- Photo by Erica at the end of our morning of field data collection.-by Ymkje
Today we had to walk for a long time to reach each pond and the terrain was squishy. The walk did however allow us to get some good conversation in, and let us get to know each other better as well as learning about the landscape such as the beach ridges we were walking on.
On the way back to the van the wind fell and the mosquitoes quickly came at us and we were covered by them. We had been lucky all day and hadn’t been pestered by them yet.
The afternoon was filled with lab work and the boys went out to set fish traps for tomorrow. When they came back they told us that they had seen a polar bear! They even had a picture, though the bear was far away and only a white fleck. I felt like I had finally reached “Stage 2” that Earthwatch had warned me about in the expedition briefing; ‘Disappointment in the reality of the situation.’
But because of the sight it was decided that we would take the van in the evening and try to find a polar bear. And we did (see previous post for photos)! We all managed to get some pictures, like a bunch of bad tourists, and I immediately jumped back up to stage 1: ‘everything is new and exciting; you feel terrific.’
Glad to see you're all having fun. I'm jealous you got to see a polar bear (you know who you are). And don't worry, even at "stage 2" the whole thing is still a lot of fun. Remember: don't sleep with the fishies!
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