We made an educated guess, but we lost. Sampling an Arctic river during the spring freshet can be tricky! Based on satellite imagery of the ice movement, were expecting ice break to occur between the 18^th and 20^th. As the snowmobile sampling stopped the 12^th, we decided to go sampling with hovercraft on Friday 16^th. Bad guess, the ice break started at the very same time! But it lasted for only 24h and now we are stuck with “stable chaos”, and no sampling opportunity. Sampling natural environments (and custom clearance) teach you patience…