North to Alaska!

Scene: Dulles International Airport in the early afternoon of a rainy, spring day. The terminal is crowded with people chattering on their cell phones, eating sandwiches and drinking coffee. One girl sits, notebook in lap, smoothie in hand, writing and dreaming of a land they call “the last frontier.”

Traveling to Alaska for the summer was never a dream of mine, but when I heard I had the opportunity to go there for six weeks of my junior summer and participate in a genuine field research session, I leapt at the chance. Last semester, Susan Foster, my faculty adviser and one half of the husband-wife duo doing research on the threespine stickleback at Clark University, made my college career when she suggested that I unite my two primary passions in life (biology and writing) by writing an article about the natural history and adaptive radiation of the stickleback — and that I could easily travel to Alaska with the lab group that goes every year in order to research my topic in a very hands-on way. So, here I am on my way to Anchorage using the Traina Scholarship I was awarded when I was accepted to Clark and NSF funding awarded to the lab. The feeling is mostly excitement. The new things to see and experience are almost beyond numbering; I cannot even imagine half of them. The plane ride is long and I’ll have plenty of time to contemplate the next few weeks while I glide through the clouds, but I think I’ll just use the time to sleep. It will be at least 4am when I finally touch ground in Alaska, after all!

- Rachel

Sophie anticipates the plane ride to Alaska.

Coming Attractions (or ... 4 Girls and a Van)

The Journey Begins: View from the van’s front seat on the way into Wasilla

Coming soon: The tale of what it is like to camp for seven days on the Kenai Peninsula in late May, trapping fish and taking water quality samples daily. A harrowing experience of traveling in a van packed with equipment and four girls who haven’t showered for a week (oh my!). A tale chock full of wildlife infiltrating human civilization. Of glorious views, scenic campsites, late-night dinners around crackling campfires … and the satisfying and almost surreal ability to apply everything one has learned in a classroom or lab at school to a project that will have long-lasting effects on the academic landscape. It is a tale of contributing new knowledge. A tale of getting to know one’s study system up close and personal. A tale of summer in Alaska with the threespine stickleback.

- Rachel LaBranche

Plankton Sampling in a Parking Lot...

John and Jana’s dry run for plankton sampling in Maywood parking lot at Clark University.

On May 13, the day of the group photo and celebration of Rachel Chock’s successful defense, a dry run (literally) of the plankton sampling routine for Alaskan lakes was played out in the Maywood parking lot next to the Lasry Bioscience Building. This involved the movement of a canoe from John and Susan’s lawn in Petersham, to the parking lot – not a natural home for a canoe! There John taught Jana to (well, maybe not paddle a canoe) but to suspend plankton nets and a flow meter that would tell her how far she traveled in each run. They did not catch much plankton. With luck, the catch will be better in an Alaskan lake! As Lauren, Rachel L., Jana and Sophie leave on Thursday we should hear soon…...

- Susan Foster

Preparing For Adventure

Students in the Foster-Baker lab are packing for field work in British Columbia and Alaska. One post-doc, four grad students, and five undergrads are gearing up to perform field work on threespine stickleback and their lake environments from mid-May through early July. One team will work in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska, and the other will do research in the Vancouver Island and adjacent British Columbia mainland region. Studies will range from collections made to continue our conservation archive for selected lakes, water quality and plankton, behavior, and host-parasite relationships.

- John Baker