Courtesy of Susan Allen-Gil KERN TRAMPS through the mud on the beach of the Arctic

Spruces and firs blurred into one dark pine forest, interrupted only by the giant white peaks and pristine icy lakes that shaped the landscape.

Senior William Kern could only look down on the beauty of this great white wilderness as his plane flew overhead. He was on his way to the northernmost point of Alaska, where the view would be very different.

Kern traveled to Alaska this summer with an Ithaca College biology professor as part of the professor’s research project.

On July 31, Kern left Newark on a plane to Minneapolis. From there he went to Anchorage, then to Fairbanks, and 15 hours after setting off, he finally landed in Barrow, a city of 4,000 people on the Arctic Ocean.

“It was just so barren,” Kern said. “Barrow is nothing like the scenic south Alaska that people think of. The Coastal Plains are very flat.”

The Inupiaq people have lived at the top of the world in Barrow, 330 miles above the Arctic Circle, for thousands of years. Airports with gravel runways are the main mode of transportation - no roads connect the city to other communities.

Weather in Barrow changes by the hour, but summer temperatures average around 40 degrees. The wind whips constantly off the ocean and ice chunks drift along the shore.

Kern, a biology major, went to Barrow with Susan Allen-Gil, assistant professor of biology. Allen-Gil has been studying arctic contamination for 10 years and has been to Alaska 25 times. She has brought students with her before and said that, upon arrival, they don’t understand why anyone would want to live there.

“They think it is among the ugliest places they have ever been,” Allen-Gil said. “Once they get beyond that, they see the Arctic in a different way. It is an enormous expanse of largely undisturbed wilderness.”

After receiving a grant from the National Science Foundation four years ago, Allen-Gil began collecting data in Alaska in conjunction with Oregon State University. Her studies in Alaska are based at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratories. She said she focuses on Alaska because pollutants migrate north and are trapped there in the cold environment.

“The people who are at the top of the food chain, the Inupiaq, are then exposed to higher levels of pollutants,” Allen-Gil said.

Data samples that Allen-Gil collected are being examined for different toxicities and metals, but the purpose of this year’s trip was not research. Allen-Gil traveled to Alaska to develop a plan to release the results of her studies to the community. During the week-long trip, Kern was responsible for keeping records of meetings and discussions.

Allen-Gil said that usually scientists go into an area, get their samples and leave.

“We didn’t want to do that,” Allen-Gil said. “We wanted to pursue a partnership where we took advantage of the traditional ecological knowledge.”

Allen-Gil said she established a mutual trust with the Inupiaq because they accompany her into remote field situations and act as her primary liaisons to the community. Kern said he and Allen-Gil were close with three elders - Oolack, Masaak and Joshua.

“Whenever we were with them, it was like we were automatically accepted,” Kern said.

He spent a lot of time with Masaak and her husband Walter. Both spoke English as well as Inupiaq, their native tongue.

Kern said he was especially interested in traditional whaling practices.

“I just kept asking [Walter] all these questions about whaling,” he said. “He was warm and eager to share with me.”

Walter showed Kern the tools Inupiaq use to kill whales, including the harpoons they fire and the metal spikes they drive into the brains of the 30-foot animals.

Kern did not see a whale, but he did see other animals including caribou, seals and snowy owls. He also saw whale bones everywhere, especially when he went on midnight walks on the beach.

Kern said the temperature ranged from 20 to 75 degrees, but the wind was always blowing and the ground was permafrost - permanently frozen rock and soil. But the cold temperatures and ice did not prevent Kern from swimming in the 40-degree Arctic Ocean.

“I cut my leg open, but I didn’t know it until I got out, because my leg was numb,” he said.

He said he would love to go to Alaska again and even take another dip in the Arctic.

“If I do go I would like to stop in Anchorage and Fairbanks,” he said. “It was a tease flying overhead - it was so beautiful.”

Allen-Gil said the week was successful. She is writing another proposal for funds to work on an outreach component and to create a video with Park Productions, a professional video production company operated by Ithaca College students. Regardless of funding, she said she will continue her work by making a bilingual brochure and holding community meetings in Barrow.