice, there were large holes that the balooga’s were making as breathing holes. Well, I guess the bears figured out there were whales there, and every time the whales came up, the bears clawed them. The guys found five whale carcasses on the ice. They also tagged a bear who weighed 1065 pounds, the eleventh heaviest bear this guy has tagged. ...Dinner tonight was mashed potatoes, beans and corn with graham crackers as the special desert. We each had about ten to eleven servings of potatoes, and for the third consecutive night, I was full. We are moving tomorrow morning, beginning at eight. After dinner we packed and closed the crates and gathered our stuff enough that packing can be done quickly tomorrow. I’m planning on getting up at 6:30 tomorrow, so I’ll be good and tired tomorrow. Goodnight.