Dinosaurs from the Land
of the Midnight Sun:
an Arctic Journal
Monday, July 15, 1996 -- flight to Fairbanks. Went to U of Alaska museum to see "Blue Babe", the Pleistocene bison which
was found frozen in the ice a few years ago. It was really cool. It had been mounted over a core so it didn't look shrunken. Had
spinach lasagna at Ghirardelli's Pasta Bella, then stayed up till after midnight, reading. It was still light when I went to bed.
Tuesday, July 16 -- Jonathan called and came to pick me up after breakfast. Took the last nice warm shower I'll probably have for
a while. Picked up Bill and Margaret and went to UAF museum to meet the rest of the crew and Dr. Roland Gangloff, our leader.
Had an orientation at the museum, then went to Gary's house to pack and pick up the boat. We'll be going in 2 university trucks
and pulling a 16' aluminum boat, which will also serve as a trailer to hold food and gear. We hit the road about 4 pm: the Dalton
Hwy, also known as the "haul road", built to service the Alaska Pipeline. Got our first glimpse of the pipeline, which will be our
constant companion as far as Prudhoe Bay. It's about 75°F -- much warmer than I expected; I need the clothes I wore from Denver. Saw
an amazing field of fireweed where there had been a forest fire some time ago. We camped 5 miles north of the Yukon River at a
site with a water well. Enjoyed a campfire, baked potato, and a few cool beers for dinner.
Wednesday, July 17 -- it didn't get dark at all last night even though we're still south of the Arctic Circle. The sun did set, but
it stayed like twilight. Woke to a crystal blue morning and 70° temperature at 8 am. Washed my hair at the well -- cold but good.
Hit the road shortly after 9. Got to the Arctic Circle around noon, took pictures of the sign and had lunch. Stopped in Coldfoot to
buy and mail a few postcards. By the time we reached Atigun Pass in the Brooks Range it's cooled off a lot. I put on the Alpaca
wool
sweater I got in Peru. We saw a dozen white Dall sheep crossing the road. We collected snow for the coolers at a small
residual snowfield near the pass. We've left all the spruces of the boreal forest behind, and now it's all tundra punctuated with
dwarf willows. We're only a mile or so high, but it looks a lot like Colorado at 12,000 ft.
We make camp at Galbraith Lake. Now I believe the stories about Alaska's mosquitoes -- not bigger than Michigan's, but
vastly more numerous and voracious. Ed wants to wash his hair again in the morning, as I do. We scout out a small stream after
dinner, and plan to come back in the morning to wash up. By 8:30 we've all retreated to our tents to read and sleep, even though the
sun's still high in the sky and it looks like Boulder at 6 pm. I'm sure glad I brought this bug-net suit!
Thursday, July 18 -- hit the road about 9:30 this morning. Spotted 29 Dall sheep and a couple of sikriks (arctic ground squirrels).
Made camp at Happy Valley. The mosquitoes are phenomenal -- they call them the Alaska state bird, with good reason. This
bug suit has already paid for itself. Even so I've retreated to my tent to escape them. We are all getting to know each other,
which makes the expedition more fun. Believe it or not, I'm too hot -- it's 70° and I only brought cold-weather clothes. We saw a
caribou at close range, and even chased him a ways down the road. The tundra is beautiful with sphagnum moss, horsetails, cotton
grass, lupine, and dwarf willows.
Friday, July 19 -- made it to Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay this morning. Not a very scenic town. The plane only holds the pilot and
3 passengers, so will have to make multiple runs. Ed is a real trooper but he's not having a good time. He's covered with
mosquito bites and likes to be clean. He's a librarian from St. Louis who has never been camping before. He's sure got spunk signing up
for a trip like this. I know he wishes he could back out. Judy and I have both wondered what we've gotten ourselves into, but at
least we're veteran campers. Did get a hot shower at the Prudhoe Bay hotel -- felt great.
6 pm: got out on the third flight with Margaret and Barbara. It was very interesting flying over the tundra. Saw a herd of
caribou from the plane. Beautiful animals. From the air you can really see the geometrically-patterned ground. I've forgotten just how
it forms but I think it has something to do with frost heaving. Saw a pingo from the air, too. It's a little hill with an ice lens at the
core which provides the only relief on this arctic coastal plain. The tundra is punctuated by hundreds of small lakes. You can still
see vehicle tracks 30 years old left over from the early days of oil exploration. The tundra is truly a fragile environment, just like
our alpine tundra in Colorado.
The flight to camp on Poverty Bar is about an hour. It's drizzling and we fly below the 800 ft cloud ceiling. The pilot lands us on
a gravel bar by the Colville River, where the first two crews have already set up their tents and the "Hansen structures",
tentlike quonset huts which will be our meal quarters. We even have a camp manager/cook -- such luxury --who has made
special provisions for my being a vegetarian. I have to set my tent up in the mud and drizzle and it appears that it's not 100% waterproof
on the roof. I can only pray that the rain fly will keep any more water off the roof other than that which got on it while I was setting
it up, 'cause I'm stuck here now, for better or for worse.
Did I mention that we've had a campfire every night? Nice little perk. Even here on the tundra there's wood to scavenge from
the dwarf willows, and small logs that wash downstream from the Brooks Range. Camp is carpeted with some type of fuchsia
flower, the color of fireweed but shorter and with bigger blossoms. I hope someone will be able to tell me what it is. After setting up
my tent, I throw my gear inside to get it out of the rain. Already I'm beginning to get a cover of grey mud that I suspect will
be ubiquitous before this is over. I drink my last beer (warm) and listen to the rain on the roof of my tent. It's not too cold, maybe
60°, and so far I'm comfy. The mosquitoes are here but not in such force. I am having fun, so far, at least. I think about poor Ed,
who's due on the next flight. I think he secretly hopes the weather will be bad enough that he and Roland will be stuck in Deadhorse for
a night at the hotel. You don't have to worry about losing your light for flying -- there's no darkness here in summer. It makes it a
bit hard to sleep so I'm glad I brought an eyeshade.
We're really developing some camaraderie as we get to know each other. Half of us signed up through Dinamation International
and the other half are Alaskans who are taking this as a course through the university. The Alaskans are Barb, a retired
librarian; Erica, a college geology student; Matt, an 8th grader; George, an Eskimo whaler from Barrow; Ron, an Eskimo student
from Barrow; Gary, the camp cook, a history teacher who currently works at the museum; and Roland and Dave, the two professors.
Our Dinamation cohort consists of Ed, whom I've mentioned; Judy, who lives in Portland; Bill and Margaret, who are from San
José; and Jonathan and me, who are both from Colorado.
Dinner is tortillas with cheese because all of the food hasn't arrived yet. It's still raining but Bill gets the fire going by dousing
it with white gas.
Saturday, July 20 -- I woke up at 3 am to find my tent coming half down on me because the wind had pulled out a stake. I had
to hammer them all in and put stones on top of them. The rain is abating somewhat. This morning Barb's thermometer said 44°.
Breakfast is leftover noodles and black coffee. I spend most of the morning in my tent, reading. Ed and Roland fly in with the
last of the gear and spend the day organizing the camp. The rain has stopped by late afternoon and it gets almost clear, and is up to 61°.
Even so, there are mosquitoes and mud everywhere. The mud cakes to my boots and gets in my tent. I wish I'd bought a new
dome tent instead of using my old EMS pyramid, but it's too late now. I keep thinking, what have I gotten myself into? I hate the
mud and the zipper on my tent's mosquito netting has broken.
Sunday, July 21 -- I slept much better last night and the rain has cleared. This morning it's about 55° and partly cloudy and dry.
I hope it holds up. Some of the mud is drying up, which I'm delighted to see. Breakfast is tang, coffee and pop tarts. The
mosquitoes are already out in full force despite a little breeze.
Great day at the outcrop. We are digging in the Prince Creek Formation of the Colville Group, Cretaceous, 71 million years old.
Some people walked up there (about a mile) while the rest of us took the boat. Dave and Jonathan drove the boat from
Deadhorse, where we left the vehicles, to Poverty Bar, where we are camped. There's been a lot of slumping in the past two years and
quarries need to be dug out to reach the Liscomb Bone Bed, our objective. Some of us sort through talus while others dig out the quarries.
In the talus I find two vertebral centra from the tail of a hadrosaur and two teeth of an albertosaur (one dentary and
one premaxillary), complete with serrations, the find of the day. I decide to walk back to camp with Erica and Matt, picking up a load
of wood on the way. In addition to the other sticks, you can sometimes find Pleistocene wood weathering out of the Gubik
Formation which unconformably overlies the Prince Creek. The Pleistocene also produces beautiful clam and snail shells which wash
down onto the grey sands of the beach. The walk is long because we have to slog through ankle-deep muck the whole way,
which threatens to pull off our boots. I'll take the boat after this.
The British film crew has arrived and they film us having dinner (tacos) around the campfire. It's getting much colder and
has begun to sprinkle so I retire to my tent to write and read. I've got two broken zippers on my tent now and will definitely get a
new one before embarking on any more expeditions. It's also getting windy and I sure hope my tent stakes hold.
Monday, July 22 -- woke up this morning to sunshine, calm conditions and no bugs. Last night's rain was short-lived and I had
no more problems with the tent. Took the boat out after a breakfast of scrambled eggs and coffee. Gary really takes care of us.
Spent the morning opening a quarry -- shoveling off overburden of slumped "Gubik goo" -- only to reach permafrost in one direction
and have the bone layer pinch out the other way. Gary brought our lunch of pasta salad and crackers around noon, and had even
made up a special bowl of meatless pasta for me. Spent the afternoon trying to find the bone layer to the south, then prospecting up
the beach where I found some very nice petrified wood -- coniferous, Roland says, either Araucariaceous or
Parataxodium -- coming from the same beds as our dinosaurs. Later I moved on down to Ed and Judy's quarry, where they had found the bone layer
and were setting rebar for reference grids. I think I'll dig with them tomorrow. We had to wait a long time for the boat because
Dave took the TV crew upriver to photograph ice wedges. Finally around 6:30 Jonathan came for us in the other boat. I may walk
back tomorrow, after all. The weather held great all day, maybe 60° and sunny, but the wind shifted to the north around 4 pm and it got
a lot colder: Arctic Ocean winds.
The peregrine falcons nesting on the tundra above the digs screeched at us all day. Jonathan and Erica found their nest with
two downy chicks in it. There are rough-legged hawks nesting across the slough from our camp on Poverty Bar. We have a
telescope trained on them and occasionally see the chicks being fed.
Tuesday, July 23 -- another fun day on the Colville River, thanks to a smiling weather god. It was cool and a few sprinkles
this morning. I've gone back to just having coffee -- these camp breakfasts are just too much. We opened our quarry pit this morning
-- the grid was laid yesterday -- and worked down through the clay to the bone layer, which is a black, barely lithified shale.
Lunch was a feast of macaroni soup plus peanut butter on whole wheat and apples. After lunch Judy uncovered what she thought was just
a
rock -- rare in these fine sediments -- but which I identified as a partial caudal vertebral centrum, about 2" diameter. We've
been told to expect many of these flattened, spool-shaped (amphicoelous) bones from the tails of juvenile hadrosaurs. She also found
a rib fragment and several ossified tendons. We measured the x-y-z coördinates of these and drew them in on the map. Ed and
I worked the back side of the pit all day but didn't find any fossils. The pit is now about 8" deep. We covered the quarry and
rode the boat back about 6 pm. There was no wind today and the sun came out in midafternoon, so the mosquitoes were really
intense, but fortunately, I was protected. Back in camp, as I write in my journal, I enjoy a cool near beer, thanks to Stu, our pilot,
who picked some up for me in Deadhorse yesterday. Most of the north slope is "dry" due to problems with alcohol and the
native people, I'm told. So all we can get is near beer, but it really hits the spot after a long day at the digs. I find myself getting
really thirsty up here and wonder if the atmosphere is dry despite all the water on the tundra. Barb says they only get about 15"
of precipitation a year, the same as Denver, but with the cold up here and the incredible flatness of the tundra, underlain by
permafrost, meltwater stays around.
Wednesday, July 24 -- another day of great weather, sunny and in the 60°s. We got down to the business of really excavating
the bonebed today. Judy found a metatarsal II from a juvenile hadrosaur, Ed found a cervical centrum and another metacarpal. I
found several bone fragments, but that's all. Late in the day Ed also found a carnivore tooth, serrated, looks much like my albertosaur.
We mapped them all in on our quarry sheets. There was a breeze to keep the bugs down. One of the peregrine chicks fell out of
the nest and Jonathan climbed up the bluff and put it back. He thinks the parents are spending all their time squawking at us and
not feeding the chicks, so he gave them some fish, and they ate it. The film crew finished up their photography today. They took a
few shots of us digging but spent most of their time interviewing Roland. It's pretty interesting to see how they work.
All three of the zippers on my tent have now broken or gotten stuck. I definitely need a new tent. Dave got them going again
and tightened them up, then I smeared them with Bag Balm to lubricate them because that was all I had. It's beginning to rain again
but is still warm.
Thursday, July 25 -- I walked with Jonathan to the site this morning because I was doing dishes and missed the boat. We stayed
off the mud as much as we could, but had to cross the flats where we saw tracks of sandhill cranes, caribou, and a bear. Today
started out cool and sprinkly but quickly warmed up when the sun came out. It must have been close to 80° this afternoon. I found
one complete phalanx 2 from digit II of a juvenile hadrosaur pes. The rest were just rib fragments and more ossified tendons.
Jonathan found a second metatarsal, must be from a subadult because it's much bigger. Roland thinks there was a crèche of young
which died while crossing a river and then were redeposited in a crevasse splay. The film crew left today. I really wish I got the
Learning Channel so that I could see the episode of PaleoWorld for which they were filming; maybe I can find someone back home who
gets it and would tape it for me. Back to camp and I took a shower at the sun shower and I feel so much better. After dinner it was
so clear that we could see the Brooks Range, 150 miles to the south. As long as the weather holds, I'm having a great time.
Apprehensive as I was about this trip, it's turning out that I was very well-prepared, and that makes all the difference in the world.
The things that worried me most were insects and getting cold; but my bug suit keeps the mosquitoes off, we haven't
encountered any black flies, the weather has been better than I expected, and I have plenty of warm, dry clothes. So none of my worries
has come to pass, the people are wonderful, and the bones are plentiful; this has to be one of my best vacations ever.
Friday, July 26 -- another day that started out cool and sprinkly, then warmed and cleared, but now that it's dinnertime it's
raining again and blowing quite a bit. I hope my tent stands up to the wind. We excavated a few more centimeters into the bonebed
today and are now coming to the layers with the big bones. It appears that there was some measure of stratification in that the
biggest bones are at the bottom of the layer and are overlain by a fining-upward sequence resulting in mostly teeth, bone fragments,
and ossified tendons near the top. I found two caudal centra and Ed and Judy each found a humerus, all from
Edmontosaurus. Ed has adjusted well and I think he's having a good time now, at least when it cools off and the bugs abate. We may not be able to
salvage Ed's humerus, because it's very punky and fractured from being in the active freeze-thaw layer, but the quarry data on location
and dip will still be valuable information. Judy's humerus is in better shape, being located further into the hill, closer to the permafrost.
We soaked it with vinac and left it to dry till tomorrow, although how much drying it can do under visqueen in the rain is debatable.
The rock is wet with percolation as the permafrost thaws when our excavations bring it closer to the surface. At least our quarry
pit isn't crosshatched with ice lenses like Gary's is, though we have some big fractures where they used to be. Jonathan recovered
a nice astragalus today and Matt found two Albertosaurus teeth, one pristine and with a partial root. All the remains we are
finding are from juvenile Edmontosaurus except for the shed carnivore teeth, possibly evidence of scavenging.
