9 June, 2000

The snow was soft by the time Matt and I headed out to the clean snow collection site, making our steps deep and difficult. When we were within about 4 meters of the site, we put on clean suits. These are specially made suits with hoods that produce no lint nor do they allow any hair or lint to escape from your person. They're all white so all we needed were ears and we would have looked like Harvey (the great white rabbit). Following Matt's techniques carefully, I knelt in the snow and marked out a square of surface snow with the scraper edge. I cleaned the funnel by plunging it into the clean, yet abrasive snow. Funnel now poised on the collection bottle, I tried to scrape only the top centimeter of the snow. Harder than it sounds, but tests will tell how well I did later.

The radio blared that the plane was five minutes out of Summit. I grabbed my 2 cameras and hitched a SkiDoo ride out to the airstrip. Cathi Koehler, the other teacher scheduled for Summit this year, had arrived. She was lucky to come into one of our great weather days. I had met Cathi at orientation for TEA and was really happy to see her again - a true comrade.

The plane carried a bit of cargo other than researchers and gear. It carried live lobster. The VECO camp manager had a birthday today and SOMEHOW lobster ended up on the menu. I know you will never accept that this is a remote field camp again. Oh well- it was worth it.

Warm regards, Besse Dawson

Don we now our sterile apparel..La, la, la... > <>

Carefully transferring snow into the collection bottle. > <>