I finally made it to Shageluk on Monday 20 January 2003, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and my birthday (apparently I am now officially middle-aged). I had originally planned to visit Shageluk during the second week of December, but postponed that trip because of warm weather and hazardous ice conditions on the lakes and rivers. That was the first of three postponements, but it was worth the wait. This has been a successful and enjoyable trip, with another ALISON observatory established for a teacher and students to learn about science by doing science.

The observatory will be operated by Joy Hamilton and her high school class at Innoko River School (home of the Raiders [wolverines, a member of the weasel family]). After spending about 90 minutes on Tuesday morning telling the class how interesting and important lake ice is (it is, isn't it?), and explaining the ALISON program and its purpose, we all went to work at Shageluk Lake, the location of the observatory. It was a beautiful day to be outside: an air temperature of about -10°C and not a cloud in the sky, giving us lots of sunshine to compensate for the moderate breeze.

The first thing we did was install the hot-wire ice thickness gauge. We couldn't have done this without the assistance of Rudi Hamilton, Joy's husband, who had a chainsaw with a bar long enough to cut through the 0.56 m thick ice. Then we started measuring snow depth and temperatures along the 100 m transect, only we didn't measure the temperatures because the brand new, previously unused digital temperature reader malfunctioned. I am somewhat irked about that and shall have to call the manufacturer and ask for a replacement.

Anyway, we finished the snow depth measurements, and while everyone returned to school for lunch I began drilling holes for ice thickness measurements and the stakes that mark the transect. The holes had to be drilled by hand, so I thought I had better start early. It's just as well I did, because I didn't finish until shortly after 4 pm, not long before sunset. In fairness, I should add that I did have an hour-long break when the students returned from lunch (with spaghetti for me) and took snow samples for weighing and density determination.

I spent Wednesday morning with the class again. First we talked about ice sheets and sea level, and the greenhouse effect and climate change. Then we moved on to more immediate ALISON matters, discussing the meaning and calculation of density before we weighed yesterday's snow samples. Finally, I demonstrated entering data into the Excel spreadsheets, and explained using Excel for data record-keeping. And to cap off a successful visit, we all returned to the lake so that we could heat the hot-wire and I could demonstrate the use of the gauge for measuring ice thickness. Then it was time for me to hop on a small plane (a single engine Cessna something-or-other, not much larger than the Cessna 185 that took me to Mystic Lake in early December) for a flight to Aniak to catch a slightly larger and two-engined plane back to Fairbanks via Anchorage. No jet airline travel on this trip.

This trip has been an entirely new and enjoyable experience for me. It is the first time that I have visited a remote village (population about 130) in Alaska. I have worked with a good group of students at the smallest school (total number of students of all grades < 40) I have ever been in. I even stayed at the school, sleeping on the library floor. Flying at low altitude in cloudless skies I have seen some breathtaking scenery, including the Yukon River valley and villages on its banks that I have only read of or seen on maps. And to cap it all, Mt. McKinley was turning pink as the sun set as we approached Anchorage. Oh, and Frontier Air Service got me home on time.

Next week I expect to be in Wasilla, visiting Cheryl McDowell and Roxann Dayton at Wasilla High School. That will be the final ALISON observatory for this winter. More on that in due course.