From the Concrete Jungle of Brooklyn to the Pristine Boreal Forests of Northern Canada

I'm back everybody and this time I have traveled to a place that is not so hot and not so dark for my summer trip.

  HERE), I am again impressed with the quality of person that EarthWatch selects for its teacher expeditions.

Yesterday, I flew for the first time ever to Canada. I flew through Montreal (lots of French, but fairly nondescript looking from the sky, really could have been just about any Midwestern city) and on to Winnipeg. I loved landing in Winnipeg because we flew over these beautiful fields of yellow flowers. I thought they were goldenrod but later learned that they were cultivated fields of Rapeseed. A flower whose seed is used to produce vegetable oil and sometimes bio-diesel.  Just some interesting fun facts I learned. The airports in Canada have all been much nicer than New York City and everyone is friendly and helpful. The hotel had a shuttle that picked me up. First thing I did when I got to the hotel was buy a water. I had to do a double take in my head about Canadian currency after handing the lobby-guy a $5 bill and then only getting 2 coins back. "Didn't he say $2?" I thought to myself. Only a few moments later, I realized that $1 and $2 currency in Canada comes in the form of coins, Loonies as they call them. (because the dollar coins have Loons on them.) I went to my room which was nice. My roommate I was assigned by EarthWatch, was Robin. She's from Boston and not only has she traveled all over the world, she's taught all over the world too! Being my second EarthWatch trip (see posts about my first trip
As a matter of fact, 4 other teachers that had arrived to Winnipeg early decided to go for a little walk to scope out some dinner options and after navigating some road constructions on foot, we managed to find a little strip mall with a hole in the wall sushi place that turned out to be delicious, hip, and had a mini train that circulated around the restaurant on an elevated track. Once back at the hotel,  I was exhausted and the last thing I remember before going to sleep was that Robin had to pull the curtains on our curtain because at 11pm it still wasn't quite fully dark.

We had to wake up early today to get to the airport in time to make our 7:00am flight to Churchill. As We got to the airport at 5:50 and were a little worried as there was a really long line for our plane. "Were not going to make it." One of the other volunteers said, But once we got up to the counter, the man checking us in was completely unconcerned. "The plane won't leave. There are still people in this line who need checked in." That is definitely not something you hear in the States. We didn't walk up to our gate until quarter til 7. We left an hour later. We'd had plenty of time.

Now, I know you're all wondering because I flew to the tiny town of Churchill, Manitoba (pop. 800), did I have to fly on one of those tiny propeller planes, and the answer is "No." We were in a 737! We had to walk outside to load it but it was a pretty large plane. Robin made friends with an Old Inuit woman who told her about the history of the region and was once a teacher herself. She also told her that the polar bears are not scared of the locals and she pointed to me because "We hunt them." But the Caucasians they are not afraid of, she said. I've been told I can pass for being of Spanish decent but I guess I look of Inuit decent too? She also was really confused when we landed. "Is this the right time?" She looked at her watch. "Yeah, we left a little late, so it is 9:15." Robin assured her. "In the morning or at night?" She asked. "I never can tell with the light like this." Robin and I looked outside. We wondered how bright it would be in the middle of the night if this woman couldn't tell the difference between 9:15am and pm.

The ride to Churchill Northern Studies Centre was beautiful. This part of Canada is very flat, with pools of water, jutting rocks, small funny-shaped pine trees, and lots of green. I like to think of it as BIG SKY country. It's like the sky goes on forever and it takes up so much of your field of view.

Once at the station, we had a delicious Taco lunch, got a tour of the space (incredible in so many ways...but more on that later), settled into our rooms and then did some introductions.

After getting to know more about everyone on the research team, we got fitted for our waders and bug jackets. You'll get to see these items in action in future blog posts.







We then took a little walk of the surrounding area around the station. Amanda, another researcher and our guide on the walk, had to carry a large gun. It is a protective policy to deter polar bears if we see any and they get to close. We didn't see any but the walk was beautiful.

 There are these old buildings for shooting rockets because they used to do a lot of meteorologist research here back before the 1970's.





We also got to see some more of the foliage up close.

There were quite a few mosquitoes and horseflies so I wore my bug net.













After the walk we went to town for a beer run. The liquor store allowed you to mix and match any beers in an 8 pack holder. Needless to say, us teachers stocked up.

I chose mostly beers made in Canada so I could get a taste of what's local.

 We also went to the Churchill grocery store. This was an interesting place that was small but had just about everything, a place where you could get your OJ and your ATV.

I just got some snacks including some maple cream filled shortbread cookies. The dry back to the research station from Churchill was again stunning.



Dinner was Chili. A nice way to reuse some of the ingredients from taco lunch and after dinner we had a lecture from LeAnn (the head researcher) and Amanda. She told us how we would be collecting data on Wood frog populations in order to see how they have been affected by climate change and increases in nutrient levels.

The last thing I did today was stay up until sunset which is pretty late here 10:18pm. I watched it from the Aurora borealis  observation dome. It was incredible. Tomorrow is a day full of training on the data collection tools and we get to try our hand at collecting some data. Goodnight from the not so dark parts of Northern Canada.