Friday, October 7, 2005

7:45 AM

I saw the northern lights last night and the night before. Before we came out here to the Tundra Buggy lodge, the teachers told us not to get our hopes up, but there was no need for this warning. I've now seen the aurora borealis twice. It's simply an incredible sight. I look up at the night sky, and I see hundreds of stars that Baltimore is too bright to see, and I see a stream of green light dancing through the constellations, and I see the lights' reflection across the Hudson Bay. But the sights don't stop at stars and lights. Last night, at dinner, we got to see two young males play-fighing, and then one of them came right up to the window. We were just a meter from a polar bear. In fact, that same bear is next to the window right now. And a raven just flew by; it's good to know that I saw the mascot of my local NFL team up close. And right now, I can see a vibrant sun rising up above the horizon, casting its reflection over the bay, and letting its light stream across the tundra to light up the window of the lodge.

Thursday, October 6, 2005

7:46 AM

Yesterday evening, Sharon, our one-woman film crew, decided to take advantage of the 'perfect light,' as she described it, to perform one-on-one interviews. For my interview, she asked me what I had learned about leadership, and, to my surprise, I didn't even need to lie.
I told Sharon that I'd learned that leadership was an individual quality, and that it was different for everybody. I told her that I had learned that leadership was not about being the most forceful, assertive person, but about showing commitment and communicating that commitment to others. I also told Sharon that I had learned that, even though I'm sometimes a bit quiet, I can be a leader.
So, how did riding around in a tundra buggy teach me about leadership? Well, it was because in between photographing plovers, chasing arctic foxes, looking at lichens, and observing 200-year-old meter-high trees, we took some time to discuss the book "Impacts of a Warming Arctic." Students took turns leading these discussions. To my surprise, everyone had an individual leadership style. Some used humour, some calmly presented facts, some tried to ask questions and engage the audience, and some tried to pull ideas together and argue a thesis. To my surprise, I felt that each and every student was a good leader. I suppose, therefore, that I can be a leader in my own way, too.

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

10:17 PM

I experienced my first helicopter ride. I crawled inside the former den of a mother polar bear. I felt the gentle rocking of the 4 mile per hour tundra buggy, passing tree after tree, shrub after shrub, perfect lichen after perfect lichen. I felt the forgiving sponginess of the tundra ground. I took a photo of a fascinating clump of low-lying coniferous trees because it interested me. I stared for five minutes at a ptarmigan and a flock of geese. I watched a polar bear lie on the ground for hours right outside the lodge. I gently giggled at a bright white arctic hare who didn't realize that his fur provided absolutely no camoflouge against the brown tundra. I watched a little fox slip slyly through shrubs and trees. I pressed my binoculars to the window to see a mother polar bear with twin yearling cubs.
It would seem as though I wouldn't believe that all of these amazing opportunities had just come to me. But I do believe it. As I was standing out on the tundra buggy deck this afternoon, letting the wind blow my hair back off of my face, I looked out on the flat, low-lying terrain with a skyline that looks just like the ocean, and I realized that for the next three days, it is all mine. The tundra is my life now.

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

6:17 AM

3 October

I was soon to learn that the 2 degree Celsius weather that we experienced on our flight into Churchill was actually rather balmy for this little town. We spent all of October 3rd on the bus tour of the community, and it was raining horizontally and FRIGID. So, needless to say, I was a little chilly. I don't know whether it was the cold, or the little town that is so different from Baltimore, or just the mood that I was in, but the day that we took the bus tour, I felt that all of my emotions were amplified. Our guide, Kelsey, took the bus down by the bay and asked us if we wanted to get out. I jumped at the opportunity. So there I was, facing the Hudson Bay, just letting the wind blow rain through my my long, wild hair, and I don't know why, but I truly felt like I was five years old. I felt a much more intense kind of happiness than I ever feel back home. Suddenly everything was real; everything was primal.

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

6:07 AM

2 October

On the 28-seater CalmAir plane ride from Winnipeg to Churchill, I sat next to Meagan Alexander and we spent much of the time talking about how all we could see above us and below us was cloud cover, how much we could feel the movement of the little plane, and how when we talked, the vibrations in the aircraft made it sound like we were talking into a fan. Was it an uncomfortable flight? Certainly not. On the contrary, we were ecstatic the whole time because we were overflowing with anticipation, and when we descended the steps onto the pavement of the little one-room airport of the 800-person town and felt the 2 degree Celsius wind nip our cheeks, we knew that we were about to experience something incredible.

Saturday, October 1, 2005

4:18 PM

There have been many little moments in which my trip has really begun to feel real. One was my first interview with a newspaper. One was when the plane took off. One was my first big bear hug from Carolyn. And one such moment occured at 4:30 this morning. I suppose that I happened to wake up at 4:30 here because it was 5:30 in Baltimore, and that's when I usually wake up. But waking up this morning was not the same as it was back home. My down-filled Sheraton pillow was much thicker than the pillow in my room, the sheets were much more tucked in, and the comforter had that familiar yet unfamiliar smell that seems to be part of the package at every hotel room, and as a rolled over in this strange bed, I remembered why everything was different. I was finally in Winnepeg.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

8:07 AM

I cannot believe that it is already September 28th. The trip is so soon! I have my duffel all packed, and I know more than I ever thought I would about the effects of climate change in the Arctic thanks to ACIA's "Impacts of a Warming Arctic." I hope that we will have some interesting discussions about the content of the book. I just took a chemistry test, and one of the problems involved using dimensional analysis to convert the number of miles that Americans drive each day to the amount of carbon dioxide that we release into the atmosphere. Let's just say it was a rather large number (if I did the problem correctly, that is).