Photographer “Hachinohe” took interesting picture from air. It looks like miniature model?! but real!

Shift lense made very funny looking picture!

Venetie school: Venetie is Athabaskan Indian village located on permafrost.

 

Fort Yukon School: Fort Yukon is hub and headquarter of this region, interesting place!

Chalkyitsik School: Chalkyitsik is small community east of Fort Yukon!

All boreholes are good and loggers were successfully retrieved in this trip.

“Ricky” Yuguchi and Hot air balloon pilot “Mr.Hachinohe” went first Husky trip in interior this week. They visit Venetie, Fort Yukon, Chalkyitsik, Circle, and Eagle.

The way going up there, they saw many forest fire!

 

Fire makes big impact for permafrost thawing much more “global warming”.

Stay tune more picture this weekend!!

Former F15 fighter pilot “Ricky Yuguchi” is back in AK! Now he has small Husky airplane with big bush tire. His mission is same as last year! but much more time need. This year we have over 150 schools around Alaska. So he need download, change battery for data loggers all of villages except road connected villages.

You will see small Husky with him near by your runway sometimes soon until October!!

He just finished Venetie, Ft.Yukon, Circle this week…

 

 

Camera: Camera is one of the big changing items. We used to develop 35mm film. This is good quality, but we had never seen picture itself at the field. we need patient, and no mistaking arrowed for the shot. Also I was always nervous about going thru security at the airport with this films… 

Maybe I never see again Kodachroam 64, Ectachroam, Fijichroam, Tri-X… Even no more dark room to watch water temperature, time, etc… New digital generation cameras are completely replaced old one today. I am very comfortable about this. However, I still trust old camera for extreme environments. I used to use Nikon manual cameras, especially, I love FM2. This camera was manual shatter and all handling. You did not need battery to take shot.  This is great design for polar expedition or long journey. I brought this for Greenland, Sahara, Amazon, Antarctic… It always worked great. For the cold region, it’s nice to take all the grease out inside of the camera and the lenses. This made shorter  camera life but did not make harder by the cold grease temperature. Nikon helped to take out all grease as the part of their serves.

I love new Nikon digital camera too. These are so far great performance. Even, it works great -50dF during last three snowmachine trips. But I do still NOT trust them. If I need go long, cold journey, I will bring FM2 for backup. Hopefully in a future, Nikon make all manual digital SLR camera !? for extreme environments!!

Communication:

Communication system also change rapidly last 10 years. Now you only need Satellite phone and Cellar Phone to communicate all of the world.

Satellite phone is real powerful tool today. This make me safe and comfortable… You do not need any knowledge inside of electronics just need money to pay!

We used to use HF radio (HAM radio) to communicate the rest of the world. This need license (need study!) and practice key, in case of weak signal (we could not understand conversation each other). Also It needs understand inside of radio (cold temperature made crash machine, especially crystal).

So end up, the we need many radios and antennas for different frequencies!!

Radio Power was one of the headache! More power made more stable communication but getting heavier. So we need think seriously for antenna matching and system itself. Sometime used kite for antenna wire lift up higher…

But now, we do not need think about it and much lighter equipments could do more than same things. 

Emergency beacon (EPIRB) was also dramatic change last 20 years. originally small but only local search (121.5MHz) beacon exist, this is low chance to survive but better than nothing! Once 405MHz EPIRB developed for global coverage using satellite in 1990s. This is most likely survive any accident, if you put switch on. I bought this first generation EPIRB, this was big! almost bazooka. Then now we have an amazing compact size EPIRB (picture above yellow ACR) cheaply available.

The changing is most likely good and welcome. However, I feel sometimes feel safer for older systems, because of understanding inside. Also people have a nostalgia as comfortable, good memories were always remained hart but the bad memories forgot easily. Is this just myself?? I think everybody. Sometimes I missed staying isolated Arctice Ocean spending polar night alone quietly without these noisy communication tools!

 

 

 

 

Yes, we are living now. This is very unique time for human history. We are so lucky to see this all changes and convenience?! just last 3-4 decades.

As you know personal computer (internet), cell phone, TV made to change our life style completely last 20 years. But also the way of the expedition, hunting, outdoor, field work changed dramatically. It is easy and safely to go out almost everywhere today than the before we could not, even mother nature is still same…

I would like to share with you some of the changes of my expedition.

CLOTHS:

Gore-Tex was shocking fabric invented by R. Gore and son in 1976. This fabric is water/wind proof but breathable!! Before Gore-Tex, we were always soak wet underwear. Especially, today improved new generation of this Gore-Tex actually saved many many people’s life!

Modern cloth was pushing arctic life style last 100 years. But I saw many people in Greenland wear fur cloths up to 80s. When I was master students, I used to live with elders in Greenland. They made nice cloth for me. But it seems to disappear today.

NAVIGATION:

 GPS (Global Positioning System)! I remember hot summer day in 1989. Magellan start selling first GPS for personal use. It cost over $2000 for one big GPS unit. I terribly want to get this but too expensive!! A year later, I did get this for expedition as part of sponsor from Magellan. It was slow and took while to get position, but absolutely sensational!!!! We brought GPS to Antarctic in 1992, still big box (picture above). But the display showed amazing entire trip to 89d 59.8’S showed at south pole!

People today used to talk about latitude/ longitude for coordinate without any special feeling. But before GPS  maybe only sailor’s used and almost their technical term. Before GPS (even now, we should…), we have to use the sextant and to calculate own position. My Tamaya sextant (picture above) was one of the most important instruments for the expedition at that time. If you go on land, you could not have horizon like ocean. You need artificial horizen to measure sun/ moon/ start angle (see below figure).

So this means, we need sextant, artificial horizon cradle and mercury! Mercury was used for reflection. I used to bring 2kg of mercury in my backpack near food!! This is not happy situation but everybody did this way before GPS! In addition, we need accurate time and chart book for calculation. Any wrist watch somehow delay or forward, no watch stayed exact accurate time in 80s. I used to practice how much delay my watch per day. Good watch means always same rate to delay. That case we could calculate actual time in the filed. SEIKO was good delay watch for me. (even GPS clear this problem too!)

At the end, we need know star!! I usually using sun for position (moon is difficult to calculate!). The accuracy is within 1-2km. This is very good at the middle of nowhere! But I alway (still now) practice to recognize bright star name. This is important, because weather is not always clear. You might see only one star between the clouds. If you know the name and successfully  measured, you got position! Navigation was great fantasy, you need talk with star somewhere on Earth. Then you know destination. We lost this romantic navigation today…

To be continue…

 

 

 

 

It’s beautiful summer day in Fairbanks!! I very like sun shine, blue sky, dry weather (temperature over 80dF)!! Even I study permafrost… Such hot day, it is nice to think about winter camping. Arctic Oven tent is very unique winter tent in Alaska. It relatively small and warm, best fit for snow machine (snow mobile) travel. The biggest benefit will be fitting woodstove!! This makes hot and cozy during -50! unlike other tent.

The idea of this tent might come from Wall tent and igloo!

You can buy at Alaska Tent & Tarp.

But if you go with ski or walk, mountaineering tent is more efficient and less weight. 

Last 5 years, I had a great opportunity to examine and make many different shape of the custom bit and auger flute. The system itself is  not simple because the materials vary from glacial boulder to just pure ice. We try to explain and some test before. You will find following sites:

Different systems:blog from February 2007

Percussion drill bits: Saito, T., and Kenji Yoshikawa , 2008,Portable Drilling for Frozen Coarse-Grained Material. Kane, D.L. & Hinkel, K.M. (eds). 2008. Ninth International Conference on Permafrost. Institute of Northern Engineering, University of Alaska Fairbanks (2 Vols.), 2140 pp. p1561-1566.

However, frozen silt, sand, and ice is relatively simple and easy to drill. Most of the place in Alaska is luckily these materials. I received many  questions about drilling equipments. here is some hint for you.

Auger flute: you could find commercially available small diameter (2″) augers several different places.

a) little beaver (http://www.littlebeaver.com), Little Beaver is texas based company making nice auger system. They have variety of diameter (1.5″ to 16″). Their connection pin system is best for permafrost drilling, however, bits need modify and auger pitch is little too loose for deeper drilling (>5m).

b), Kovacs enterprise, Austin Kovacs makes beautiful stainless steal auger for sea ice research. this auger is very right weight and good pitch and great design of the bit. weakness is weaker joint (nice snap in system though). I am using modified his bit (attached carbide).

 

c), Jon’s mining auger, Fairbanks local shop owner Jon Holmgren makes nice heavy duty 2 1/2″ auger. This is great pitch and hex joint (but need pin like little beaver, if you connect more than 1 m). Also his pyramid bit is good for multi purpose. 

Do not forget ice! Permafrost contain a lot of ice most of the time. 

You will stack easy, if you are too aggrieve.

Always nice to clean flute.

 

 

I am back from Europe yesterday.

It was nice trip. We have now Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark (Greenland) in our network! Most of the permafrost is presence at the Palsa (Picture) at Scandinavian countries. Palsa is peat mound lifted by ice lenses. We will try to more explain by episode 4!