Bumpy ride
Jul. 31st, 2003 12:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayLate yesterday afternoon, I arrived in Resolute. Not without travail... there were snow flurries that delayed us... then we took off, and had to circle around and return to the camp runway 15 minutes later because the the visibility in Resolute was too poor to fly onward. I was in the Twin Otter with three other passengers and a lot of cargo, including a 55 gal urine drum...
And before we diverted back to camp, a dog onboard became airsick and vomited. Sigh. After a wait for better weather and plane cleanup, we took off a second time and made it here. As we loaded, I noticed a familiar phenomenon... the soil behaves as a liquid, rolling in waves underfoot (without sinking in -- it has enough density and self-adhesion that we can bounce it, but feet (or airplane balloon tires) don't sink. Similar to a waterbed in its motions.
For the curious (and bandwidth-rich), there's a 2MB AVI movie of the ground motions here.
We arrived in Resolute to blowing snow... and hotel incompetence. After we departed Devon, Polar Shelf had called the Co-op Hotel and told them we were enroute (after the weather hold). They (Polar Shelf) offloaded our gear in the snow next to the plane expecting a momentary hotel pickup. We waited for *a half hour* in blowing heavy snow, our bags getting soaked. A Co-op SUV drove by on the road, but didn't stop. Then I asked Polar Shelf if we could at least wait in their high bay. So we carried our bags there, across the apron. And waited another half-hour. Polar Shelf called the Co-op four times. Finally, we hitchhiked and got a lift into town with some Polar Shelf dorm residents going to buy groceries in town.
Compounding things... Matt (a colleague from the same flight) and I arrive covered in snow, straggling in with wet bags, and the Co-op manager has given our rooms away. She claimed that Polar Shelf told her that the second flight wasn't coming in at all today. Then she said that she knew about us waiting, but didn't stop earlier (leaving us in the snow next to the Twin Otter) because she had first picked up some people at the airport and she thought she had a full load. She was not in the least apologetic. "Matthew was supposed to go back and get you, then I sent Ray", she said with a dismissive hand-wave. She claimed to have not received the later calls from Polar Shelf.
Then, the issue of having no rooms. She said that we could either sleep in Ray's house (couch), or in sleeping bags in the lounge. Charged full rate in either case. Our rooms were already given to the group that she had picked up. I said that that wasn't acceptable -- I was already pretty steamed after being left outside in the snow for an hour. She asked me why I was complaining, after all I should be grateful for heated floorspace after being in a tent. I demanded a room, not space in someone's house. After heated words on both sides (in front of onlookers) she offered to call her arch-rival Ozzie and see if he had any rooms. He did, so Matt and I went to the South Camp Inn. It's pleasant, comfortable, and has better food than the Co-op Hotel.
Out my window... looking more stereotypically Arctic with the July snowfall. Just an inch or two.
This is a picture of Resolute at midnight, looking northwest. My hotel is the tan building in the foreground. I don't know why I like taking pictures of Resolute -- it's not beautiful, rather ramshackle and blown and small -- other than it seems so anomalous in this landscape. The secondmost northerly civil settlement (Grise Fijord is the furthest north, on Ellesmere). An outpost of humanity... I think that that's part of it. Even the houses have add-on little robing/disrobing rooms at the entrances, to conserve heat in -40C winter. Like airlocks...
Today, I went over to the air cargo depot and shipped my bags back home -- they're on their way to Ottawa now, thence to California. Then took an afternoon nap. Tried to control my headache and nausea (bad rice pilaf at lunch -- mushroom fragments, I thought I'd avoided them).
And chatted online withpatgreene and geekchick tonight, and was thus motivated to take one more Arctic flower photo, of some bursting buttercups:
Tomorrow I'll leave here on a 2pm turboprop flight to Cambridge Bay, then a 737 from there to Yellowknife and on to Edmonton, arriving around 7:40pm on Canadian North.
And before we diverted back to camp, a dog onboard became airsick and vomited. Sigh. After a wait for better weather and plane cleanup, we took off a second time and made it here. As we loaded, I noticed a familiar phenomenon... the soil behaves as a liquid, rolling in waves underfoot (without sinking in -- it has enough density and self-adhesion that we can bounce it, but feet (or airplane balloon tires) don't sink. Similar to a waterbed in its motions.
For the curious (and bandwidth-rich), there's a 2MB AVI movie of the ground motions here.
We arrived in Resolute to blowing snow... and hotel incompetence. After we departed Devon, Polar Shelf had called the Co-op Hotel and told them we were enroute (after the weather hold). They (Polar Shelf) offloaded our gear in the snow next to the plane expecting a momentary hotel pickup. We waited for *a half hour* in blowing heavy snow, our bags getting soaked. A Co-op SUV drove by on the road, but didn't stop. Then I asked Polar Shelf if we could at least wait in their high bay. So we carried our bags there, across the apron. And waited another half-hour. Polar Shelf called the Co-op four times. Finally, we hitchhiked and got a lift into town with some Polar Shelf dorm residents going to buy groceries in town.
Compounding things... Matt (a colleague from the same flight) and I arrive covered in snow, straggling in with wet bags, and the Co-op manager has given our rooms away. She claimed that Polar Shelf told her that the second flight wasn't coming in at all today. Then she said that she knew about us waiting, but didn't stop earlier (leaving us in the snow next to the Twin Otter) because she had first picked up some people at the airport and she thought she had a full load. She was not in the least apologetic. "Matthew was supposed to go back and get you, then I sent Ray", she said with a dismissive hand-wave. She claimed to have not received the later calls from Polar Shelf.
Then, the issue of having no rooms. She said that we could either sleep in Ray's house (couch), or in sleeping bags in the lounge. Charged full rate in either case. Our rooms were already given to the group that she had picked up. I said that that wasn't acceptable -- I was already pretty steamed after being left outside in the snow for an hour. She asked me why I was complaining, after all I should be grateful for heated floorspace after being in a tent. I demanded a room, not space in someone's house. After heated words on both sides (in front of onlookers) she offered to call her arch-rival Ozzie and see if he had any rooms. He did, so Matt and I went to the South Camp Inn. It's pleasant, comfortable, and has better food than the Co-op Hotel.
Out my window... looking more stereotypically Arctic with the July snowfall. Just an inch or two.
This is a picture of Resolute at midnight, looking northwest. My hotel is the tan building in the foreground. I don't know why I like taking pictures of Resolute -- it's not beautiful, rather ramshackle and blown and small -- other than it seems so anomalous in this landscape. The secondmost northerly civil settlement (Grise Fijord is the furthest north, on Ellesmere). An outpost of humanity... I think that that's part of it. Even the houses have add-on little robing/disrobing rooms at the entrances, to conserve heat in -40C winter. Like airlocks...
Today, I went over to the air cargo depot and shipped my bags back home -- they're on their way to Ottawa now, thence to California. Then took an afternoon nap. Tried to control my headache and nausea (bad rice pilaf at lunch -- mushroom fragments, I thought I'd avoided them).
And chatted online with
patgreene and geekchick tonight, and was thus motivated to take one more Arctic flower photo, of some bursting buttercups:Tomorrow I'll leave here on a 2pm turboprop flight to Cambridge Bay, then a 737 from there to Yellowknife and on to Edmonton, arriving around 7:40pm on Canadian North.
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-31 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2003-07-31 08:01 am (UTC)Anyway, this year we had someone making a "let's go to Mars"-themed music video -- if you can think of an art project with Devon Island and Mars tie-ins that could be done from camp next summer, likewise contact Pascal and you could possibly get a sponsored slot. Educational/public outreach projects also have gotten a favorable reception in the past...
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Date: 2003-07-31 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-03 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-31 06:48 am (UTC)I don't think I ever mentioned to you that I read that LA Times article in the Daily Yomiuri in Japan. I showed it to a few people at work and pointed out your quotation. It was rather nice to see the research so widely discussed.
I'm still recovering from jetlag but I should be around to greet you in E-town.
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Date: 2003-07-31 08:14 am (UTC)I'm pleased that the project got more discussion, even though Pascal claims that he was misquoted in the Times article. It's a bit strange to contemplate bits of one's chatter about analog sites being read in 100K Japanese newspapers, but I suppose not qualitatively different than receiving worldwide comments to online posts. Once I had several interviews included in an ITV documentary that aired in the UK -- over the next month, somehow several people found my address and began sending me letters from Britain describing their perpetual motion machines and UFO theories. None of that thus far ;-).
I'm looking forward to meeting you! But I'm a bit surprised that you're up at this hour, given that it's 1am or so, old-time.
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Date: 2003-07-31 07:12 am (UTC)it is through your eyes I get to experiment these places. I love that picture of the 'isolated town'.. it seems so.. real and all. And so very. defining in so many ways. I love it. And that picture of the flower too.
I just want to thank you for posting this on your LJ so that I can read about it.. you're amazing.
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Date: 2003-07-31 08:20 am (UTC)The pictures... I only post about one in four. So they're the best that I can manage. Thanks for the encouragement!
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Date: 2003-07-31 08:46 am (UTC)That is simply.... unbelievable.
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Date: 2003-07-31 07:07 pm (UTC)So just what kind of material is that there?
Can I get a job down there? That would be very cool.
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Date: 2003-08-03 09:27 pm (UTC)