When much of Dartmouth thought a Hanover spring couldn't get any more arctic-feeling, Merrick Johnston '05 was several latitudes farther north.
Johnston traveled to Northwest Alaska to compare the "contaminant loading" in the seasonal snow pack and its relationship to the two dominant weather systems. She and her five person team dug snow pits at nine different locations around a 400 mile perimeter. Johnston presented her findings at a Russian polar conference this November.
"We were trying to understand how the gradient of contaminants varies as you go inland and northern," Johnston said.
This research was made possible by the Stefannson Fellowship from the Institute of Arctic Studies(IAS), a branch of the Dickey Center for International Understanding. The institute "annually awards the Stefannsson Fellowship to a student whose research requires travel to an Arctic location."
The Stefannson Fellowship includes a stipend of up to $2500 to carry out research.
"The IAS was our major benefactor and the driving force behind the trip," Peter Brewitt '03 recalled. Brewitt is a past Stefannson Fellowship beneficiary."
He and Peter Bohler '03 used their fellowships to recreate John Ledyard's 1787 trek from Stockholm, Sweden, to St. Petersburg, Russia. Because he implied that he'd completed the entire trip by foot but hadn't documented his trip they decided to test whether is was feasible that he'd done so.
"Along the way we did research at every library, archive, and university that we cam across. We learned a ton." Brewitt said.
But their major revelation was that Ledyard had probably rode sleighs for a significant portion of his journey and had said he walked the whole way afterward in order to bolster his reputation as an adventurer. They concluded this after walking for 400 miles and finding it impractical to proceed any farther on foot.
The IAS benefits from it's proximity to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, which is located within three miles of the college.
"IAS also collaborates with the nearby CRREL on faculty, research and student projects at both the College and the Thayer School of Engineering," said Professor Weyman Lundquist, Associate Director of the Institute.
In fact, one of Johnston's advisors on her project was Mary Albert, a member of CRREL. Ms. Albert also teaches a class, Pole to Pole, through Dartmouth's Environmental Studies Program in conjunction with the IAS's director, Professor Ross Virginia.
The institute not only deals with environment and historical issues of the arctic but also political ones. It has published material on improving relations and cooperation among the four main arctic region land holders: US, Canada, Iceland, and Russia.
