AMERICA

July 4th

I woke up early again today despite everyone else having an extra hour of sleep. After showering I then woke up Samantha and Ronin, and together we began decorating for the big day ahead! It was really fun to sneak around, hanging red, white, and blue everywhere like patriotic ninjas. We woke up Sam and Chloe at 7:30 because they wanted to sleep in, and they helped us finish hanging decorations.

But by far the best part of the morning was the Americans' wake-up call. We marched single-file into the dorm hallway, singing the national anthem and opening doors as we went. Actually, that's inaccurate. We screamed the national anthem and threw open doors, because that's how Americans do things. Go big or go home, right? (I would also like to mention that Sam messed up the lyrics to our national anthem and it created a few seconds of confusion as we tried to remember the correct words.) After all of the students were awake (none too happy about it), we Americans went upstairs to the teachers' dorms and tiptoed into the hallway. After a short discussion, we decided on how exactly we were going to wake the teachers up ... The first half of the anthem we sang softly (and beautifully. It was actually very nice), and then, bam. We screamed the last half at the top of our lungs from "AND THE ROCKETS' RED GLARE". The teachers loved it! Britta, Lynn, and Sheryl came out of their rooms and joined us in singing, while the Danish teachers just kind of looked out of their rooms and laughed at us. Everyone was thoroughly awake: mission accomplished.

We finished our SPRINTT assignment in the morning, and then broke for lunch. Lynn made PB&J sandwiches for everyone to try- it was delicious! They don't sell peanut butter commonly in Greenland or Denmark, so PB&J was a new experience for the majority of the JSEP students. It was funny watching them taste it for the first time; suddenly I understood what I must have looked like trying patte or the nasty, salty licorice. Josephine gave Samantha and I a few wary looks but eventually tried the sandwich. She didn't like it because the peanut butter stuck to her throat, and later said, "Well, I think this was my last peanut butter sandwich." Then, after a second: "But at least I tried it." And that's really what this program is about: trying new things and meeting new people to broaden your knowledge on such different -but uniquely beautiful- cultures.

After lunch, we had a Skype session with a scientist named Sebastian, during which I may or may not have dozed off a little. Sebastian's work is pretty interesting, though; he knows a lot about the overall melting trends of sea ice and the ice sheet. Sea ice, for example, will be gone soon if melting rates continue. The ice sheet will not be gone anytime soon, but its mass balance is decreasing very quickly. It was pretty powerful to look at all of Sebastian's graphs and evidence after we had just been on the ice sheet and seen a glacier. Everything seemed so much more real and urgent.

We had free time between 1pm and 6pm. Some students went on hikes, and others went down to the airport and walked around for a while. Kasper drove Ronin and I down to the airport, where we and a few other students rented bikes for the day. I picked out what I thought was the nicest bike available, but Fred pushed me and stole it (grr), so I had to settle for some dingy piece of scrap metal. Not more than two minutes later, I turned a little too hard and wiped out on it! Or, rather, off of it. The Greenlanders all thought it was hilarious ... and okay, it was pretty funny. My leggings ripped, knee gashed and bloody, I pedaled back to HQ with Ronin trailing behind. Needless to say Fred was not my favorite person at that moment!

Back at HQ I showed Britta my battle scars and grabbed a bandaid; then Ronin and I started up the road to a salt lake Kasper had told us about. This turned out to be an awful idea. Not only was the road uphill but also extremely sandy- my bike veered dangerously close to the Watson at one point because it's surprisingly difficult to steer when you're pedaling through sand. Ronin thought I was dead and so did I, but I managed to right myself and continue on, up the road and toward the salt lake. Sort of.

The road we climbed up. It's steeper than it looks, and keep in mind that it wraps around the whole mountain.  

Eventually we had to dismount and push our bikes up the mountain because it was impossible to pedal. Skipper drove by and offered to drive us to the top, but I foolishly declined. About an hour later, Ronin and I finally reached the top, sweating and swatting mosquitoes like madmen (although I had found a beautiful yellow quartz on the side of the road). We gave up pretty quickly when we saw the road climbing higher and higher, up several MORE mountains- and no salt lake in sight. Luckily the trip wasn't a total waste. John Peter came out of nowhere and waved us over to where he and a couple of other Greenlanders were standing. They had spotted two Umimat, or muskoxen, down on a grassy plain below. This was extremely good luck considering the JSEP team last year hadn't seen any muskox during their entire trip! In my mind, this justified my and Ronin's trek up the mountain. I watched the umimat for a couple of minutes, quiet. It was nice to just sit and enjoy being here, in Greenland, with the muskox below and purple mountains behind them.

Our view 

By the time I was finished, only Ronin and Fred were still waiting for me. Since Ronin and I really didn't want to climb any more mountains, we decided to return to HQ with Fred. Us three were biking down the mountain together (flying, more like it) when I noticed a couple of lumps in the sand coming quickly toward me. I tried to brake, but of course my brakes decided to break at exactly that moment! Thanks a lot, Fred, for this jewel of a bicycle! I hit that sandbar and went flying over the handlebars, yelling an impolite word as I did so, and skidded a little before coming to rest on my back in the sand. Fred was in front of me when I fell, but he stopped and ran back up where I was laying; Ronin also stopped and came to see if I was alright. Fortunately I wasn't badly hurt, and I was even feeling good enough to tell them to "leave me here to die". They continued down the mountain on their bikes, but I limped back across the Watson bridge on my own two feet, which come with fully functional brakes already.

Fred and Ronin were waiting for me on the other side of the bridge. I was actually in a pretty good mood by then, having found some niviarsiaq on the side of the road and still excited about the muskox sighting. It was here that I received one of the best compliments ever from Ronin: "You're more of an Alaskan girl than most Alaskan girls." Beaming, I returned to HQ and wiped away my blood with alcohol wipes from the yacht first aid kit. Then Ronin and I started to help out with dinner, Britta teasing me all the while.

Band-aided up

We had quite the American menu planned out. I started baking bacon in the oven for bacon cheeseburgers, and Lynn had beans and brownies cooking (separately, of course). Lynn had also brought graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows for s'mores!

After hearing about our muskox sighting, however, Lynn and Britta wanted to go out and see the umimat for themselves. Naasu and I joined them in a car ride (thank goodness) up the mountain to see them, and although we couldn't find them at first Naasu managed to spot them in the end. Muskox have surprising good camouflage, especially when their great white horns are facing away from you. They look like ordinary boulders. With my "ultra-zoom" lens I got a couple of really great pictures, but of course before we headed back I fell thigh-deep into a rabbit hole. Cue the Britta sass.

Spot the umimat!

Naasu lookin' cool

Lynn (L) and Britta (R)

We got back to HQ and resumed cooking; the other Americans also returned from their hikes and helped out. Ronin and Sam had a heated argument about who should be the "Grillmaster", but Ronin came out on top. He was extremely proud of himself, and kept shouting "AMURICAAA" as he was flipping burgers on our makeshift grill. I set the table, and by about 6:30 we had a class-A American barbecue! There was hamburgers, hot dogs, beans, potato salad, chips, (Danish) pop, brownies, and cupcakes. De-e-elicious.

The Grillmaster

Decorations!

Our delicious American buffet

It was a really fun night. The chaps from Dartmouth college even came over for some classic Fourth of July, as did a couple of other scientists from the KISS building. Fred found a guitar somewhere, and during dinner we all sang classic songs like "Stand by Me" as Ronin grilled nearby. Lynn brought out supplies for making s'mores, and I stuffed my face, earning me the nickname "S'mores" from Fred. So now I'm Chicago, Calamity Grace, and S'mores. Clearly I'm making a name for myself here in Greenland.

Sing-a-long time by the grill

Later we played an Alaskan tug-of-war game, had wheelbarrow and potato sack races, and even played a game of capture-the-flag. When we were all too tired to move, we then watched half of Independence Day. I really loved this ultra-patriotic Fourth of July! It really brought out us Americans' true colors- red, white, and blue.

Wheelbarrow races

Note the cheater. He was also a Boston Bruins fan. Coincidence?

Takuss!

Sea Tomatoes and Tuttu

July 3^rd, 2013. 12:09AM

Today started off pretty darn early.

Umimak had wake-up duty this morning (Chloe, Nasuu, Fred, and Marie-Louise). … And Chloe (US), having misread her watch, woke up at 1:15am instead of 7:15am! She came into our room and yelled a ‘Godmorgen’, to which Samantha replied, “I feel like I literally just closed my eyes,” and Lana mumbled, “She’s wrong.” It was a few minutes before Chloe re-entered, profusely apologized, and told us to go back to sleep, but none of us had really considered waking up anyways. Or moving. Or opening our eyes.

We were visited by the students from Dartmouth College much later in the morning, who gave a lecture on glacial lakes, parasites, and cyanobacteria, specifically sea tomatoes.  I was particularly interested in the glacial lakes. We’ve seen many lakes in the mountains, but I hadn’t yet considered why or how they had formed.  

Kettle lakes, for example, are created when a piece of ice left by a glacier carves a hole in the ground and then melts. These lakes are characterized by their smooth, kettle-like bottom.

Cirque lakes form when a glacier is surrounded by a ring of mountains. When the glacier flows out through an opening, it leaves behind an indentation that fills to form a lake. These lakes are easily identifiable because they are surrounded by a circle of mountains with an opening to one side.

Sea Tomato Lake is both a cirque and a kettle lake. 

Cryogenic lakes are the most complicated, and I’m still not sure I completely understand how they form, but I’ll give it a shot. Due to seasonal temperature change, cracks form in the layer of soil above the permafrost; over time these cracks grow, merge, and fill with water through precipitation and seepage, forming a lake. Cryogenic lakes are typically smaller than the other two types of lake, and are carved directly into the permafrost.

A couple of cryogenic lakes by the ice sheet

After doing some classic classroom learning, we hit the field. First up was what we ended up calling ‘Stickleback Lake’, because we spent our time there catching stickleback and examining them for parasites. Most (four out of five) of the fish had a huge parasite in them that our college students had lectured us on. What makes these parasites so outstanding is that they take up a whopping 80% of their host’s body mass! I found it amazing that the stickleback could still move and function with these enormous, worm-like creatures lodged inside of their bodies. Of course, infected stickleback are much slower than their non-infected friends, which make them better targets for birds- this works out perfectly for the parasites, who then complete their life cycles in said birds.

A stickleback fish and its parasite. Both were still moving at the time of this picture 

Although I did not take part in any parasite-wrangling, a few of the other students had a great time popping stickleback open to check for parasites. Someone even had the great idea of taking samples, so we now have little Tupperware containers of dead stickleback and parasites in our refridgerator. They double as emergency provisions.

Samantha with stickleback. She's the brightest witch of her age.

Next we went to Sea Tomato Lakes, to investigate the elusive sea asparagus. Jest aside, there were probably hundreds of apple-sized sea tomatoes in the lake, and hundreds more dried up on the shore. At first Sam (US) talked about tasting one of them, but when we learned that sea tomatoes are actually  extremely toxic colonies of cyanobacteria, he had second thoughts.

Josephine looking out over Sea Tomato lake

Sea tomatoes are pretty neat little organisms. They form when cyanobacteria cling to each other in string-like filaments, which together excrete a mucilaginous sheath. This sheath, capped by a firm outer “shell”, protects the colony from seasonal climate change and gives it a spherical shape. We talked about sea tomatoes more extensively with Jess, one of the Dartmouth students, since it was Nanoq’s turn to make an informational video on what we learned today.

Samantha (L) and Josephine (R) measuring sea tomatoes

Dissecting sea tomatoes

Oh, and I tripped in the mud and fell into a pile of sea tomatoes. Surprise surprise.

After all of our experiments and whatnot were done, some of the students took naps in the cars, and some were driven back to HQ to work on projects. Samantha, Ronin, Fred and I explored the lake a little more and messed around with the sea tomatoes. It’s strange to think that I’ll be parting with these new, close friends of mine in only a week …

We finally made it back to HQ, where Makka and I worked on our video. Then, dinner at the airport. Today’s special was tuttu stew! It was really delicious, although I have a feeling my sister will be horrified to learn that I ate reindeer- and liked it! Samantha and I shared desert, which was also excellent- and to cap off a wonderful dinner, I found her water bottle (which she had been searching for for days) in the truck.  I don’t know what that girl would do without me.

Back at HQ, the Americans planned for the 4^th of July … it’s going to be awesome. I will spare you the details for now.

Tonight we even had time for a movie! Someone had ‘Mama’, which was not scary at all. It was actually pretty hilarious! Fred frightened me more than the actual film did because he’d yell every time something ‘scary’ happened. All in all it was a great night to wrap up a great day. 

Dumptruck/Danish Day

July 2nd

So. Tired!

In the morning, we did a few experiments at the Watson bridge to measure the velocity of the water. Two methods were used; one group threw a piece of wood into the river and timed how long it took to reach a certain distance, and another group lowered a sand-filled bottle into the river using a 20-meter string, measured the distance from the bridge to the water, and then timed how long it took for the bottle to travel until the string was taut. My group used the second method, and Leyden's Adventure Ed teachers will be glad to know that I used a figure-eight follow-through/fisherman's know combo to ensure we didn't lose our bottle to the river. Back at HQ, we then used the Pythagorean theorem to calculate the distance the bottle traveled down the river ('a' being the distance from the bridge to the water, and 'c' being the length of the string). I was very frustrated with all of the math, especially after sediment was thrown into the mix; we were also find out how much sediment was moving through the river based on samples we had taken earlier. Still not done with all of the calculations, but other groups have found that, a) enough water moves through the cross-section of the bridge to fill up 8000 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day, and b) about a dump-truck full of sediment passes through the same cross-section every second.

The Watson bridge

Collecting sediment samples!

Garnets by the river, which were obviously not found by me.

Later we had a Skype session with a PhD student named Andreas, who talked about his own research with sediment in the river. In his research, he had done the same types of experiments we had done just hours earlier, in the same river, using the same calculations. It was pretty cool! Andreas also mentioned that the glacier scrapes around 2mm of sediment off of the ground every year, which doesn't sound like a lot until you remember the whole one-dump-truck-per-second thing.

We broke for lunch and then came back to Skype with a scientist named Sebastian, only he had some dental issue so we had to reschedule. Instead, we worked on group projects. I spent four hours finishing nanoq's EarthCache from Russell ... Four. Hours. It definitely should not have taken that long, but it looks great and I am very proud of it.

Dinner was at the airport today! We had fish and potatoes, and although it wasn't the greatest it was still MUCH better than Thai! Samantha and I had pretty strawberry mousse for desert. I could get used to airport food.

We went on a beautiful hike after dinner, just Britta, Sam, Samantha, Chloe, Kasper and I. It was tough, but I stuck with Britta and we made it to our destination: a waterfall surrounded by rippling stones. Little secret pockets of gorgeousness exist everywhere in Greenland, and I want to go to every one that I can- even if it means climbing up a horribly steep, gravelly mountain and skidding a little with every step. The car ride home from the hike was very entertaining, too. We practiced the Star-Spangled Banner twice in preparation for wake-up on the fourth  of July ... and soon discovered that not all of the Americans know the lyrics to the national anthem. Disgraceful.

Found this tuttu on the hike. 

Shiny parts are actually eroded rock!

The wind eroded my name onto the sand

The Greenlanders were all waiting outside when we arrived back at HQ, having been kicked out earlier by the Danes. Tonight was Danish cultural night, so they had been preparing while we were out. We were right on time, though- the doors opened only a couple of minutes after we had returned. The Danes had set the table beautifully, with plates of various spreads on pieces of rye bread, and little pig figurines scattered around the middle of the table. They sang their national anthem for us, and later Josephine even sang a trendy rendition of the ABC's. After dinner we played troll tag, apparently a favorite Danish past-time ... it was really fun, even though a got a nice set of scratches from sliding on the gravel. Kasper played with us, and boy was it terrifying to have that man chase after you. He runs like a hunting animal.

Dinner

 Josephine's ABC song:

Fun with Danish words:

We went back inside and sat in a circle, sharing cake and candy. Something is seriously wrong with Danish candy, I swear. They had the nasty salty licorice sitting out in bowls, and a black, circular candy that looked like charcoal. I tried the latter and was not disappointed ... Not only did it look like charcoal, but it tasted like charcoal, too. Sandra (GR) told me to bite into the center, so I did; not salt this time, but pepper. I teared up a little and had to spit the "candy" out. Danish candy is anything but delicious, trust me.

Our three Danes, to the far left: Marie-Louise, Josphine, and Thomas. 

Can't wait to top this with the fourth of July! Night.

Ice sheet and Russell Glacier

(Hello to everyone! Back in the USA, but with a lot of catching up to do on the blog front. Sorry, it was difficult to find time to update. I did keep a journal, so I'll be posting from that for the next couple of days. Enjoy!)

July 1st, 11:43 PM

Today was pretty awesome- hit up the Greenlandic ice sheet and the Russell Glacier.

We woke up early and packed lunches for the big field day ahead, along with equipment and warm weather gear (hats, scarves, mittens, etc. Nothing too outrageous). Then we hit the road, Jack- I was in a pickup with Michael, Thomas (DK), Ronin (US), and Skipper (teacher from DK, who drove). Skipper was hilarious! He would stop at every lake to look at ducks with his binoculars, and then think out loud on what species he'd find. If this doesn't illustrate just how exciting Greenlandic wildlife is, I don't know what will.

Skipper also knows a lot about the landscape and its history. He said we were driving on the longest road in Greenland (tentatively referred to as a "highway") ... It was made by Volkswagon, who wanted to make a path to the ice sheet to test their vehicles on the extreme terrain. When the Germans figured out that the ice sheet actually moves every year, necessitating regular alterations to the road, it went into disuse. Lazy Volkswagon.

It was a beautiful, 50-minute drive. There were many lakes along our path, and rolling mountains surrounded us on all sides. As we neared the ice sheet, the vegetation gradually diminished; things grow so slowly here that we were able to tell exactly which areas had been most recently covered by ice.

Once we had arrived, there was a short but rocky hike up to the ice sheet. Rikke (teacher from DK) challenged us to find garnets. Whoever found the largest and most beautiful, she said, would win a prize (luckily for my group, Michael ended up winning. We got ice cream, which tasted like victory). Naturally I didn't find any garnets. It was pretty cool to see all of the small streams trickling down the trail, though. Many of them were frozen or had floating plates of ice, and were a cool frosty blue- almost looked like a flavor of Gatorade or something.

The ice sheet was magnificent. It was a huge field of white stretching as far as the eye could see ...

There were small streams everywhere because it's melting season. Some streams were covered by ice, and others by snow, so some of the smaller ones were difficult to see. I think we all accidentally stepped into the water at one point or another, or slipped on black ice concealed by mud. Despite the terrible danger of falling on your butt, however, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the ice sheet. Even the Greenlandic students had never gone on the ice before.

Each group was given a bamboo stick and a drill. We were to drill a meter-deep hole and then place the bamboo stick into it, to return later and measure how much the surrounding ice had melted. Our group drilled in black ice, but others drilled in white ice, a stream, mud, and snow. White areas have a high albedo, or light reflectivity. Dark areas, on the other hand, have a low albedo. These areas (mud, black ice, etc.) absorb a significant amount of light, which converts to heat energy and causes more melting. Melting on the ice sheet causes a positive feedback loop; when the sheet melts, ponds form on its surface. These ponds are darker than the surrounding ice, and absorb more heat energy. This then leads to more melting, more ponds, more melting, more ponds ...

While we were out on the ice sheet, Britta (teacher from US) and I collected some data for GLOBE, a website that contains information on thousands of locations around the world. We were a little late and then had to power-hike back up the trail to the rest of the group, but those few extra minutes on the ice sheet were worth it!

We drove to a different site, a hilly lake area near the Russell Glacier, where some students from Dartmouth College were waiting for us. They had a biodiversity activity planned, where we split into minor groups and had to hunt for as many species of a certain category as possible. One group was assigned flowers, another had woody shrubs ... When the college students looked at my group, they said, "You look like you need a challenge," and gave us INSECTS. Great. Nothing better than hunting down foreign insects in the Greenlandic wilderness. Our group actually ended up finding 13 species, though- not too shabby! Among the 13 were crane flies, mosquitoes, and ladybugs. We also found snails, caterpillars, a tapeworm, and some fly larvae- yum.

Adding to the excitement, Lynn and Britta showed me tuttu droppings, hoofprints, and even a matching mandible/antlers set buried halfway in the dirt! Actually, we keep finding a lot of animal bones; so few bacteria and fungus can survive here that the bones just sit, becoming bleached by the sun over time. It's a little unnerving.

Oh, and today I fell four times- fall number one was on the ice sheet, into what was probably the only pile of mud on the entire ice sheet. Typical. The second was down those hills by the lake. I came to a gentle, rolling stop, surrounded by a concerned cloud of mosquitoes.

360-view from above the glacier

Anyways, after our little insect hunt we hiked up to a spot overlooking the glacier. It was so beautiful! There were huge, smooth rocks everywhere, carved with striations that told us which direction the glacier had been moving. Rikke pointed out a neat crescent-shaped striation, created when the glacier had skidded across the land. I was really confused at first because the rocks indicated that the glacier had moved west, and yet it sat far to the east! But Rikke explained to me that the glacier HAD moved west, and then had melted backwards to its current spot. How sneaky.

It's hard to believe nature can create something this beautiful.  And don't even get me started on the glacier. (That was a joke.)

Smooth rocks

Half-moon striations.

One thing I think a lot of students are confused about is the difference between an ice sheet and a glacier. I sure didn't know the difference before I went on this trip! An ice sheet is a massive plate of ice that covers over 50 square kilometers. A glacier, on the other hand, is a river of snow and ice that flows away from the ice sheet. And an ice SHELF is a portion of an ice sheet that is suspended over the ocean. A lot of polar lingo, I know.

Credit: NASA

Nanoq, my group, took some data for an EarthCache while we were looking over the glacier. Meanwhile, the Dartmouth students led the rest of the crowd down the mountain, closer to the ice. After we had finished with the EarthCache, my group and I ran down the trail to catch up! One of the proudest moments of my life was running down that mountain, leaping across a field of boulders, only falling once the whole way (3/4) ... I never could have imagined myself doing something like that a couple of months ago. I could never have done something like that a couple of months ago, period.

We reached the glacier and found the rest of the students lounging around, just enjoying the view. I could hardly blame them.

The Russell Glacier

Just chilling. Pun intended. 

Britta gave me some bandaids and moleskine from our yacht first aid kit to help with my hiking boots blisters- I didn't wear them in well enough before the trip. It was here, sitting on the rocks, that Britta declared me Calamity Grace. It was a historic moment.

After a couple of minutes by the glacier, we climbed back up the mountain, grabbed our things, and then hiked down its other side to the cars. Fall number four happened on the way down; I was in pretty sad shape, especially with a nasty ear sunburn from the ice sheet. But it was an amazing field day. Going onto the ice sheet and seeing the Russell Glacier are two memories that will stay with me for the rest of my life. 

We drove back to HQ and had dinner- Thai AGAIN. It was Nanoq's cleaning day, so I also sanitized the bathroom with what was apparently an industrial-grade cleaning fluid (Kasper and I rinsed everything with water, not to worry). But man, was that bathroom clean. That bathroom was immaculate. Absolutely NO bacteria survived. 

Later we watched Lynn's presentation on her trip to Antarctica. It was amazing! I want to go there someday, even if only as an assistant or cleaning lady. Everything seemed so alien, so foreign- like Greenland, but more concentrated! 

Anyways, that's it for tonight. Takuss! 

Sledge puppies

June 30th, 11:15PM 

Today was a-maz-ing.

First of all, I woke up before wake-up and got to stand in line for the shower … It doesn’t sound glamorous, but I was really excited to be on time and not tired for once.

We spent the rest of the morning out on the field taking samples, first at a landfill and then at lake Ferguson. The landfill was absolutely disgusting. There were bones, bundles of fur, plastic, and insects everywhere. And the smell was nearly unbearable; everyone had their sleeves over their mouths. We took soil and water samples and then high-tailed it out of there. The soil had a high phosphate concentration, but was low in nitrate. The water, however, had very low amounts of both phosphate and nitrate.

Ronin, to me: "You have to be in one of your pictures." And so we have our first photo of Grace, in front of a large and smelly pile of decaying garbage.

This basically sums up my landfill experience

Lake Ferguson was the complete opposite of the landfill, as it was blue and sparkling. It reminded me of Lake Michigan, but cleaner! There was no phosphate or nitrate in either Lake Ferguson’s soil or water; after my group had finished testing, we spent some time wandering around and just enjoying the view. I sat on a rock and stared out into the water, and Rikke (one of our Danish teachers) joined me after a while. We talked about geology, and she taught me how to find garnets around the lake. I’m horrible at finding them- try as I may, I never seem to see the red-spotted rocks that Rikke claims are “everywhere”.  Almost all of the other students have found them! I think my biggest goal in JSEP is to find a garnet by the end of the program. I’m not here to make friends, folks. I’m in it to win it.

Lake Ferguson

Testing samples!

Approximately 200-year-old lichen.

Samantha (US), Josephine (DK) and I walked about halfway back to Kanger when Rikke picked us (and Chloe, who had meanwhile climbed across a whole mountain by herself) up and drove us back. I was really tired afterwards, and kept dozing off during our work time … But I enjoyed our time at the lake, and I especially enjoyed my walk with Samantha and Josephine.

I got ice cream for lunch, even though I needed Josephine’s help with translating. It was good! AND I got my first kroner change. It was both an exciting and delicious moment.

After lunch we had a SPRINTT assignment. I worked with Chloe (US) and Samantha, but fell halfway asleep because I was still so tired from field work. I twitched back to life after a couple of minutes, though, not to worry. We had a quick art lesson from Britta afterward, and each of us drew a flower. She told us to try and do some field sketches before the trip is over, and I fully intend to, even though Greenlandic vegetation is generally uninspiring.

Right before dinner we went to see some local sledge dogs. Needless to say I was very excited! Right when I stepped out of the car, ten-month old puppies ran out of their enclosure to greet me and the other students. I also got to hold a 3-week-old puppy, which was outstandingly adorable. When I gained enough courage, I even interacted with the adult sledge dogs. You definitely needed a little confidence to approach those dogs; they were chained up and friendly, but very loud and active. I might also add that all of the above mentioned dogs were raised by a Danish handler. The Danes treat their dogs like family, so they’re friendlier than the Greenlandic dogs, who are treated as working animals. So, although both types of dogs were present at the sledge camp, I chose to interact with only the Danish dogs.

Danish hunds

I love Greenland

Greenlandic sledge dogs

It hurt my heart to leave those dogs, but we made it back for dinner … Thai again. 

After dinner, we just planned for tomorrow: Point 660 and the Russell Glacier! Can’t wait.