Day 1 - A gale, a tent, and a sleepless night.
At what wind speed can you expect to encounter difficulty stabilizing your body weight enough to successfully insert a gouge soil auger into an earth mound? If you're me - approximately 50mph. Planning a field season for archaeological research in the Aleutian Islands requires a great deal of attention to weather. Thick and misty fog sets the standard baseline here and anyone who has been to the Aleutian Islands is intimately familiar with why the chain is commonly referred to as the birthplace of the winds . The early morning of our first on-shore work day was nothing unusual - it was typically breezy and only felt cold when your body was at rest. The weather quickly took a turn for the worst and wind speeds steadily increased over the course of the day. By afternoon our Dwyer hand-held wind meter was picking up constant winds of 35mph with frequent gusts up to 50mph. We were caught in a rapidly approaching gale, but there was work to do. Trekking across the tundra is never
