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I am no longer going to report on this blog from Alaska. Two days ago I flew down to University of California in Santa Cruz to work in the Ocean Sciences lab for my remaining stay in the US on my Carlsberg fellowship. I’ll be working on a new method to analyze stable isotopes in amino acids that potentially can simplify the rather meticulous method that I’m using now. My girlfriend Yiming has left Alaska as well but for a postdoc position in Kiel, Germany. Once I’m done here in the US I’ll also be heading to Kiel although I’m not quite sure yet what my next project is going to be.

Alaska will forever have a big place in my heart. The beauty is stunning and you can still find undisturbed places of wilderness. But I pray that the offshore drilling that is now in the pipeline will never happen. An oil spill out in the frozen Arctic sea could wreck havoc on the fragile ecosystem for centuries to come.

Below are some pictures from a visit two weeks ago in Denali National Park.

In July, Yiming and I went to the North Slope to investigate carbon cycling on the Tundra. Alaska and northern regions are getting a lot warmer these years melting the permafrost. To investigate how this warming may impact carbon cycling we sampled small critters and their potential food sources from lakes and their surrounding areas. Subsequently I will analyze this sample with a new technique we call isotope fingerprinting of amino acids that can identify the biosynthetic origin of amino acids. My project is funded by Carlsbergfundet and runs until the end of this year. See more pictures here from my trip to the north here: http://picasaweb.google.com/natursyn/CarlsbergArctic

I was fortunate to see the first auroras of the season last night. Although the sky does not get pitch black at this time of the year, the auroras were strong enough to lite up the sky. These are some photos taken outside the house where I live.

Blueberries seem to be everywhere at the moment. Yiming & I went to pick some in a bog by Chena Hot Springs Road. In less than half an hour we picked about 2 pounds. Normally, Alaska has swarms of mosquitoes but not this year as we went through a cold period in late July and early August. Fortunately, the weather has become nicer again and we can now enjoy the few remaining weeks of summer.

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio canadensis) is one the largest butterflies of Alaska measuring 7-8 cm. It also happens to be quite abundant around Fairbanks. Yesterday, I saw more than 50 of them on a bike ride along Cache Creek Road at the foothill of Murphy Dome. Canadian Tiger live in deciduous and evergreen-deciduous woods and forest edges. They are usually more common and found at lower altitudes than Alaska’s other swallowtail, Old World Swallowtail (Papilio machaon aliaska) that I still need to spot.

Canadian Tiger overwinter in Alaska as a chrysalis (pupa or cocoon). At the end of the summer the caterpillar wraps itself in its own silk and begins the chrysalis stage. It remains as a chrysalid during the winter and metamorphoses in the spring into an adult butterfly. Read more about butterflies of Alaska here and here.

After being back in Denmark for six weeks I finally made it back to Fairbanks last week. I was stunned by how much the seasons had changed. When I left in April every was still frozen and covered by snow. Now, it is summer with everything bursting with life. Here are a few pictures from Angel Rocks where Yiming and I went for an afternoon trip. All pictures except for the river picture was taken with my new Zuiko 50 mm f2.0 macro lens.

Lee’s Cabin is located in the White Mountains north of Fairbanks. Yiming and I traveled the 12 km from Elliot Highway to the cabin on skies. The weather was beautiful but also windy. It happened to be full moon, equinox and Holy Thursday on on the same day. The aurora was frail but beautiful under the full moon.

Fairbanks is spite of its small size a town rich in culture. One of the most spectacular cultural events in Fairbanks is “Ice Alaska” where artist from all over the world carve sculptures out of ice blocks. The craftsmanship and skills of the artists speak for themselves in the pictures below. Yiming and I volunteered for a couple of hours in the International Polar Year igloo giving out information about polar regions.

Chatanika is an old gold mining town about 50 km north of Fairbanks. Every year in March the town hosts the traditional Outhouse Race where five-person teams push an outhouse for about 250 m. I was a member of the UAF team and that was a lot of fun. However, the most spectacular part of the day was watching the bar and people sitting there because it was full of old Alaskan artifacts and stereotypes.

One of the benefits of the long polar nights in Fairbanks is the display of the aurora borealis or northern lights. Auroras are produced by the collision of charged particles from Earth’s magnetosphere, which most often occur around equinox. Here in Fairbanks we have had some impressive displays the last couple of days. To watch them, I have spend the last two evenings at Murphy Dome, a hill located around 25 km from town. The view was spectacular but with temperatures between -20ºC and -30ºC and winds around 15 m/s it was also quite cold. So having a warm car to step into is nice when you start feeling cold. I am quite happy with the pictures although I look forward to having a bit more of moon light to lit up the landscape.