Sunlit northern intensity ;)
Jul. 29th, 2006 08:58 amI'm in Resolute now... left Devon Island yesterday (twice!) and am now semi-conscious again after a shower, laundry, 8 hours of sleep and breakfast.
The past 36 hours were harried... we were up drilling until 2am Friday morning, went back, tried to sleep (it was sunny -- with direct strong light, there was both a greenhouse effect (warm) and it was a bit like sleeping on a beach). Up at 7:30am, breakfast, back to the drill site to drill a bit more in a demo for a reporter from the Chicago Herald-Tribune. After he left, we frantically started disassembling and packing -- the plane that brought the reporter would be back in three hours for half of our group. We hauled our cargo back to camp, made the departing flight. I got lunch with a group of visiting elders from Grise Fiord, went and took down *my* tent and packed, and then got an empty seat to Grise Fiord (with the visitors) and back again.
That was beautiful. Out over the Northwest Passage, clear, great visibility, cliffs of both Devon and Ellesmere on either side 20 miles apart, huge ice cap on the latter, icebergs beneath us in the channel... the approach into Grise Fiord was tricky, it is curved and the plane banks just short of a mountain in order to land. I don't know how they do it in weather. I was there for a short refueling stop, long enough to hide a geocache at the terminal building but not go into the village, and then back again to Devon Island. There, we loaded the two huge drill boxes and headed to Resolute -- not many came out to see us off, as it was in the middle of dinner in camp, so no real farewell to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dangerpudding (who is sick) or geminieve or anyone else there.
We landed here around 8:30pm along with the reporter, waited for the next arriving planeload (tourists coming from Arctic Watch) and then Ozzie picked us up. Late dinner, laundry first -- no sense showering before I have clean clothes, especially underwear. Shower... food... and then I fell asleep at the keyboard, around midnight.
Just conked out...cyan_blue had asked about setting up a webcam to Wine and Song there, but it wouldn't have worked anyway with this *slow* connection at the South Camp Inn. I know, I'm spoiled having had a 1Mbps connection to the crater floor over the past 2 weeks.
Today -- deal with air cargo, and 3 flights to get to Edmonton around 8pm there. Plans tomorrow for Sunday brunch withmouseman before my afternoon flights back home.
I have a really slow connection -- lots of users, small link -- so will refrain from posting photos until Edmonton, I think. And I have another AVI file of landing and taking off from Devon Island in a Twin Otter... ;)
The past 36 hours were harried... we were up drilling until 2am Friday morning, went back, tried to sleep (it was sunny -- with direct strong light, there was both a greenhouse effect (warm) and it was a bit like sleeping on a beach). Up at 7:30am, breakfast, back to the drill site to drill a bit more in a demo for a reporter from the Chicago Herald-Tribune. After he left, we frantically started disassembling and packing -- the plane that brought the reporter would be back in three hours for half of our group. We hauled our cargo back to camp, made the departing flight. I got lunch with a group of visiting elders from Grise Fiord, went and took down *my* tent and packed, and then got an empty seat to Grise Fiord (with the visitors) and back again.
That was beautiful. Out over the Northwest Passage, clear, great visibility, cliffs of both Devon and Ellesmere on either side 20 miles apart, huge ice cap on the latter, icebergs beneath us in the channel... the approach into Grise Fiord was tricky, it is curved and the plane banks just short of a mountain in order to land. I don't know how they do it in weather. I was there for a short refueling stop, long enough to hide a geocache at the terminal building but not go into the village, and then back again to Devon Island. There, we loaded the two huge drill boxes and headed to Resolute -- not many came out to see us off, as it was in the middle of dinner in camp, so no real farewell to
dangerpudding (who is sick) or geminieve or anyone else there. We landed here around 8:30pm along with the reporter, waited for the next arriving planeload (tourists coming from Arctic Watch) and then Ozzie picked us up. Late dinner, laundry first -- no sense showering before I have clean clothes, especially underwear. Shower... food... and then I fell asleep at the keyboard, around midnight.
Just conked out...
cyan_blue had asked about setting up a webcam to Wine and Song there, but it wouldn't have worked anyway with this *slow* connection at the South Camp Inn. I know, I'm spoiled having had a 1Mbps connection to the crater floor over the past 2 weeks.Today -- deal with air cargo, and 3 flights to get to Edmonton around 8pm there. Plans tomorrow for Sunday brunch with
mouseman before my afternoon flights back home.I have a really slow connection -- lots of users, small link -- so will refrain from posting photos until Edmonton, I think. And I have another AVI file of landing and taking off from Devon Island in a Twin Otter... ;)
