Here's a story that I stumbled upon, almost literally, when reporting a different piece for The Antarctic Sun several years ago.

It's about Ernest Shackleton and his crew who were thrilled to see their relief ship arrive at the coast of Antarctica after their failed attempt at the South Pole 100 years ago. So thrilled, in fact, that they left behind two cases of Scotch whisky stashed under their hut. Conservationists working on their hut found the wood crates a few years ago but couldn't free them from the icy ground. They're going back to Antarctica in January to try and extricate the booze.

Little known fact: I was at the hut a couple days after the crew found the whisky. They asked if I wanted to crawl under to check it out. Of course I did. Then we realized that since the conservation crew was all male, and Shackleton's crew was all male, I was the first woman to climb underneath Shackleton's hut at Cape Royds. That's my one proud Antarctic First.

My story in GlobalPost on the whisky posted this week. It's gotten more than 50,000 hits already, putting it among the top 10 GlobalPost stories of all time. I wrote a story on the same topic for Outside magazine that will run in their December issue. I'll post it when it comes out.

I wrote this story in today's Chicago Tribune about an unusual fundraiser. People were asked to raise at least $1,000 for respiratory health research to earn themselves a spot rappelling down the 27-story Wit hotel in the Loop. I focused on one amazing young woman, who was afraid of heights, but rappelled in honor of her father who died of lung cancer this summer, only 10 weeks after being diagnosed.

After seeing everyone giddy with adrenaline and accomplishment, I regret that I didn't take up the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago on its offer to let media try the rappel the day before.

I'm at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference in Madison now.

The highlight so far was a trip to see Milwaukee's high- and low-tech efforts to keep pollutants out of the lake, because we got to tour a tunnel that's being dug 300 feet underground as part of their sewage system. The 24-foot wide tunnels can hold excess runoff water during storms. (Milwaukee has a combined sewer system, so wastewater from buildings is combined with runoff water.) The problem is that during storms, the influx of rain water overwhelms the treatment plants. So instead of dumping water immediately into the lake or letting it back up into people's basements, it sits in the tunnels until the treatment plants can handle it. The system is not foolproof. There are still storms that overwhelm it and water goes untreated into the lake. But this happens less frequently than before the tunnels were built.

While that was all interesting, the best part was the trip into the tunnel. About 10 of us climbed into a small yellow cage. Then a huge crane that was attached to a cable on the top of the cage picked us up, swung us around til we were over the hole, and slowly lowered us down 300 feet.

I leave tomorrow for a four-day fellowship in Northern Wisconsin to study environmental issues affecting the Great Lakes region. I'll write more from there.

The Tribune figured that I was the right person to write a review of a book about the world's coldest locales and sent me Bill Streever's new book "Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places."

It's an interesting, if imperfect book, about the impact that cold has had on the earth and human history. It's a collection of often fascinating facts about everything from permafrost to the search for absolute zero to the creation of the bicycle in a year when cold weather ruined crops and made it too expensive to keep horses.

The book's premise is that cold has been the major force shaping geological, biological and anthropological history for millenniums. Given how significant cold's power has been, it leaves the reader wondering what the impact of the coming warming period is going to be. This is all the more urgent a question given the recent study in Science that the Arctic is warmer than it's been in 2,000 years.

Sure we learned a lot about Arctic science at Toolik. But we also produced "Arctic Thriller," which we claim as the northernmost tribute to Michael Jackson.

Click here to watch a bunch of scientists and journalists dance in bug nets and muck boots.

Two years ago a Cape Cod-sized section of tundra burned in a three-month wildfire. It was the biggest tundra fire on record in Alaska (tundra is generally too moist to burn) and provided an excellent research site for the scientists here studying climate change and the future of the arctic.

They're looking at the fire's impact on carbon release, vegetation and the landscape. They estimate that the amount of carbon burned during the fire is equal to 10% of Boston's annual emissions. And the more severely burned the land, the less carbon it's absorbing from the atmosphere and the higher the soil temperature is long after the fire burned out. Warmer soil leads to warmer air which leads to increased lightening when that warm air hits the cold mountain air, which means more fires. (Lightening strikes on the North Slope have risen dramatically in the past 10 years, and 2007 saw roughly 40% more than any year in the past.)

Burning the top layer of the tundra released nutrients that were frozen in the soil, which can give different species a competitive advantage in finding food, thus changing the makeup of tundra vegetation. This, in turn, can alter the tundra's temperature and carbon absorption.

We visited the fire site last week where the cotton grass was in full bloom. The white flowers against the black earth made it look other worldly. And it may be a sign of ecosystem change. The cotton grass near camp isn't anywhere near as brilliant. Researchers think that the nutrients released in the soil may be allowing the plants there to bloom more heavily than in other spots.



Another alarming change is an apparent increase in thermokarst, which occur where ice in the permafrost melts and the ground collapses in on itself like a soufflé. Thermokarsts along lakes and streams dump nutrients into the water, which changes those ecosystems.

All of these changes initiate positive feedback loops that could dramatically alter the arctic. And its unclear if people can do anything to stop these natural processes once they've been set in motion. As one researcher put it, "We can't make a treaty to stop thermokarst and fires."

There's the grab, the swat, the stomp, the clap and the always disappointing catch and release. These are the ways we attempt to exert control over the mosquitos here. But it's almost always futile. (In the course of writing that paragraph I had one successful clap and a catch and release – a grab with one hand that you slowly open only to see the bugger fly off – though I think I maimed him.)

This is a photo of one that I killed yesterday.


The mosquitos here are the most enormous and plentiful I've ever seen or dreamt possible. (Just got one in a clap that fell onto my keyboard.) And they have gotten progressively worse each day. I've been heartened to hear from researchers that this is one of the worst years they've seen, and even the tough grizzled ones who refuse to wear head nets have started donning the black veils.

This picture is from a hike this evening. Look at the sky. Those are all bugs.



One of the reporters bought a book on mosquitos at a visitor center on our way up here. From it I've learned that:

• Only the females bite.
• Mosquitos don't need blood for food; they use it to nourish their eggs.
• There are 3,450 species of mosquitos, which contribute to the roughly 100 trillion alive at any moment.
• Canadian researchers in the arctic stood still outside for a minute and counted 9,000 bites. At that rate, a person would lose half their blood – enough to kill them – in about an hour.

(Another journalist just walked into our work tent and pointed out the swarm lying in wait outside the screen door.)

DEET is the only thing that seems reasonably effective against the bugs, though even that doesn't keep them totally at bay. And since the chemical is known to melt through nylon and plastic, most of us don't like to put too much of it on our skin. I thought the three layers of shirts I had on yesterday would protect me from the pack that took up residence on my shoulder, but they managed to get their stingers through to my shoulder. The photo below is of my arm about 10 seconds AFTER it had been wiped clean of bugs. There were probably five times as many before I brushed them off.



(Reporter who just walked inside, spastically waving her arms around her face: "I feel like they're eating my head.")

The windows and ceiling of our van are covered with carcasses, as are the tables and floors in our work tent. One of the journalists posted this video of a slaughter in the van. No one seems much phased by bugs banging into their face mid-conversation, though the ones that go directly into your mouth and up your nose are still disconcerting.

Mostly, it's the constant buzzing and swarming that drives me slowly mad. I keep thinking I'm going to reach a point of Zen when I find myself peacefully accepting the omnipresent bugs. It hasn't happened.

On the inside of every bathroom door, along with a sign reminding you that "If it didn't come out of you, put it in the trash," illustrated instructions on boarding a helicopter, and amateur poems scribbled in Sharpie is a list of Toolik FAQs.

Is there a fax on station? Yes
How many miles of boardwalk are there on the tundra leading to experiments? 8
Can you switch between eating vegetarian meals and non-vegetarian meals? Nope, got to pick one for the duration of your stay so the cooks know how much food to make.

The last question: Why are all the male staff members so ridiculously hot? The answers: It's a mystery.

We've been here almost a week, yet I'm still surprised by the same two things each morning when I walk out of my tent: I can see beautiful snow-covered mountains over the buildings of station from the front door, and I have to go to two separate spots to brush my teeth and go to the bathroom.

Life at Toolik is shaped by the remoteness of its location. This means that it attracts a hardy crew who don't mind being dirty and in close confines for weeks on end because they realize how lucky they are to be here. And it means that it's incredibly expensive to ship supplies in and waste out. Hence the lack of flush toilets in camp.

It costs so much to truck out wastewater that we're given water rations. Instead of toilets there are three sets of outhouses, dubbed "the towers," which are raised above large collection tanks with three separated seats each. There are no sinks there, just dispensers of hand sanitizer. A trailer in the middle of station houses the washeteria, with sinks, showers and laundry machines.


We are limited to two, two-minute showers a week and one load of laundry every two weeks. A sign on the washing machines says that each load of costs $22.50.

Most people use trips to the sauna to clean up in lieu of regular showers. There are separate men's', women's' and co-ed hours and the sauna is down a slope at the edge of station where it's hidden from view for modesty's sake. The sauna has a window in it that looks out over the Brooks Mountains. A drum of slightly heated water on the deck is available for washing and rinsing, and most people chose to jump in the lake before or after washing.

Living quarters are mostly half-moon shaped tents that sleep six, though we've got only four in ours. The only furniture inside are cots. There are a few metal-sided dorms with double rooms, which I haven't seen. Most of the labs are in trailers, though we're working out of a tent similar to the one where we're sleeping.



The dining hall is a center of activity. The food has been amazing. Tonight was Indian, last night paella. They leave leftovers in a fridge and you can help yourself to those or the array of cereal, candy bars, fruit and extra homemade dessert anytime you like. (We had to give our weights before a helicopter ride yesterday and we all rounded up.)

I've been thinking a lot about the similarities and differences between Toolik and McMurdo, but I'll save that for a later post.     

I shot this outside my tent just after midnight on the solstice.