Mi8 helicopter in for landing with new supplies. The tent is a bit in the danger zone. Photo: Per Möller

Love and Ivar frying the catch of today. Photo: Per Möller

Leasure(?) cruise down the Bolshaya Balakhnya River. Photo: Per Möller

A lot of things have been against us this week. First of all, the weather. Bad weather most of the week, meaning low temperatures, only some 4–6 °C, often strong winds, and rain on and off most of the week. But it has also meant no mosquitoes whatsoever!

And our technical tools; first the generator stopped to work last Wednesday. This machine is vital to keep our freezing box going for frozen samples for later DNA studies, and to charge satellite telephones, computers and batteries for our cameras. After several hours of work by our technical genius Kenneth, tearing most of it apart, it was understood that it was the petrol pump that was broken, and impossible to repair with our available tools and missing spare parts. So it was disconnected and is now running on petrol from an external plastic bottle with only gravity feeding the motor. And it works perfectly fine now! A big relief.

Installation of convenience, with a view. Photo: Per Möller

Our burners for cooking – very expensive Swedish multi fuel (it was said) Primus stoves – became a problem already in the end of the first week. We have cleaned, and cleaned, but if they start at all it is only with some 10–20 % of the effect they should give. Waiting an hour to bring a pot of water to boil is no great fun. Our rescue is a Russian petrol stove – nickname ”bumble bee” – that was brought to us the week before when we had an incoming helicopter from Khatanga.

And the largest problem: on Friday one of our engines for the zodiacs was totally ruined. We broke the propeller axis and the cooling system went with it as we hit a too large boulder in the river. Nothing we can repair as we have no spare parts and not the right tools. So, we will have to drag one zodiac after another when we will go further downstream. I think that I will have to do some re-planning for the last field week, when we were supposed to pass trough the Bolshaya Balakhnya River delta, and then continue across Khatanga Bay and upstream the Khatanga River. I think this will be impossible without three engines for the boats, and a plan starts to grow in my head on what to do…

Towing zodiac with ruined engine. Photo: Per Möller

Otherwise, even though weather was miserable last Monday we left base camp 3 one day later than planned and travelled downstream to base camp 4 some 76 km along the river. With the wind sometimes against us, it generated waves that broke over the stern, cascading both us and the zodiacs with cold water. On occasions we had to scope out hundreds of litres of water. And not a glimpse of the sun. We were freezing our butts off when we finally reached the new camp at 11 o’clock in the evening after 12 hours on the river. The next the day we scouted available geologic sections in the camp area, and found them not extraordinary. However, we located our first till on top of marine sediments, meaning that an ice sheet once invaded the area — when this occurred will our samples for dating purposes hopefully tell us. The work on these sites was done in two days, but we had to stay put for the helicopter that supplied us with food for the two upcoming field weeks. This thus gave us the opportunity to do some fishing. In a secondary stream to the Bolshaya Balakhnya River, Love caught 12 graylings in the equal number of throws with the fly fishing rod. Fried in much butter and a substantial dose of salt they tasted superbly! A herd of some 20 reindeer also passed us quite closely and a muskox was standing on the opposite river bank one of the evenings in base camp 4.

So, last Friday we hit the river again and moved to base camp 5, some 50 km further down the river. We had the only sun glimpses of the week during the trip, which was much appreciated. The river fell in altitude some 10 metres along its path to base camp 5 when it broke through till deposits, meaning quite strong currents and a lot of boulders in the stream. We were caught on shallow gravel bars at a number of occasions, and had to drag the zodiacs over these shallows. However, it was our in time shortest camp change so far, as we where at base camp 5 already at 7 am after 7 hours on the river, and camp set up a few hours later. Wildlife of larger animals is much more abundant than at previous sites; apparently the cold weather and thus no mosquitoes have made the reindeer to start migrate back towards the south. Last night a herd of 40 crossed the river at the camp, and during boat trips today hundreds have been spotted along the river banks, together with the occasional muskox.

Flowering arctic tundra by the toilet; Dryas octopetala (fjällsippa) and Cassiope tetragona (kantljung). Photo: Per Möller

We intend to stay here two or three days more. The area holds some of the more important geologic sites from a previous (40 years old) Russian study. We have now started to re-investigate these sites in more detail, and hopefully the dating methods that have been developed since then will give us much more accurate ages of different geologic units, and the palaeoenvironmental changes they infer. So far two localities have been dug out and documented, and the work will continue in the following days.

Even though cloudy and the temperature only 7 °C, it was time for a bath this late afternoon, though not in the river as at previous occasions. I made me the luxury of warming up a bucket full of water. With that and a good washing sponge you come far (believe me!). So, it has been a pleasure sitting here in the kitchen tent, clean from all dirt from all section diggings, and in clean clothes. For Sunday dinner we have had a hearty soup of carrots, potatoes, onions, and canned beef. And with a good dose of Tabasco it was just wonderful.

Per Möller, Department of Geology, Lund University