![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I like wheels.
I don't have them right now, but I really do like them. Other people have them, you see. And two of those people very kindly offered me the use of those wheels after today's tour of the LARS.
... which is good, because it's a really long walk. I went through the woods again today, this time taking defined, cared-for university trails. Got a photograph of the giant satellite dish that serves as a landmark for 'just about the end of the trail'; somehow seeing that sucker through the golden birch trees and all the spruces about summed up Alaska. High tech surrounded by specialised nature. Someone had been riding a horse on the T-field trail I took that led eventually to the LARS; I have no idea WHERE they got it from as I don't think the Uni has an equestrian team... oh well. Still no moose, but Gray Jay chattered at me a few times.
Came out the other side and discovered that when you are NOT lost and you are NOT on a moose or bike or whatever trail, the journey can be covered in the space of about an hour. This meant I hung out with a couple from Michigan (35 miles from Lansing) in the parking lot until they decided they wanted to see the Botanical Gardens and Experimental Farm more than the animals. Fine with me - they were nice and all, but I was there to see critters more than people. I sat down by the gate and proceeded to get mistaken for a UAF student by *counts on fingers* six? Maybe eight? people. Only one of them said it was because I was sitting there. The rest just sort of assumed anyone my age had to be a student, or something. Dunno.
Our tour was led by the British guy who gave me directions in the poem I wrote and posted back on Saturday. His name's Alistair, and he looks sort of like John Cusack with lighter hair and a bit of a beard. (Amazing how many men up here, of all ages, have beards. Suppose it makes sense, given the climate.) He told us about the musk oxen being able to sprint at 35 to 40 mph (females) and 30 mph (males), about how this was because the males outweigh the females by around 300 pounds, how the wool and the short legs and everything else about them is a survival strategy that makes them the only real large mammals in the highest Arctic (polar bears being classed by scientists as marine mammals- like whales and seals- rather than Arctic mammals due to their lifestyle), etc. The caribou and reindeer lecture was fun, too, including the revelation that caribou are probably some of the most efficient running animals on Earth because they suffer from a form of almost inescapable predation - the Arctic mosquito. In areas like Africa you escape mosquitoes by dust or jumping in water. Not an option in the Arctic. You have to just keep moving to get away from bugs that'll drop you a pint in the space of a day.
The other thing he revealed about deer that made me sit up and take interest had to do with the antlers. Deer don't form scar tissue over the spots where they drop antlers each year. They couldn't get new ones out if they did. Deer with antlers - male OR female; Rangifer tarandus grows antlers in both sexes but other species occasionally have antlered does as well - grow something else there instead. They get stem cells. Yes, as in 'cells that can develop into anything', as in what Bush doesn't want studied because humans mostly only produce them in foetii. (Pluripotent stem cells, anyway, other stem cells exist in our bodies but are harder to persuade to change course.) The antler is, after all, covered in skin tissue, blood vessels, and nerves, and is soft bone forming down the middle until it mineralises; that's pretty damn near regenerating an entire limb! The mammalian placenta may have been the world's first disposable organ, but the living antler of deer runs a close second.
Anyway, we had our lecture and I took pictures and all was well. I was debating whether to take the trail all the way through to the satellite dish on the way back, or turn left and see the part of the baseline winter trail I"d missed, when two folks from Syracuse who had heard me coughing (I seem to have a cold) offered me a ride back to town. So, here I am; I'll be going to Fred Meyer or Safeway for supplies next.
... which is good, because it's a really long walk. I went through the woods again today, this time taking defined, cared-for university trails. Got a photograph of the giant satellite dish that serves as a landmark for 'just about the end of the trail'; somehow seeing that sucker through the golden birch trees and all the spruces about summed up Alaska. High tech surrounded by specialised nature. Someone had been riding a horse on the T-field trail I took that led eventually to the LARS; I have no idea WHERE they got it from as I don't think the Uni has an equestrian team... oh well. Still no moose, but Gray Jay chattered at me a few times.
Came out the other side and discovered that when you are NOT lost and you are NOT on a moose or bike or whatever trail, the journey can be covered in the space of about an hour. This meant I hung out with a couple from Michigan (35 miles from Lansing) in the parking lot until they decided they wanted to see the Botanical Gardens and Experimental Farm more than the animals. Fine with me - they were nice and all, but I was there to see critters more than people. I sat down by the gate and proceeded to get mistaken for a UAF student by *counts on fingers* six? Maybe eight? people. Only one of them said it was because I was sitting there. The rest just sort of assumed anyone my age had to be a student, or something. Dunno.
Our tour was led by the British guy who gave me directions in the poem I wrote and posted back on Saturday. His name's Alistair, and he looks sort of like John Cusack with lighter hair and a bit of a beard. (Amazing how many men up here, of all ages, have beards. Suppose it makes sense, given the climate.) He told us about the musk oxen being able to sprint at 35 to 40 mph (females) and 30 mph (males), about how this was because the males outweigh the females by around 300 pounds, how the wool and the short legs and everything else about them is a survival strategy that makes them the only real large mammals in the highest Arctic (polar bears being classed by scientists as marine mammals- like whales and seals- rather than Arctic mammals due to their lifestyle), etc. The caribou and reindeer lecture was fun, too, including the revelation that caribou are probably some of the most efficient running animals on Earth because they suffer from a form of almost inescapable predation - the Arctic mosquito. In areas like Africa you escape mosquitoes by dust or jumping in water. Not an option in the Arctic. You have to just keep moving to get away from bugs that'll drop you a pint in the space of a day.
The other thing he revealed about deer that made me sit up and take interest had to do with the antlers. Deer don't form scar tissue over the spots where they drop antlers each year. They couldn't get new ones out if they did. Deer with antlers - male OR female; Rangifer tarandus grows antlers in both sexes but other species occasionally have antlered does as well - grow something else there instead. They get stem cells. Yes, as in 'cells that can develop into anything', as in what Bush doesn't want studied because humans mostly only produce them in foetii. (Pluripotent stem cells, anyway, other stem cells exist in our bodies but are harder to persuade to change course.) The antler is, after all, covered in skin tissue, blood vessels, and nerves, and is soft bone forming down the middle until it mineralises; that's pretty damn near regenerating an entire limb! The mammalian placenta may have been the world's first disposable organ, but the living antler of deer runs a close second.
Anyway, we had our lecture and I took pictures and all was well. I was debating whether to take the trail all the way through to the satellite dish on the way back, or turn left and see the part of the baseline winter trail I"d missed, when two folks from Syracuse who had heard me coughing (I seem to have a cold) offered me a ride back to town. So, here I am; I'll be going to Fred Meyer or Safeway for supplies next.
no subject
Boy, howdy, you aren't kidding!
A very nice lady who was about to go in for possibly-deadly eye surgery was ordered by the docs to get her affairs in order before she went under the knife.
One of those affairs was the potential disposition of a chunk of land inside the Arctic Circle, with no roads. To get there, you had to fly to smeggin' Yellowknife, hire a bush pilot, give him latitude, longitude, and when to pick you up again.
The land has a charming cabin, a landing strip, a dogsled and team, and a river runs through it.
"When," the Troth (http://www.thetroth.org/) asked her, "could we ever visit this thing you want to give us?"
"Well," she replied, "the winter's all dark, but the spring's all right. But not the first couple weeks in June."
"Eh? Why not June?"
"Well, see, that's when the mosquitos swarm..." And then she explained the mosquitos.
We had to, very gently and delicately, turn her down. She's thinking about forming a charitable trust, though, to hold the land and see that her wishes are carried out for when she does die. It's simple, really: dedicate the land to Freyja and honor the sundry landspirits there -- save, probably, the mosquitos, as they really don't need the help...