Over 26 different types of Ice...

But snowflakes are my favourite!

I love snow. Watching it fall, softly hushing on the ground. Getting big, fat fluffs of it in my face, stuck in my hat and melting wetly down neck! But my absolute favourite thing is seeing snowflakes gently whisking through the air, spiraling around and down to join the messy clusters on the ground.

Snowflake photos by Kenneth G. Libbrecht

I am not sure quite what it is that I find so wonderful about them. The symmetry perhaps, or the notion that every snowflake is unique. Maybe its that they just fall, quietly out of the sky, sparkling and perfectly beautiful.

I first saw snowflakes during a reindeer hunting expedition. It was cold, it was light, it was the middle of the night - and there were loads of these fantastic shapes sprinkled all over my jacket and backpack. And here was I thinking this kind of thing only happened in the movies!!

Snowflakes on my jacket (excellent jacket from EarthSeaSky)

Now, according to this handy snowflake guide (Snowflake Guide), the snowflakes on my jacket belong to the type known as 'Stellar Dendrites' and 'Fern-like Stellar Dendrites'. There are even places  where, just like you can go to watch birds, you can visit to watch and observe snowflakes. I spent a lot of time watching them during winter in Svalbard, just outside the UNIS building in Longyearbyen. The lights were up high, and lit up the snowflakes as they fell and there was no wind, just snowflakes falling all around.

Snowflakes are made up of ice, which forms when water vapour freezes. A frozen vapour-droplet then develops the shape of the snowflake but this seems to be a pretty complicated process, involving a lot of physics. At the most simplest, different shapes form depending on air temperature, and the amount of vapour and the shape of the original frozen droplet.

If any science were 'magical' it would be the physics and principles that guide the formation of snowflakes. Disney's 'Frozen' movie certainly calls it magic and sorcery, but perhaps Elsa is simply a physicist in another form.

Creative Non Fiction - #2

Since attending this creative non fiction workshop (see previous post), I have realised that my natural tendency in writing my PhD, was in fact creative non fiction. I wanted to add in little bits about my personal experience, sprinkle anecdotes through, so as to make something readable to everyone.

But lets face it, not everyone is going to want to read about how many poppy seeds I manually counted in 2010 (it was over 22 thousand by the way), the changes in experimental protocol in order to improve collected data, or the justification of use of particular statistical models....

Already I feel myself slipping into the 'science speak'!!

So today's challenge was to take an aspect of my thesis (for example, insect visitation) and to write it in a creative, non fiction form.

Selection of insects in Dryas octopetala flower

Endalen is the warmest valley in the Adventdalen group - likely due to the lack of glacier at the head of the valley in my opinion. I spent many days there, not only basking in the sunshine on the warm tundra, but watching for insects visiting flowers. I observed them (with help of course!) not only basking in the sunshine, but feeding, walking and flying. There are many flowering, thermophilic plants in Endalen, including the 'tallest' tree; a Betula nana specimen that if it were supported vertically would be nearly a meter in height. Endalen is also home to many flying insects. I say flying insects, because these are the most likely to be visiting flowers.

Flying insects can exert a selective pressure upon the floral species they are visiting. If you were a bumblebee who hated the bland, boring view of white flowers, especially in comparison to a deep, welcoming blue, you would visit the blue flower rather than the white. If you continued to do this, time after time, season after season, only the blue flowers would be selected for within the floral population - after a few years you may not have to worry about the awfully plain white flowers coming into your bumblebee field of vision as that colour would have been discontinued!

In Endalen, there is a fly that seems to love the creamy petals and fluffy yellow center of Dryas octopetala. This fly is of the Rhamphomyidae family, and is commonly known as the 'Dancing Fly'. The dancing is in reference to the mating actions of the males, who 'dance' around the females attempting to impregnate her (much like that of the dance floor on a Friday night in some establishments!). I observed many of these flies hanging out in Dryas flowers - basking, feeding, walking and, if I got too close or disturbed them, flying away across the tundra. I always wondered how the flies saw the tundra. Did the patches of creamy, pale Dryas flowers stand out like giant dinner platters? Maybe one day I shall find out...

'Dancing Fly' in Dryas octopetala outside UNIS building in Longyearbyen

Creative Non Fiction

On the weekend, I attended a workshop given by Rae Roadley. She is the author of "Love at the end of the road", which refers to a house down at Batley on the Kaipara Harbour (you can see it from Otamatea marae). It was part of the NorthWrite Conference/workshop series run in part by the New Zealand Society of Authors
NorthWrite Website

Before I went, I had no idea what 'creative non fiction' was, and even since I am not totally sure... I can say that it is a merging of fact and fiction, where facts become friendly to the reader.

Now, since having written a PhD thesis, I found this thought slightly bemusing - facts cant become friendly, they are simply facts. You put them all together, use them as evidence, back up your arguments - there is nothing creative as such about that!

But we did an exercise, where the instructions were to imagine a place/building/outdoor space that is important or special to you. Describe the physical aspects, history, why I like/dislike it and so on. Then put yourself in that space, and write 1 - 2 paragraphs about emotions it evokes, how you feel about it and why, plus some facts (eg age, colour, etc). I found this exercise fascinating - first, because it was not after seriously researching some aspect of flower colour. Second, because the facts simply 'fit' in after some emotional creations!

Here is my short paragraph:

As I walked up the edge of the small, rocky beach onto the narrow neck that connects Bicayahuken to the mainland, the late afternoon angle of the sun hit me right in the face. A glacier, shining blue-white was edging down into the bay. The bay itself looked like something from the east coast of New Zealand. I felt like an early explorer, on my own heroic adventure despite being part of a student group. Biscayahuken is a small point of land in the north of Spitsbergen. It is named after the Biscay Whalers that were present in Svalbard during the 17th and 18th Centuries and has experienced human inhabitation. There were few remnants of human occupation these days. The rocky outline of a small hut with permafrost-churned grave sites nearby. Maybe they died from illness, perhaps old age. Noone in the group knew, and that seemed a poor legacy to have left behind. Rusted nails, broken glass and odd pieces of wire and such were strewn about, in between the small clumps of Saxifraga caespitosa. I could see that nature was simply going on, as it had done even when the occupants of the graves had been standing where I was.

Hut remnants at Biscayahuken, 2010

Thats as far as I got in the last half hour of the workshop. Interesting process, and definitely something I shall pursue! Rae Roadley was very adamant that one should be a kind narrator.

The view of the glacier

Some things are best left unsaid, and one persons recollection of a 'fact' may well be very different from anothers! The one saying of note that struck me was this, in the words of Micheal King (perhaps similar to W.B. Yeats?):
                                                 "Tread softly for you tread on my life"

Saxifraga cespitosa

God Jul! Merry Christmas!

I am living in Longyearbyen, Svalbard in the High Arctic. Everyone knows Santa lives at the North Pole, but I have seen his workshop (maybe he has many across the Arctic?) as I walk up the valley to Nybyen.

Santa's workshop. In summer, known as Gruve 2, obviously Santa goes on holiday during the warm months.

Here, I shall definitly have a White Christmas! Already, I have taken part in Christmas Baking days, Christmas Crafts, Christmas Dinners, and this week there is a Christmas Lunch! UNIS has a decorated Canteen, with decorated Gingerbread (Peperkake) hearts, christmas tree covered in Norwegian flags and handmade decorations, and today we have some Christmas baking at morning tea.  I have tried alcoholic Glogg (warm red wine with raisins, spices and ginger and some secret ingredients!) and non alcoholic, with apple juice and spices.

Santa's mailbox. I have sent him a list of wishes, but wont say what they were in case they dont come true!!

But this is all so different to my previous christmases!! New Zealand Christmas (for me) used to consist of barbeques, summer holidays, beach time, swimming and sitting with a cold beer in the sunshine... We would have cold ham, potato salad, fresh salads and pavlova and trifle for dessert.

Here I am looking forward to reindeer, hot roast potatoes, liver pate and other winter-time foods. I am going to try Lutefisk, as it is a traditional food... But I have been forewarned that I may not love it. Instead of swimming, I shall go dog sledging, out into the dark, snowy valley. I have been told that if I want to swim, there is nothing stopping me (except my fear of sharks sneaking up on me in the dark, cold water, the dark itself, and the ice and snow).

I am excited, spending Christmas somewhere new and getting a white, snowy day will be wonderful! I wonder what happens at New Years....

God Jul! Merry Christmas! Miri Kirihimete!

Im pretty certain that this is Blitzen, Donna, Dasher and Prancer... Feeding up before the busy Christmas season.