There will be no drumroll preceding an announcement of what I’ll be doing this summer. No dramatic sigh of contentment. No champagne showers at having persevered with patience through the final at-bat. You’ll see nothing of the sort here, since I still don’t have word of my future.
Seeing as I’ve heard nothing, I’ve decided maybe it’s a sign I should just pour out the potential for people to read. Maybe once I’ve shared it, I’ll wake up to some emails of answers.
Ever since hearing about the summer seasonal work that happens on scattered islands of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, I’ve had dreams of working on a remoter-than-remote island.
In a nutshell, these positions entail about 4 months of monitoring seabirds. Sometimes that means muttering to yourself as you watch for hours to see whether birds are sitting on empty nests, eggs, or chicks. Other times that means catching birds to mark them and take various samples. Sometimes you’re awkwardly positioning yourself to peek into a crevice nest in a boulder field to see the status of a nest.
At times your schedule is based on the tides. Perhaps you’ll find yourself stripping with your boss to change into dry base layers after hiking to your work site. You’ll have days of feeling like you live in a fog bank. Once or twice the refuge ship will come by to resupply camp and let you take a “real shower.” You’ll have radio check-ins with the other camps just to see how things are going. You won’t have internet or cell access for the summer.
Those are the makings of a paid adventure!
When I worked on St. George Island – one of the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea – I had applied to work for AMNWR, thinking I’d be placed in the Aleutians. A college schedule limited my dates of availability, so I ended up in the Pribs. Believe me, I have NO complaints about that one.
As such I still haven’t spent an entire summer out on a volcanic island surrounded by dramatic topography, seabirds, seals, and only 2-3 other people. I’ve talked about it for the last 5 years, and I’ve made it through the rigorous USA Jobs application process to reach an interview both last year and this year.
(a) Loving the Tutakoke River black brant camp and (b) being a good person kept me from interviewing last year, since I’d already committed to returning to Tut as a seasoned technician. When I declined an interview, I said, “You can know that the refuge is my absolute #1 choice for next summer.”
Well. Life made a liar out of me, as the refuge finds itself tied with a relative newcomer for first place this year.
Also last winter, after I’d committed to Tut, a dream posting went up on the Texas A&M Job Board:
Polar bear and waterfowl summer field technician: Manitoba
In essence, the job looked like a unique position working with snow geese and common eider In. Polar bear. Country.
In the Wildlife Biology field, you tend to gravitate toward a certain type of animal. (mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, etc…) I’d guess that many start out with interest in “charismatic megafauna” – the impressive, powerful, furry mammals – before learning that there really aren’t that many field jobs posted for mammal work, and you have to know the right people to get a foot in the door.
That’s how birds “happened” to me. I applied to a number of field jobs without even necessarily knowing what the birds were, and I was fortunate enough to be hired because of my lack of experience. Bam. One season with spectacled eider led to seabirds, kiwi, black brant, and paid birding in California.
Although some would label me a birder, I prefer the term “bird professional.” You won’t see me racing across the country to see a “lifer,” but I’ll admit birds are pretty neat and fun to handle. Watching nests change from one-eggers to full clutches throughout incubation, to the hatch of little down balls running across the tundra is entertaining. I’ll gladly take bird jobs, but I’d still love to break into the mammal world.
When I was in first grade, my Dad took our family to Churchill, Manitoba: the Polar Bear Capital of the World. The bears move through the Churchill area in October as they wait for the ice of Hudson Bay to form. We took a day-long excursion on a tundra buggy to drive around and watch wildlife.
While parked to watch some bears, my life’s interests developed. I was standing at the front door of the buggy when a polar bear put its front paws on the threshold of the door and established eye contact with me. Maybe the bear was seeing me as food, but I was seeing the bear as the coolest animal ever. For me, it was love. Polar bears have been my favorite animals ever since.
Polar bear photography could be the earliest interest I ever had in photography. I saw pictures of photographers sitting in cages on snow, and I thought to myself, I want to do that!
Since my blood is American rather than Canadian, finding my way to a job out of Churchill poses more paperwork than companies would like. Regardless, the idea has been somewhere in my mind for years.
Seeing this job with waterfowl in the Churchill area with the potential to see polar bears again sounded perfect. We’d do the usual searching for nests and monitoring them throughout incubation to hatch. There would be some trapping and banding drives. We’d also end up collecting some birds for dissections and collecting plant samples. We’d set up cameras at nests to monitor polar bear foraging behavior. Some work would involve aerial helicopter surveys, and we’d always have a firearm around for bear safety. It sounded pretty spectacular.
Having given my word to Tut, that job was also out of the running for last summer. Although it seemed like a great mix of both worlds, I knew it wouldn’t happen for me.
I didn’t let the job leave my head, which is how I got to my current situation. I spent last summer working with brant at Tutakoke, and then I stayed an extra month to help with a captive brant and vegetation study in its first year. I had a number of reasons for staying, including:
- I didn’t want to return to civilization
- I didn’t want to leave the crew
- I wanted to gain some experience with vegetation
- I wanted to volunteer for Ryan, a grad student at Utah State – the school associated with the Manitoba study
In talking earlier in the season, I’d realized that Ryan knows the grad student in charge of that project. Ryan was of the thought that Dave had one more field season in Manitoba, meaning there was a slight chance to work on the project after all! Knowing a personal recommendation would be 100% helpful in increasing my chances, I decided helping out on Ryan’s project could have many benefits.
By contacting Dave in December and January, I put my name and credentials in the mix before the funding was approved and the job posting listed.
So that’s where things stand. Somewhat fortunately I had both interviews within days of each other, and now I’m just playing the waiting game. Earlier I turned down one job with emperor geese on the YK Delta. A third dream-like job appeared for work with common loons in New Hampshire, but I’m almost glad that one didn’t pan out. I’d have needed to ask jobs to duel to win my heart.
Both positions involve hiking on tundra, which my shins heartily dislike; I may hate myself for it in future years, but I just waive that fact aside. A physical presence in Manitoba’s bear country could get me somewhere toward finding work in Churchill. The Aleutians provide a solid 5 months of work with good pay, while Manitoba only adds up to about 2.5 months of work at research-level, NSF funding pay. If I was in this field for the money, I wouldn’t be in this field. This is about gaining incredible experiences.
In a best (or worse) case scenario, I’ll get emails from both positions and then just stare hopelessly at the hats on the table before me. It could be as close to Signing Day as I’ll ever get. But on the other hand, at this point I just want a cool summer job. No sweat, right?
