“A
day in the life” from Jody B’s 1998 Kamchatka journal
Introduction
The Kamchatka
Peninsula, in the Russian "Far East," is one of the most seismically and
volcanically active regions in the world.
It is also one of the most remote.
Until about 10 years ago, Kamchatka was
off limits even to most Soviet citizens, and visits by non-aligned
geoscientists virtually unheard of. With
détente and perestroika, Kamchatka opened up
in the 1990s, although bureaucratic paperwork, continued military sensitivity, complex
logistics, and the unstable Russian economy were still significant hurdles to
overcome.
In the summer of 1998, for six
weeks, I worked with Tatiana (Tanya) Pinegina on the Kamchatka
Peninsula, just north of the triple
junction, on the Bering Sea coast. We were
looking for historical and prehistorical tsunami deposits in a frontier
area. My trip was supported by University of Washington
Geological Sciences and the Russian Academy
of Sciences, as well as the ingenuity and dedication of Tanya and her field
crew. Tanya, a researcher at the
Institute of Volcanic Geology and Geochemistry in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy,
spent a month in Washington State in 1997, hosted by Brian Atwater (USGS, UW)
and myself, so this was a return exchange.
Tanya's well organized plan to work
on a shoestring budget was the single, most important contributor to the
success of our field season. We took
public buses, hired local cars and motorboats to transport our gear, and
backpacked and paddled to two remote sites.
Berries and fish we caught were important components of our field
fare. I've chosen one day from my
journal and field notes to typify the experience.
5
August 1998, Soldatskaya Bay, Bering Sea
coast.
We get up fairly early, around seven,
emerging from our sardine-like sleeping arrangements--five of us on a 1.5 by
3-meter platform in a 3 by 3-meter cabin dug in to the river bank. The storm has abated, our clothes have dried,
the river has dropped, the surf is quiet.
Breakfast, cooked by Vanya on the outside fire, is kasha, with (instant)
milk and freshly picked blueberries. The
boys drink tea, and Tanya and I have weak coffee--we are running low, as we had
to wait out the storm. Vanya will stay
in camp for the day, to guard from bears, to gather wood, to keep camp and to
prepare food.
We pack and dress for a long
day. I am still struggling to learn how
to wrap my feet in partyanki,
rectangles of wool used rather than socks by Russian field workers (soldiers,
geologists, fishermen), before stuffing them in my rubber hip boots--standard
footwear for the wet grass, marshes, and streams we commonly encounter. This day we aim to the center of the
embayment, heading ultimately for the 35-m-high terrace about 2 km from the
shore. After crossing the river mouth on
foot (tide is low), we stop and pick "princess" berries (gnyazhnika--a kind of ground
raspberry)--we are never in too much of a hurry to pick berries, this exercise
providing not only part of our sustenance, but also one of our small
pleasures.
The weather is pleasant, mostly
sunny, the flowers are spectacular in their variety of colors and sizes. Mosquitoes not too bad today. First, Roma and Sasha excavate small trenches
on the lower beach ridges. As we work
toward the back of the coastal plain, the trenches exhibit older and older
volcanic ash layers, and some ‘candidate’ (potential, up for evaluation)
tsunami deposits. Before we reach the
high terrace, we bushwhack through shrubs, hop over bumpy patterned ground, and
traverse a spongy marsh. We collect a
pot of water from a slough, as there will be none up on the terrace. Along the terrace front I can see five or six
bear trails--places the grass has been flattened, recently. We climb the slope and cross an open field to
the edge of a birch grove, choosing the site for a 3-m-deep excavation (shurf), which Roma lays out.
While Roma digs, Sasha builds a fire
and boils water. Tanya and I chat, write
notes, pick berries, think grand thoughts, discuss ideas. When I excuse myself to go off to the bushes,
Tanya says, "Jody, don't go far, here lives bear." Before describing the excavation, we recline
in the tall grass and eat lunch--the last of our bread (somewhat moldy),
freshly caught salmon and its caviar, prepared last night, caramel (boiled condensed
milk, sgushyonka), weak tea. A small shower blows over as Tanya and I
describe the trench, then Roma and Sasha fill it back up, and we head north,
toward another terrace.
Sasha typically leads the way. A volcano seismologist who grew up in the Russian
Far East, he has spent much time in the wilds of Kamchatka and Siberia. We follow
a bear trail, for the most part, but veer right where the bear veered left,
away from our terrace. Soon we come to a
slough we cannot cross, and we backtrack--Sasha's a good pathfinder, but the
bear knew better. On the next terrace,
we repeat our actions. I sketch a view
of the mountains to the south--they seem to be tilted up and back toward the
west--this area is very active tectonically, with many uplifted, relatively
young terraces, and some deranged drainages.
Before dropping off the terrace, we pick more berries, mostly
crowberries (shiksha) here, getting
fatter and riper as the weeks pass. You
can strip 15 or 20 with a few swipes of your hand. I wonder how the bears do it--Tanya says they
eat the whole plant and spit out the branches.
We head back toward the beach,
crossing small sloughs by leaping, stepping on overhanging shrubs, bushwhacking
till we find narrow spots. Tanya picks
another excavation spot, and Roma starts to dig. Sasha is suddenly at my side, saying,
"Jody, bear!" and turning me to face west, toward the terrace,
orienting me to get a view. I have not yet
seen a Kamchatka bear (myedved), though I have seen many bear signs—bear trails, bear
beds, bear footprints, bearshit. I
strain to look in the distance when a large brown head pops up above the
shrubs, not more than 15 meters away, and then it is gone! Sasha says he saw the bear, then the bear
stood on its hind legs and looked our way, and now the bear, a big, old (light
brown) one, is hightailing it away from us.
I want to see the bear some more, but Sasha tells me no, I don't,
because the bear has smelled or heard us and is going away, afraid. If it comes back, it only means trouble. We carry whistles, bear flares, and two guns,
but never have used them; these bears are solitary by nature, and here they are
unfamiliar with and afraid of people.
We finish the trench description and
head on, one more slough to cross. We
jump over a narrow spot, and then find ourselves on an island, with a wider
channel yet to go. Sasha leans over the
slough, steps on unstable vegetation, makes the leap, successfully. He takes Tanya's outstretched hand, and she
reaches back to me for balance, making the leap, successfully. To make a long story short, I tried next, and
ended up waist deep in the slough. Tanya
and Sasha pulled me out, and I got down on all fours to dump the water from my
hip boots. The day was nearly gone (it
was after 8 PM), so Tanya decided to send me and Sasha back to camp, while she
and Roma did one more excavation.
I was wet, but not miserable. When we got back to the river mouth, though,
the tide was too high for us to wade across, so Sasha had to pump up the small
rubber boat. Big enough for one, we used
it for two, as a ferry on these small rivers.
The pumping seemed to take forever.
A seal watched from the water close by--probably the seal who took bites
out of the flounder and salmon caught in our nearby fish net. (I always called a watching seal nyerpa nol-nol-syem – 007). All we had as a paddle was a small shovel,
but it was not far across. Once on the
other side, Sasha went on ahead to tell Vanya to stoke the fire. When I arrived, Vanya helped me remove my
boots and wet clothes, and gave me a big cup of kompote--berries boiled in sweetened water. I warmed up quickly, eating some lukewarm
salmon/rice cakes and noodles, trying to enjoy the spectacular sunset. Sasha went back to ferry Tanya and Roma, and
they returned with more fish from our net.
As the sun set, around 10:30, the
mosquitoes got thicker, and I retired to the sleeping platform, not even
bothering to undress, and quickly dozed off.
Next thing I know, I am awakened by a rumbling, shaking sensation--an
earthquake. No one else has yet come in
to the cabin to sleep. Tanya starts
yelling, "Jody, quickly, stand up!"
"Jody, quickly, come!"
I wonder, is she afraid the dug-in cabin will collapse? Slowly I realize she is evacuating us to
higher ground, in case of tsunami. I am
sleepy and tired and cranky and do not want to get up. I "reason" that the earthquake was
not big enough to make a sizeable tsunami.
I forget all the advice I tell folks living on the coast--if you feel an
earthquake, don't wait, go to high ground!
I forget about all the people in Nicaragua
(1992) and Peru
(1996) who did not feel their earthquake (or barely felt it) and whose tsunami
flattened their houses. I only slowly
remember that recently, two tsunamis in Kamchatka
with high runup were amplified by earthquake-triggered landslides. I reluctantly pull on my boots and follow
Tanya and the others across the moonlit terrace to higher ground. I begin to understand how easy it is to
ignore warning signs of a tsunami, especially when it is nighttime and you are
in an exhausted state....
We chat in the chill night air, and
hear a distant rumble but feel no more shaking—a landslide? aftershock?
Waiting a respectable amount of time, we then return to our sleeping
bags, calm down and finally fall asleep.
The next morning, there is no trace of a tsunami on the beach, but there
are new bear tracks covering our footprints from the day before.
