Survivor Ellesmere

March has yet again proved to be the sunnier half of Smarch, and we have been busy the past few days getting the new suntracker to work so that I can have direct Sun measurements. Today was our first venture out on the roof with the tracker tracking and my spectrometer spectrometerising. I am happy to say direct Sun spectra were taken, and I may even do something called "science" with them.

Sunday morning before heading to the lab, Tobias and I took a quick walk behind the station to the old frisbee golf proving grounds. We didn't have much time, but I dragged him to a few of the course markers. All ready and waiting for more games. If only I were coming back in the summer. Or if only it weren't so cold that a frisbee would crack in many pieces if it were to accidentally hit the ground.

I'm getting near the end of my trip here and I am in denial. I'm hoping that this is my last trip (because I'll have graduated by this time next year - or be in the process...), and as much as I'm done with Toronto, I'm not at all done with Eureka. The North gets into you, and you start to love it for the very reasons you thought you wouldn't: it's cold, it's dark, everything is white, and you have to put up with the same N people for far too long. I've been lucky enough to travel North seven times with enough awesome people to cancel out the bad. I've discovered that white is much more interesting than it sounds, that brightness is all relative, and that -42 is a fine temperature for a hike in the hills. I've learned that Arctic fox are the cutest things in the world, it's probably best not to see a polar bear up close, and musk ox are both the tastiest and most mesmorizing animals in the world. You'll have to bear with me in the next few days, as I try to bring some closure to my Eureka journey. Leaving here is never easy, and I don't imagine it will be anything less than painful to leave this time.