Temperature: 28 F   Weather: Mostly cloudy, 15 knot winds

I've been so distracted with birds, sunrises, auroras, and bingo games, I've not said much about the ship I'm living on. It's time for a little Healy 101. This ship is a 420-foot US Coast Guard Cutter, and, as I'm sure you've gathered by now, it is a polar-class icebreaker. Since the Healy's main duties are polar ice operations and science, it was designed with long, straight sides–a shape that causes the least disturbance to the ice and water when passing through.

(Photo: The Main Lab of the Healy)

See more photos and track the Healy's route on this map.

There are two other polar icebreakers in the US fleet, but this is the only one currently in operation. The Polar Star is being parted out to service the Polar Sea; both are currently in the Seattle shipyard. The Healy, too, is based in Seattle, as are the regular crew. Some crew members always work on the Healy, but others work on various ships and, like me, are out on their first Arctic cruise. The ship is run by Captain Beverly Havlik. It's named for "Hell Roaring Mike" Healy (1839 to 1904), who was a Captain in the US Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor of the US Coast Guard). Healy first came to Alaska in 1868, after Seward's purchase of Alaska in the prior year, and his voyages were an inspiration for parts of Jack London's novel The Sea-Wolf.

This ship is a floating city. She has a little bit of everything you'd have at home. There is a restaurant—the galley—which serves meals four times per day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight meal for night shift workers. There is a desalinization system to make potable fresh water for cooking, cleaning, drinking, showering, and laundry. Power comes from four diesel electric generators, and the ship can carry 1.2 million gallons of fuel, feasibly enough to travel once around the Earth without refueling. There is a convenience store with an espresso machine, candy bars, and Healy sweatshirts and water bottles. The helicopter hangar doubles as a movie theater. A few TVs around the ship pick up shows through satellite reception when the Healy is south of 74 degrees latitude, so no one has to miss out on big sports games or the presidential debates. There are two gyms on board, a medical facility, a barber shop, waste management, and crew members who double as firefighters and policemen.

Most importantly for our purposes, there are three labs on board. On the 02 Deck, the Science Lab is the social gathering center. It has five computers with internet access, a big screen TV, a couch, many tables, and projector screens for sharing science talks or for watching live feeds from the Healy's many outdoor video cameras. On the Main Deck, the Main Lab is where the scientific analysis happens and is often where people disappear to during their day or night shift. The Future Lab was so named because it originally was an empty space on the Healy where they may build a lab in the future. Now it has a few computers and a lot of electronic equipment, and is a good quiet space to hide away. The ship has over 4,000 square feet of lab space, and accommodations for up to 50 scientists.

After sitting stationary, doing mooring work all day, we are now on a 35-hour steam over to Canada, headed to the entrance to the Northwest Passage at the east end of the Beaufort Sea.

Melanie Smith, Landscape Ecologist, Audubon Alaska