The Cast of Characters from the Summer of 2007
(Click on any picture)
You can also read about a few others that I didn't have pictures for.
Dirt and smiles. A fellow plant lover.
Roommate #1. It was fun getting to know Amy this summer. We had so many laughs. It was nice to be around someone who understood my love of wildflowers - she knew more species than me. Amy is a senior at Cornell University, and loves the hippie culture of Ithaca. The professors at UAF are fighting over this girl - she's had more offers for grad school and funding at UAF than just about anyone, anywhere. Medical school or the subarctic boreal forests of Alaska? Come on, Amy, make up your mind! (If I were you, I'd do both.)
Claims to be tired and hungry. Her main talents include reading and sleeping. Her words, not mine.
Roommate #2. Lisa has spent lots of time outdoors and loves to hike and kayak. If you ever needed help with any type of modern technology, Lisa was your girl. In town, her cell phone was her fifth appendage. She was lucky enough to learn more about Chicken, AK, this summer than she ever wanted to know. She loves her Chacos and Nutella. I believe a trip to Africa is in her future. (wink)
Life is always an adventure with this fella.
Seriously, when I met Dave, the first thing that caught my eye was the fact that his toenails were painted metallic lime green. I was really unsure of what to make of him. But as the summer wore on, I couldn't imagine the summer without Dave. Part southern boy, part eccentric hippie. Sometimes a day late or a dollar short. He was loveable and entertaining. He spent hours this summer reading field guides from cover to cover when he was bored. One afternoon, he walked me around my cabin, pointing out all of the various species of mushrooms that had sprung up after a few days of rainy weather. While out on the road for us, he'd leave me crazy phone messages when he'd check in for the evening. A few times, I found myself looking forward to my next message from Dave; Fairbanks wasn't that exciting when all you had to do all day was data entry. Dave's messages were better than any TV show I'd seen in recent memory. Then again, we didn't have a TV in the cabin the whole summer.
She has a bubbly personality hidden in there. Somewhere. I swear.
Nicole was the youngest of our teammates this summer. She grew up in Alaska and loves the state. Sharp, quick and smart-mouthed, although she was a double-major in English and math, she found her niche amongst us natural resources folks. Around the end of June, she found the poet within herself crying out to be heard. She ranted for two pages about the woes of Alaskan tourism and cruise line tours. It was the funniest piece of verse I'd read in years. This girl will win a Pulitzer someday. And I knew her when. Just don't ask about the time she went Thermarest rafting with Dave. (The videos are priceless.)
Post Script: Nicole was a FABULOUS artist while out on the road for the project. You can see a smattering of her early pieces here.
Pete (Fairbanks, AK - Former CSU student.)
The shortest professor I've ever worked for.
When I had to drive his truck, I had to push the seat back before I could get in. He just claims that women have longer legs than men. On a personal note, Pete and I got along well. Lots of laughs and teasing, despite some tense moments of decisions about project details. The incident that I will remember most about Pete is when he told me that he couldn't remember the date of his upcoming wedding. Amy, Lisa and I laughed about that for hours. Poor guy, even Eugenie (Pete's wife) is taller than he.
I'm not taller than her.
The best hostess in Coldfoot, AK. She's also just about the only one with a cabin big enough to host anyone. And it's not even her cabin. She's also rumored to have enough toilet paper to last her the for the rest of her life. This girl has it set. The daughter of two wildlife biologists, she grew up outdoors and around the BLM. She was gracious enough to let me adopt her spare bedroom when her parents weren't in town. We had plenty of late night laughs and gossip. It was nice to have a home away from home, with a roommate as considerate and connected as Jess. She knew everyone and everything, and generally had the means to get anything done. She loves it when her cabin gets covered in toilet paper!
Whitney (near Abilene, TX, hopefully soon to be somewhere in AK)
"Sexy." And totally in love with the North Slope.
Whitney was one of the first people I met when I got to Alaska. Three days after getting to Fairbanks, I had to test the surveys at one of our locations. Long story short, I ended up at the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center in Coldfoot, AK, where Whitney was just starting her summer as an intern with the Student Conservation Association and the National Park Service at Gates of the Arctic National Park. Over the rest of the summer, we shared a lot of laughs about big brown dogs and the mysterious elk in Denali National Park. Elk (by the way) don't really exist up here. She owes me.
Best quote of the summer: "Women?! You know, I read somewhere that women think pilots are sexy."
Ranger Ryan, as I refered to him all summer, was the source of much amusement. He came to Alaska to be a mountain man. He's worked (I believe) five summer seasons as a ranger for the National Park Service at Katmai NP, Denali NP and Gates of the Arctic NP. He's had jobs that hundreds of thousands of people lust after. He's got boldness and persistence in his personality that I admire - I don't think these qualities exist much in my generation. But every once in a while, the things that came out of Ryan's mouth would just make me laugh. He's a bit in-your-face, and he caught me off guard more than once. His smile engulfs his entire face.
Tom (Somewhere in AK, driving a pickup truck with Oregon plates)
Loves bears. Rumored to make a great housewife.
I watched Tom talk about Alaska's bears to three different groups of people - twice in typical ranger-led interp programs, and once to a large family who had lots of questions one afternoon. Watching him reminded me of my childhood experiences in Rocky Mountain National Park, where I used to listen to every ranger program I could go to. Tom is quite a character - there was something I really liked in Tom, although I'm not sure how to describe it - and he was really good with the tourists at the AIVC. About the housewife comment: the man was fond of his sourdough starter. He offered to make pancakes for breakfast for everyone in the vicinity of Coldfoot, AK. I used his food dehydrator so I could take home bags of blueberries and cranberries. Those berries are probably going to be my favorite souvenier.
Joyce and David (Snowbirds in the winter: Florida bound)
Momma. With an attitude. And Dad. Much quieter than my own Dad.
Definitely the types to take care of us 'younger' girls (Jessie, Whitney and myself). I can still taste Joyce's chili and her tin can chowder. She loves old rock and roll music.. She and David have the life that I wish for my parents in another 10 years: winters where they want and summers as campground host / volunteers in some of America's last great places.
A birder. That says it all.
People who go birding are really a species unto themselves. Jeff, a high school biology teacher/counselor from Fairbanks, knew every species of bird in the Arctic. Or so it seemed to me. And he could usually tell you at which milepost along the Dalton Highway you could find each given species. Jeff was one of the more humorous folks in Coldfoot. Memorial Day weekend, he teased me that, as payment for my housing is Jessie's cabin, I MUST wash her dishes for her - which had been sitting in the sink for a week. Of course, I did the dishes.
A few more without pictures....
Barb (Fairbanks, AK)
The one with all the answers.
Any time Amy, Lisa or I had a question about something UAF-related, our first call was always to Barb. I'm still not sure of her actual title in the School of Natural Resources, but she was the one who knew everything about everyone. Barb very proudly displays a picture of herself and a few friends in swimsuits, with tropical drinks in their hands, standing in front of the UAF campus sign. Big deal? The time & temperature display noted that the temperature at the time was -42F. Her optimism about my future return to Fairbanks was cute.
Kristin (Wiseman, AK)
A transplant who tried - several times - to get me to stay.
Interpretation specialist (or some such title) for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service at the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center in Coldfoot. She moved up to Alaska and apparently adapted well - she got married and lives in a little town called Wiseman, north of Coldfoot in the Brooks Mountain Range. Winters there give new meaning to the word COLD. I really need to find out how she did it. The last couple of weeks of the summer, she kept teasing me about getting a job up there at the AIVC for next summer. Kristin was fun.
Heidi (Wiseman, AK)
I really want her job. But she can have it. For now.
Heidi has spent most of her life right there in and around Wiseman and the Brooks Mountains. Her stories of the area and its people were awesome - I really hope she does write a book some day about her experiences. Sort of a modern update on Bob Marshall's Arctic Village (which was written about Wiseman in the early 1930's). If you want to visit the region, she is the expert to talk to. Now that I think about it, I really couldn't measure up to her wisdom and knowledge of the area. She can keep her job.