Summer storms
Monsoon season
After months and years of drought, the rains have come. With them, the desert is green and the flowers begin.
Summer solstice 2022
Summer Solstice
Arctic time fluidity
Part 21, Cooper time – night divides the day
Black Guillemots rest on ice floes in the fog off Cooper Island, Alaska.
5 Aug
I half dragged myself out of bed this morning at 0630. Had just gotten my pants and socks on and was opening the door when the first wave of rain hit the tent. It hasn’t let up since; that was 12 hours ago. I did a quick colony stroll. The Parasitic Jaegers seem to be working the colony hard. There were also two puffins again. I spent most of the morning in the tent eating and catching up on the data and notes George left. As hard to believe as it may be, his notes are more disjointed than mine.
It rained the whole day, all of it. No break. I did all of the nest checks in the rain. My clothes are no longer waterproof. I washed my chick-shit-covered jacket and rain pants in Barrow, and I think that was the end of any waterproofness. I wore my insulated bibs though today, and they got wet right through the knees and seat. It just pelted me the whole time, and I doubt anything would have kept me dry. My jacket did better than I expected. There were a couple of tears at the back of the neck that I stitched up this morning. I thought it would leak there, but it was more of a slow seep across my shoulders and at my elbows. Somehow I displeased the rain gods and expect the rain to continue indefinitely. For a short time, I had this ridiculous hope that since July had been so wet, August would come around clear and fine. Right.
6 Aug
Lots of bird activity today. There were hundreds of Xena, Glaucous Gulls, terns, and phalaropes (well, not so many terns). It was a busy, raucous day for the birds. It stopped raining sometime in the night and was nice in the morning – it never cleared but there were a few blue patches. I did a few rotations around the colony and nest checks; I weighed and measured all of the little buggers. George banded a lot of chicks already, which is great.
My hand seems to be seriously lacking in motor control tonight. It is cold and stiff and not responding well to my directions. I walked for two hours after dinner. Up through the tundra and back along the north beach; I crossed at Far West, back again along the lagoon side. The annual barge to Prudhoe Bay went by this evening.
7 Aug
Oddly enough, the barge to Prudhoe Bay returned this morning – it hadn’t been unloaded, and another ship followed it. A Greenpeace boat intercepted it, boarded it, and told it to return to Barrow – I don’t know what the issue was or why the captain listened. Dave told me he heard of the boarding on the radio.
It was gray and foggy when I awoke. Surprise! Eventually, it turned to showers and rained off and on through the day. Again there are lots of Xena though not so many as yesterday, and Red Phalaropes also abound. Did the usual weighing and measuring round.
I was thinking today about how fluid time is here, even though I sleep regularly and for the usual (more or less) amount of time, one day runs into the next undivided. It seems to be a perfect continuum of time. It is always light, day and night it doesn’t matter when you go to sleep or when you wake, it is light. The only apparent divide between day and night is the temperature. (You know the day destroys the night/night divides the day/tried to run/tried to hide/break on through to the other side – thanks, Jim!) Sometimes I think of an event that occurred, and it will seem only this morning even though it may have been days ago. I’m often sure I did one nest the previous day but may well have missed it altogether for a couple of days. Even the weather has been so much the same – endless periods of gray, fog, and rain it doesn’t help to divide the time at all. Even though I measure out large chunks of the day with my watch, the passage of time seems unremarkable. There is hardly any difference between the heat of the noonday sun and the late evening light. It is often so diffracted by clouds or fog that it never seems brighter or higher or stronger. I’ve not even seen the passage of the sun through the sky in a single day. I haven’t the slightest idea what the arc may be. In the middle of the night I have seen it low on the northern horizon, and early in the morning, I have seen its place to the north and east and a little above the horizon. I don’t know, however, where its course lies in the southern sky. It has been all the same diffused and flat light that tells me nothing about its path.
I must say, I am sure that if I had been faced with this much gray and fog back east, I would have been a very depressed camper long ago. Even the eternal rain I endured my first summer in Maine and that I slogged through the second year wasn’t as ominous and all present as this unyielding gray. Each time the wind shifts I think, surely now the clouds will clear and some nice weather will move in from whichever direction. Alas, it changes not. It only makes me scurry around to rearrange the position of wind blocks and reset things so they are in the lee of the wind. It doesn’t actually change the weather. I fear that the passage of time in August will only bring colder weather not drier. I do not look forward to that.
Yesterday, and again today, I laughed to myself about when I met QQQ I had $6 to my name and no bank account and when I left him I closed the account I had and spent the withdrawn $300 to throw him a party. Full circle. Poverty and adventure. A much nicer mantra and way of life than slow decay in the known.
Give as much as you can. Receive what is given freely. Balance the two.
Never overflow; never be empty
8 Aug
It was mostly dry today, a few passing sprinkles and showers. It was gray and cloudy most of the day, but for a short while this afternoon it was sunny and fair. The bright, low light was intense and glorious. When the sun actually shines there is a quality to the air that is amazing. It is crisp and clear, and with the binocs, everything is sharp and in focus. It is astonishing.
Summer on Cooper Island’s tundra patch.
There was a peregrine falcon in camp today. I was weighing a chick when I saw it coming straight toward me. It went right over my head and hung for a long minute on the air currents just behind me before swooping low and away across the wastelands and over the pond. It landed in sub-colony 52 and then disappeared. Later, I walked down to the Sardine Box looking for it, but I got distracted by the phalaropes and flushed it before I saw it. When it went over me the first time, I could see the barring on the breast and the dark helmet.
The Jaegers were back working the north side of the colony. They are remarkable; they patrol the north beach, watching as guillemots come into the colony with fish in their bills and then they chase them until the guillemot lets the fish go. The Jaegers are fast and maneuverable and can drop on a dime. The BGs can keep speed but not for long and give up the fish pretty quickly. There doesn’t seem to be more than one or two Jaegers at a time but between them, the puffins, and now the peregrine they are very jittery and in constant flight –as in fear – fight or flight.
The first sunset of summer
I started this Cooper Island series back in February 2018 with a post from 29 July 2000, Sensory Deprivation, that chronologically fits here.
Part 20, another trip abroad
Black Guillemots sunning themselves on the Cooper Island beach.
31 July 2000
I just finished reading Bob Kimber’s “A Canoeist’s Sketchbook.” It made me all excited about doing some paddling and being on the water. Looking out from my tent as I read I can see the Bay of Jaws water and the waves rolling across it – the wind never stops here. Finishing the last few pages on wilderness I set the book down and stepped out of the tent – suddenly confronted by the reality of Cooper Island, not the comfortable, warm camp feeling I had assumed from the book. It is still 34º and windy and foggy and gray – I just forgot that while reading about Labrador and poling upriver and wet feet. How readily transported I was!
1 Aug
3 Aug
Well, guess I didn’t get to write much on 1 Aug… so that makes a while since I wrote. George made another splash appearance on Tuesday, 1 Aug. He was supposed to arrive by boat. I was about to radio to say there were two puffins in the colony but before I could do that, a helicopter landed, filling the tent with sand and blowing down the antenna. First thing was food and radio check. We walked the colony in the afternoon, weighing and measuring birds, talking and laughing. It was a lot of fun, really, both to have someone else to do the kneeling and to just shoot the breeze about everything and nothing. Much to my dismay, there was a new set of eggs in one of the long-empty nests I had stopped checking.
The next morning, 2 Aug, after two months on Cooper Island, I saw the sun set for the first time. I woke up at 0155 to see it – long strings of clouds, gold and red and brilliant. A little later the very top edge of the sun skimmed the horizon as it began to rise again. I could sit up in my tent and watch. I woke in time to see the sun clear the horizon and rise fully into the sky at 0312 or some equally early time. I was up at 0530 and wandered the colony.
The beach with sand plowed high by ice slabs breaking up and moving off the Arctic Ocean onto Cooper Island.
There are a lot of shorebirds flocking up, and the Parasitic Jaegers have found both the pond and the guillemots. They were working the area pretty hard. There was a swallow – I think a rough-winged swallow but am not sure – that visited George and me on the previous day (which was also the most spectacular and beautiful, sunny, warm day for this year – George kept saying “I don’t deserve this day, I didn’t live through all the rain and fog…” I agreed, of course.) Anyway, the Jaegers, they were relentlessly harassing the BGs for the fish they brought in for their chicks. They are phenomenal flyers, and it was cool to watch – even if they are not good news for my little birds.
George listened to the radio and the birthday announcements while I tried to figure out what the swallow was. Before George arrived on the island, I read him the riot act claiming proprietary rights over the camp and all of its sand-free contents. He is trying to be good, but I can tell it’s hard. The concept of not wanting sand in everything and throughout my food and everything else is utterly foreign.
We agreed I could get off the island for a day or so depending on weather and boats and timing. Dave radioed that he was gassed up and ready to go as he didn’t think the weather would hold into the afternoon. I was packed (taking a lot of unused stuff) and ready to go by the time Dave arrived – the wind had picked up but was at our backs for most of the trip. George was a bit put out that people at the ARF were excited to hear I would be in for a few days– I assured him that it was not because he was going out. They asked when I was coming in and what I wanted for dinner – I told them anything without sand that came with a clean fork would be fabulous. George was jealous no one offered to make him dinner. Anyway, it was nice to be in the ARF with the joking and bustling and general upbeat life attitude. After grocery shopping and a communal effort with cooking, we had a big stir-fry –you know you’ve been on an island in the Arctic for a long time when vegetables that were probably picked 4 weeks earlier qualify as Fresh – and then chocolate brownies and ice cream.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, there were packages and letters. One letter included this quote, “why have roots if you’re not allowed to grow? Why have wings if you’re not allowed to fly?”
I spent the day in the ARF tracking things down and finding info for tax forms – my SS# card replacement form. Blah, blah, blah.
4 Aug
Yesterday I made dinner for the ARF crew. A giant pot of black bean soup/chili – we coined it chiloup – and oatmeal muffins. The veggies and beans came from the Stuaqpak; I scrounged other necessary items from a variety of sources. We had a great dinner – lots of laughter – and Indian pudding for dessert. Today I spoke with Craig briefly about working on the whale census next spring. He said write a letter and a resume. Last year’s hires have preference but since they know me… It was good to tell him of my interest. He was shocked to realize I had been on Cooper since May.
Dave had a helicopter coming in so couldn’t take me back to Cooper. Instead, Benny from ARF, Charlie (the big boss), and Craig put the big boat in the water to take me home. It was a fast trip and comfy.
George was not prepared to leave but jammed a bunch of stuff together, and we dragged it to the boat. The afternoon cleared off beautifully, but the wind was switching and picking up again. George was in crisis/panic mode disjointedly talking about 50 things at once, trying to put his stuff together and half trying to figure out what he was doing. When they got off the beach and headed back, I turned to find one of George’s duffels still lying halfway down the beach. I yelled and waved my arms; Charlie saw me in time to turn back. I collected the offending bag and sent them on their way again.
Craig was a bit dismayed by the whole camp scene. The lack of a wall tent was particularly striking to him. I agreed. Interesting that the camp was thoroughly trashed. I finished the nest checks and chick detail and then spent the rest of the afternoon reclaiming the camp, moving the table back into place, clearing sand and junk out of the cook tent, moving around food and windbreaks. Washing the pots that were dirty and full of gross food residue. Ick. George did apologize for that later when we spoke by radio. We did all of the Guillemot checking in, catching up on colony news and project needs. He was going off to play softball with Dave this evening. The ARF crew also radioed to say they picked flowers for George and were making him a special frozen dinner.
I’m back on Cooper. For a few minutes, while being shit upon by a wily Guillemot, I was not happy. Then the wind picked up, and the rain came, and somehow that washed away the feeling of being alone and the idea that things were happening without me. Of course, things are happening without me. I have to figure out how to make things happen for myself and what I want those things to be.
An Arctic Tern egg lies alone in a shallow nest on Cooper Island.
I took this photo: Morning clarity
Morning clarity in the rearview mirror.
The rain moved ahead of me. It passed through town and across the plateau before following the river west. The same route I was taking.
Summer rain in the sagebrush desert is something worth celebrating. It washes the dust out of the air. As the air warms again almost immediately, it smells of earth and water and life.
It is unmistakable. It breaks through the dust in my brain to remind me that time and space are ever fluid. That whatever may settle here now will wash away with the next downpour.
I took this photo as I entered the storm, the Columbia River bluffs and calm water behind me, foretelling the clarity that comes with the passing rain.