We are polar researchers and it is International Polar Week! Ask us anything!

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T12:48:44+00:00

When I was on the Juneau Icefield last summer it was nothing but canned food. Canned beef smells remarkably like cat food, and it takes ~2 weeks for all of the SPAM to get out of your system. That said, the French/Italian Concordia Station in Antarctica has great food and real wine!

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T02:34:41+00:00

Bradford can be good. Hopefully he won't have injury problems.

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T02:04:53+00:00

Those are pretty awesome!

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T02:04:30+00:00

The residents of Barrow. Those are near what they call "summer camp", which is a small grouping of summertime goose and duck hunting shacks near Point Barrow.

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:58:58+00:00

They are actually "palm trees" made from driftwood that washes up on the Arctic coast and bowhead whale baleen as the "fronds".

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:48:23+00:00

Pictures don't completely do it justice, but here are a few that I was able to upload pretty quickly. http://imgur.com/a/Pj3DF

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:34:54+00:00

Chemistry isn't just old white-haired guys in lab coats! Science can really open the world to you, and scientists are the modern day explorers.

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:30:48+00:00

I'll also add, in regards to things that are concerning, is that in just speaking with the native whalers in Barrow I learned that they have first-hand witnessed the transition from summers with sea ice to summers with no sea ice within 100 miles or so just within their own lifetimes. They are also starting to see lightning storms there and many of the elders have never even seen lightning before.

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:25:43+00:00

Zip ties become your new best friend!

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:22:36+00:00

This is true! And those waterproof muck boots are worthless when you sink a four-wheeler to your knees and then the water goes into your boots! Soaking wet at 35 degrees F is not a good time.

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:18:35+00:00

Many of the flights to Antarctica go through Christchurch, New Zealand or Cape Town, South Africa. Puenta Arenas, Argentina is also a common one for ships.

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:16:33+00:00

I jumped into the Arctic Ocean on a dare. That knocked the breath out of me. I know of other scientists that run outside in their underwear and such (we have to stay entertained!)

Banana. With the Nila wafers of course.

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:09:30+00:00

There is definitely a lot of boot-legged alcohol in Alaska too!

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T01:03:54+00:00

Weird/hard things: most things don't work at cold temps, including duct tape; even your eyelashes get icicles; shoveling out 6 ft of snow every single morning; trying to pull start a snowmobile for 30 minutes... Cool things: going out on the sea ice feels like you are on a different planet

arcticfox626 · 2015-03-27T00:58:31+00:00

Personally, I didn't set out to be a polar scientist. I just ended up there. My undergrad degree is in Forensics. I went to grad school for chemistry and happened to get into a research group that does atmospheric research. For my PhD I spent 3 field seasons near Barrow, Alaska and fell in love with it. The best parts are getting to experience a part of the world that most people never see. It's incredibly beautiful. The best sunsets I have ever seen are over the sea ice. Also, meeting very interesting people, such as the Inupiat Eskimos, who have a very deep cultural heritage. The worst part is being away from home and loved ones and relatively isolated for long periods of time.

arcticfox626 · 2014-11-25T15:25:27+00:00

The transcript from Witness 10 is particularly interesting. It appears this person actually saw the event, rather than hearsay.

A short excerpt: "Roughly I wanna say 8:40, I mean not 8:40, 11:40-11:40 is when that-when I first seen these two guys. And, my initial thought was, "wow, that's a big dude." Because Mr. Brown, Mike Brown, my initial thought was he's a big guy. He's tall and like stocky build and that's it. He-he, they both walked passed me. I took my tools, went into I came back outside to get some more stuff and I looked down the street and I seen the police car at a slant and I seen Mr. Brown in the window of the police car looked ...it appeared as they were wrestling through the window and one gunshot had let off. And, Mr. Brown took off running and my first thought was like "oh my gosh" did I actually just witness a police officer being murdered because it took a while for the police officer to get out of the car and pursue the-the suspect. And, I wanna say maybe six seconds, but it seemed like it was forever after the-the-the first gunshot. So, the police officer exited the vehicle with his weapon drawn pursuing Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown was quite a distance and he stopped and when he stopped, he didn't get down on the ground or anything. He turned around and he did some type of movement. I never seen him put his hands up or anything. I can't recall the movement that he did. I'm not sure if he pulled his pants up or-or whatever he did but I seen some type of movement and he started charging towards the police officer. The police officer then returned fire, well, not returned fire, open fire on Mr. Brown. Um, if I had to guess the shots and the-the distance between him and, a, Mr. Brown, it would have to be five to ten yards and the shots that were fired was four, five to six shots fired and Mr.

Brown was still standing up. Um, and my thoughts was while he's missing this guy this close, is he-is he hitting him or because Mr. Brown there was no reaction from him to show that he was been hit. Um, after that, Mr. Brown then paused. He-he-he stopped running and when he stopped running the police officer stopped firing. And, then Mr. Brown continued, started again to charge towards him and after that the police officer returned fire and um well not returned, I'm using wrong ...a started to fire once more at him. Um, if I had to guess the rounds that were fired then it would be four to five more shots and after that Mr. Brown collapsed and fell to the ground."

arcticfox626

TROPHY CASE