The determined explorers of the SnowSTAR 2007: Barrenlands Traverse — now on the 39th day of their 1,800 mile traverse across Alaska and far northern Canada — this weekend reached one of the Far North’s weirdest ecological anomalies: the Thelon Oasis.
It’s a patch of dense spruce forest that has somehow thrived in one of the harshest and most barren habitats on Earth.
“SnowSTAR accomplished a major goal today by reaching the Thelon River, which they will follow all the way to their finish in Baker Lake,” wrote basecamp manager Dave Andersen.
“They are now back in dense spruce trees — the famous Thelon Oasis. These trees will be with them for about the next two or three days and then they will be returned to the rocky and windswept barrenlands.”
The oasis is a micro-climate inside the Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary, and it offers a refuge for more southerly life deep in the Far North.
“This northern oasis supports a rich assemblage of plants and animals, many of which occur far north of their typical range, including raspberry, currant, columbine, and moose,” according to a 2002 newsletter from the Biological Survey of Canada.
The SnowStar crew marveled at the appearance of a bonafide forest.
My, how this country can change! Yesterday we camped at Hoare Lake, still on the Hanbury River. It was all tundra, with a few scattered trees, small and stunted, never more than 10 trees together.
Today we motored for 40 km across flat, white, almost featureless tundra. And then, in the distance we saw a dark river valley. Were those trees? They were!
First trees of Thelon OasisThe only way to really appreciate trees is to spend a long time on the wind-swept tundra. Trees block the wind, they provide firewood, and they make a white-out tolerable because there is something to see and to provide perspective and definition.
They also trap snow. The snow in the trees was totally different from the snow on the tundra. It was soft and fluffy, about 70 cm deep (up to a person’s thighs). We had to drop our sleds and break trail. But oh my, even the hard work of doing that was nice after hundreds of kilometers of wind-blown tundra.
The crew continues to file photos, audio clips and explainers of their life in the Far North Wilderness, almost all of them aimed at students and any other armchair Arctic adventurer.
In the trail dispatch for Camp 36, near Hoare Lake in Northwest Territories, they focused on that all-important moment of every adventurer’s day: dinner. It’s especially savory after a 54-mile slog across barren tundra.
Dispatch: CAMPING
It’s cold, you’re tired from a long day’s travel, and now you have to camp out. What can you do to make things as comfortable as possible?
It’s always stewFood: Eating enough food is critical at any time, but especially when your body has to generate heat to stay warm. Good food also helps keep everyone happy. We have a powerful stove, run on propane, that can melt snow and boil water very quickly. This means we can get dinner and breakfast cooked in a short time so we aren’t waiting to be fed.
Typically, we eat one-pot meals, meaning that we put everything in one pot to cook. That makes cooking easy and also reduces the number of dishes we have to use. Everyone just has one big bowl or mug and a spoon. With a good assortment of spices and flavorings, our meals are varied and tasty. Glen and Henry have been the chief cooks. They have been pretty creative using Thai spices and nuts to make some very fine meals.
Strangely, all meals, though, are stews!
The Team on the Thelon
The expedition has been spending 45 days on a 3,000-kilometer (1,864-mile) snowmachine journey across the tundra of Alaska and Canada, from Fairbanks to Baker Lake in the far reaches of Nunavut. Most days, they update a map showing their progress across the Far North.
Along the way, the five Americans and three Canadians are visiting dozens of historic Arctic sites, 11 villages and two diamond mines. They will stop to take detailed measurements of snow and climate, visit schools, gather traditional knowledge — and then share their insights with students and teachers across the world through daily on-line dispatches. Children from around the world have been sending in comments and questions.