Winter is almost here!

Fall has come and gone very quickly up here in Fairbanks! I had a great trip home at the end of August and got to see a lot of friends and family. Since then, school has started up and now we are a month into the fall semester! I have been super busy lately with school work and meeting up with friends. I haven't even had time to make more bags!

Classes are going well so far. I am taking a biogeography course, seminar, tree-ring sampling and analysis and thesis credits this semester. The tree-ring course is more of an individual study with just one other student and the professor. I have a set of tree cores that I examine under a dissecting microscope and eventually we will measure the rings and input them to the computer where we can run statistical programs to help compare all the rings. For research, we have been plugging away at a paper and *hopefully* we are submitting it this week. I am excited to start on the next part of my research and get this paper out of the way.

Yesterday Justin and I went down to a woodsman competition put on by my school of Natural Resources. Everyone got to compete and try out all the tests if they wanted. Justin and I tried single person sawing, double person sawing and axe throwing. It was really fun to try, but I need to build up some more upper body strength if I want to be a real woodsman!! There was also log tossing, log rolling, boiling water with just three matches, an axe and one log, and burling (two people standing on a big log in the water trying to knock the other off to see who can last the longest). Those were all really fun to watch!

As always, here are a few pictures from some of my adventures!!

Polka band at the Pub. Yes we did the chicken dance :)

From the top of Ester Dome looking north of Fairbanks

Justin and I sawing some wood

Axe throwing!

My friend Hannah won this round! :)

More pictures on on Facebook! I will try to post sooner next time now that things are quieting down a little bit!

My summer in Fairbanks is quickly coming to an end! I will be home in Maine for the remainder of the summer and am really looking forward to seeing everyone! I will be home on Thursday and stay just over a week until the following Monday. Classes start up here September 2nd so it will be a quick transition! This summer has been pretty good. I have been putting in a lot of time at the GIS lab working on my research which is slowly coming along. We are submitting a paper to be published a few weeks after I get back so I will keep you all posted on when that will be published.

This past weekend Justin and I checked out the Tanana Valley Fair which was right in Fairbanks. I posted a few pictures from that below..

Me with the bunnies

Big dude

On the ferris wheel!

I have also been doing a bunch of sewing during the weeks but I have made surprises for people so I can't post pictures yet! Once I get back I will post a few more of my creations along with some stories from my trip home!

July

This summer has been different from any others I've had! It finally feels like summer in Fairbanks...this weekend it was in the 80's with sunny skies and it felt great! Justin and I went down to camp in Denali NP and took the bus into the park. We weren't able to see Mt. McKinley but we still had a great time! As always I went overboard taking pictures, but I have attached a few. We met up with my friend Leah and her friend Courtney who are both working in the park this summer. They are both coming up to Fairbanks this weekend for the Tanana Valley Fair which should be fun! I haven't been to a fair in a long time!

One of the two caribou we found walking along the road

The second caribou we saw tried to charge the bus!

Courtney, Leah and I on Mt. Healy in Denali NP

Denali Village down below our hike

Justin and I 66 miles into the park

There was a rubber ducky race down the Chena River through downtown Fairbanks. Justin and I both entered but neither of us won :( Quite a sight to see though!

In early July I took a soils field course up the Dalton Highway. This is the highway the Ice Road Truckers go up to Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay. It was a very cool trip! Every day we looked at 3-4 soil pits. Since there is continuous permafrost north of Fairbanks, for most pits we had to use the jackhammer. We camped everynight except for the last two nights where we were able to stay at Toolik Research Station just north of the Brooks mountain range. All I have to say is that Alaska is BIG! It took us 9 hours to drive from Toolik Lake back down to Fairbanks and Deadhorse is another 3 or so hours north of Toolik Lake...and Fairbanks is only the middle of the state! It was a really cool trip and I learned a lot about Alaska soils!

Soil profile dug down to the permafrost before the jackhammer.

The mosquitoes were AWFUL!! I snuck this of someone's back....but we all had this many on us! Thank goodness for bug nets!

Me at Atigun Pass for all you Ice Road Tucker watchers!

At the Arctic Circle! Every night we camped we were above the arctic circle!

Me giving the jackhammer a try! It might look like I know what I'm doing but I couldn't control that thing for the life of me!

Me at the Deadhorse general store! I made it!!

Unfortunatley BP has the Arctic Ocean blocked off around that area so we weren't able to get that far. I guess it was about 8 miles away. It was so foggy and flat though there was no hope of seeing it from where we were.

For the rest of the summer I will just be working on my research. Justin is headed up the Dalton for the next few weeks so I will have some extra time to make more bags! I made another one which I will post pictures of at some point, but I made it for my friend Andy at home and she doesn't want to see it before she gets it! In 15 days I will be back in Maine for just over a week and I am SOOO excited!! I have a lot planned and I can't wait to see everyone!!! :)

Summer Sun

Midnight Sun!!
(12:15 am)

So far this summer has been pretty fun! My birthday was last week and so Justin and I went gold panning for the first time and out to dinner! I've been working a lot which has been going really well! Today I started a one credit field class today. It is a soils class and we will be traveling up the Dalton Highway (yes the same as ice road truckers) up to Prudhoe Bay looking at all the different soils! We will be camping along the way and will return next Wednesday. I am looking forward to it and it should be an awesome experience! I may actually get to see a polar bear in Alaska!! I will be sure to post some pictures when I return! Until then....

This piece of gold is worth $40,000!!!!!!

The gold I panned out....$6 worth!! :/

Happy Birthday to me!

At Chena Pump House

Alaska with the Family!!

My parents and brother came up to visit a few weeks ago and we had such a great time! We all met up in the Anchorage airport and went to dinner and straight to bed. The next morning we drove down to Seward which is on the Kenai Peninsula. In Seward we hiked to Exit glacier, we to the Sea Life Center and went on a boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park. On the tour we saw a ton of wildlife like killer whales, eagles, sea lions and humpback whales. We also saw a calving glacier into the ocean which was spectacular. After the tour we drove down to Homer which is on the other side of the peninsula. In Homer we did some sea kayaking and just checked the place out. After Homer, we drove all the way up to Denali National Park and spent a few days there. We took a bus 66 miles into the park and saw a lot of wildlife including grizzly bears! We did a short hike out there and rode the bus back. After a few days in Denali, we drove up to Fairbanks where I was able to show my parents where I lived and worked. We took a trip out to Chena Hot Springs. They were also able to meet Justin which was a lot of fun. It was a fantastic trip and we were all really sad when it ended! I have plane tickets to go back to Maine in August for just over a week so I am really excited about that!! Below are a few pictures from our trip but total we took about 1,700 so there is no way to post them all!!

All of us on the boat tour!

Us in Seward

Us in Denali!

Joel and I in front of the famous Salty Dawg bar!

Joel and I sea kayaking

My parents at Portage Glacier

Mom and Dad in front of the glacier on the boat tour

Some sheep we saw in Denali on a hike

I hope you enjoy the pictures! If you want to see more, I have posted a lot more on facebook and can be seen at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2295330&id=5800348&l=225b527047 and http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2295335&id=5800348&l=58d2c91446 .

I will hopefully have more exciting things to post about shortly!

Denali National Park in May

Last weekend Emily, Justin, Ben and I took a trip down to Denali National Park. We saw three moose, a bunch of ptarmigan and a lynx!! Thankfully we didn't run into any bears, but we had the bear spray ready!! The weather didn't end up being the greatest the second day...we ended up running into some rain/blizzard showers (somehow I think that is the best way to describe). We did a short hike up a small mountain. We were able to drive about 30 miles into the park. When the park is fully open, cars can only go about 14 miles into the park and you have to take a bus into the rest of the park, so it was cool being able to drive!

Emily heads back to the east coast tonight :(. We went out for a really nice dinner at the Chena Pump House last night for a "cousin date". I am certainly going to miss having her up here...we had a great month together!! :) Here are some pictures from this past weekend in Denali...

Em and I setting up the tent

Em and Justin by the river with huge pieces of ice

Em and I trying to stay warm

Ben and I enjoying our delicious Hobo Dinners we made!

Em and I at mile 30

Snow!

Justin!

Em and I finally wore our "I'm with cousin" shirts! :)

Anchorage with Moy

Last weekend Emily and I took a weekend trip down to Anchorage and it was AMAZING! We flew down Friday morning and hopped in our rental car and drove about an hour to the Portage Glacier. It was beautiful but we couldn't really see any of the glaciers because everything was covered in a blanket of snow still. Then we went through a 2.5 mile long tunnel through a mountain to Whittier which is a very small fishing town on Prince William Sound. On Saturday we went for a hike up Flattop mountain which was insanely beautiful and unlike any mountains in Maine. The stretch up to the top was very steep and covered in snow and so to go back down we slid on our bums for quite some time! Sunday we rented bikes downtown and biked along the Coastal Path for about 2o miles. I attached a bunch of pictures for your viewing pleasure...but they are in reverse order.

A moose we saw on our bike ride.

My rockin outfit on our bike ride! I was warm at least!

Em and I out for a nice dinner at the Glacier Brewhouse!

Looking up after sliding down

Em pointing to where we hiked up on the left and slid down on the right! So fun!

Emily and I at the top of Flattop Mountain

Em and I in Whittier

Em with Whittier behind her.

At Portage Glacier

Portage Glacier

Anchorage was a lot of fun and we were very lucky to have such wonderful weather! This weekend it is raining so we are taking it easy. The sky is still light at 11pm now which makes it hard to go to bed when your head is telling you it is a lot earlier than it really is!