AN ODYSSEY REFLECTION

Gabby Naples

In July of 2022, I was a part of a group of eight students along with two professors, Dr. Gantz and Dr. Shanks, that got to go on an odyssey sponsored research trip to Alaska. We spent two weeks camping and traveling the state doing research on the flora and fauna of the region by means of exploration and more specific activities such as bug trapping, birding, and plant identification. The goal of the project was to pass this knowledge on in the form of educational material to be used in lesson plans for K-12 as well as less formal mediums such as blog posts.

The plan was to drive across Alaska, camp in a few National Parks, visit museums and research centers, and specifically spend several days camped on a peony farm to take part in data collection. This farm is owned by Dr. David Russell, Dave, and Jill Russell from Miami University, both of whom Dr. Gantz is friends with. Dave and Dr. Gantz are both experienced birders and took us on birding walks through the property and nearby locations where we kept a log using an app called eBird. We also used the iNaturalist app to identify plants and looked at bug traps located sporadically throughout the farm. The bug traps use alcohol to capture and preserve the bugs where they can then be identified by hand. We also used a machine to process samples of the liquid and analyze the genetic material in the sample to make identifications. In the days that we weren’t camped out surrounded colorful and calculated rows of peonies, we were likely in one of Alaska’s eight National Parks. Of the eight, we camped and visited four of them including Denali, Gates of the Arctic, Kenai Fjords, and Wrangell-St. Elias. Denali was the only one we did not end up camping in. In those National Parks, as well as the hefty drives between them, we saw tons of wildlife including moose, porcupines, foxes, a grizzly bear, caribou, and even the incredibly rare musk oxen. Our professors made sure to pull over for all wildlife we saw as well as any views or places that looked interesting, which happened a lot. In the Kenai Fjords, we did a 7-hour boat tour where we saw glaciers, a pod of 21 humpback whales feeding, and other wildlife including sea lions, otters, many different birds, and seals. We visited a large animal research station where we learned about the captive musk oxen before we saw them in the wild, a seaside center on the coast gave me more information than I could ask for about fish, and we even got a private behind-the-scenes look at the bug collection of a museum from one of the only entomologists in the state of Alaska.

The camping aspect was one of my favorite parts of the trip, despite a few miscalculations on my part. The first one being that it got colder at night than I had expected, but it was an easy fix with a spare blanket the professors brought. The other was the 22 hours of sunlight. Luckily another student, Victoria, brought an extra sleep mask and it was a life saver. We got rained on a couple times, but it was nothing the tents couldn’t handle – at least for most of them. There seemed to be a tradeoff: there are no snakes in Alaska, however the bugs are another story. You could see the thick swarms of mosquitos everywhere you looked outside. The worst part of showering on the trip was that it washed the thick coating of bug spray we accumulated from frequent reapplications. Over the span of a few days, we partnered up and took turns cooking dinner for the group on my camp stove to give Gantz and Shanks a break. In our downtime, we spent time at cafes running into other long-distance travelers as well as chatting with locals. A couple of times we were able to drive to a hot spring and spend a nice evening relaxing. We also played lots of frisbee and threw plenty of tennis balls for the wonderful farm dog, Lokee.

Overall, I don’t think this trip could have gone better. We experienced Alaska in such a magnificent way that would not have been possible without the willingness of Dr. Gantz and Dr. Shanks to do whatever it took to give us the best experience.