Wk 06 Small World
Date Posted: 3.26.2007
Location: 64º5'N 165º4'W
Nome, Alaska, United States
Weather Conditions: Cloudy -7° F (-21°C)
Gapore 6,153 miles, Seattle 1,968 miles, Sydney 7,152 miles, Phoenix 3,077 miles, Honolulu 2,999 miles, North Pole 1,759 miles and 141 miles above the Arctic Circle. This is what the signpost in downtown Nome reads as it points in every direction. "How many miles from home" says Paul. "After more than three weeks in Nome living with my personal stuff in the tent on a parking lot surrounded by containers and Polar Huskies strung out on the stake out lines, this is turning into long term residency" grins Paul. He continues, "Luckily, I am pretty much at home wherever I wake up and it is much easier when you can see the sun rise in the morning. If you look for it, one can be at home anywhere and we always seem to be fortunate to be surrounded by new friends on every step of our journeys - as I was reminded again this week."
Early in the week locals were stopping by to greet the Polar Huskies and talk with Paul about the journey ahead, as many have family in Chukotka or feel a close connection to the Native people, land and culture there. As we talked about last week, the Native Inuit people of Alaska originally migrated across the Bering Strait from Chukotka beginning some 12,000 years ago. A Native Inupiaq Eskimo and dog musher Karl Itchoak was one of the locals that stopped by to say hi to Paul. Karl has fast racing huskies. With a wide smile across his face, Karl's comment when meeting Jupiter and Co. was "They are like horses!" He invited Paul for a night at his house enjoying some tasty local foods. Paul recalled his thoughts on how it is still a very important part of life for the Inuit to be living in close tradition with the land and mutual friends! As it turns out, Karl knows our friend and world-renowned dog sled racing star, Tim White, from Grand Marais, MN. The team trained the Polar Huskies this winter at Tim Whites..what a small world! Soon Paul found himself trying to track down another mutual friend 'Abe' who had apparently just arrived in town... so far from 'home' and yet still touched by the strings of friends and familiar faces. "It is a small world!" exclaims Paul.
The first day of spring arrived, and we had to recognize it with a bit of eeriness. As some of you may have seen on the satellite movies showing the formation and melting of the sea ice, we will need to dogsled around the sourthern corner of the Chukchi Peninsula - and we will need to get that done pretty quickly or the ice will start to go out on us. The ice becomes unstable in this location a lot sooner than further north up the coast as it is where the warmer Pacific Ocean and the southern mouth of the Bering Strait, with the pressures of the ice and water current moving through from the Arctic Ocean to the north, collide. We will need to be in Pevek, the planned destination for the 
expedition, before the ice starts breaking up leaving large leads of open water. This is exactly what students have been investigating in a classroom in Brisbane on the most eastern tip of Australia! If you have no idea were that is (we didn't) go to the Explore Zone and check out the world map looking for the flag of their posting! Learning about geospatial technologies last Friday was a busy day at Lourdes Hill College in Brisbane, Australia. The Easter Bunny was busy traveling around the world and had stopped by at the school. The students had a very techie Easter hunt using global positioning system (gps) readings to locate their Easter eggs. "Who knew even the Easter Bunny had gone high tech! Now there is a twist on a traditional celebration" says Mille. "I love it. It will be fun to see if the Chukchi and Yu'pik celebrate Easter or what other traditional spring celebrations they may have going on when we get there," adds Paul. But more than an Easter Hunt, they were also celebrating "Ginger Day" at Lourdes Hill College. "We ordered Ginger badges, and Ginger baseball shirts from the Polar Husky store and that was part of our prizes during the hunt." says Jenny Clark who teaches the junior and senior high students. Oh yes, for those of you wondering - we will be adding to the store every week to make sure no Polar Husky goes without their own shirt in the store!
In Teacher Explorer Jeff Sipper's classroom in Crosby, Minnesota, they also report having a busy week. As some of you may have seen in the Explore Zone, every week Jeff's students create a phenology report that lists out observations they have made related to the seasons and changing weather. They are doing this as part of a project with the KAXE radio station in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Their network of schools have set out to prove or disprove the map and theory called the Hopkins Law. Jeff explains "For every 15 minutes of latitude there should be one day difference, for every degree longitude there should be a 1.25 day difference, and one day for every 30 meters of elevation. So the theory is that in North America, the further west, north, and higher in elevation, the later spring arrives!" Jeff continues, "This week John Latimer, a phenologist (that's what a person studying this is called) from Grand Rapids, came to our classroom to teach us how to use a daily phenoloigcal departure map using Grand Rapids as the baseline or zero point. Everything is ahead of expected happenings in Grand Rapids. For example, when we see Robins arriving or certain plants budding at Cuyuna Range Elmentary School, then we can expect these events to be about 4 days ahead of Grand Rapids." Make sure to add your sightings of Spring in the Explore Zone as well!
There are no balmy signs of Spring in Nome yet. However, right now the hours of sunlight are increasing at a rate of 10 minutes a day! That is more than an hour a week! Paul reports that yesterday the sun rose at 8:47 am and set at 9:29 pm. That means the sun was up for 14 hours and 12 minutes! Mille explains, "Because of earth's rotation around the sun while spinning around its own axis, at the poles in the mid of winter there is 24 hour darkness and in the summer there is 24 hours daylight and that is what is called the midnight sun. In Denmark where I am from, we are not far enough North to have a true 24 hour 'sun-up.' The sun does set and rise, but we do have a few days where it never gets dark because of twilight. It is one of my absolute favorite things in the world. It is some of what I miss from my home country - one of those things that makes me a Dane. That incredible bright, bright, white Arctic light is one reason why the Arctic has stolen my heart." Aaron explains, "Living on the land, in darkness part of the year, is a huge part of why legends and language play such a part in traditional living of Arctic peoples - long hours of story telling, singing and dancing in the yaranga. Still today no matter where you are in the Arctic, life in the communities changes completely with the coming of the midnight sun. Hunters head out on the land in the cooler midnight hours and kids are playing basketball around the clock (yes! makes for some great basketball players). I remember it was one of the things that I found most amusing about the Arctic on my first expedition."
In Brisbane, Australia yesterday they had exactly 12 hours of light. The sun rose at 5:53 am and set at 5:53 pm. And they are loosing as much as 1 minute and 38 seconds a day! They are of course losing light there because it is on the other side of the equator. So, when it is spring in the northern hemisphere - it is fall in the southern hemisphere where Australia is located.
How many hours of sunlight are you having where you live? Does it mean anything to you? Do you think it has ever had any influence on your culture? If you go to http://weatherunderground.com and type in your location in the search field, then scroll down to 'Astronomy', you can see time of sunrise, sunset, and hours of day light. Then, upload that along with your place location (you can get the coordinates of where you are at by looking in the upper right corner of that very same page) to the Culture Zone in the Zones! "I just think it would be so amazing if we could get recordings from all over the world with the hours of daylight right now! A snapshot of our incredibly cool huge small world." says Mille. "Don't forget to upload images, descriptions, movies and whatever else you are doing out there to the Zones." says Aaron. "Let us know about your dumplings!" he says with a grin. "During this week's chat we have several questions related to dumplings." continues Mille. On that note, join this week's chat where we are honored with our expert speaker August Nimtz on Friday, March 30 at 2 PM CST. Don't miss it!
The day of this week's chat is when we hope to finally arrive at the expeditions starting point in Provediniya. On Monday, a government official flew the paper work to get the Polar Huskies across the Bering Strait to Moscow, the capitol of Russia. That would be 4,032 miles, minus the 80 miles from the milepost to Provideniya, equaling 3095 miles to be exact. That 80 miles might as well have been thousands of miles the last couple of weeks given that we have been barred from making the short jaunt across the strait. A plane is set to take Paul and the Polar Huskies to Providineya on Tuesday morning, while Mille will be 17 hours en-route from Education Basecamp in Minnesota, through Seattle and Anchorage to Nome to arrive Tuesday night. The following morning Mille will board the same little aircraft that is to take Paul and the Polar Huskies, but this time along with her it will be loaded with gear, food and sleds. "I love flying with the dogs so I envy Paul for this one" says Mille, "but as it is, we need to be on the two separate flights to ensure nothing is confiscated as we cross the border and enter Russia." 
Hershey, the first of this week's two Polar Husky Superstars, had his first flight as just a yearling. This was at the end of his first expedition where he and the rest of the gang had pulled the sleds more than 2000 miles from Churchill, Manitoba, Canada to North America's most northern community of Grise Fiord on Ellsemere Island, Canada. "We loaded 24 Polar Huskies into a tiny little aircraft. All the seats had been taken out and there was pretty much dogs everywhere" says Paul. Mille continues, "Hershey was sitting on the opposite side of the plane from us, up against the window - and I will never forget how he was sitting looking out the window as we backtracked the route we had traveled over the past four months." Back then Hershey was more of a brat than he is now. With his large chest and very athletic build, Hershey knows his job and can be very sharp in his tone towards the other Polar Huskies if the job is not getting done. But Hershey is also super playful and just loves to hang out and show some loving with us.
Hershey's brother Sami, this week's second Polar Husky Superstar, was not part of that expedition. "At that point the kennel was too large for us to bring everyone and we had a job with the U.S. Forest Service hauling supplies into National Parks where no motorized vehicles were allowed. Even though Sami was just a yearling, he was doing so excellent in training we decided to leave him behind with the rest of the Polar Husky veterans we trusted this job with." says Paul. Sami is not on the huge end of the scale for a Polar Husky, but he is a brilliantly hard puller with excellent technique and brains to run pretty much anywhere in the team. Though he is very intense about his work, just like Hershey, Sami is much more laid back and easily fits into whatever role is asked of him. He has high tolerance for other Polar Huskies, new situations and foreign places. Just like Paul and every two-legged member of Team GoNorth!, the Polar Huskies are at home pretty much anywhere the sun sets and rises. And finally, very soon, sleds will be loaded and Polar Huskies will be cruising on an entirely new continent when we arrive in Asia this week... connecting continents and making the world just yet a bit smaller!
