Last Day

    Ahhh - the last day here in Canada for me for a few weeks, and surprise surprise, the rain continues.  It will be good to be home.   There was potential to go out today to get in that elusive Utikuma site still, however, mud thwarts us at every turn. 
     Yesterday we went out to collect some larch cones for our colleague and while we were at the Perryvale fen, this big fellow above (a Darner of some sort) found us and visited for a while. You would be surprised at how difficult it is to find larch cones with seeds still in them.  Or more likely, this is not something that enters your thoughts at all.  Smaller easier-to-get-to trees aren't producing very many cones, while the big trees produce their cones closer to the top.  We spent a few hours man-handling and pulling trees over trying to get enough and then finally I took a bow saw to a big one....  from the looks of the rings, it was definitely over 60 years old.  Success.
      That particular fen was surprisingly dry and stressed even with all this rain of late, and it is a site where we study the effects of drought.  We stopped measuring carbon fluxes from there a few years ago as it seemed to be recovering from the prolonged droughts, but from the looks of it, we might want to revisit.  It was definitely stressed and the mosses were decidedly unhappy.   
       And so with that final send off trip out to an old site, I am now Homeward Bound!   Hoping for smooth travels and comfortable temps back home.  It will be good to be back.
     
     

Beware.... Rant below.

  A friend of mine argued a year or so ago that we should stop buying oil from Saudi Arabia...  that it was expensive and we could do better.   My response included that one must also keep in mind that ANY oil is expensive to us consumers, yes, but ultimately also deleterious to the environment not only for the globally shared combustion products of carbon dioxide and pollutive N compounds, but also on a more locally point source viewpoint, as well…       Consider the oil sands area of Canada where my group is doing ecological impact research and where I am now breathing the air.   Canada, this benign country to our north, was the biggest supplier of oil to the US last year and it continues this year -- According to the DOE, Canada remained the largest exporter of total petroleum in June, exporting 2.733 million barrels per day to the United States, which is an increase from May (2.527 thousand barrels per day). The second largest exporter of total petroleum was Saudi Arabia with 1.353 million barrels per day (http://www.eia.doe.gov).  Much of this oil is coming from the oil sands in Alberta where they are both strip-mining the forests and wetlands and using in-situ steam methods to acquire the raw materials.  The processing of these oil sands produces vast amounts of slag in the form of contaminated sand (2 tons of sand yield one barrel of oil) and huge piles of sulfur that they protect with loud cannons so that birds won’t unsuspectingly land and die in these highly contaminated areas.  They use copious amounts of water from the Athabasca River to release the oil from the sands and divert natural resources from the local people.  These indigenous people are being greatly affected not only in their loss of hunting grounds and water supply, but the water supply that they do receive back from this area seems to be tainted -- the fish in the area around the indigenous town of Fort Chepewyan (north of Fort McMurray) are developing growths and losing flesh.  In a population of 1200 people in this town and surrounding areas, there were 6 deaths in Feb 2008 from cancer.  The cancer rate there is above what one would expect, however, more studies must be done says the government.

    I propose not only NOT buying gas from Saudi Arabia, but also trying to limit use of petroleum based energy resources in general. 
   With that, I relinquish my soap box.   And perhaps have a beer.
   

Laborador Tea is starting to turn.  Their blossoms, turned seed pods, held water nicely.    More Rain.  Everywhere we went today it stank of hydrocarbons - we went to our furthest north site and then one south of Fort Mac, too, and it was all totally smelly and very disconcerting.  Fort McMurray is really rather gross and disgusting on days like today.  Everything is covered with a thick layer of mud -- to the point where rain only makes cars muddier - the mud that is being brought to the main roads by all the 4x4s and massive trucks traveling from the side roads is now liquefied and spraying every which way turning things into one big mud bomb everywhere you look.  Wipers flap helplessly on the windshield as they push around splattered-up mud -- even in a heavy rain.  At the Syncrude main processing site, I watched a worker get out of his car today and take a squeegee to a speed limit sign.   It is that muddy.   One can usually get used to a little mud, and figure that that is part of the gig, but when you don't see the sun and see rain instead and dark skies and trucks that are unidentifiable because of their consistent brown-ness and everything you own is muddy and there is no sun in sight and the air stinks of toxic fumes and did I mention the no sun?  one starts to feel a little unhealthy.  I am feeling a little unhealthy.....       may we be done with Fort Mac soon!!  Wish me luck.

Grey and Dank

It is cold and wet here.... though could be snowing, so I shouldn't complain.... Off to three sites today, but thought I would quick pop up a pic from yesterday (Thanks, Melanie for the camera cord!). This is a fen we walk through to get to our bog which is all south of Fort McMurray. 3 out of 4 sloggers got soakers - this is our term for boot underwater and so feet get wet. Water water everywhere!

September, Alberta, Day One

Day One: Stymied.

Here I am again in Alberta with my cohort, navigating the unpredictabilities of field work. Today we intended to start work with a bang - hitting our hardest-to-get-to site (road-wise) and were turned back by muddy slicks. We were optimistic and had a plan. Plans change. I got out and wandered along the road and instantly had 10 pound boots from the accumulated mud…. And that was on the good part of the road, and so we witnessed some smallish bear prints, turned back, and will instead wander to Fort McMurray tomorrow in hopes of more passable roads once again by the start of next week.

Meanwhile, bugs still splat the windshield, reminding me to keep my headnet handy just in case. Temps are in the 50s during the day, but freezing at night and so I started my day with a scarf wrapped around the neck and warm gloves in the field bag. The gloves were not needed, but the scarf gave me comfort. Leaves are just starting to change and became increasingly yellow as we moved north today – I look forward to this change because I know from experience that the vegetation here puts on quite a fall show – Aspen and larch glow school-bus yellow to match the middle lines in the road. They are vibrantly punctuated by black and white spruce -- which are neither black nor white, but instead are deep rich greens. This brightly mottled canvas of upland and lowland have a backdrop of intense turquoise blue on the sunny days – bluer than bluets. Today, instead, it was grey and dizzly and at some points down-right foggy. Moisture collected on every needle and leaf surface. Didn’t bode well for drying out the road, but we’ll keep fingers crossed and keep on keeping on.

By far, the best thing about today is the sighting of 4 bears – a mama bear and triplets all scrambling across the road wary of our approaching truck. We paused on the road, and they paused at the edge of the forest; the middle little one popped up onto its hind-legs with a send-off sniff and they were off in search of things more yummy than us. That was a good mom. We also saw a coyote, multiple deer, 4 red-tails, 2 kestrels, a northern harrier, countless ravens, 1 shrike, and an unidentified blue bird of some sort…. ?? busy day. The moose was elusive today, but perhaps tomorrow…. They are in rut season either now or very soon, and so beware the moose in the field. They are not the smartest of animals to begin with and then add to that a single-mindedness and you get something that you don’t really want to meet. Last year we were regaled with stories of a moose getting all up in a local hammock’s business – either hot for the fabric or ready to fight it, so the Albertan’s say, and so while I am not sure how this could really be, I do not know the moose’s brain like they do, and so I will take their word on it. Any way you look at it, a moose in rut is not something to confuse. I will let you know.

And so Fort McMurray tomorrow and for a few days….

Ok.... Serious this time.....

Yes.... Here I am once again with a busy world revisiting the Blog.... wish me luck!! This may be a good venue for me to start exploring and so I will share with you, as well.

Cheers!
K