Mealtime conversations

[jay]

One of the fascinating things about mealtimes up here is the lack of independent restaurants -- if you're a visitor, you pretty much have to eat in the B&B-sized hotel dining room. Close quarters at times, but one meets people from many backgrounds and with interesting stories. Oil workers, miners, geologists, Inuit trappers and hunters, prospectors, biologists, Mars-project folks, weather station staff, Polar Shelf guys... last night at dinner I stumbled into a conversation with two grad students just out of the Mars Society hab on Devon Island, near our camp (biology, plasma physics) and a geologist and a miner who were decommissioning an exploration/prospecting camp (also on Devon Island, strangely). We talked about our field seasons, the geology of the island, impact alterations... the biologist hadn't seen shatter cones before, so I retrieved one from my room. But it could have been someone looking for diamonds... or measuring the extent of sea ice... or even tourists off to Earth Watch on Bylot Island. I've eaten meals with all of those. A nice side benefit. And anyone that comes to this rather inhospitable part of the world almost always has some story, some motivation, even some personal brokenness that goads them. And energy and enthusiasm... even in the fuel-truck driver with whom I had lunch yesterday.

I'm about to leave for the airport, headed for Edmonton. It's been a good season.

Comments

[futabachan.livejournal.com]

I envy you for the whole Devon Island thing -- apart from the Mars exploration end of it, I've been kinda sorta looking at maybe planning an attempt at the Northwest Passage for some future year once I have a suitably sturdy cruising boat in the water. (I thought that the schooner I'm going to be building next year could do it, but it can't -- hence, the "kinda sorta"-ness.) Nunavut looks really beautiful (especially around Kugluktuk), and I'd love to get there some year....

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

The Northwest Passage runs along the southern coast of Devon Island... as the pack ice retreats further every summer, it is increasingly navigable to non-icebreaking craft. I expect cruise ships within ten years... tankers before that.

Nunavut is huge, mostly barren, stark, and breathtakingly beautiful. The best of my photos don't reflect it adequately.

And if you have 25K FF miles on any Star Alliance airlines, you can get to Iqualuit or even Resolute with an ordinary US/Canada-area reward ticket... (smile)

[dancing-star.livejournal.com]

I love places that seat people together and not apart. I wish more places did such. Sounds like you had a great time. I for one have been loving what you've been posting, pictures, words and all. It seems so exciting.

[katster.livejournal.com]

It's possible at some point in the very near future that Canada will be my adopted homeland (along with the US, which is my real homeland), and I'd like to see all of Canada along with all of the US. Besides, it sounds strangely beautiful up there.

-kat

[vokzal.livejournal.com]

some personal brokenness that goads them

Hmm. Interesting thought.