After setting up our own three study sites at Poker Flat on Tuesday-Thursday, 1-3 November, we were ready to begin setting up other ALISON study sites in the Interior. And so, on Monday 7 November we went to school, North Pole High School, that is, to set up the study site on “Patriot’s Pond”.

We were on the ice by 3 pm with Tom Kinn, who will run the study site this year instead of Rob Sylvester, who is teaching biological sciences rather then the physical and earth sciences that he taught last year. Where we drilled a hole to install the ice thickness gauge, the ice was 0.27 m thick – very safe for three adults to be walking around on. There was just enough snow (2-4 cm) to make it worth taking the time to measure snow depth and snow top/bottom temperatures, and take snow samples to determine the density. The low air temperature (-18°C) and thin snow meant there was a respectable conductive heat flow of -16 W m^-2.

While it was somewhat cool, it was also calm and we enjoyed the added bonus of being on the ice when the sunset with a very fiery glow. Soon after the sunset, we were back inside measuring the mass of three snow samples and showing Tom how to enter the data into the spreadsheet. And then we were back on the road and on our way to Delta Junction to set up a study site for Delta Cyber School.