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Hi all, and sorry for my absence in posting. It has been a foggy few weeks at Toolik, alternating between dim misty clouds that go on for miles, near cloudlessness, and a pervasive cold thin wet whiteness that limits visibility to twenty feet. For the first day of being fogged in, I have found that everyone is happy- let me explain. When it's this foggy there about about twice as many people in camp at lunchtime because fewer people can do fieldwork, and there's a general cheeriness to the amount of free time people have. By the second day, the gloominess of the situation sets in and it is no fun. Also, there is a general decline in cheeriness, apparent on a monthly and not a day-to-day scale, because everyone who works on plants is getting progressively farther behind schedule.

Two friends of mine went on a colossal hike yesterday. I met them again at 10 pm in the dining hall as I went to get my before-bed tea. They were sitting back in their seats, or at least it seemed that way, and eating large meals. They had that post-adventure robustness that feels like haughtiness to jealous onlookers, or maybe that's just me. The scope and beauty and danger of the nature here make for emboldening, enlivening recreation. Some of it borders on the "character forming" experiences so lauded by the boy scouts, and revered by many proponents of environmentalism

I wonder a lot lately about the contrast between here and the city, whether one is better, whether I can really make a fair comparison from my northern oasis. I probably have about an equal carbon footprint here because of all the shipping of food up here, but that's only because my summer residence in the NYC environs doesn't have AC. In terms of character defining experience I do feel I've gotten a chance to come to terms with myself and settle into my own skin and enjoyments in a way that I haven't had in the city. But, as evidenced by the focus of vibrant hip-hop culture on city life, there's much to be said about the vivacity of cities.
I am in a strange position. I have always loved nature and yet in my stay here I have often found myself missing the city. Yet now, as the pendulum swings to the end of my stay, I am not, as a whole, looking forward to returning. The activities and culture of the city draw me, but I dread the shattered serenity and the claustrophobic nature of the walking. All those people were once exciting to me, I missed them, but now I'm starting to view them as distractions; there is so much joy and depth and greatness to most people that I have come to see in the close-knit, limited sample of humanity here at Toolik. I can't help but think that similar to the jaded-ness of a culinary connoisseur, a general numbing to the essential greatness of humanity occurs when bundled-up human figures swarm by all the time in anonymity. Here I'm using humanity as that which gives you joy when you get to know a single person, and this distinction is perhaps instructive. Because a Metropolis like New York City will give you a different humanity, a sense of the great collective and egoistic power and drive of people. A humanity where each human is like one atom in the powerful muscles of Atlas over at Rockefeller center, humanity as a collective entity continually achieving its glory.

Anyway I'm posting another facebook album. This one is shorter, hopefully pretty, definitely less person-y than the last two, which I'd say are uncharacteristic of my landscape-heavy photography anyway. That's changing, I think. I hope everyone reading is wellish and healthy if not hellishly wealthy.
Love,

Jonathan

Atlas and buildings

Ben and mountains

Yesterday I took a hike down a glacier-cut valley to check out some fossils and geode-like formations. What I was not told was that the fossils reside in the crumbling shale of a 45 degree steep hillside! That was a good time.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2163015&l=dd744&id=116335