My Little Corner of the World

I can not be more thankful for everything that the Lord has given me. I have still not fully grasped the idea of being here. Everything is different; the smell of cool crisp air, the sunlight as it creeps through the thick boreal forest, the dome like sky sits overhead as the clouds seem to be just out of arms reach....it's beautiful!!!

When I'm not in class, I am in my cubicle!! I received  a researching assistant position at the International Arctic Research Center (IARC) which is located on upper campus. I do research for two researchers: Dr. Georgina Gibson and Dr. John Walsh. They are the best, both of them have done everything possible to get me settled in here and made sure it all went smoothly. The research is really interesting. Here is an overview of what it the research focuses on:

It is titled  “Ecosystem Impacts of variability and extreme events in the Arctic”. The project aims to quantify the ability of the Community Earth System Model to capture ecosystem-relevant variability in the Arctic over seasonal to decadal timescales, and to perform off-line simulations, with regional scale ecosystem models, to evaluate the sensitivities of ecosystem components to extended-duration forcing anomalies and extreme events (Gibson 2011).   


This is the entrance to upper campus with the Museum of the North in that background...really cool architecture.

This is IARC where the Department of Atmospheric Science (DAS) is located and where my office is located. Really the department is split between those two buildings IARC is the building on the left and the Geophysical Institute (GI) is on the right.  

This is my cubicle on the 4th floor of IARC

Here is the view from the 4th floor....that's the Alaskan Range

 View from standing outside IARC

 See the trail? there is a huge network of trails all over Fairbanks this goes down to the cabin..

Looking towards downtown Fairbanks

The Cabin

Here in Fairbanks, Alaska it's all about the dry cabins. When I say dry I mean absolutely no running water and no plumbing. All you have is a roof over your head and a toyo heater to warm you up! The locals haul water back to there cabins two ways: 1) most people place large water tanks in the bed of there pick-up and fill up every few months or 2) people buy 5 gallon jugs and fill up every few weeks (this is the route I chose, since I don't have a truck). You might be asking yourself, why dry cabins? Since the ground is frozen (permafrost) for several months out of the year, it makes it hard for all the proper construction to take place. The closer you get to the coast the less dry cabins you see. I met people form Juneau the other day and they had said that living in a dry cabin was very new to them as well! 

Not everyone lives this way in Fairbanks, but it is very popular within the college community. It's not as bad as it sounds, but then again it's -40 degrees outside yet!

Autumn was just starting when we arrived in Fairbanks. It is now in full swing, the colors are amazing to see. From my office I can see the whole valley and the view is just stunning...


So, here is our new home taken just a few days ago:

This is the street Roland Dr, which the cabin is on

Now when you drive down the road the cabin sits off to the right about 1/4 mile, here is the driveway

the cabin...notice the outhouse!!! right next to the outhouse there is another wooden structure...that's where you pour all the grey water that you use.

Now I had mentioned a heater...it runs off of oil and they are really efficient (in cost and heat). What you do is fill your tank up with oil once a winter and run your heater off that tank, it acts like a well for water. Depending on how much you use your heater determines how much fuel you need (duh right!!), but they say that anywhere from 150-250 gallons should do it. I think our tank is roughly 300 gallons, maybe a little more.

This is the backyard, not much of a backyard! It is linked to trails that go all the way to campus.

The front yard from the pourch

Just on the other side of the trees it opens up to field that follows the power lines, good for an easy hike.

looking west

looking north

 

here is the kitchen inside that cabin. There are no cabinets for glasses or pantry for food, it's very simple. Everything about the dry cabin life style is simple!!

It's like camping...you buy a jug, fill it up with water, place the spout over the sink and do work!!

Where does it drain, you ask??? Well it goes into a bucket, hahahahaaa!! No joke the sink drains into a bucket underneath. When it's full you just take it outside and pour it down the whole next to the outhouse. I haven't really got used to washing your dishes, washing your face and brushing your teeth all in the same sink...it bit weird, but it works!

I guess another thing I am still getting used to is taking showers...since there is no plumbing there is no shower at the cabin. I got lucky and my office has two showers in the men's locker room. I just take showers before I leave to go home, not bad...

In The Beginning

Michelle and I both decided not to speak of the "A" word, since it seemed to cause a lot of  headaches. As the deadline grew near and still no word from UAF (University of Alaska-Fairbanks), it seemed like postponing my admissions was the best option. On her lunch, Michelle called me to say hi and to see if there was any word yet. Within minutes my email account lit up with one new message from UAF asking me to contact them. One 20 minute phone conversation and one email later I am new student at UAF!!!

The planning and mapping began:

Going through Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington was easy. We weren't worried about that, it was Canada that freaked us out...cause at least in the lower 48 we can use our phones to get directions using the gps/mapping application. So i got out my road atlas and bookmarked all the states that would be traveled through. After bookmarking I took a highlighter to all the highways going to be driven. I was told to purchase a book that would greatly help our travels. It was certainly worth every penny. It's called the "The Milepost". It came with a huge map of Canada and Alaska (the book is open at the top of the map with the pink line). It has several routes that can be taken to reach Alaska and it has a mile by mile description of the road conditions, gas stations, camping/lodging and town information. "The Milepost" is truly the ultimate travelers guide.

So, Darwin (Michelle's dad) and I packed up a 5x8 U-Haul and the Jeep. the next morning we were off on our great adventure. It was really neat...the farther north we got, the on going joke was "this is now the farthest I have ever been," it seemed like we would say that every 5 minuets or so!

 Something I thought was really ironic was the morning we left I filled up with gas at the Smith's gas station across the street from Michelle's house in Reno. I forgot we needed ice for the food we were bringing on the trip. I went back and payed cash for the ice, well the cashier asked where we were headed and I smirked and said "not far!" But she was from Alaska and she handed me two quarters back in change. This is what I got:

 There was so much to see and so little time. I wish we could have had more time to do the tourist thing, but really we were on a deadline! Now here are a few shots we got along the way:

Mt Shasta

AHHH WRONG WAY!!

 

I asked Michelle to take pictures of cool bridges...Haha Michelle real funny!

The Cascade Mountain range in Washington

The border (good thing we are not aliens!!!)

Michelle doing her best Vanna White

British Columbia was beautiful

On the way to Alaska its not Chevron it's Husky! And that's 128.9 cents/Liter!!

As we got farther and farther north it got greener and greener. I always thought it would be these huge mountains with glaciers and people riding moose instead of driving cars, but actually BC and the Yukon is filled with flat (some rolling hills), thick boreal forest and large farming crops. The grass/trees are a vibrant green color, it was amazing to see...

 Our first "Beware of the Moose"

Then we found the mountains!

Through out BC the roads got washed out last winter due to a crazy amount of snow/ice/rain, so they are redoing large sections or the highway. The bummer is a dirt highway...

It was a good feeling making it over a 1,000 miles and getting to this point and seeing this sign...

Breakfast!! We didn't even make through one, notice the other on her lap...

Our first moose encounter...just a calf, but still a cool sight!

 Never did I think we would ever be in the Yukon Territory

These next few pictures are some of my favorites from the trip. We were still in the Yukon Territory and they were taken around 11:00 pm at night!!!

Woke up in Beaver Creek, Yukon thinking it was still August...only on the calender was it August, the temperature said otherwise!

Tired eyes...five days of driving and 1 rowdy night with the Beaver Creek locals!

 

After 6 days...WE MADE IT!!

Hanging out on the International Border!

Just checkn' for bears!!

 

Welcome to Tok, Alaska!

Bush planes are everywhere here...

Rainbow over the Chena River running through downtown Fairbanks, Alaska...

Chena River

For the first few days in Fairbanks Michelle and I camped out at the campsite in downtown...although it didn't look like any downtown I had been to!!

The other day I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything that has happened over the few weeks. So I drove to a local wildlife refuge to just clear my head and lose myself. I say drove, but really it's like a 2 1/2 miles from the cabin. It was really nice to get out and go for a hike...I took the boreal forest loop...it was, in a few words, amazingly soothing.

Since it is a wildlife refuge, it is a great place to animal watch. Moose like to feed on treelings that would usually grow back in burnt down fields. The fire crews keep wildfires out of the city limits (well, as much as possible) and the trees grow too tall for the moose to graze. So, they make theses fields by cutting down the trees to moose height so they are not pushed out of their habitat. But it also makes for a great picture!