A Port Aransas man in ... Alaska

Alaska Cliff Strain of Port Aransas snapped this photo of the northern edge of Alaska's Brooks Mountains from the spot where he was camping in August. With an electric fence and a shotgun-toting wildlife COURTESY PHOTOS biologist protecting him from bears, Strain camped there for several days while assisting scientists doing research in nearby waters. Every weekday, Cliff Strain commutes from his Port Aransas home to Corpus Christi, where he teaches marine science to students at Flour Bluff Intermediate School.

In August, his commute got about 3,680 miles longer.

From Aug. 4-19, Strain visited Alaska's Arctic coast, where he conducted a marine science camp for children in fifth through eighth grades in the village of Kaktovik, on Barter Island.

Strain's visit was part of a joint effort between the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge staff in Fairbanks and the GK-12 program of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the GK-12 program pairs up UTMSI scientists with teachers in the Port Aransas and Flour Bluff school districts.

From left, Cliff Srain, Nathan McTigue and Ken Dunton sort through sea creatures caught in a net aboard the Proteus, a University of Texas Arctic research vessel. Strain's mission also involved assisting Ken Dunton, a UTMSI researcher, and his team, in a biological and chemical survey of Demarcation Bay, an Arctic lagoon near the Canadian border. The bay is nearly 70 miles east of Barter Island.

Kaktovick has a population of about 300 Inupiaq Native Americans - Eskimos who "truly have one foot in tribal culture and one in modern America," Strain said. Villagers hunt for whales, seals, birds and fish to survive the harsh Arctic winters. They get around on jet skis and all-terrain vehicles.

Homes are a humble size, and each has a dog on the porch to warn of approaching nanooks - polar bears.

Providing a science camp for the children was the brainchild of Dunton, who met some of the village's children on earlier research expeditions.

"He noticed that local village children would often visit during his stays and always wanted a look in the microscope," Strain said.

From right, Nathan McTigue and Cliff Strain peer through microscopes at tiny sea creatures while Alaskan children dissect a crayfish as part of a marine science project. Strain began teaching science lessons to eager children immediately after he arrived at the village.

"Kids arrived at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bunkhouse before I could even get the equipment and supplies unpacked," Strain said. "In fact, our first dissection was in the garage, on top of some boxes, and in the rare warm sunshine. Over the next few days, we dissected sea stars, squid, crayfish and sharks, conducted a variety of hands-on activities, took field trips for water testing and toured the U.T. Arctic research vessel, Proteus."

Students also cheerfully helped Dunton's team sort specimens from Demarcation Bay.

The children had both Inupiaq names and American names.

"As they warmed up to us, they began giving us Inupiaq names," Strain said. "I was given Tu-tu (pronounced du-tu), which means caribou. I felt pretty good about this selection when they gave U.T. grad student Nathan McTigue the name Kimik, meaning dog."

A research team member shot this photo of a polar bear scavenging on an uninhabited barrier island. Strain described Mustang Island for some of the Kaktovik children by showing them videos about Port Aransas on his laptop. One video focused on the annual Deep Sea Roundup fishing tournament.

Students usually left by 5 p.m. each day but often returned in the evening for a visit or to play a board game. After all of the students left, late evening activities for Strain included grizzly bear watching at the city dump and polar bear watching near a pile of whale bones at the end of the small airport's gravel runway.

Helping Dunton's research team at Demarcation Bay was an exciting change of pace for Strain.

"While some of the party arrived at the bay by boat, I arrived later in a small plane with a lot of equipment landing on a gravel riverbank," Strain said. "It was one of my scarier landings. … We almost ran out of runway."

Cashell Villa, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, provided bear protection. More than 60 miles from any human settlement, Strain, Dunton, Dunton's wife (Susan Schonberg) and McTigue set up camp on tundra next to the Turner River.

Camping with them was a woman named Cashell Villa, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department wildlife biologist who was present especially to protect the campers from bears. She carried a shotgun, but that wasn't the group's only protection. Electric fences also were set up around the campsite.

"We did have a grizzly visit our camp once, and (Cahshell) scared it off with a cracker shell - basically an M-80 shot out of a shotgun - and some tarp waving," Strain said.

Each day, researchers had to drag equipment by sled over soggy tundra to a boat a mile and a half away. Most of the researchers then spent the rest of the day aboard the Proteus, gathering samples of water and tiny marine creatures with nets and a shovel-like contraption called a benthic grab. Schonberg stayed at the camp, identifying specimens by use of a microscope.

An Eskimo child dissects a squid under Strain's instruction. The researchers were so far north, the sun shined on them nearly all the time.

"From early morning to near midnight, the sun provided us with good light," Strain said. "It never got completely dark, but a warm, dry sleeping bag always felt great."

Strain experienced some excitement when he and the researchers had to quickly flee to Barter Island on the Proteus to avoid an Arctic storm.

"Winds and seas were already picking up as we raced ahead of the darkened east sky, staying only 50 yards off the barrier islands most of the way," Strain said.

Other memorable parts of the trip for Strain were exploring a wrecked World War II ship, seeing his first lemming and spotting four polar bears.

"The first (polar bear) made my jaw drop," Strain said. "I had no idea that polar bears were so big, with adults standing over 12 feet high. … (But) when they swim, all you see is the tips of their snouts and ears."

Researchers' tents stand on a piece of tundra near Alaska's Turner River, more than 60 miles from the nearest human settlement. By the end of his stay, Strain had made a lot of new friends and learned a great deal about the Inupiat tribe and the Arctic.

"Even the dogs no longer barked at my passing," Strain said. "It was an honor teaching villagers and being part of a scientific team."

Strain leads Eskimo kids on a marine science lesson on the Kaktovik Island shore. A science lesson COURTESY PHOTO Port Aransan Cliff Strain, left, leads some children through a science lesson Aug. 6 while he was visiting the village of Kaktovik in Alaska. The children are holding pipettes containing water samples of varying salinities, part of a water density experiment.