So today was the beginning of my arctic adventure. It started at 3:30 AM when I miraculously woke up, most likely from a combination of nerves and excitement, more than ready to start my day all too early. All of my flights were relatively uneventful - in fact, i would venture to say they were all entirely and perfectly uneventful. In Chicago, i had to go through three terminals to get from my inbound gate to my outbound gate. There, I met Joe (from Pennsylvania) and Drake (from Virginia). In Winnipeg, I was very thoroughly questioned at the border but eventually got my passport stamped. There we met up with Caity (from Oregon) and Varun (from Arizona) (unfortunately, Varun’s luggage was lost along the way and the final member of our team, Lan, missed one of her connections, so she will be shipped up north tomorrow morning). We all went through security, checked in again, got something to eat, and went through security again. Flying into Churchill was an interesting experience for me. As the plane landed, all I could see was a cluster of small buildings – each no bigger than a house. It took me only a few minutes to realize that that was the Churchill Airport. There we met Ben, LeeAnn and Scott. We threw all our bags into a car and piled ourselves into a van whose windows were a mosquito graveyard (to which we added greatly by locking a number of live mosquitoes into the van as we slipped in). We proceeded to take a long drive to the center, during which we saw not one, two or three polar bears, but no less than six polar bears! Even Ben and Scott were stunned by our luck. Three were males (we saw them from fairly far away), but the other three were a mother and her two cubs. We managed to get a little too close for her comfort, sending her stalking into the tall grass to hide her babies. Arriving at the center was also an adventure: in the 15 steps it took for us to walk from the van door to the main entrance of the center, each of us had to swat away roughly 3 dozen mosquitoes each. And here is where the perk of staying in polar bear territory comes in, because the bears pose such a danger, doors never remain open, making it extremely difficult for mosquitoes to get into the building. On the downside, bear territory means there are bars on all the windows, giving the place a bit of a prison-like feel. In any case, we got settled in, took a tour of the facility and our 9 (soon-to-be 10) person team sat down and got to know each other better. Tomorrow we wake up bright and early and get trained out in the field.
RILKA
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