Women in the Sciences

Siberian Nights on a Pristine Lake

Baikal is the deepest, oldest and organically richest lake in the world, hosting 1,500 species found nowhere else on earth. Like the Galapagos Islands, it is a living laboratory for studying speciation and evolution.

It is said that once you have visited Siberia's Lake Baikal, you will always yearn to return. Nicole '03 believes it is true Deterring, visited the remote and astonishingly beautiful freshwater lake with 11 other Wellesley students on a summer abroad program organized by the Biology and Russian departments.

The program afforded the students a chance to research the lake's biology, its culture and the impact of society's encroachment on this pristine place. Baikal is the deepest, oldest and organically richest lake in the world, hosting 1,500 species found nowhere else on earth. Like the Galapagos Islands, it is a living laboratory for studying speciation and evolution.

Nicole and her classmates spent three weeks in the region, splitting their time between scientific field experiments and talks with anthropologists and others about the culture of the region. All the students had taken at least a semester of biology and most had taken at least a semester of Russian language. One of the field experiments looked at the impact of human encroachment on the lake valley's vegetation. Another experiment examined the movement patterns of a species of zooplankton that is the primary food of the lake.

The students stayed at the bio station operated by Irkutsk State University in a village of 80 people. "A woman in the village cooked for us at her house," Nicole says. "Twenty-two of us with translators squished around this itty-bitty table eating porridge for breakfast. She made us sack lunches of hot dogs and pieces of bread, and dinner was soup to start, fresh bread, homemade jam, rice, grains, fresh vegetables and a lot of fish from the lake."

Nicole, a native of a small farming community in Washington state, says the evergreens surrounding the lake reminded her of home. But that is where the comparison ends. She says the incomparable brightness of the stars, the meteor showers and feasts cooking over open fires at night still fill her with memories and beckon for her return.