Trip Journal: Martin and Kim visit Minto
10-11 November 2003
The weather forecast for the weekend of 8-9 November warned of a winter storm with as much as 15 cm of snow in the Interior. About 2-3 cm of snow eventually fell in Fairbanks as we contemplated the prospect of a 120 mile drive on Monday up the Eliot Highway to Minto.
The "winter storm that wasn’t" allowed us to leave Fairbanks on Monday morning feeling less anxious about the drive to Minto than if the weather forecast had been correct. The road was one lane and unploughed in places, but we made it to Minto without any difficulty thanks to the 4-wheel drive Ford Exterminator, oops, sorry, Ford Excursion, that we had borrowed from the university. We are not big fans of SUVs, but they do have some value in some circumstances.
We met Joan Jones at Minto School and after watching her and her students complete their gym class we dashed down to the Tolovana River during Joan’s 30-minute lunch break. Seeing a local lady ice fishing suggested that the ice would be thick and safe enough to work on. So, after a quick lunch at Joan’s home we headed back to the river anticipating an afternoon to be spent setting up the observatory.
Each carrying a hot-wire ice thickness gauge and pulling a sled loaded with generator, chain saw, electric drill, ice auger and various other ALISON supplies we set off along the riverbank towards Grandma’s Hill. On the basis of local advice, Joan had identified a reach of the Tolovana River near the hill as being one that would be good for the observatory. As we walked we occasionally checked the state of the ice by drilling, particularly when we had to cross the channel. We did not like what we saw or experienced.
The ice cover consisted of a 2 cm thick surface layer lying above a 2 cm wide water-filled cavity upon a 10-15 cm thick bottom ice layer (see diagram below). As we walked, the surface layer often fractured beneath our feet, leaving us wondering anxiously which step would be the one that broke through the bottom ice layer. We decided that it would be neither safe nor practical to set up the observatory until the water-filled cavity had frozen completely, joining the surface and bottom ice layers together into a single, strong ice layer.
The weather forecast is for colder weather later this week, with temperatures as low as -50°C, perhaps lower in some places. That will certainly freeze up the cavity. But why, you might ask, did the ice cover have a water-filled cavity in the first place?
We think that the original ice cover on the river was not sufficiently thick to support the mass of snow that subsequently fell on it. Consequently, the ice surface was pushed below the water line, water flowed on to the ice surface and mixed with the snow to form slush. The slush had begun to freeze, creating the thin surface ice layer that often broke beneath our feet. But the slush had not frozen completely, leaving the water-filled cavity between the frozen slush (snow ice) at the surface and the original ice cover below.
It was disappointing that we were unable to set up the observatory, but what can you can do when the autumn is warm and ice formation is delayed by a late freeze-up? Meet the students, that’s what. Joan organized dinner in the school library on Monday evening and invited her students and colleagues to meet us. After lasagna and cranberry cake (baked by the students) Martin talked (and talked and talked, as he is wont to do!) about snow and ice, with a particular emphasis on ALISON. The following morning we met the students again, showed them the ALISON equipment kit and talked about making measurements, and took snow probes and snow sampling tubes outside so that they could practice and become familiar with the tools that they will be using in due course.
The final thing we did in Minto was to have lunch with some of the elders. Arranged by Joan, this allowed us to describe our plans and enlist the elders’ support for an ALISON observatory at Minto. We were on the road by 2:15 pm returning to Fairbanks along a now ploughed road in bright sunshine with marvelous views from high elevations. It was quite a contrast to our drive to Minto only 24 hours earlier. We hope it will be equally easy and enjoyable when we return to Minto next week on 18-19 November.
The last thing we expected on the drive home was to hear Martin on National Public Radio talking about the fracturing of the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf and drainage of an epishelf lake from Disraeli Fiord on the northernmost coast of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. These events were the subject of a media frenzy in late September in advance of the publication of a paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. A variety of illustrated reports can be found on the Worldwide Web, e.g., BBC, Discovery Channel, New York Times.
BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3132074.stm
Discovery Channel: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030922/arctic.html
New York Times: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30814FA345E0C708EDDA00894DB404482