Survivor Ellesmere

Home Again

2007-03-13T14:09:00.000-04:00

I was all set to write a negative post about Toronto yesterday, but my laziness prevailed. When we landed in Toronto, after an uneventful flight home from Edmonton, it was overcast. Driving home from the airport everything was concrete and brown and blech. I commented that this time of year is the most depressing time to be returning to Toronto. It's not white enough to be winter and not green enough to be spring. It's just...ugly.

But then I got some sleep and the Sun came up, and I walked to school today. Things seem greener. The Sun is ridiculously high in the sky. There were birds singing. The place feels more alive today. (I attribute some of this to the fact I was walking along side streets, and not driving along highways.) Also, it's 13C. When I left Eureka it was -46C. When we landed in Edmonton it was 2C. I think a 48 degree in gain in one flight is a new record for me. And a 59 degree gain in 48 hours also seems rather impressive. But don't worry my Toronto friends, it seems I have brought some delayed cold, as the temperatures are meant to dip below freezing later this week...

Pictures are now up on my website. Thanks for reading my ramblings.

So long to this cold cold part of the world

2007-03-12T00:44:00.000-04:00

Here I am in Edmonton, my latest Eureka adventure almost officially over. I've been ignoring the blog for a few days, mostly due to the fact that I haven't really wanted to write about the fact that I'm on my way home. I get very attached to places, and it's hard to leave a place that has meant so much to me. I'm a different person than I was the first time I stepped off a plane in Resolute, and I like to think my time in Res and Eureka has been a driving force behind that. Eureka and PEARL have been good to me. But there's a bright side to this being my last trip - it means that next year at this time I'll be at least in the process of moving on, and although I have enjoyed my time in Toronto, it is time to leave it behind.

But enough sappy sentimentality! The cable to get my pictures off my camera is deep in my luggage somewhere, so you'll have to wait for pictures, but last night was my last night in Eureka and I spent it very fittingly. A few weeks ago Sal told me about the confluence project, which is a plan to visit all the points where longitude and latitude lines meet on the globe. Since Eureka is located right near 80N 86W, it seemed logical to visit while I was there. We actually cross both 80N and 86W every day on the drive to PEARL from the weather station, though not simulataneously, so it wasn't so long a trek. We headed out after dinner, and after a lot of walking around in circles, found the exact location. Someone has left a geocache there - it had a CD of pictures of the area, some pins, a notebook for us to sign, and now a CANDAC sticker, a Turkish flag, and Tobias' business card. It was pretty cool - albeit geeky - and soon I will submit my pictures to the authorities. To get there we had to drive up a road that is not the main road, and therefore not maintained in the winter. There were some pretty good snow drifts, and we got stuck in one at the top, but managed to push our way out. It meant we couldn't turn around though, so after a successful visit to the confluence point, we tried to back the truck down the hill back to the main road. Just as we got there, one of the wheels went off the side of the road, and after 15 minutes or so of spinning the tires and smelling burning rubber, we called for a tow. I feel this was appropriate for my last night in Eureka. We got back just in time for BINGO, where I had a net gain of 6$ on the night. It's because of my skills in selecting BINGO cards. No luck there at all.

Today we left Eureka in style - somehow the various organisations that require cargo up there managed to get us a 737 to fly (almost) direct from Eureka to Edmonton. We stopped in Resolute to refuel. It took much less time - about 5 hours from the time we left Eureka to landing in Edmonton. (As opposed to a 6 hour flight to Yellowknife and then a 1.5 hour flight to Edmonton.) We were crammed in - with all the cargo they needed to bring up they only had room for the exact number of seats we needed - but it was fun to have a chartered 737. That's just crazy. And to leave Eureka and to not have to worry about a long flight with no bathroom was nice too! Which brings me to Edmonton, and tomorrow if all goes well Toronto and home. To my full closet and my room to myself and vegetarian options and real sunlight and all the other things that I miss when I'm in Eureka. But no ... Eureka.

I'll update when I'm back home, and more pictures will eventually make their way on-line. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time I embark on an exciting adventure....

It's trapped me in its neon green claws

2007-03-06T22:06:00.000-05:00

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.

Sundogs, eclipses, and (almost) -50C

2007-03-04T18:25:00.000-05:00

I think this may be the best picture I've ever taken of sundogs. Look to the left and right of the Sun, and you'll see faint rainbow glows - sundogs. They're caused by ice crystals in the atmosphere. I got out of the lab yesterday for a longer walk down my favourite ridge. This picture is taken looking down into my favourite valley, which I have yet to capture on film in a way that accurately portrays its fabulousness. That's a problem I always have up here - the camera just can't capture the variations in the colours (and the white) that make this the prettiest place I have ever been. It's going to be hard to leave, not knowing when I'll be back.

There was a lunar eclipse last night, that we were able to catch the end of (after the Moon came out from behind Blacktop Mountain). There was about a dozen people trying to take pictures of it out the window. Zoom lenses were the most successful. My trying to use binoculars to get a better zoom ultimately resulted in this photo. I'll try to steal a better picture off someone else. It was still really cool to see the eclipse.

It got down to -49.7C last night - luckily while I was warm in my bed. -45C is normally the worst we experience in a day, and when it gets any colder than that (including -46C) it feels so much colder.

Happy IPY!

2007-03-01T18:28:00.000-05:00

We had a bit of Sun today for the second day in a row. And for the n-th day in a row it was colder at the lab than it was at the station. And mildly windy. (-40 is really not so bad until the wind blows - then it's bitterly cold and frost bite inducing.) (Best quote from the campaign: it's better to get frost bite than bear bite.) In the mid-afternoon I was going a bit stir-crazy, so I braved the temperatures with a few other crazy types and went for a quick walk. We were smart enough to walk into the wind on the way, so that the wind was pushing up back to PEARL on our walk back. I snapped this picture before coming inside. (Apparently it was obvious that I had written this on the building. Really, I think Clive is a much more obvious culprit.) (Ok, if you know Clive, that was funny. If you don't...take my word for it!)

I've been a bit stressed the past few days. I submitted a paper back in September, and re-submitted after one round of reviews in January. The day I spent on a plane flying from Edmonton to Eureka, I got round two reviews back. I have to have responses to them, and a revised draft of the paper, in by March 7, at 9:31:01 UTC. (Yes, two seconds past 9:31 is too late.) I haven't had much time to work on it, because I've been looking after three instruments and trying to analyse the data enough to know that they're all working okay. But this deadline has been in the back of my head the whole time. I finally sat down with everything Sunday, and now I think things are almost done, but it's not fun to have important deadlines while you're on a field campaign! I'm also trying to get another paper submitted by March 15 (it's almost like I want to graduate...), but luckily the deadline for that is most likely going to be pushed back a bit.

In final news, today marks the first day of the International Polar Year. It's a year (okay, two years) of intensive research into all aspects (and not just science - anthropological as well) of our polar regions. The UN is sort of coordinating it, and different countries are funding their different projects. It should be an exciting two years, and hopefully by the end we'll understand these regions a bit better. How fitting to be in Eureka for the start of this.

Now I would like a pony.

2007-02-27T15:09:00.000-05:00

In shuffleboard, the most number of points you can score with one puck is 5, if it lands hanging off the corner of the board. This is very hard to do. Last night I threw such a puck, only to have it maliciously knocked off the board by Tobias. (You only get points after both people have thrown 4 pucks each.) I am the shuffleboard queen. (And despite Tobias being the meanest person ever, the fluffy pink bunnies continued their domination of shuffleboard in the High Arctic.)

A few days ago I lamented the hot weather we've been experiencing here, and I have been rewarded with the temperatures falling to a reasonable -37C at the lab, which is actually a bit cooler than the station which is at -34C. This is nice in that I no longer overheat when I go outside, but bad in that the lab is now *freezing*. I am glad to be wearing so many layers today. I have also been forced to drink hot chocolate made out of the super-pasteurized milk that takes forever to go bad. That stuff is nasty, but the station has run out of the good milk, and I am COLD. The cold and wind has yet to bring the Sun, although it did tease us this morning with a clear sky that completely clouded over just as the Sun rose above the horizon. Think sunny thoughts for us.

Sun! (For one day only.)

2007-02-26T18:05:00.000-05:00

Only CANDAC operators can drive the trucks up here, and one of those two people has Sundays off. So we had to have a smaller group of people at the lab yesterday. Since my instrument is automatic, I spent the day at the station, sleeping in and catching up on some work that needs to get done soon. Since it was Sunday, the Sun decided to make its second appearance of the campaign and its first appearance at the station since October. (We see it a day or so earlier at the lab since we're 600 m above sea level.) And so here's the first sunrise at Eureka in 2007. You probably won't be able to make it out, but this is taken from the beach of Slidre Fjord. (After years of showing pictures of the Arctic I know that it takes a special eye to be able to determine where the frozen water stops and where the ground starts.) (Melissa had been invaluable in sitting through hundreds of pictures of white while I learned this fact.)

While we were out sunabathing, we were visited by a very fast moving bunny, who we watched run at us from the station and then past us out on the fjord. Whenever I see Arctic hare run, I think they look funny, since they're not hopping like other bunnies. They look like horses when they run. Except when you look at their tracks, they are perfectly bunny-like. So maybe I'm just not capable of identifying hopping. We we also hunted by a fox, who circled us a couple of times, and then cautiously headed downwind, where he seemed to be deciding if he should attack us, or if we were going to attack him. The foxes are such adorable balls of foxy fluff. And the one that lives at the station is so fat and roly-poly it's even more adorable. I'll try to get better pictures.

Today we awoke to stronger winds, gusting pretty heavily, but made our way to the lab anyways. Halfway through the morning it was decided that we would head home for lunch, since the snow was blowing pretty heavily and that can blow in the road. The problem when it blows isn't so much visibility (though that can certainly be reduced to zero) but the small little snow flakes that get blown around and packed really hard. When this happens on the road, you end up with what is sometimes an impassible drift. Then you have to wait for the front end loader to come out and plow the road. And that (a) can take a long time, and (b) costs a lot of money. Of course, once we made the decision to come down, the weather got a bit better, and all the people that need direct Sun to do measurements spent the afternoon looking longingly at the slivers of the Sun that we could make out on the webcam images from up at the lab. Hopefully we'll start to get better weather soon, and I can go out and take pictures of vaguely different colours of white for you all to enjoy.

It is far too warm!

2007-02-24T20:03:00.000-05:00

Temperatures have been a bit warm since we got here - instead of the usual -42 we've been experiencing -30 to -25 down at the station and up to -9 (!!!!!!!!!!!!) at the lab. (Which is located 600 m higher up than the weather station, and we generally enjoy a temperature inversion - when the temperature goes up as you go higher in the atmosphere, as opposed to down.) It's all well and good that it's a bit warmer, except for two things:
(1) We still need to wear our Arctic gear everywhere, since the weather can change so quickly, and so we're all over heating.
(2) It's cloudy. Super cloudy. The first picture is about the clearest it's been. We need the clouds to go away so that we can get good measurements. (My instrument works regardless, but many others need to see the Sun.)
The next picture is the first solar spectrum taken with my traveling instrument this campaign. (The one that lives at PEARL had its first spectrum a week before I arrived. No one thought to take a picture.) My instruments have been working super-well this campaign. (Now that I've said this they're both going to be broken tomorrow.) And their data agrees super-well too, which is good, since they're essentially the same instrument. (Though the new one starts taking spectra when it's still REALLY dark out - we're all fairly impressed.)
This last picture is one that I took by accident but I really like it. I had my camera in my pocket anticipating the ozonesonde launch this evening. (The balloon in the background - it carries a small instrument that measures the ozone in the atmosphere as the balloon travels up.) When I took it out to start taking a video, I moved the knob that determines what kind of settings to use. I ended up with some odd setting and this ghostly picture. I am going to call it art, and pretend that I did this on purpose. Science art is the best kind of art.

Day Two Musings

2007-02-21T18:21:00.000-05:00

I haven't really taken any pictures yet - the Sun is barely scraping the horizon (and even then, only because the atmosphere is bending the light), and I know that the good pictures are a couple of days away. So don't worry, I haven't become so accustomed to the scenery up here that I have stopped photographing. Many photos of different kinds of white objects will be coming your way soon.

I've had a productive couple of days at the lab. Yesterday I was able to convince the french instrument that it was at 86W, not 86E, and today I was able to get my traveling instrument up in its hatch just in time for it to be too dark to get any solar measurements. (The instrument I was here to install in the summer has been back on for about a week now, and is working perfectly. So far.) Hopefully tomorrow it will start taking spectra and I can fall into my data analysis routine. And I will most likely not discuss spectroscopic measurements of any kind again.

It always surprises me how bright it can be when the Sun is below the horizon. I'll look outside and think the Sun must be close to rising and then I'll do some calculations and find out that it's still a few degrees below the horizon. It's certainly not bright enough to cast shadows, so it can be hard to make out the subtle topography of the place. I love that in a few days I'll look back on this post and wonder how I could have thought it was so bright. I find it odd that my previous experience up here teaches me that I'll think I'm crazy in a few days, but somehow not that it isn't very bright out at all.

Another thing that I hope is only a few days away is the return of wildlife. I've spotted bunny and wolf tracks, but no bunnies, wolves, or foxes. Apparently there were some musk ox at the runway a couple of days before we got here, so I'm also hoping they come back to visit. And, as a gift to me on this last trip up here, shouldn't I get to see a polar bear? From afar? VERY afar?

I love you seven dollars (the sequel)

2007-02-20T18:44:00.001-05:00

It's been an eventful few days. I can though announce that I am once again in Eureka, and once again absolutely in love with the place. Let me tell you how I got here.

Our travel plan this year was a relatively early flight to Edmonton, a three hour layover until our flight to Yellowknife, which was to get us there in time for dinner and a good night's sleep before our charter flight to Eureka at 7 am. I was sharing a taxi with the three downtown members of the campaign team, and when we were about 5 minutes away we got a phone call from one of the other members at the airport. Our flight was cancelled. When we got to the airport we were directed to the ticket counter where we were told that they'd do their best to get us on another flight to Edmonton that day, but since it was Sunday (and the start of reading week) they couldn't book us on a flight until Tuesday. Our travel agent kind of sucked, and didn't link our tickets to Edmonton and to Yellowknife together, even though that's what travel agents are meant to do, so Air Canada had no knowledge of our connecting flight and therefore we were placed a little lower on the priority list for standby. We checked in, and luckily the woman who did this was able to guarantee our bags would make the next Edmonton flight, and we went to wait to hopefully be called on standby. The check in woman also told us that most of the flights were overbooked that day, and the one that would get us to Edmonton in time to get our connection actually had 18 oversold people, and 27 on the standby list. We remained optimistic.

After we were not called for the flight our bags got on, we talked to the ticket agent who reiterated that the Edmonton flights were all oversold, and that we probably wouldn't make it to Edmonton at all that day.

So we got on the phone to Canadian North to do something with our tickets.

And went to stand in line for customer service. Which had 3 people working. And a line about 10 people long. This wonderful Air Canada woman who was coming off shift at this desk saw us waiting in line and told us we'd be better off calling Air Canada, because it could take hours to get to the head of the line. So while others were dealing with our Yellowknife plans, I picked up a white courtesy phone and essentially pledged my life to the man who answered the phone. It turns out that they had actually booked us all on flights connecting to Edmonton to arrive at various times that day. It's just that no one had bothered to tell us. One of our members was booked on a flight the next day, but he was able to change her reservation to get her on a flight to Winnipeg leaving in about 45 minutes. I ran back across the airport to get her on her flight, and told the rest of the team we were all routed through Vancouver on two different flights. Mine left without a hitch, but the other flight ended up being cancelled, and that same nice Air Canada woman saw that part of the team in line AGAIN, HOURS later, and pulled some sort of strings to get them on the next flight to Edmonton. So in total we were delayed 4-10 hours leaving Toronto, but all felt very glad to be in Edmonton Sunday night. With all of our bags, that had arrived roughly eight hours earlier.

We were able to get on the first flight to Yellowknife the next morning, and our charter flight was delayed until we got there. Monday was much less hectic than Sunday.

If I never see Pearson Airport again I will be happy.

But at least I got a 7$ voucher for food on my flight to Vancouver.

More about Eureka next time.

Home again

2006-08-29T12:54:00.000-04:00

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!

Busy Day in Eureka

2006-08-26T11:47:00.000-04:00

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 is still my favourite planet

2006-08-24T10:58:00.000-04:00

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.

Changes in the scenery and the roadside

2006-08-23T20:03:00.000-04:00

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:

New Best Day Ever in Eureka

2006-08-21T19:55:00.001-04:00

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.

Quiet days in Eureka

2006-08-18T20:38:00.000-04:00

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.

Eureka! I have found it! (I told you it never gets old.)

2006-08-16T19:27:00.000-04:00

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.

Why I don't have anything nice to say to Steven Harper

2006-08-14T10:52:00.000-04:00

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.

Stuck in Resolute...

2006-08-14T08:59:00.000-04:00

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!

Closed down labs and the Northwest passge

2006-08-12T17:43:00.000-04:00

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.

Aglutinamonos

2006-08-11T06:56:00.000-04:00

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.

Return of the blog

2006-08-06T14:54:00.000-04:00

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....

As promised, there are pictures

2006-04-11T10:32:00.000-04:00

If you're interested in pictures of my Scandinavian adventure, I've posted them on my official website under photos: Eureka2006 and Scandinavia.

I like to think it was Rudolph

2006-04-05T12:21:00.000-04:00

Well it's my last night in Finland and Europe, as tomorrow I fly home to non-exciting Toronto. Except for that the thought of my own bed is exciting. And a closet full of clothes that haven't been washed in the sink for the past few weeks. Yes, these are the good things about going home. But I will have to stop doing Scandinavian-type things. Unless I start going to IKEA more. It is on the subway line after all...

I have throughly enjoyed my time here in Finland. The highlights were the reindeer I had for lunch yesterday (tastes like caribou) and the Lenin Museum in Tampere today. According to my guide book, this is the last pro-Lenin museum around, and it was definately pro-Lenin. It was put together in the 1950's by the Soviet-Finnish Alliance (or something to that effect). They had a civil war here after gaining independance from Russia (granted by the Soviets) between socialists and non-socialists. Tampere was the capital of the socialist side. I got the feeling at the museum that the people who run the place were rooting for the other side. I learned that Lenin was, without question, the greatest political influence of the 20th century. And that he cured sick puppies in his spare time. While also healing the lepers. He was truly an amazing person. The museum was awesome, and actually in the building where the first communist conference was held, which also happened to be when Lenin met Stalin. I was hoping for some campy souvenirs to that effect, but I had to settle for campy communist-related merchandise. Oh if only I had a way of getting posters home without ruining them, then my apartment would be Soviet-propaganda central.

And so ends Survivor Ellesmere. I'll probably update when I get home to let you know when pictures go online. Otherwise, thank you for reading of my travels, and I'll see you when I go somewhere else exciting. (Hopefully back to Eureka this summer.)

Free internet means Helsinki is the best city ever

2006-04-03T09:17:00.000-04:00

I flew here from Stockholm this morning. Waiting to check into my flight I was surrounded by a peewee boys hockey team from outside Chicago (but close enough to have the accent) coming home from a tournament. Memories of Might Ducks aside, their parents yelling across the airport to eachother and their children made them irritating. Also, SO much luggage. I don't understand why you would need so much crap on any trip. (This is not counting their hockey equipment, I can understand that. I = smart.)

The highlight of my last day in Stockholm was surprisingly the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a ship built for a king in the 1600's, which was actually very badly designed, so that it sank twenty minutes into its first trip. They found it in the harbour in the 70s and spent many years restoring it before opening the museum to display it. It was really cool! And so crazy ornate. Those seventeenth century kings really liked their statues on their boats.

The rest of my day was mostly spent wandering about a couple of parts of Stockholm, looking at the pretty scenery and the pretty buildings. Stockholm really is a beautiful city. You should visit it.

Helsinki so far has a very different feel. It feels much more Eastern Europe post-communist-y, which it isn't. I'm chaulking it up to the fact that it was part of Russia for so long. This shouldn't make it feel post-communist-y, but it's the best explanation I have. Also, free internet in cafés! An unexpected bonus of Wayne's Coffee.

Insert witty Sweden-related title here

2006-04-01T13:09:00.000-05:00

I had a bit of a bonus day in Oslo yesterday, allowing me to visit the dissapointing Sami Exhibit at the University's Museum. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, as anything billed as an "Ethnographic" Museum is sure to be trouble, but the guidebook I have said it was a well done exhibit. It turned out to be a display on all of the Arctic peoples, but instead of learning much about any of them, all they had was a few pictures and a traditional outfit from each nation. Although the raincoats made of salmon skin were cool and resourceful, it didn't really give me any information on the people, and it left me wanting to know more. Also, they kept using the word Eskimo. There was only a security guard there, who didn't know anything about the exhibit, but knew he didn't want me to break the glass and steal things, so I couldn't even complain to anyone. Sigh. I did learn that over half of the Inuit live in Greenland, with just over a quarter living in Canada and the rest in Alaska. I had always thought Canada had the greatest population. Clearly, I have made an ass out of you and me. (And Yumi for that matter.)

My train to Stockholm was uneventful. Long, but the scenery was pretty. I arrived here in Sweden and found my hostel quickly. It's on a boat. Which I was afraid would be cold, but it's actually a bit too warm. And my 4-bedded room is full! My first full room since my last night in Copenhagen. (I had a night to myself in my 6-bedded room in Oslo. That was nice.)

This morning I had my routine wandering around the city getting my bearings time, and quickly discovered that Stockholm is quite pretty. Definitely the prettiest city so far. It's made up of several islands, so there are lots of pretty bridges and water ways all over the place. And people fishing in them! I don't know if I would trust the fish, but apparently they do. I also made it to the museum of modern art, which was surprisingly free. I love the free museum.

After the museum I resumed my wanderings and eventually ended up in the Bloor Street-esque district of the city. Which had more H&Ms than you could shake a stick at. (Question: how many H&Ms can YOU shake a stick at? Could you shake more sticks at other retailers? What if you had two sticks? I invite you to comment on this ridiculous expression.) I of course visited my second favourite retailer of fine swedish goods, and even though I'm sure all of these products are available at home, I felt all avant guard shopping there. I haven't been shopping in forever. It was very difficult to not try on everything in the store. In the end I realised that anything I bought I'd have to fit in my suitcase, so I limited myself to one very cute yellow dress. Which didn't fit. I consoled myslef by buying sunglasses. Now I feel all Euro-cool.

Because my train was so late getting in yesterday, I only have one more day in Stockholm, which is sad, because this is my second favourite city of the trip. Stupid trains, not leaving Oslo earlier.

Winter hours, I owe you an apology

2006-03-30T13:13:00.000-05:00

Ok, I may have misunderestimated my efficiency at visiting museums. Despite their shortened winter hours, I have managed to get most of what I wanted to do in Oslo done. And, because there is only one daytime train a day to Stockholm from here, and it leaves at three in the afternoon, I should have time to learn about the Sami tomorrow. Then I will have done Oslo.

And what have I done in Oslo? Mostly art. Of all kinds. And mostly free art. Many of the museums here are free anytime of the year, and many of the ones that aren't are free during the winter. So, another benefit to traveling in the winter. Having said that, spring is definately in the air today, as it didn't rain (my first rain-free Norway day! And the only day I had my umbrella!), the Sun was shining, and I could go most of the day without wearing my hat. Though I still think I have perma-hat head.

My favourite part of Oslo was the Fram Museum, something I feel I couldn't have convinced any conceivable traveling partner to visit. It was a half hour bus ride out of the centre, and devoted to the Fram. Which is the ship that has travelled the furthest North and South of any ship ever. It's been further north than me. And south. (But that's not hard to do, at least until I somehow get myself to the South Pole.) The museum was devoted to Norwegian explorers, and their penchant for traveling to the poles. Most of it was an Amundsen love-in, and that was fine by me. Since I know no one else is as fascinated by polar regions as I am, I will spare you the details of all the voyages. But my favourite story is that when Amundsen set out to go to the South Pole (he was the first one to get there) it was meant to be a trip to the North Pole, but since Peary beat him to it, he decided to do something new. Except he didn't tell his crew until they had set sail. In fact, he didn't tell them until they got to Spain. Apparently they were all very confused as to why they were headed south. Then he basically sent Scott (who had set out that way a few weeks earlier) a "race you" telegram. Now that's an explorer for you.

The other highlight of Oslo was the couple making out at the table next to me at the café I had dinner in the other night. Okay, this wasn't the highlight part, but when they went to the washroom to have sex (I presume), and she came back to grab her cell phone, THAT was funny.

I'm halfway through the post-conference section of my trip, and despite the fact that I really haven't been home since mid-February, it hasn't felt like I've been traveling all that long. Except for that my legs are starting to get sore from all the walking I've been doing. The day on the train tomorrow should do me some good.

Pining for the fjords

2006-03-28T10:28:00.000-05:00

It seems the rain has followed me from Bergen to Oslo, despite the fact that Oslo is meant to have nicer weather. On account of the moutains to the east. Norway is a lot like a mini-Canada. Which may be why I like it.

So I'm again dodging the rain by updating you on my travels. When I last left you, I was all prepared for my Norway in a Nutshell experience, which is the most popular tour in all of Norway! It begins with a train from Bergen to Myrdal, then a train down 866 m in 20 km to Flåm, a boat ride down two fjords to Gudvagen, a bus ride to Voss, and then the train back to Bergen. It's a long tour, but very pretty. I managed to book it all at the train station the night before, so no getting stuck for me. Unfortunately we didn't have the best weather for it. It was cloudy, so you couldn't see very far. The train from Bergen to Myrdal is quite beautiful, climbing up into the mountains, with lots of great valley and rock face shots. I am sure there is awesome climbing. In Myrdal it was snowing, and I was very glad the woman at the train station wouldn't let me book an earlier train. I had plans of taking the train before the one I ended up taking, and poking around the town a bit. One, there isn't really a town at Myrdal anymore, just a collection of hotels and summer homes. Two, it's closed in the winter. Even the ticket office for the train to Flåm is closed, you have to buy it from the conductor. After fourty minutes of taking pictures we got on the marvel-of-engineering train down the mountain. Easily the best part of the trip. Lots of gorgeous views and frozen waterfalls. Once we got to Flåm, we discovered that it too is closed for the winter. There was one souvenir and one café open. Luckily, it's not really a place you need to waste time inside at, and I wandered about, taking pictures. It's right at sea level (or 2 m above it) with these 900 m cliffs surrounding it. I'm sure it's beautiful in the summer, but I am partial to ice and snow, and so all this made it breath-taking. (Or maybe even magical...?) Next came the boat, which couldn't make it all the way to Gudvagen because of ice on the fjord, so it was a bit shorter than scheduled. The boat had an upper outside deck and a lower inside heated deck. When we got on the boat, everyone was squeezing onto the upper deck. It was about five degrees out, no wind. I had no luck getting a seat, or even a place to perch, so I resigned myself to a two hour standing boat tour. (You couldn't see all that well from inside.) About three seconds after we got started going down the fjord, and it got windy, half the seats opened up. I zipped up my coat and enjoyed the amazing towering cliffs. I made it most of the way outside, but in the end I had to take refuge in the warm interior. So much for my arctic tolerance! Last was the bus to Voss. At this point it had started to rain quite heavily, and the bus can't take the scenic route in the winter because the road is closed. The views from the highway were pretty and all, but nothing compared to what we had just come from. I had every intention of staying in Voss for awhile, but when we got there it was pouring, I was tired, and I just took the train home to Bergen and my warm bed. It didn't look like that pretty a place. And my guide book had one thing to do that wasn't downhill skiing. So, I missed the cathedral. I will regret this always.

This morning I had an early train to Oslo. The Bergen-Oslo train line is meant to one of the most beautiful in the world, as it climbs through the mountains, and it was quite pretty. Though I've never taken it, I'm sure the VIA train through the Rockies is just as beautiful though. It was snowy/rainy/foggy the whole way, but despite this, it was a nice ride. The first half of the trip my car was full of Norwegian teenagers all set for what seemed like a pretty serious cross-country ski trek. They were loud and roudy. I was glad when they got off. Finally we arrived in Oslo mid-afternoon. Here's my complaint about the off-season in Scandinavia. Nothing is open. I got here and settled by 4, but all the museums that I want to see close at 4. In fact, most of them are only open 10-4. This makes it tricky to see more than one in a day, and as I'm only here three days, I can't see all that I want to see. Oh well, I will have to settle for wandering the streets, looking at the pretty. If only it weren't raining...

I forgot, in my ode to Bergen last time, that it is also like Eureka. I cannot believe I could have forgotten this! It too has fjords, and what seemed like the same topography as Eureka, just with houses and streets and trees. Lots of steep streets and switchbacks. It also reminded me of San Francisco for that reason - they had a few Lombardy-style streets. Anyways, to sum up, Bergen is awesome.

Bergen is my new favourite city

2006-03-26T10:47:00.000-05:00

I got up at five this morning, which, since today is the start of summer time in Europe, felt like four. Add to this the fact that two people showed up in my hostel room last night between 11 and 1, and proceded to make lots of noise, AND one of them was a terrible snorer, and I am shocked that at six pm I am still awake. Most of this has to do with the awesomeness that is Bergen. But more on that in a bit, let me fill you in on my last day in Denmark.

I headed a bit out of Copenhagen yesterday, to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humelbæk, about a half hour commuter train ride north of the city. (Named after the three wives of a king, not the state. Conveniently they were all named Louisa, otherwise, the museum would have a more complicated name.) The trip there was beautiful - most of the track lies along the water bewteen Denmark and Sweden, and the sea was beautiful. I had great weather yesterday - super sunny. Not so warm, but I'm getting used to the damp cold. The museum was unfortunately undergoing renovations, so one of its four galleries was closed. It was still well worth the trip. Modern art (circa Andy Warhol, but not so much Andy Warhol) is my favourite, mostly because of the random things that got passed off as art then. Like the cushions painted and shaped like a sandwich and a baked potato that they had. My favourite part ended up being the bronze sculpture garden outside. Normally I'm not a sculpture person, but the location of this garden on a cliff over looking the water made it really awesome. And you had to explore a bit to find all the art. It's always nice to get rewarded for climbing down steep muddy embankments. After the museum I wandered around the town for a bit - it was a sleepy little town, most likely a bedroom community for the big city, but as it was right on the water, so pretty. I like beaches. They had also cleverly planted bushes to block most of the sea breeze when you were sitting on one of their benches. This made sitting for more than a second possible. Those Danes are smart. As I had to get up so early the next morning, I pretty much headed straight home from there, set my clock forward, and went to bed.

This morning I flew to Bergen, the gateway to fjord country, and, as mentioned, my new favourite city. Except for the language, it's a combination of all my favourite Canadian cities. But since it's in Norway, it's that much cooler. It has the seafood and wooden houses of Halifax, the mountains of Banff, and the feel (and rain) of Vancouver. Plus it has the hominess of Ottawa (which I realise only feels homey because it's my home.) After I left my bag at the hostel, I head out to explore the city. Note to any of you planning a trip here: don't arrive on a Sunday in the winter. Not much is open, including the tourist office. But after wandering the old town for a bit, I soon decided that, like Banff, Bergen is best enjoyed away from the town. There's a funicular up one of the mountains, and despite the rain/snow combination I decided to head up to the hills. The train only takes you about half way up the mountain, and then there are walking trails that take you the rest of the way. The hard part done for me by the train, I meandered my way up, imagining the views I would be seeing on a clear day (you could still see the city, so it wasn't a complete waste), until I got a bit too far up, the weather got a bit too blowy, the trails got a bit too ice covered, and I had to admit I wasn't equipped to go the rest of the way. I shunned the train on the way back and walked through the windy path back to town. Almost directly to this internet cafe, where I am currently enjoying a break from the rain that has gotten a bit too hard for proper wandering. It started to clear up a bit on my way, and I was able to see to the next valley. Bergen is pretty. Of the places I've been in Europe, this is the place that I most want to visit again. In the summer, when the weather's better and the trails are less snowy. I think I'm becoming more outdoors-y in my old age.

Tomorrow is my day for "Norway in a Nutshell", a train-boat-bus tour of the local mountains and fjords. I'm hoping I can get it all in, but as there is apparently no tourist information to dispense on Sundays, I am going on hope that there will be more info once I get started on the journey. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I don't get stuck in one of the towns along the way...

One Night in Copenhagen

2006-03-24T13:57:00.000-05:00

Thursday morning I left my sweet paid-for-by-the-EU hotel and got my train to Copenhagen. I had the best seat mate - he was a 60+ man from Northern Norway (just south of the Arctic Circle) who works as a tour guide on a Berlin-Prague tour for a Norwegian company. He takes that train a lot, and could tell me about all the towns we went through. He also guided me through the unexpected (though not if I had actually looked at my map) ferry portion of the trip. There's no bridge between Germany and Denmark, so the train gets on a ferry. Then everyone gets off the train and heads up to the ferry decks, and heads back down 45 minutes later once you're in Denmark. Anyways, bonus ferry trip. My first outside the Maritimes! The ship was also not unlike those ships, except for the duty free. I spent most of the time up on the top deck, enjoying the sea air. Then I got cold. But luckily only a few minutes before it was time to head back to the train. My first task upon arriving was to find my hostel. It's a bit more out of the centre than I thought, and their directions suck, but luckily the woman at the information desk seemed to have fielded the question before. Twenty minutes later I was in my empty five person dorm. Which in the end had one other person in it last night. Benefits of the off season.

I've quickly learned a few things about the Danes. One: all of them speak English. To the point where my pathetic attempts to speak Danish are probably more insulting than just speaking English. (Which I've started to do. Taler de engelsk was getting me odd looks.) Two: most of them are blonde and beautiful. I do not think it's fair that this city should be so good looking while Toronto is so not good looking. (Those of you reading in Toronto excluded, of course.) Even the ones who aren't blonde are still good looking. Sigh. I need to find and date the Danish community at home. Well, maybe not date them all, just a few. Three: EVERYONE has a bike. I finally understand those displaced Europeans who wax poetic about bike riding in Europe. This is their dream city. Super-wide bike lanes everywhere, bike-specific traffic lights, bike racks all over the place. I've seen bike traffic jams there are so many cyclists. Madness. Also, they just leave their bikes anywhere, rack or not. I thought they were leaving them unlocked everywhere, until this afternoon when I saw someone unlock his. They rarely lock them to things, so if you were a very determined bike thief you'd be in good business here. There's this little device that's basically a circle through the back wheel. So that the back wheel won't turn. It's neat.

I've had such a productive day and a half of sightseeing. Copenhagen is very compact, so I've had no troubles walking basically everywhere. And now I almost know where I'm going. I won't bore you with lists, but I made it to the Little Mermaid statue. It's closer to the shore than I thought - which explains why people can keep stealing her head. Tivoli Gardens is closed this time of year, so I won't make it to the other most-famous-attraction in Copenhagen. But I did walk by it. Okay, one last highlight of the day was the super awesome astronomical clock at city hall. It tracks the actual time, the "true" time (ie. noon is when the Sun is directly overhead, so varies significantly over a time zone), SIDEREAL time (relative to the stars, not the Sun), sunrises, sunsets, eclipses, phases of the Moon, Christian holidays that are related to phases of the Moon, the Zodiac, positions of the planets, Julian Day, the precession of the Earth, and more. That thing is awesome. I will enthrall you with pictures when I get home. I can tell you're as excited as me.

I've also started to notice some very definite pros and cons to traveling in the off season. Places are less busy. When Melissa and I toured Europe after graduation, I felt like I was always surrounded by American tourists. This time I feel like I'm surrounded by Danes. Maybe they're tourists too. Despite the fact that I'm still doing touristy things, it feels more authentic than the last time around because of this. It's nice to not hear English except for when you're talking to someone. At the same time, because it's not prime tourist season, places have shorter hours, and my guide book is wrong. I think they did their best to give off-season opening hours and what not, but their descriptions of places are biased to the summer months. And it's colder. It's not super cold, probably about zero, but after a few hours wandering looking at pretty things I start to notice it.

I have one more day here and then I'm off to Bergen on a super-cheap, 8 am flight. Which seemed like a good idea when I booked it, but Daylight Savings time starts Sunday, so it's really a 7 am flight, and I need to be there super-early. Luckily, my slightly out of the way hostel is slightly out of the way towards the airport.

Germany! DOAS! Internet!

2006-03-22T14:46:00.000-05:00

Internet was not all that plentiful during my stay in Bremen, and aside from borrowing computers to check up on my spectrometer still in Eureka I've been going without. So I have a lot to catch up on, blog-wise.

Firstly, this keyboard is almost the same as Canadian keyboards, except that the z and the y are swapped. Also, all the keys aside from the letters/numbers are messed up. It just took me a minute to find "/". And the quotes. I should stick to letters.

Next, if you missed them in the Star last weekend, check out the articles that got written about us and Eureka. I sound like an idiot. Also, it's Beer's LAW, not Beer's equation. Sigh.

I left Toronto Saturday night and enjoyed an uneventful plane ride to Munich. If you'll allow me one last Air Canada rant, I will pose one question. I fly a lot these days, mostly in Canada, and I've been on plenty of AC planes. Why is it that they use the more comfortable planes on domestic, non-overnight, routes? I had very little leg room, and not even those fancy head rests that fold down. I didn't sleep much, though I probably can't blame all of that on the plane. Anyways, in Munich I transferred to Lufthansa, and I'm flying them back, so no more AC for awhile. Yay. In Bremen I found my hotel with no problems, and tried really hard not to sleep. I lost the battle, and instead took an hour long nap before heading "downtown" to check out the sights. Bremen's not all that big, so I don't know if it qualifies as a downtown. There's a bunch of pretty churches and buildings on and off the main square. Also, everything was closed. I eventually found a donair take-away place. Ahh...Middle Eastern food my first night in Germany. Fitting? No...but tasty. Eventually I wandered all that I could wander and head back to the hotel. I again tried not to fall asleep, but I didn't have the energy to read, and the only English channel I get is CNN. Which starts to repeat pretty quickly. So I lost again. I think it was only 8:30.

But it made it pretty easy to get up in the morning for my conference. I won't bore you non-science folk with the details, but it was easily the best conference ever. San Francisco may have been the best location ever, but content-wise, the Third International DOAS Workshop wins hands down. 95% of the talks and posters were either relevant or highly interesting. They do some cool things with DOAS. My talk went well, and I have loads of new ideas to try when I'm back home. Also, I had to tell everyone about the University of Toronto. They had all heard of York, but not UofT. Many of them had heard of Ted or Jim, but hadn't known where they were. It was odd. Also, there's a guy at York doing DOAS. Who apparently knows someone in Engineering at UofT doing DOAS. We have plans to have a mini-DOAS meeting when we get back home. Oh! The next DOAS meeting may be in China in 2008, timed to coincide with the Olympics. A reason to stay in DOAS, or get into it if you're not!

We ended at 3:30 this afternoon, and Florence (owner of the French version of my instrument) and I went to the Science Centre that we've been passing every day on the way to the meeting. I love science centres. Two things of note: (1) they used to have a leaf cutter ant colony, but it recently died. This is interesting because the Ontario Science Centre (which I visited for the first time since childhood this January) also has a recently deceased ant colony. Creepy. (2) They have a "humans" exhibit that contains a walk-in womb. Meli, I took pictures, but they didn't turn out that well. It as cosy and comforting, as you might expect. They had places to sit on the walls. I sat in a womb today. The last time I did that I was negative age.

I'm off to Copenhagen tomorrow morning, when my real travels will begin. I expect I will miss my private room with my own bathroom and double bed. But, Copenhagen/the rest of Scandinavia will make up for it in other ways.

I love you seven dollars

2006-03-14T19:19:00.000-05:00

If you were to place a bet on which of my many planes from Toronto to Eureka and back would be delayed, I bet you wouldn't have bet on my Calgary – Toronto flight. You, my friend, would have lost a lot of money. I suppose I should have known, seeing as how all other flights went well, that I wouldn't actually get back to Toronto on time. The airplane gods must wreck havoc on any trip involving the Arctic. But it makes for one more adventure.

I checked the weather in Toronto yesterday before leaving for the airport, and saw that there were thunderstorms predicted. I dutifully checked my flight, and found that it was still leaving on time. So off to the airport I went and checked myself in and eventually got on the plane. Right about the time we should have been pushing off, the stewardess came on the air to tell those stragglers to sit down so we could get on our way. About five minutes later, the pilot came on to tell us that Toronto was fogged in, and that our flight would most likely be delayed, but to stay seated. About ten minutes later the flight was canceled. They told us to go in, pick up our luggage, and talk to the booking desk to rebook our flights. Right about now I'm dreaming of the Maple Leaf Lounge and first class tickets for a flight later that night. I forgot I was flying Air Canada. When I got off the plane I headed down to the baggage area. I was expecting some sort of customer service representative to be there to tell us about the next flights that we might get on. Of course, there was no one. The other people on my flight were all milled about the first baggage carousel, because there was no indication of where the luggage may come out. Eventually, it did show up there, but there was still no person calming the angry travelers. I found my way up to the ticket counter and instead of a person to talk to, there was a surly woman handing out pieces of paper with 1-800 numbers on them to rebook the flight. Then she pointed me to a pay phone that was out of order. Now that's award winning service.

My first step, according to Air Canada, or rather, their piece of paper, was to call their hotel reservation system for help in selecting and securing a nearby hotel offering discounts to Air Canada customers. As it was only four in the afternoon, and there were still three or four scheduled flights to Toronto that day, I skipped that step and called their booking system. (Though not from the comfort of my hotel room, as instructed. I am a rebel.) The nice woman at the other end of the phone told me that it looked like all flights to Toronto that day would be canceled, and would I like a 7 or 9 am flight the next day. Since she wouldn't let me book a flight that night, I chose hidden option c, the 11 am flight, and called Keith to come get me again. There was not even a hint of first class offering. Or even a taxi voucher to get me to my specially discounted hotel.

While I was waiting for him to get back to the airport, I took a look at the arrivals/departure board. The later Toronto flights were still showing up on the board, but I expected it was a bit too early to cancel them. The WestJet flight leaving at 4 kept getting delayed. When I left the airport at 4:30, it had been pushed back to 6. It turns out the later flights did leave that night, and Air Canada totally lied to me. At the time I was happy that they had outright canceled the flight, because at least I wasn't stuck waiting around the airport for hours. In the end I suppose it was better to get a bonus night in Calgary then wait around not knowing if I would make it out that night. I am of two minds about this. If I hadn't had a place to stay, and had to use their special "discounted" hotel rate, I would have been SUPER angry.

It turned out to be an awesome bonus night in Calgary. We went out for sushi, which I have been missing terribly. (Calgary is closer to an ocean than Toronto. The sushi was good. But expensive.) We also went climbing. And I failed the belay test. Note to Ontario climbers – our method of using a gri-gri is unsafe. The West is going to educate us. They're coming. Wait for it. I didn't get many climbs in, but it was great to get back up the walls, and I look forward to more climbing later in the week. Then we went out for beer and cribbage and my team totally kicked Keith's team's ass. Even though I had never played before.

The *best* part, by far, of my Air Canada canceled flight experience came today on my flight. It turns out that when they cancel your flight, even if you have a Tango class ticket, you get *upgraded* to Latitude class. What does this mean? Same crappy seat, but when they come around with the food cart, you get a SEVEN DOLLAR VOUCHER for food. If you haven't flown Air Canada in awhile, that ends up being a sandwich and a bag of baby carrots. Oh yeah, that's the Air Canada lovin'.

The second best part of my Air Canada experience is that they lost one of my bags. Luckily not the one with most of my clothes and toiletries, but the bag with my alarm clock (Eureka doesn't always have them in the rooms), my arctic gear (better to lose on the way home), and my lab book (WHY did I check this? WHAT was I thinking?). The guy at the baggage counter (who was helpful, albeit a bit weird since he typed all my info into the computer without ever breaking eye contact) told me it was odd to get one bag and not the other. So I'm convinced that it's been stolen/lost to the ether. Oh, and in five days I can file a claim. Once I'm in Germany. I hate that I can't even never fly them again for spite, as I'm flying with them Saturday. Gah.

I'm back in Toronto now for the week, during which time this blog will experience a brief hiatus, and then it'll be back up in “Germany/Scandinavia travel mode” come Sunday. (Though more sporadic, as I won't have constant internet/computer access.)

UPDATE: My bag was returned to me Wednesday night, lab book included. I'm still irked.

The end of an era

2006-03-11T22:22:00.000-05:00

I took my annual trip to Banff today - though much shorter than years past. Stupid GCC, don't they know I count on my week in Banff? Keith and I went skiing/snowboarding. Which was awesome - whenever I go skiing I pledge to ski more, and then I get back to Toronto and I realise that there's no skiing in Ontario. Stupid flat province.

We stopped in Banff for dinner at Wild Bill's Saloon - where the triad spent the first game of the Stanley Cup finals in 2004 (Tampa Bay vs. Calgary). My previous visit to Wild Bill's was notable due to free Kokanee when the Flames started to win and some pictures taken of a saddle and various members of the triad. I am sad to report that the saddle is gone. Where will we take compromising pictures now?

Let's try "science"

2006-03-10T15:14:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Melissa for this awesome link. Internet + atmosphere + science = super cool.

I made it to Calgary today and the sun is super high in the sky and kinda freaking me out. It's also super clear and you can see all the way to the Rockies. More once I've done more that watch Days and nap. (The next two things on my list. Keith has "class" that he can't miss, so I am left to entertain myself.)

Best Day Ever

2006-03-09T20:17:00.000-05:00

Note that there is no qualifier to the best day ever. This is because today was truly the best day EVER. We got out of Resolute on time with no problems. It was great flying today - a bit of cloud, but mostly sunny skies and you could see all the way to the ground. And when there was cloud it was neat. (Remember that I'm an atmosphere geek.) But, what made this the best day EVER was the fact that today I flew a plane. A Dormier 223. For like half an hour. And there were other planes around. (Miles above us, flying over the pole from Europe to the US or vice versa.) But still. Me. Who can't read without her glasses. Flying a PLANE. (Note that I'm wearing my glasses.) The pilots let everyone have a turn at the wheel, mostly, I think, because the plane doesn't have auto-pilot, and it was a pretty boring flight from Resolute to Yellowknife. Regardless of their motives, we all had an amazing time. Pierre wins for best scary moment, when he made the plane dive a bit too quickly for us passengers. Now we're back in Yellowknife and off to find beer on tap. Mmmm... And since it's like -5 here, I've also packed away my snow pants, boots, and parka. Regular winter clothes, how I've missed you.

Back in Resolute, waiting for a plane...

2006-03-09T11:27:00.000-05:00

I always hate leaving Eureka. I love being there and it's hard to leave and head South. This trip flew by, and already I'm back in Resolute. Our charter is taking a bit of a detour heading back to Yellowknife, to drop off the part of the team visiting the school in Grise Fiord. (I'm not going because I'm going to a conference in Germany next weekend.) The runway there is a bit short, and the pilots were worried about landing with all the people, so instead of the more logical stopping there on the way to Resolute, they dropped some of us off here and are flying back to Grise. So I'm back in a familiar place: waiting in Resolute for a plane. I guess it's not a trip to the Arctic if I'm not sitting in the South Camp Inn, waiting for a plane to come in. The weather's good. We shouldn't have to wait long...

I'll be back in Toronto Monday night, and then off to Bremen Saturday evening. So if you're there, and would like to hear more detailed tales of my Arctic adventures, and especially if you want to hear these tales while climbing, let me know!

Fleeting fame and the evil dessert table

2006-03-07T18:22:00.000-05:00

If you checked out thestar.com today you saw my picture on the front page of their webpage. If you clicked on the link, you saw a larger picture of me heading back up to PEARL after my walk the other day. If you saw this early enough in the day, or if you look now in the photo gallery, you'll see the caption describing how I'm making the trek to PEARL from the weather station. And they even spelled my name right. The trek from the weather station is a 20 - 30 minute drive in a 4x4 truck, up 600 m. One could probably walk it, but it would take at least a few hours. As it's uphill, and when not super uphill it's still up a low grade hill, it would probably take me all day. (cf. the time it took me to climb the Grouse Grind.) Needless to say, there was a bit of a miscommunication between our friendly neighbourhood reporter and the person in charge of the site. For a brief moment this morning, I was an Arctic Explorer Extraordinaire. This is also most likely the closest I'll come to being on the front page of a newspaper. Unless my evil plans come to fruition, and then I'll be in all the newspapers. I've already said too much.

In other news today, it may be time for me to come home if only to save me from myself. I'm not ordinarily a dessert junkie, but something happens to me above the Arctic circle and I can't stay away from the sweets. Maybe it's because of the lovely dessert table, which is 95% free of nuts, and has no cross-contamination issues. Oh, this picture is only of the dessert table, there's also a dessert fridge full of pie and berry crisps at the moment. And an ice cream fridge, full of guaranteed to be nut free ice cream. And for some reason we keep bringing multiple desserts with us up to the lab each day. It's 6:40, and I've already had three desserts today. Ordinarily, I wouldn't even have had dinner yet. I also can't stay away from the cheese up here. Every time I walk through the kitchen, I have to have some. Pierre tells me its on account of the cold, and that my body thinks we're entering an ice age, so it needs to bulk up. I'm fully willing to accept this hypothesis, if only so I don't need to admit that it's really because I have no will power. Oh, and because of the altitude. It always comes back to the altitude.... (Those astute readers will note that the weather station is located at sea level.)

Other Arctic Journals

2006-03-06T14:30:00.000-05:00

I want to draw your attention over to the right side of the screen, under links. Our campaign website has been up and running for awhile, and has loads of pretty pictures. Newly added is Peter Calamai's "Arctic Diary". Peter is a science reporter for the Toronto Star reporter who is here this week taking pictures, asking questions, and writing about his experiences.

It's so quiet...

2006-03-06T09:21:00.000-05:00

Tobias and I went for the best walk ever yesterday, down the opposite ridge towards the fjord, and then back up AStrO ridge. This walk is basically my favourite view in all of Eureka the whole way there, and then, on account of the sunny skies, super-great white on crazy blue sky with bright red AStrO in the background all the way back. It also provides plenty of opportunity for sliding down snow covered hills and - newly discovered this year - a tiny tiny amount of climbing! Funnily enough, this is really hard to do in boots rated to minus fourty. When/if I come back this summer, this little stretch of rock had better watch out.

On the way back we walked through the valley between these two ridges. The wind was blocked by the ridges, and was dead calm. Normally you can hear the wind rushing past you, or, when close enough to the lab, or anywhere at the station, the low rumble of the power generators. Literally the only things making noise were us. We stopped and sat there for awhile, listening to absolutely nothing. Almost every day here I find something else to love about the Arctic. This trip has flown by, and weather permitting we'll leave Friday. As much as I look forward to not having to spend ten minutes getting dressed to go outside, and meals that don't involve meat and deep fried things, I'm not looking forward to heading south. Except, maybe, for the sushi. And people (hey that's yous guys). Oh yeah, and my next trip north-east. The life of a grad student is hard sometimes.

Finally some Sun!

2006-03-05T09:20:00.000-05:00

Finally, after five days of varying degrees of thick cloud, the midlatitude air mass that has been sitting over Eureka has finally left. Temperatures are back to normal: 35 below or thereabouts, and the Sun is back. I'm pointing to it in this picture with my club for a hand (if I had thought, I would have taken off my mittens), but the auto feature of my camera clearly didn't read my mind and know that I wanted the Sun visible in the washed out sky. Anyways, it was exciting to finally see it again. This is normally the time of year where I fool myself into thinking that it's super-bright out, and then I look at my pictures a few days later and realise that the skies are still pink and it's still sunrise/set in all of them. After the week we've had, I'm just happy to have something in the sky to look at that isn't cloud. Or blowing snow. Incidentally, that's not my spectrometer to the right. Mine is much cooler. And didn't require modification of the building to install (note the missing guard rail).

A gentle reminder of where I am

2006-03-03T10:41:00.000-05:00

This is my fifth trip to the Arctic, and though I still experience a sense of amazement at the landscape, I sometimes forget exactly how far away from everything I really am. And how dangerous it can actually be to be here. Yesterday I was reminded of this. Another couple of firsts for me - the first time the truck has gone off the road, the first time we've had to call to the station to get towed, and my first real Eureka-style blizzard.

The station manager called up to the lab yesterday afternoon to tell us a storm was coming in, and that if we wanted to get to the station, we should leave soon. Pierre, who had been at the station with one of the trucks, was on his way up to get us. While he was fighting the drifting snow back up, we packed up and Oleg tried to get the other truck started. (There are ten of us up here this year, so we need to take two trucks every day.) Unfortunately, that truck is a bit temperamental, and since it hadn't had its 8 hour cooling off period, refused to start. Meaning that Pierre would have to do two runs to get us all down from the lab. It wasn't blowing all that hard yet, so we thought it would be alright. I managed to weasel my way into the first truck load of seven people. Driving down, the winds had gotten stronger. In some places we couldn't see the tracks the truck had made just a few minutes earlier. Since the road gets pretty unidentifiable in conditions like these, there are marker posts every few feet with shiny tape on them, so you can tell where the road is. Some of these posts are missing, and Pierre and I were commenting on how that wasn't really a good thing. Karma being the bitch that it is, about half way down to the station, in a place with a few missing posts, and one badly placed post, one of our wheels went off the road and into a ditch. Another one followed. It was pretty warm out - minus 15 - so the time we spent trying to dig, push, and pray our way out was not terrible from that standpoint. It was a bit frustrating that the testosterone levels shot up, and suddenly I was stuck on the side of a road at 80 degrees North with three men who were experts on getting a truck out of a ditch in the Arctic. And who wouldn't admit that we were STUCK. There was a two foot drop off from the road to the bottom of the ditch. At one point we had the left side wheels in the ditch and the right side wheels nicely displaying the concept of conservation of angular momentum, as they were a few inches off the ground. Ten minutes in, Kaley and I were pretty sure we weren't going anywhere without help. One hour in, the front end loader was on its way to pull us out. We broke a rope, and then on the second rope it pulled us up and out of the ditch, and we made it back to the station just in time for the winds to really pick up. By the time the loader got back, we couldn't see across to the old building (about 10 metres). If we had waited much longer to call for a tow, they couldn't have come out in the weather and we would have been stuck, seven in a truck, waiting for the winds to die down. Which would have been overnight. Oh yeah, I'm in the Arctic.

Luckily, we did get back home, leaving only a few people up at the lab overnight. (Which is well equipped with food, a computer projector, movies, and beds, just for such an occasion.) The rest of us hunkered down to listen and watch the winds getting worse and worse. The new building shakes. I was watching a couple of lights out the window, one 10 metres away, one 15, to gage the visibility. For about an hour, the furthest one was out of sight, and the closest one was blowing in and out of the snow. The building they were attached to was not at all visible. The windows in the rec room that were receiving the full wind gusts were visibly moving. This was the strongest storm they've had in the new building (open since September) and I'm happy to say it withstood the winds. And in case any of you were worried, the satellite TV held out through Survivor, only going out a few times, and only for a few seconds. Then the winds picked up and the satellite dish was moving so much it couldn't hold the signal.

This morning we woke up to winds that had died down significantly. It's still blowing out there, but nothing near last night. A plane is meant to come in today, bringing new people and taking away old, and last I heard they were planning to leave Yellowknife as scheduled. This means the front end loader has to be used to clear the road to the airport and the runway, so can't clear the road up to the lab. So we're stuck at the station, and they're stuck at the lab, and I'm just glad I didn't have to spend a night in a truck off the side of the road at 80 degrees North in a blizzard with six of my closest friends.

The Farthest North I've Ever Been

2006-03-01T23:07:00.000-05:00

We were shrouded in cloud again today, making for badly contrasting photos, but this, my friends, is the farthest North I've ever been. We didn't take a GPS with us, so I cannot quantify the exact latitude, but it was at the end of the AStrO ridge, down the steep bit. (I realise this means nothing to you. I also realise that walking a little bit more North of the lab isn't really shattering my previous Northernmost record. It's the little things that keep you going here. Like Hershey's Kisses filled with caramel.) This picture is looking North-North West. This afternoon, Kelly, Paul, Oleg, Tobias, and I headed off for a hike along the next ridge over, and then back on our ridge. Half way down the first ridge, it occurred to me that I had never walked that way before, and that with every step I took I was the furthest North I'd ever been. It is really hard to stop walking North when you realise this. Really, the only things stopping me from walking all the way to the water were (a) no one else wanted to, (b) we didn't have time if we wanted to get back to the station for dinner, and (c) it was DOWN to the water, and when you're wearing a few pounds of gear, and when you've been somewhat sedentary for the past week and a half, and when you're at 600 m altitude (I blame everything on altitude - c.f. any trip to Banff) with every step down you are painfully aware that there will be a compensating step up, if you would like to make it back to the lab. (Which is located at the crest of the ridge, so there's really no way you can walk and NOT have to walk up hill back. This was bad planning on the part of the people who chose the site.) Speaking of painfully, the walk back to the lab after this brave venture into parts unknown was perhaps the hardest walk I have ever done. Picture the hardest walk you've ever done. Then put on a really big parka, boots, and snow pants. Then make it only about -15 out, so you're over-heating even without the walking. Then make it up rocks that are loose, and covered with snow, so you can't really tell what's going to fall where when you step. Now you can imagine the fun we had walking back to the lab. But complaining aside, it was a fun hike, and now I can really say I've been further North than you.

There is a castle in a cloud...

2006-02-28T08:40:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning to discover that overnight Eureka had transformed into a tropical weather station, with the temperature at -15.8. Up from the -25 or so we had yesterday. The lab where we work, being 600 m above sea level, often enjoys a temperature inversion - where the temperature increases as you go up in altitude from the surface as opposed to the normal decrease. So ordinarily when you see that it's -40 at the station, it's more like -30 here. Yesterday it was -11. Today it's -9. Really. I invite you to check the weather where you are to see how it compares. Also, the cloud base in Eureka is about 590 m, so PEARL is sitting in a cloud. It's almost warm enough to make snow men, though you wouldn't be able to see them from a few feet away.

Best Day Ever in Eureka

2006-02-27T11:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was yet another lazy Sunday in Eureka after staying up a wee bit too late the night before. (I would like to point out that I went to bed at least 3 hours earlier than the last group, unfortunately, this was still 2 in the morning.) It was another sleep-in Sunday morning, with brunch being at 11, so at least I got some semblance of sleep, unlike years past where I've stayed up just as late but gotten up at 7. In the morning I was rewarded, upon opening my window, by seeing a herd of musk ox right behind the station, just before they ran out of view. I got my over-wined ass out of my pjs, found Tobias, and headed out to see if we could get any closer. There was a group of five of them up a hill about a 10 minute walk away, and so we, as quietly as possible, made our way closer to them. Tobias took some hopefully great pictures with his old-timey film camera. We didn't want to get too close to animals that aren't used to seeing humans and have horns all the better to gore you with, but we got close enough to get a super look at them. Musk ox are awesome.

After brunch, we decided that there was no real need to go up to the lab immediately (those running non-automated instruments had gone up at 8 as usual), so after doing a bit of work on my close-to-being-finished Mantra 2004 paper (really!), Oleg and I decided to go ice skating. The water up here comes from a diverted creek, which I suppose in the end comes from melted glaciers and snow. There's an open reservoir with pipes going to the station. Water at the lab is trucked in from this supply. Once the reservoir freezes over, people can skate on it. This is normally more of a fall activity, since (a) there's not as much snow that needs clearing off and (b) it's not -40, but Oleg and and I put on our St. Petersburg/Ottawa brave faces and out we went. There's not much snow up here, but it's packed REALLY well. I am quite sore today after our clearing efforts. But it's sort of my climbing muscles, so I maybe won't be as bad when I get home? (Ahh...it's funny because I'm going to be so terrible.) Anyways, the Eureka reservoir is not quite the Rideau Canal, but super-fun nonetheless. Ice acts differently at -40 than at warmer temperatures - it makes this cool squeeking noise that sort of sounds like the ice is cracking beneath you. Once we get more Sun we'll be able to go without skipping out on work at the lab for the day. Eureka is fun.

The dangers of tobogganing in Eureka

2006-02-26T12:22:00.000-05:00

Those of you who remember my trip to Eureka in 2004 will no doubt remember the tobogganing that Tobias, Keith, and I participated in. You will also no doubt remember this awesome picture. (And those awesome videos...) Last year, the little red toboggan that used to reside at the lab had mysteriously disappeared. Oleg found it carefully stored in the station garage this year, and so yesterday Oleg, Paul, Tobias, and I head to the hills to defy death as we hurtled down the steep steep slopes surrounding PEARL. And defy death we did. There's not as much snow around this year, so the sharp rocks that make up the ridge the lab sits on are covered by only a small layer of protective snow. So only a few slides into our adventures we wussed out and came inside. Tobias quit after one run, and seemed to escape unscathed. I bounced a little funny at the end of a run and ended up with a giant, painful bruise on my bum. Oleg, while going over this hill backwards (I don't think this picture quite captures his "oh shit" facial expression as he realised he was going over this hill backwards), landed on a rock that managed to cut him through his parka, snowpants, pants, and underwear. Paul took a rock to the knee and has a nice gash to sew up in his pants and snowpants (and knee for that matter). The hills of Eureka are fighting back, and they're not going to take us trying to slide down them for fun.

Ozzy Ozone

2006-02-24T12:20:00.001-05:00

While doing legitimate research on NOx produced by lightning, I found this amusing tale of Ozzy Ozone and his mission to protect good people from the harmful effects of ultra-violet radiation. (Click here to be taken to the page with the video.) I need a hat like that, to use when I'm fighting UV.

Despite some errors or misrepresentations of the truth, it's a nice little explanation of the basics of ozone depletion for kids. So, if you've ever wondered why I come up here, this video is for you. Points to non-atmospheric scientists who can tell me what the errors are. This is your chance to prove you've been listening to me all these years! OK, points to atmospheric scientists too. Points can be redeemed for prizes, like musk ox and caribou jerky, fancy Arctic teas, or other products that can be purchased at the Yellowknife airport.

Survival skills and musk ox

2006-02-23T11:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon Tobias and I went for the first of what I hope will be many walks around the lab. PEARL (Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Lab - if you want to impress your friends) is about 600 m above sea level, on a ridge left over from when the glaciers came through however long ago. There are a few ridges around, and a quick 15 minute walk will take you down the one we're on, across a valley, and up the next one over. Which provides my favourite view in all of Eureka. Which, like all things here, does not get fully captured by the lens. But this is by far the best picture I have ever taken. Ever. I don't throw that word around lightly. Far in the background you might be able to make out Cape Hare, which I have aspirations of skiing down some day, and in front of that is Slidre Fiord, home of the Eureka Weather Station. The Sun may be pretty, but it's covered by clouds - not so great for most of the measurements that happen up here. That's Tobias collapsed on the ridge - it's a fairly steep climb, and you'd be surprised how quickly you can overheat in full Arctic gear. If at any point in the year I wonder why exactly I want to go to the High Arctic in February, this view is the answer. Pink skies and white snow, with no signs of people for as far as the eye can see (provided you don't look at the weather station or the lab). Eureka is the prettiest place I've ever been to, and I'm reminded of that every time I look out the window.

Of course there IS other life around these parts, the most dangerous of which is the polar bear. They actually aren't seen all that often around here at this time of year, since they need open water to eat, but every now and then one does make it up here, and I've been told you don't want to run into a hungry polar bear. There are also wolves, who may be cute, but would eat you and your family without batting an eyelash. A somewhat wise man once taught me two survival skills for use in these parts. The first is to touch any exposed parts of your face with your bare hands every once in awhile to make sure you don't have frostbite. The second was to scan the horizon for predators when you're walking about. It occurred to me yesterday while practising this survival skill that if I did see a wolf or a polar bear on that horizon, I would have absolutely no plan of action. Do you run back to the station to avoid becoming dinner? What it the bear/wolf hasn't seen you yet, and this draws their attention? Do you stay still and wait for them to go away? This seems to be wasting precious getting-away time. I suppose I would quietly make my way back to other people, but I'm pretty sure that if the bear/wolf wanted to eat me it could. Maybe this is why I have to sign a waiver before the university lets me come up here. Maybe I shouldn't be walking outside. Maybe I should knock over Tobias on my dash back to the lab.

The most exciting thing that happened yesterday was by far the herd of musk ox we saw on our way back to the station last night. They were a bit too far from the road for good pictures, so I'll save you the dark blurs on the horizon, but they were close enough to see. This is my fifth trip to the Arctic and my very first musk ox sighting. (Aside from stuffed ones in airports/hotels and the steak I was treated to on my first trip up. SO tasty - picture the best steak you've ever had and then multiply it by a thousand.) (OK, this doesn't work if you're vegetarian. Picture really good tofu, but then make it taste like a really good steak.) They were still by the road this morning, so I'm hoping they stay around long enough to get a really good view. They are amazing animals. They seem almost prehistoric, and I wonder how they survive up here. And they're fast! They heard the truck and took off up the hill they were on. Now all I have left to see in terms of Eureka wildlife is a polar bear. And maybe it's a good thing I haven't seen one of those....

Picture-fest

2006-02-22T09:41:00.000-05:00

So now that my spectrometer is up on the roof, and I have more access to free time and internet, I can provide you with shiny new pictures of shiny new adventures.
Me writing on the ceiling at Bullock's Bistro in Yellowknife, home of the giant buffalo steak:

Somewhere over the NWT, with the Sun behind us:

Oleg about to kick some shuffleboard ass:

Polar sunrise!

Eureka! I have found it! (The joke that never gets old)

2006-02-20T12:30:00.000-05:00

After a long, long day on a little, little plane, we finally arrived in Eureka Saturday. The plane was a bit bigger than the twin otter that we normally fly up in, and definately more comfortable, but something like eight hours of flying later I couldn't feel my knees or my bum. But in the end, despite head winds, we got to Eureka in the evening.
Which is by far the best time to arrive. On account of the madness of Saturday night in Eureka. Really. Weekends don't mean much here, since if something breaks and that's your job, you have to fix it, regardless of the day/time. (This especially applies to the guy who looks after the power.) Sundays are the lazier day here, marked by the fact that breakfast is cancelled and brunch is served at 11. So the station staff treat it as a bit of a party night, and drinks are seved at the bar. The pool table is in full use, and everyone stays up until the wee hours of the morning. (Not to say that no drinking occurs on the other nights of the week, especially if it's someone's last night there...) In the past, our group has always ignored this fact and continued leaving for the station at 8 in the morning. When we arrived this time, the PEARL operators told us that we would leave after brunch, so we all got a sleep in morning. So we could fully partake in the Saturday night festivities. I learned how to play shuffleboard, not the old-person's game at the hotel in Florida, but the old-person's game on a table with couronne-like pucks. Pierre and I tied Kelly (met tech) and Oleg two games to two. Now that I know how to play we'll kick more ass next time.
The other exciting thing about being in Eureka this time around is the brand new station and accomodation. The past two summers have been a bit crazy here, as the new 13 million dollar facility has been built. It finally opened in September. It doesn't have quite the same charm as the old building (which was decorated like a 1960's basement, complete with wood panelling), but it is bigger and brighter. The bedrooms are huge, with plenty of room for me to do my pilates. (I swear I'll keep it up this year.) The staff now have their own private washrooms, so Kaley and I are left to share the "transient" women's washroom. One of the faucets still has that blue plastic protector stuff on the drain. It's shiny and new. They're still having a lot of growing pains, most of them a result of the fact that government contracts go to the lowest bidder, regardless of experience building in the high Arctic. Basically they built a building that would work fine in the south, but not so much here. The extra space is nice, but it takes a lot more energy to heat. The power generators keep overheating trying to keep up, and in the short time we've been here we've had three power outages. Which is three more than we've had any other year.
Measurement-wise things are going well. I got my spectrometer in its roof hatch this morning after a day of tests. They built a platform underneath the hatches over the summer, so I could do it all from the inside, without having to carry everything up on the roof and lower it in. I got my first spectra just before noon, and the spectrometer is happily clicking away now. So, after a few days of hectic-ness, I'm finally left to enjoy the quiet Arctic and the super-long sunrise. Pictures when the network is a bit less wonky.

Watch out Yukon and Newfoundland

2006-02-17T22:34:00.000-05:00

I'm glad to hear winter's hit Toronto slightly, because damn it's cold out here. The wimpy winter we've had so far has not at all prepared me for even the -23 with windchill that Yellowknife is dishing out. I keep telling myself this is warm, but it isn't, and I am going to be cold come tomorrow and the final push north to Eureka.
95$ on taxis later and Tobias and I braved the cold and distance yesterday and checked out Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. We were trying to be all cool and "this isn't cold" and do some window shopping at the multiple cool stores, but in the end ended up hunkering down in an awesome tea shop while waiting to meet Vicky's sister for dinner. They had a giant wall of tea, and a very helpful guy to help us navigate. This was my whirlwind tour of wild rose country.
Today we flew to Yellowknife, diamond capital of North America. This is my first trip to the NWT, and leaves my list of provinces/territories not visited at two. (Though I might admit that Manitoba doesn't count.) It's a city of about 20 000, and SO different from Nunavut. For one, there's a lot of money here in diamonds and oil. We took a tour of the legislature (Kaley likes to collect them), and our awesome tour guide was super helpful with our ten thousand questions about the NWT. There's 11 official languages here. That's the biggest difference between here and Nunavut. (Or at least, the one that I've learned in my half day here.) There's really only one first nation there - the inuit - and so the government can easily promote traditional practices and customs. The school we visited in Resolute has even encorporated a lot of that into their curriculum. Here, with so much more diversity, the government can't very well promote one culture's values over another. As a result, the motivation to pass on the culture to the next generation has to be more community and family driven. I suppose this is probably a more traditional way of learning about your culture, but southern culture is pretty pervasive. Most kids would probably rather watch TV than learn their grandparents' language. Most of those 11 languages are in danger of dying out.
Digressions aside, Yellowknife is a really neat city, and I hope I can visit again. I had a buffalo steak for dinner. It would have been musx-ox, but they didn't have any in. Buffalo is pretty tasty too. The restaurant lets you sign the walls, so we of course left our campaign and CSA stickers, and I signed my name. Pictures to come when I get them from Tobias.
Tomorrow is the last leg of the journey, the eight hour trip to Eureka (with fuel stops in Cambridge Bay and Resolute). Our flight leaves at 7 in the morning, but they've promised a tasty lunch, so I might forgive them.

Thanks for being cold, Alberta

2006-02-16T17:28:00.000-05:00

The trip north has begun, and Edmonton is welcoming us with a taste of what is to come. It's slightly scary that this will seem warm in a few days, but until then, please allow me my complaints. It's -33 with the wind chill, -22 without. It was zero when I left Toronto. Brr.
It occurred to me on the flight here that the first time I ever flew it was to Edmonton, and I haven't been back since. We spent the week at the mall, which was super-awesome to a nine-year old. Tonight, I think we'll try to check out some more grown-up friendly places, once we figure out how exactly to get downtown from the mecca of suburbia that Leduc appears to be.

First Post Ever

2006-02-09T16:02:00.000-05:00

In an effort to be the queen of the blogosphere (not pictured at left) before my trip up North, when the real blogging will begin, I am practicing this whole "posting" thing (read: procrastinating). I feel I have already mastered putting in pictures. And perhaps run-on sentences. Now I just need to master interesting things to say.