Survivor Ellesmere

Many early morning flights later I am finally back home in Toronto. Although I always appreciate how long it takes to get to Eureka, I never appreciate how long it takes to get home. Three days is excessive.

My last night in Eureka was spent mostly defending the Fluffy Pink Bunnies' near undefeated streak. I played four games, and we very sadly lost the third. The score was super close: 21-20. It was a sad moment for the FPBs, but we rebounded by winning by something like 21-16.

The next morning the produce charter left at 8:30 in the morning, and I spent most of it glued to the window as we flew over the glaciers of Axel Heiberg Island. Flying in the North in the winter can be very beautiful, but I think the summer wins out. There's so many more colours (than just white ice and snow) and therefore it is much easier to make out what it is you're looking at. The Twin Otter is a great little plane, if only because it flies low enough that you can make out a lot of detail in the landscape. I still think Eureka in the winter is more beautiful than in the summer, but flying there in the summer definitely wins. (Excluding annoyance at delays due to fog.)


Then I was left with another day in Resolute. It was nice and sunny, and would even have been warm, if not for the super high winds. (That incidentally made landing a bit scary.) We drove out to the Thule rings, and found them easily. (Deb and I had almost been in the right place!) These ones must have been more permanent housing (or perhaps from a later group of Thule) because they were much more elaborate. The entrance to the hut would have been at bottom left in this picture, and the structure was made with whale bone draped with skins. They all had a few areas elevated from the rest, which I think may have been for drainage, or possibly as a way of heating the floors.

We also visited a plane wreck near the airport that I noticed for the first time when I flew into Resolute on my way up to Eureka. I never got a chance to find out under what circumstances it crashed, but if you believe the dates people leave with their graffitti, it was 1968 or earlier. I'm fairly certain it was a military plane, but aside from that, it remains a mystery to me. The wreck highlights how slow things can happen in the Arctic. There's no need to use the land, so there's no need to move the plane. In the meantime, it is slowly being blown away and disintegrating into the tundra.

My flight out of Resolute left at six in the morning, so I had a bit of an early last night and declined to stay up to watch what would have been my first sunset since leaving Ottawa August 10th. It was a little plane - a Beech 100 - and it took about five and a half hours to get to Iqaluit. We stopped in two new places for me: Pond Inlet, which is super pretty, and reminded me a bit of Bergen, and Igloolik, where the airport was full of maybe 40 people waiting for another flight. It sort of freaked me out. There were more people in that little room than I had interacted with in quite some time. In Iqaluit I had a six hour layover until my flight that evening. I was traveling with a woman I met in Eureka who was doing an environmental site analysis, and we wandered into town to have lunch and explore a bit. Unfortunately it was raining, so it wasn't all that pretty. Iqaluit is fairly small (~6000 people) and we walked the whole town in about an hour. With nothing else to do we headed back to the airport and patiently waited. I was glad to have a traveling partner. Sitting in the Iqaluit airport for two hours alone could not have been fun. I watched my first sunset from my flight back, and then spent most of it sleeping. We arrived in Ottawa about twenty minutes late, which meant that I got to see the last plane to Toronto at the gate, but as I couldn't check myself all the way through in Iqaluit, I couldn't actually get on the plane. (I flew Canadian North from Iqaluit. I'm pretty sure he could have connected me the whole way, but he didn't know how. So he told me he couldn't.) There were no remaining Air Canada staff available to talk to, so I found the 1-888 number and luckily could change my ticket to a flight this morning. Since no trip involving the Arctic can go smoothly, I was very glad that it was the Ottawa - Toronto leg that got delayed. Anywhere else and I would have had to wait at least 24 hours to get on another flight. And pay for an expensive hotel room. Luckily Hotel Fraser is always free to me. (As I'm headed to Katrin's wedding in New Brunswick Thursday, getting delayed was not a happy option for me.) I'm finally home, luggage intact, and will patiently await my next trip to Eureka next Smarch.

I'll get around to posting more pictures soon. As always, you can find them on my website.

Thanks for reading!

Yesterday was full of much activity, both for me and for the station. We woke up to the annual visit from the cruise ship. Once a year, a small band of rich, mostly elderly adventurers take an icebreaker cruise through the Arctic. One stop is the Eureka Weather Station. Shortly after breakfast, the station was invaded by yellow-coated tourists. Part of the tour is a tour of the building, so as we were getting ready to leave for the lab we had to fight off the tourists taking their identical parkas and boots off in the mud room. I managed to elbow my way past the old woman defiantly standing right in front of my boots and we were off. It was very weird to be surrounded by tourists. Eureka is a fabulous place, but my personal experiences with it do not mesh with it being a tourist attraction. It was very odd. I was glad to be able to escape to the lab. I was very glad to not be Heather, who gave them tours of the station. But she got to learn all sorts of Eureka history to do it. Eureka was founded in April 1947!

Up at the lab, I took advantage of the first sunny day since my spectrometer went into the hatch to take my first and most likely only walk around PEARL. I did my absolute favourite walk, across to the next ridge and down towards Cape Hare, and ran into my little spot of climbing that I discovered in March. As I discovered in Finland, it's hard to take pictures of yourself climbing on auto timer, but here you are. Climbing in Eureka. It went better this time, because my volume had decreased by 50%, thanks to the lack of Arctic gear. The winds were very light and it was about 2 degrees, so it made for nicer walking than I normally get in February/March. (Note: I am henceforth referring to the month I anually spend in Eureka as Smarch.) I walked further down the ridge than I ever have before, and got some great views of Cape Hare. I also encountered some birds and guard bunnies. It would have been the perfect afternoon, except when I returned to the lab I discovered that in my absence the shutter on my spectrometer had broken for the second time this campaign. Colour me very unimpressed at shoddy shutters. I luckily had brought the two extra ones we have, so could still replace it. There are no more extra ones, so I'm hoping no more break. Otherwise, my instrument is working very well.

After supper, Pierre, Keith, and I decided to head out to the Thule rings, which are along an unmaintained road along the fiord. I've never been before - the road is too sketchy to attempt in the winter. The ride was very bumpy and muddy, and I channelled my mother by holding onto the handle of the truck with a white-knuckle grip. I didn't gasp everytime the truck did anything "scary" though. (Well, at least not out loud.) We eventually made it to the site, and along the way had some awesome views of the fiord and the pack ice. The Sun is almost setting (I think it gets below the horizon Monday night) and to those of us deprived of night for the past couple of weeks, seems very twilight-y. The fiord is starting to freeze up, so there's some lovely reflection off of the thin ice between the pack ice. Everytime I come here I'm amazed at its beauty.

The Thule people are the ancestors of the Inuit, and had a summer hunting camp here about a thousand years ago. The Thule rings are the rocks left over from their tents when they lived here. The ring of rocks would hold down the animal skins, and we think the rocks in the middle of the ring were for their lanterns. (I'm not so sure about the Thule, but Inuit used to light their dwellings with an oil lamp, the oil coming from whales.) There were about ten rings like this, and then a few larger piles of rocks which were used as food caches. We also found what appeared to be a tomb. The whole place was very serene. It was also amazing to think that these rocks were placed in these positions a thousand years ago. The people who lived there most likely looked out over the exact same view as we had yesterday. The onset of twilight would have meant that they had to head South for the winter. As I'm heading that way Sunday, I felt very connected to them.

After we got back we ended up in the bar, where the Fluffy Pink Bunnies (Pierre and I, undefeated at shuffleboard since the first of Smarch) upheld their record by winning a close game. (FPB was the scariest name I could come up with on short notice after a beer or two.) The station fox was napping on the picnic table outside the window, and I managed to wake him up enough to get some fuzzy pictures. The foxes are so cute! And this guy was so curious/terrified of me. He did not appreciate my interrupting his nap. Next time maybe I'll bring him food to apologize for scaring him. He eventually ran off, and I felt bad for disturbing him, but five minutes later he was back on the picnic table in the cutest little foxy ball of fluff.

Pluto has officially been demoted from a "classical planet" to a "dwarf planet". Meaning we only have eight planets in our solar system. Pluto is my favourite. It was the baby planet, I'm the baby of my family. We had so much in common. This is the saddest news ever.

I'm feeling a bit lazy today, so in lieu of witty observations, here are some pictures. This is what Cape Hare looked like from AStrO Friday evening:














Here's what it looked like Monday:














It's a tradition to put up signs to mark out where people have driven trucks off the road here. I've been busy making signs for Pierre, who drove us off the side of the road with a blizzard coming on back in March:



















And Oleg, who went off the road a few weeks later and spent two hours digging himself out rather than call for help:

Saturday night was a bit quieter than my previous Saturday nights in Eureka, most likely because there are only ten people on site instead of twenty. I beat Keith at pool, but lost to Al the station manager. But don't worry - a fun night was had at the "bar". At about eleven, Keith and I decided to play frisbee golf. This was mostly so I could say that I was playing frisbee golf at midnight. And here is the evidence. Don't let the picture fool you, the Sun isn't really all that close to setting, it's just at the very edge of this ridge. This is about how high in the sky the Sun gets when I'm here in March, and it always seems really high and bright to me then. Now, it seems really low and like twilight. Perception is a crazy thing. (I lost at frisbee golf, but I scored ten lower than my last time out.)

Sunday I decided to take the day off so that I could do something I've wanted to do forever: climb Blacktop mountain. Blacktop is the highest peak visible from the station, about 800 m. It's called Blacktop because in the winter, when everything else is white, the top of it often looks black because the snow has been blown away. This is a picture taken just a few minutes ago out my window, and I've taken the liberty of putting in a realistic view of what it looked like when Keith and I got to the top. There wasn't snow like this yesterday, that has happened today.
(Incidentally, AStrO is covered in snow and finally looks familiar to me now.) It took us eleven hours to hike from where we drove the truck to the top and back, and today I am all over sore. But it was super fun. Lots of different types of rock and terrain, from sand to swamps. We ran into a few guard bunnies along the way, but we seemed to pass their tests. Of course, by the time we actually got to the top it was cloudy and we couldn't see very far, but the views on the way up and on the way back were magnificent. On top we found a cairn to "commemorate the contribution to Canada's 1:50 000 scale mapping control by the mapping and charting establishment". If someone can explain that to me, and explain to me why the best place for this commemoration is the top of a mountain that very few people ever bother to climb, I will bring you back a rose rock that I personally plucked from the mud.

My first two days here were super-busy. I felt super-rushed at the lab to make up for lost time in Resolute, and my evenings were full of activity. The past two days have been a bit quieter, and I've fallen into my Eureka routine. Frisbee golf the other night was fun, despite my inability to throw a frisbee. I got better as my disc got covered in more and more mud. I attribute this to it being heavier, and less likely to get blown by the wind to some unpleasant location. At the beginning, if there was a puddle or a creek, I can guarantee you I ended up standing in it. I didn't lose that badly, but I did lose. Yesterday I got my spectrometer into its hatch to take solar measurements, and despite the new instrument taking up a bit of room in my hatch things are working well. It's too hot, but this is always the case in that lab. I find it so odd that I'm always trying to cool things down in the Arctic.

I was excited about three things before coming: flowers, midnight Sun, and more temperateness than über-humid Toronto. The weather here has been cloudy and a bit foggy, but a wonderful five degrees. Which is a great temperature, when the wind doesn't blow. I'd like it to be a bit warmer, but I'm appreciating the break from smog and humidity. Though I have noticed it hasn't been all that bad in Toronto while I've been here. The Sun is awesome. I'm still expecting it to set, so my timing is all off. I can no longer trust the Sun to let me know when it's getting late. My first two nights here we were out until after ten, and I would have guessed that it was 7:30. Luckily the windows in the station are fairly light tight, so if I close them before going to bed I can trick myself into thinking the Sun has set. Finally the flowers. It's really not summer here anymore, but fall. I've missed a lot of the flowers, but there are still a few of them kicking around. The thing there's a lot of is willow trees. The green stuff in this picture is willow leaves, and you may be able to make out a branch in the bottom centre right. I've always heard that trees in the Arctic are only a few inches high and now I understand. These ones grow right along the ground, more like a vine than a tree, so are only about an inch high. And they're changing colours! I'm surrounded by orangy-yellow valleys, and it seems odd to be discovering that Eureka is in the middle of a forest on my fifth trip here.

At about 3:30 Monday afternoon we got a call from the pilots, saying the fog seemed to be clearing up and that we should get to the airport. We quickly gathered our things and headed off. All roads in the North have reflective posts by the side of the road to follow if visibility is so low you can't see the road. As we were driving to the airport, we followed these posts. The fog seemed to be getting worse and worse. It was a tiny bit more clear at the airport, but with visibility half of what it has to be, we were sent home. Later our flight was officially cancelled, and we agreed to reconvene for wheels up at 7. My alarm went off at 6, and I excitedly ran to the window and threw up the sash to see...fog. I have never been so sad in all my life. After two extra nights in Resolute I started to wonder if I would ever make it to Eureka. I decided to get up and ready anyways, because it did seem a bit better than the day before. We talked to the pilots and they told us we wouldn't go until the afternoon. I resigned myself to another day in Resolute. But at about 8 they called us to say the fog had lifted a bit and to get our asses out there. I have never moved so quickly in all my life. Half an hour later we were in the air and surrounded by fog. I have no idea how the pilots could see to get us to Eureka, but they did, and now I am here. The flight in was all clouds and fog until we started to land and I got a glimpse of some glaciers, lots of permafrost melting, and a herd of musk oxen.

After hugs and handshakes to all the staff I know, I unpacked and settled into the Eureka Weather Station. It's the same impression I had in Resolute, it's all familiar, but all different. I feel like I've never been here because everything is so odd. But there is also much that is just like the winter. Marg, the departing cook, made my all time favourite coconut chocolate squares in my honour. They're sitting on a plate marked Annemarie. My very own dessert!

After lunch, I persuaded Keith to brave the muddy road (which we were warned of getting stuck in) to get up to the lab. After four days in Resolute, I was itching to get things unpacked and start getting to work. The road was actually fine, despite the crazy amounts of rain they've had the past few days, and we made it up to the lab with no incidents. Except for the musk ox we saw like five minutes out of the station. My very own welcome wagon. We got out of the truck to get closer pictures, and maybe got a bit too close. Keith assured me that he'd walk away before getting aggressive, but when we got as close as we dared, our new friend turned to us and snorted. Remember cartoons where someone would snort in anger and smoke would come out of their nose? That's what the musk ox looked liked. We hightailed it out of there and back to the safety of the truck. He didn't charge at us, but he snorted again.

One of the things Keith has been busy doing for the lab this summer is adding a sign to the road that details exactly where 80 degrees North is. A better photo opportunity spot there has never been. I made Keith stop a thousand times on the way for many many pictures, which I will spare you from for now! Once at the lab I got to work unpacking. I am happy to report that everything made it up in one piece. Despite the deep gashes in the top of my shipping container, and the wet marks at the bottom of one of the boxes. A lot of you remarked I never spoke about the work I was doing when I was here in the spring, so for you guys I will tell you that I assembled everything in the lab and got to work focussing the detector. Something that I finished this morning before starting on resolution tests. Now I hope I've convinced you that the things I do away from the lab are a bit more blog-worthy than those I do in the lab.

After supper, Keith and I went rose rock hunting along the aptly named Rose Rock Creek. Rose rocks are these super cool rocks that kind of look like those sugar crystals you made as a child, except they're made of rock. We gathered tons, though I'll most likely leave all but three here. It was super-muddy work, with the creek being a glorified mud puddle. Mud in the north is like mud in the west. It sticks. My boots are still muddy. I suspect they will never be clean again. And there's no way to get that stuff off when it's wet. On our way to the creek we ran into this very dirty wolf, who calmly walked away from us paparazzi to resume his nap away from our prying eyes.

Today was a full day at the lab, with me being very annoyed at the location and heat output of an instrument that was installed a few weeks ago. Tonight I will blow off all of that steam by getting roped into a game of frisbee golf. I still lack the ability to throw a frisbee, but I've been promised by Heather the met tech that this is not an important skill. Tune in tomorrow to find out how badly I lost.

The government of Canada currently has this to say about climate change. And here's the scary article it came from, which luckily points out that Prof. Tim Ball, the "Mr. Cool" in question, is funded by oil and gas companies. Highlights:

Gaining momentum, he declares that Environment Canada and other agencies fabricated the climate-change scare in order to attract funding for propaganda and expensive attempts to model climate change using supercomputers.

"Environment Canada can't even predict the weather!" he bellows. "How can you tell me that they have any idea what its going to be like 100 years from now if they can't tell me what the weather is going to be like in four months, or even next week?"

Annemarie's note: predicting the weather and predicting climate are two completely different problems. It's akin to predicting what you'll have for dinner tonight vs. if you'll have dinner tonight.

In fact, Prof. Ball says, the real danger for Canada is not warming, but cooling: "It's like Y2K," he concludes. "We all just need to calm down."

As my brother can attest, Y2K ended up not being a problem because hundreds of thousands of people spent years going over computer code line-by-line to add the extra two digits for the year. See, when you fix problems they often get resolved. There's a lesson here, but I don't think it's the one Prof. Ball is going for.

Few in the audience have any idea that Prof. Ball hasn't published on climate science in any peer-reviewed scientific journal in more than 14 years. They do not know that he has been paid to speak to federal MPs by a public-relations company that works for energy firms. Nor are they aware that his travel expenses are covered by a group supported by donors from the Alberta oil patch.

I'll let you draw your on conclusions on that one. The scariest bit is at the end (Friends of Science is an anti-climate change group out of Calgary):

The proof, for Friends of Science founder Albert Jacobs, is in the policy.

"Our success is very recent, and our success is tied to the Conservative government," Mr. Jacobs says. "Rona Ambrose, she has been tearing down that Kyoto building."

The next big challenge, he says, is to reach children. The Friends of Science is now lobbying to have its message included in the grade-school curriculum.

I was meant to fly to Eureka yesterday, but two things stood in my way. First off, the fog Saturday had meant that the plane from Yellowknife couldn't make it in, meaning the new station manager wasn't here. Second, shortly after he did get here yesterday afternoon, the fog rolled in again, so we couldn't take off. So, here I am, yet again, in Resolute, waiting for a plane. The rumour yesterday was that we'd leave today, and I am anxiously awaiting a phone call telling me we're going to the airport. I just woke up, and I'm hesitant to go downstairs, because I don't want to know if we're being delayed even more. The skies are finally somewhat sunny here, but Environment Canada is telling me light rain in Eureka. Yesterday, this meant fog. Okay, today I am anxious to leave Resolute.

Yesterday was a fun bonus day here with Deb. We went for two walks, one accompanied by the hotel's dog, Nanook. (Who wouldn't pose for this picture.) We walked over to the river, which is also where the kids swim. Now maybe the water is warmer in July, but my hand just about froze off in the thirty seconds it was in the water. Those kids have higher cold tolerence than I. (Which I suppose isn't all that surprising since they live in Resolute!) Nanook is the best trained dog I've ever encountered, which may be the difference between city dogs and hamlet dogs. We let him off the leach, and he stuck close to us the whole walk, running off to pee on things, but returning to us at a breakneck pace. If we stopped for too long to take pictures he would come and bark at us until we started moving again. It was almost like we were being herded. The only trouble he gave was when we chained him up again when we got back. Our second walk was more like a trek, as we walked along the shores of the bay out towards the airport. There are thule rings out there, which we didn't find, but we did stumble across the graveyard. If you didn't know, I really like graveyards. They're always peaceful, and I like reading the tombstones. No stones in Resolute, only white crosses with plaques of varying degrees of weathering. It was still very nice, the graveyard is on a ridge over looking the water. A nice place to end up.

One of the things I like about traveling to Eureka is how long it takes. It reminds you that you're going far, far away from the beaten path, and that there are still remote places in the world. But this is getting ridiculous. Three nights in Resolute? I am ready to get to Eureka and start working!

Despite the crappy weather, Debbie and I went on two walks today. The fog made us veto the hike over the ridge and into the next valley over, for fear that if we lost sight of town we'd never make it back. Instead we walked around town and down to the bay this morning (where I touched the liquid Arctic ocean for the first time) and out to an old fisheries lab this afternoon. I'm so happy Deb's here, because with the weather the way it is and the number of beluga whales the town has brought in recently (being stored on the beach) I would have been terrified of polar bears had I gone out alone. I was terrified of bears anyways, but having someone with you somehow makes it better.

This picture is from the old lab, which was abandoned in the late 90's. I would have loved to see the Resolute Bay Aquarium in full swing. Apparently they used to come up here in the summer with a group of 25 university students of varying levels and collect marine wildlife to study. They had a small aquarium with three tanks describing some of the fish and other creatures (anenome and sea cucumbers!). The lab was still in good condition, we had to break in, but it seemed no one with malicious intentions had done it before. Everything was still in place - lots of tanks for the creatures, scuba equipment, beakers, you name it. Deb wasn't sure why it closed, but I suspect lack of funding is the culprit. Whatever the reason, seeing it the way it was, all packed up but ready to use, made me sad. The lab in Eureka was almost closed in 2002, and as we poked around this closed lab I couldn't help but visualise AStrO closed up in a similar way. And future people breaking in and looking at all the abandoned equipment in the same way. There should be more money for science in this country.

The fog doesn't make for great pictures, but here's one of the bay and essentially the Northwest passage, which comes right by Resolute. The picture below is of the Gjøa, the first ship to ever navigate the NWP, that I saw in Oslo in March. The NWP is in the news today, with Steven Harper in Iqaluit going on about Arctic sovereignty. Apparently he's bringing so much attention to the NWP that he's going to by pass it by flying to Alert (at the very tip of Ellesmere, the island Eureka is on) and then on to Yellowknife and Whitehorse. Good for him, visiting the Arctic. And Arctic sovereignty is going to be an issue if things keep warming up the way they are. I don't like how he's going about it, but it is time to draw the rest of the country's attention to the massive barren North that is used by Canadians in a non-conventional manner. But I don't bring this up to discuss politics. I bring this up to ask your advice. If Steve is heading to Alert, there's a good chance he may stop in Eureka too. He's set to go there tomorrow, and I'm set to go to Eureka tomorrow morning. So what if he stops in Eureka? What do I say if I meet him? As background, I disagree with most everything that man does. I think he's ruining the country, and if he ever gets a majority government I think he'll ruin it more. So on the small chance that we are in the same place at the same time, what do I say/do? I can't shake his hand. It isn't nice to meet him, it's not a pleasure, and it most certainly isn't an honour. So how do you not shake someone's hand and have it not be incredibly rude? Or do I care about being incredibly rude? I hope he doesn't realise Eureka exists, and so doesn't stop there.

I'm sure most of you, upon hearing the news yesterday morning about the new carry-on regulations and the ensuing chaos at airports worldwide thought: "I'm glad I'm not flying today!" I too thought this when I turned on the news, and then realised, wait, no, I am flying today. It ended up not being so bad, the lines moved quickly, despite the large pile of cosmetics and water bottles piling up at security. I could even buy liquids on the other side of security, but had it been a bottle it would have been poured into a cup. Today I smuggled lip balm in my pocket. No way I'm going for ten hours with no additional lip moisture.

Ottawa was too short, and my mom and I spent the evening making my bridesmaid's dress for Katrin's wedding in September. I leave for that two days after I get home from here, so we stayed up far too late getting it done. My mom is awesome.

At the airport this morning, after my covert smuggling of a gel-like substance, I ran into Alison Smith, who was on her way to LA to visit a friend of hers. Alison, for those of you who don't know, is an old friend of mine from elementary school who switched high schools without telling any of us right before grade ten. I haven't seen her since the Vincent Massey reunion party Craig hosted in OAC. We chatted for the hour and a half we had both given ourselves for our domestic flights, and it's only now that I realised I didn't get her e-mail. I clearly fall out of touch with people because I suck. She told me to say hello to everyone, especially you Esther.

After she got on her plane they immediately called me for mine, and off I was to Iqaluit. In line I ran into Debbie, perhaps my favourite cook at Eureka who is very luckily heading up to be MY cook. Mmmm...tastiness ensues. To be fair, all Eureka cooks I have encountered are excellent. And cater to my intolerance of nutty things. She's already promised the first cake she makes will be nut-free.

It was a long trip up, and the flights were fairly uneventful. Somewhere over Northern Ontario I realised how weird it was to be traveling to Eureka alone. I'm no stranger to flying alone - it seems more bizarre to me to fly with people these days - but it felt weird to be traveling North alone. Normally when I come up here I'm with a large group of people. Today it was me and my book. Which was okay too, just ... different. As we got further and further North it got cloudier and cloudier, which made it difficult to see the ground below, but when I did I was mesmorised. The landscape is completely different this time of year, what with the water being mainly unfrozen and the ground not being covered with snow. I stared out the window whenever there was a glimpse of the ground, and I felt like I was traveling here for the first time. Once we finally got to Resolute I discovered water where I didn't know there was water. It's madness how different things seem. It's so familiar and yet so foreign.

The weather here is cloudy and misty, which makes going outside seem unappealing to me. Tomorrow Debbie's going to take me on a walk to a creek bed that she says is fabulous. I'm hoping for better weather! If it clears up tonight I may walk down to the Northwest Passage, and, for the first time ever, touch the liquid surface of the Arctic Ocean. Summer in the Arctic! I am still all kinds of excited.

If I'm back blogging it can only mean one thing: I'm off traveling again. And, as promised just two entries ago, it's to Eureka. In the summer! This is clearly the most exiting thing that has ever, or will ever, happen to me. Nobel prizes, graduating, free Pirates of the Carribean themed cruises with celebrity guest Johnny Depp, these things will pale in comparison to this trip North. Not that I'm putting any pressure on Eureka to deliver.

If you're reading this you know how much I absolutely adore traveling to the North and Eureka in particular. I've only ever been for polar sunrise, in February and March. This will be my first foray into another season in the High Arctic. Eureka these days is actually hovering around temperatures I last experienced in Scandinavia (not Finland, it was colder there): +5. A week ago it was +15 or so. Compared to the scorching +47 with humidity we had here in Toronto last week, even -5 sounds like a fantastic vacation locale. (Question: why aren't there more snowbirds the other way? If so many people head south in the winter to avoid the bitter cold, why don't more people head north in the summer to avoid the oppressive heat? I'm not talking Eureka north, but Yellowknife, or really, anywhere outside of Southern and Eastern Ontario and Southern Québec is probably much more comfortable.)

Eureka is known as the “garden spot of the Arctic”. There are actually two reasons for this. The first is that due to some crazy weather patterns that I don't understand Eureka is actually a bit more pleasant in the summer than other parts of the High Arctic (like Resolute) and there are wildflowers everywhere. (If you don't believe me, check out Keith's pictures.) When I'm there in the winter we can see the dead remnants of all these flowers and I'm excited to see the valleys I know so well covered in yellow and purple flowers instead of a thin layer of snow. The other reason Eureka is the garden spot of the Arctic is because they used to grow pot there. It's the site of the world's northern most drug bust. I may elaborate on that more another time.

My last reason for super-excitement is to see the midnight Sun. I'm afraid this will mess with my ability to sleep at night, but I'm willing to give up sleeping to see the flip side of the Eureka light level coin.

The reason for my trip is of course not sightseeing, but science. The lab we work in is being reequipped, and part of that is a new spectrometer almost exactly like the one I work with. It'll live in Eureka permanently, and I'm going now to install it. The whole procedure of getting this instrument has been one long waiting period. We actually ordered it in December, but because of production delays it didn't get delivered until July 4. The past month I've been madly scrambling to get it ready to go to Eureka this summer. Honestly, because I want to go to Eureka in the summer, but also because if it waits until the fall it will be a race to get it installed before sunset. (Which happens in October.) Because we had to wait until the instrument arrived to decide if it worked well enough for us, the whole trip has a very last-minute feel to it, despite the fact we've been planning on going since last winter. We didn't decide 100% to go until Thursday (the 3^rd) and I'm leaving this Thursday (the 10^th).

It was a crazy Friday for me. I had to book my flights and we had to pack up the instrument and get it shipped so that it will be in Resolute to make the produce charter to Eureka August 13^th. (Which I'll be on too.) NEVER start planning a last minute trip to Eureka on the Friday before the long weekend. Shipping is something I don't think I've written about before, but is one of the most stressful parts of any trip to Eureka. There's obviously the worry that something will break on the way, so I encase things in so much foam I think other people think I'm obsessive compulsive about foam. Then there's also this whole timing thing. The instrument has to first get to Ottawa, which is where the flights to Resolute start. Shipping to Ottawa is not so stressful, but it has to get there quickly so that it can have a few Ottawa – Resolute flights to make it up there. They go more often now than they used to – four times a week instead of two – but there's limited cargo space. And if it misses the produce charter it has to wait two weeks before there's another flight. (In the winter it's three weeks.) So I've been obsessively checking the status of my boxes on purolator.com all weekend. (Woo! Crazy long weekend!) Things were all good until last night. I checked it before going to bed, and instead of telling me where it was it told me to call Purolator to discuss the status. So I immediately start worrying. And Purolator is closed. I tossed and turned all night worrying about the instrument. And where it could have possibly ended up, in pieces, all alone and scared. So I called them first thing this morning. (I actually woke up right at eight, which is when they opened.) And the boxes are fine. They'll be delivered Tuesday after the long weekend. There was a glitch in the website last night when I checked. Now everything is fine again. Years ago, Elham, the woman who I inherited the spectrometer from, came in one morning and told me she'd dreamt that we had forgotten to ship a part of the spectrometer that we then discovered we had actually forgotten to ship. I remember thinking at the time that if she was dreaming about the spectrometer she was spending too much time thinking about school. Oh young Master's student Annemarie. How naïve you were. My dreams now regularly feature thesis-related things. I talk about the instrument like it's a person, and I always give it a kiss for good luck before leaving it for any period of time. Someday I hope to have some semblance of a normal life again....