Field Notes from Toolik Lake
- FROST
- il y a 1 jour
- 2 min de lecture
Two students from Milla Rautio's lab at UQAC in Chicoutimi, Québec - Cassia and Félix -travelled to Alaska to sample Toolik Lake as part of FROST activities led by Sally MacIntyre. Here, Cassia shares highlights and reflections from the experience:
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We drove north from Fairbanks for nine hours to reach the Toolik Field Station. Accessing the Arctic Circle by land is a rare experience, allowing you to witness the gradual changes in vegetation, landscapes, and temperature along the way.
Once we arrived, it was −40°C and windy. To our great delight and surprise, however, the rest of the week was much milder, with temperatures closer to −5°C. We sampled the frozen Toolik Lake in our T-shirts, enjoying the first warm weather we had experienced all winter, in northern Alaska, of all places!
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The lake is located right beside the field station, so our morning commute by skidoo was a quick two-minute ride to our sampling sites. We measured 1.34 m of ice and collected some beautiful ruby-red chironomids.
Since Toolik Lake is heavily studied by many research teams, we were limited in the number of fish we were permitted to catch. To carefully manage our quota, we chose to fish with tip-ups. After spending an entire day without a single bite, we borrowed fishing rods from another researcher and finally managed to catch two small lake trout.
While at Toolik, we didn't just do science. We enjoyed delicious food, met many incredible people, and spent our evenings relaxing in the wonderful sauna overlooking the lake or skiing to discover Mount Jade.
We would like to thank the amazing team at the Toolik Field Station for their warm welcome and invaluable support throughout our stay. It was an unforgettable experience for two young researchers !
text by Cassia Abbott-Leduc
