Field Work Begins!

I had a day in Umea to get ready for Swedish field work and try and get over the jet lag.  After a so-so sleep I awoke to giant snow-flakes (at least they melted!) and walked in to SLU.  It turns out that there are bike/walking paths absolutely everywhere in the city - and they even get plowed before the roads do when there is fresh snow.  Impressive!  Despite the paths, I managed to get lost and had to walk along the road - but at least I found the building I was looking for - I just took the longer more scenic route ;)  Its taken me a few days to take the most direct path - everything looks the same in my neighborhood - and I thought I had a good sense of direction ;)! 
SLU - Before the snow arrived

SLU - After the snow on Friday

Everyone I've met in the Forest Ecology and Management Department is super friendly - one of the first people I met is from southern Alberta - good thing he's an Oilers fan!  It was great to see Maja, who also participated in the Swedish Boreal Forest Course that I took here for a week last summer.  Sitting in a talk later in the day I saw some other people I recognized walk by too, so I'm looking forward to catching up with old friends while I'm here :)  It's amazing how many people there are who are NOT from here - which works out well when you don't know much Swedish because everyone speaks english :)  Although I try my best to speak what little Swedish I do know (which at the grocery stand just involves saying Hej and then giving money and saying Tack (thanks)).  Hej - I'm trying ;)

The path I walk to/from SLU

With a GPS and some GIS maps Michael and I spent Thursday and Friday in the field sorting out our plan and gathering my first three sets of stands (all within about an hours drive of Umea).  The maps are quite impressive here - they even seem to have random old barns mapped on them!  I'm collecting forest floor samples from Scots pine, Norway spruce, and lodgepole pine stands to compare with my Alberta lodgepole pine stands.  The locals here are very concerned about invasives and the potential for non-native species like lodgepole to become invasive, so the project is very relevant to addressing their concerns. 
I wasn't expecting the ground to be frozen here, but it already is!  On Friday when we were in the field it started to snow and then it was really snowing and so it became a snow-filled field adventure.  Probably makes life easier for the moose hunters we saw out there, but it's not quite what I had in mind!  At least I bought some insulated rubber boots for Friday (leaving my field boots at home was not such a wise choice after all - given the conditions here!).  At the end of a productive Friday I created my own version of a Swedish snow angel - a snow crash angel to be more specific - beware those slippery frozen puddles below the snow's surface!
Next week I venture to six/seven more sets of stands on my own - in a rental Volvo - how much more Swedish can you get ;)  I hope I won't need a snow shovel!!!

Collecting forest floor samples on Thursday

Michael at the end of our field day Thursday

 The snowfall at the end of Friday