Day 8

wow! What a day. I don't think I have ever been in such a remote place with so many mosquitoes. We looked like a deep woods off commercial. I tried to give you an idea of the number of mosquitoes we encounter on a daily basis by showing you the top of Rob's head (fellow earthwatch volunteer).
There are 4 teams of teachers that group together to do the daily research. My group consists of Luann a teacher from Georgia and Lisa a teacher from Tennessee. The three of us have a great time and get along like we have been friends forever. We are known as the clean up crew because we get done and go help other finish collecting their data. However, today did not get off to a stellar start. We were collecting data in a fen. Very swampy wet land area. Luann had her boots on and took a step toward our collecting sight. Low and behold to Luann the water and muck (scientific word) sucked her in like quick sand. I reached out to grab her and the force pulling in the fen was too great. We both fell forward with Luann landing in the middle of the muck and both of us laughing until we were in tears. Poor Luann had to be with wet boots, pants and socks for the rest of the day. We had planned to be at this ecosystem all day and had brought our lunches because the site was 40 minutes from the research center. Luckily the temperature climbed to a balmy 10 degrees Celsius which is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
We were ecstatic to finish the research today. We have a lecture on polar bears and ring seals tonight and then we are going for a polar dip. The pictures tomorrow may be interesting another chance to see a bear or bare bodies.