My Last Post

Huh…in many ways I thought this day would NEVER come, and in others it seems like it’s here much too soon. I’m talking, of course, about my last post from Alert.

Between my two rotations up here, I’ve lived at 82.5°N for a grand total of 206 days. Many of those ‘days’ didn’t have a sun component, but you learn to deal with that up here. In fact, looking back on all the different diurnal rhythms that I’ve experienced here, I’d have to say that I enjoyed the Noon Moon (my slightly naughty sounding opposite to ‘Midnight Sun’) the most. Where else can you wander outside in the middle of the afternoon and go stargazing?!

I don’t have much to say before closing off this blog for the next foreseeable future (pending further adventures abroad), so I’ll keep it short. Thank you so much to everyone that sent me a package, letter, e-mail or even just followed my postings anonymously. It’s very easy to disconnect yourself from the ‘real world’ up here, and you all kept me sane (relatively speaking :P). I couldn’t help but smile looking at the hodgepodge of cards and memorabilia that I kept arranged on my desk, and packing them all away today made me think of each and every one of you.

Weather Gods willing, I board my plane South late afternoon on Tuesday, arriving in Ontario in the wee hours of the morning Wednesday. My Beautiful chauffeur will greet me the next morning and then it’s on to Christmas festivities…for those of you NOT expecting Alert merchandise, you’ll have to wait a few weeks for your gifts :)

As I said when signing off from my last tour, I hope that you’ve had as much fun reading about my [mis]adventures in the Arctic as I’ve had telling of them. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Graham

Windy Day

See, I’m making up for my silence with two posts back-to-back!


We woke yesterday morning to a fairly blustery day. When Byron and I got back to the office and checked the anemometer readings from the lab we saw that the winds were a sustained 95km/h, gusting to 110km/h!! I took a few videos that afternoon as it started to die down, but I was still blown back against the railing. It’s hard to judge how fast the wind it blowing in the darkness, but trust me…it’s blowing.





The good part about the high wind? Temperature goes up. It is currently a balmy -4°C. That’s the warmest I’ve ever experienced in Alert. It actually feels warm out.

See you all soon,

Graham

Christmas in Alert

Wow, I REALLY haven’t updated this blog in a long time. It’s not that anything isn’t going on up here, it’s more that the routine had settled into a very comfortable rhythm and I was just riding the wave :)

That has all changed this weekend since Christmas is [obviously] just around the corner. While personally that means I’m almost out of here, for the people that will be up here for the holidays it’s important to keep the Christmas Cheer high! Therefore, I give you the Alert Christmas Parade!!

There was an open call for any houses, professions or just individuals that wanted to enter a float in the parade down the linkway. Byron and I were wooed by several competing factions, but eventually we settled on a GAW Lab/Traffic Techs float…mainly because they had the same creative mind frame as us (Lazy). We strapped a pallet to a cart, threw some tinsel on, and then played instruments and sang all the way down the linkway. We had three songs, and the timing was perfect. We started out strong with Jingle Bells, played a smooth rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and then finished with a stunning performance of Santa Clause Is Coming to Town.

I can’t believe how quickly this tour is progressing. I’m now into the single digits of days left before my plane gets in. As much as I want to go home, I really do love it up here. As next week spools out and I start doing things for the last time I might start to feel a little sad.

I’ll try to get one last post in before I go home. Hope the pre-Christmas Season is treating everyone well. I’m whistling Christmas carols under my breath every waking minute!
 
Graham

Gone Fishin'

Considering I wouldn't thank you to take me fishing on a beautiful, sunny, summer day down South, I don't know what prompted me to sign up for an ice fishing trip this weekend. I think I justified it as one of those things that I've got to be able to say that I've done. Oh, and I signed up on my way home from the bar last night at 12:30 :)

So, I woke up today at 11 to get brunch and hit the road. I banged on Byron's door too, because if I'm going to freeze in a little shack being miserable, you can damn well bet that he's going to as well! We and 8 or 9 other hearty souls piled into a BV and headed out for Lower Dumbell Lake and the fishing shack there. Luckily, I was the first one into the back of the BV, and scored the only cushion. Those wood benches are nasty for any trip longer than 24 seconds, and that's not cross country like we were going!

Once the generator was going for light and the power auger, we started drilling the holes. This time of year there was 3 feet of ice (which I take if from the actual fishermen there is a lot), but in a few months apparently the ice gets to be over 7 feet thick! The lake at that point was about 20 feet deep, and we were setting the lines at the very bottom. We baited our lines with some bacon (everyone knows that fish love bacon) and got to work. I actually got the first nibble of the day, and the first fish was scored in a matter of minutes by one of the other guys. All there is in the lake is Arctic Char, so it's only a matter of how big a fish you're catching. This first one was a good 4 or 5 inches long...pretty standard by the standards set earlier in the year.

What followed as a period of about an hour where nothing happened. We all sat around talking and occasionally jerking at a line. A few more little guys were landed....and then it happened. I'm not a fisherman, so I was just copying the technique of everyone else...namely, let the fish nibble a bit, then jerk the line and pray. I got my nibble, I gave my jerk, and VOILA!! FISH! While I will say that I 'caught' it, I was told by others that if your hook is not technically 'in' the 'mouth' of the fish, but rather 'stuck' through it's 'side', it's called 'snagging' :D Still, below is my fish. He swam away (definitely didn't sink out of sight) when I dropped him into the hole, so he was Ok :)

That put me one-up in my bet with Byron, and with the amount of fish caught so far I was feeling pretty good about my chances. That is...until the guy next to Byron got up to go to the bathroom. As soon as he left the shack, his line starts to dance. Byron grabs it and hooks the fish. He starts reeling and the pole is bent double! He pulls out a foot-and-a-half long fish that could have eaten my fish in one gulp. We were just taking pictures when the other guy comes back and realized just whose hook is in this fish's mouth :) Byron went on to hook one more reasonably sized char to beat me handily.

I have to say, fishing was WAY more fun than I thought it would be. If I didn't still smell like fish, I'd be ready to do it again tomorrow :D

Miss you all, but Christmas is just around the corner!

Graham

Mr. Clean

I guess that since I haven't posted anything for a while this counts as news...although in terms of pictures that really don't need to be on the internet, this is right up there.

So, on Tuesday afternoon I got my hair cut. Standard job up here, #2 all over, straighten out the back, done. That night at the bar, Nate and I ended up talking about how much shorter it was (I had let it grow for a while) and how back when he was in the military he used to shave his head.

Nate: Dude, you should totally Bic it
Graham: Bic it?
Nate: Use a razor...down to the scalp!
Graham: Hmm...

Now, let me make things clear. While alcohol was definitely a factor in making me CONSIDER to shave my head, I was plenty sober enough to not do it that night! I thought about it all day on Wednesday, even putting up a little Facebook poll and consulting with significant people in my life. Finally, I decided What the Hell. If you're going to do something crazy and stupid that you think is going to make you look like someone going through chemotherapy, what better place to do it than Alert with plenty of time for it to grow back!

So, we grab the clippers and the razor and go to town. I'd never used a straight razor on myself before in my life, so scraping 5 blades over my poor, pale dome scared the pants off me. I managed to do the whole thing (even the back) without a drop of blood...although I took about 6 times longer than Nate to do so. Anyways, without further ado...I give you Grahamuel L. Jackson!

I think my favourite part of the whole experience was bartending that night and watching the looks on people's faces as they came into the bar and looked around the room. They'd glance over me, but then their eyes would invariably snap back to the glowing shine that was my bare scalp :)

It was also pretty weird to feel the wind on my head. I'm used to having a chilly head outside, but walking over to the gym for the first time without a hat showed me a new level of cold! I'm thinking that my next look will be the shoulder length one...keep the ears and neck warm as well :P

Now, before you post comments or e-mail me...I KNOW it looks horrible :D It was just a one-time, for-fun deal and won't happen again (unless it's a bet for the appropriate amount of money).

Grahamuel L. Jackson

Arctic Adventure

You know the phrases 'From bad to worse', 'Couldn't get any worse' and 'And to top it all off'? Well...take your pick. Friday was an adventure to say the least.

It all started with the fact that we have a tech up right now for a week. He's just here to calibrate and perform routine maintenance on our Ozone and Mercury instruments. The next piece of the puzzle was that Byron and I have put off/been unable to go out to do our monthly permafrost measurements and needed to do it ASAP. There...the stage has been set.

Act 1: We drive Patrick out to the lab first thing in the morning and then leave him there to go do permafrost. The weather wasn't as bad as it was on Thursday (-21°C, 75km/h winds, -55 windchill), but the winds were still enough to rip the truck doors out of our hands and buffet us around a bit. We got through that part of our day just fine (if a little windblown) and returned to Station for lunch.

Intermission: Lunch. Byron attends fire team training. Graham sleeps on office couch.

Act 2: Byron and I head out to the lab to do our normal Friday checks and filter changes. As we had some compressed air cylinders to take out there, we decided to drive all the way into the lab. Normally we stay 600m away to avoid contamination, but with the hurricane winds directly from the South we could have had a bonfire on the North side of the lab that wouldn't have been registered by any sensors :D I drove us in, and then backed up into the lab. The normal large drift had formed near the doorway, and as I drove up we kind of slipped sideways along it. We didn't think much of it at the time... **ominous set-up music**

Act 3: 5:30, the end of a long day at the lab. We are scrambling to get home for Friday supper (pizza, wings, etc) and we're cutting it close. We figure that since the truck is at the lab and we don't have the 10 minute walk out to the TX that we'll be fine. I hop in, start it up, and then as we try to drive out while sloped 15° to the side we sort of stay in the same position while the tracks dig themselves into the still semi-fluffy drift. Below is an older picture of our truck, so that you can envision it better. We're on the top of a 5' drift. Each of those tracks has just dropped a foot straight down. We're resting on the undercarriage of the truck. It's at this point that Byron mentions that he had just realized it was Friday the 13^th.

Act 4: Now, Byron and I are much too proud to call Recovery and anyways, it's the middle of dinnertime on a Friday. We grab the shovels and get to work. We dug out the better part of the drift and then tired again. We didn't dig out 'enough' of the drift. Instead, we just dug ourselves in another few inches. At that point, I radioed Site Manager to get a BV on the way out to pick us up. Keep in mind that we are literally as far from Station as you can possibly get. Now that we know help (and extreme ridicule at TGIF) is on the way, there's nothing left to do but keep digging. Eventually we knew that help would arrive, or we'd just dig out the entire 5 foot drift.....well, it took about 45 minutes to scramble a driver and for him to get to us. Two strapping young lads can move a lot of snow in that amount of time (even when the smaller, more Geography-centric one had just got his H1N1 shot that morning and couldn't lift his left arm). Finally, with bare dirt visible under the truck, and the light of the BV on the horizon, we give it one final gun of the engine... **queue triumphant victory music**

Act 5: We BURST from the perfectly truck-shaped hole we've dug into the drift (see below) and keep driving until we're out into the flat where the snow is harder. There are many unique situations in life that provide tremendous adrenaline rushes: The birth of a child, winning the big game, your first kiss......getting a truck unstuck through 2 hours of manual labour is right up there :P

Dénouement: Of course, with having to radio back to Station, everybody knew what had happened. So, even though we didn't 'technically' need recovery, I felt obligated to ring the bell for Recovery of the Week. That night I also won Frozen Chosen for my help to Byron with the Olympic stage, so I figure 'complete embarrassment' and 'triumphant recognition' cancel each other out and yesterday was, karmic-ally, a draw :D

Graham

Remembrance Day

I know that I just posted a long rant about the Torch this morning, but major events are few and far between in Alert (usually) so when we did the Remembrance Day ceremony today I thought I'd write about that too. Now, don't expect anything else for 2 or 3 weeks :P

I've only ever done Remembrance Day at school before, and back then it was just a boring assembly that interfered with my birthday celebration. Living on a Canadian Forces Station staffed approximately 50% by military, the ceremony was quite different. While nowhere near as grand an ordeal as I'm sure it is at a bigger Base, there was still a good deal of pomp. Byron and Bill laid the wreath for EC in the theatre ceremony. Afterwards we all went down to the end of the runway to visit the cairn memorializing one of the crashes that had fatalities here. As Bill didn't arrive, Byron (red) and I (blue) laid the wreath at the real site.

I had also thought that I'd slipped under the birthday radar (intentionally), but then someone called out a, "Happy Birthday" across the mess hall at lunch. It then got crazy, culminating with Byron starting everyone on Station singing Happy Birthday to me :) Those of you who know me, know how much I must have liked that :P

Miss you all,
Graham

Post Torch Run Wrap-up

Well, the Olympic Torch has come and gone, with the 7 long months of planning and preparation finally coming to fruition. Before I start with the stories, I'll get out of the way what 95% of you came to see....me with the torch :)

It's a bit blurry due to the cold and the camera (and maybe the sheer speed I was moving....alright, maybe not) but above is definitive proof that I helped the Olympic flame on its journey from Greece to Vancouver. It's kind of just now sinking in how special the moment really was...at the time I was pretty sure that I was smiling, but my cheeks were a bit too frozen to tell.

Backing it up a few days, prior to the torch arriving Station staged it own mini-Olympics. Five teams, representing all the Olympic mascots, were selected to compete in a variety of sports and challenges. For some reason someone thought that I had 'spirit', and so I was made captain of Team Sumi....the little goat/chipmunk looking one :P I won't bother boring you with how my awesome Captaining led our team to many victories (it didn't), but we did get bronze in floor hockey, so at least we placed 'somewhere'.

The Sunday that the torch was slated to arrive (at 6pm) Byron and I were designated the unofficial Heavy Lifters on Station. I'm pretty sure that the CO and AdminO basically had us moving anything not permanently bolted to the ground. The biggest challenge was the stage the Byron built for the gym. Technically the sections were built to fit through the door...but in reality, trying to manoeuvrer the 4 x 8 x 1.5 foot, 175lbs monstrosities was a real pain in the...back :P I'm very proud to say that I cut about half the legs for the stage, as well as drilling on the hooks for the screen :D Byron did a wicked job with it and it held up like a rock, even with 11 people from the choir standing on it.

As we sat down to our early supper, we heard that the plane was delayed 45 minutes in Resolute Bay. It just goes to show, Olympic Flame or not, NOTHING runs on time in the Arctic! We were finally shuttled down to the runway in our tracksuits to meet the flame. We got a quick lesson in passing it off, how to hold it ("High above your head...be careful of your face in the flames"), and how we'd be marching up to the main building of Station. The walk (yes, walk...you don't run in the Arctic) went way too quickly. Everyone got a good 50 or 60 feet with the torch, which was very cool. The sentimental highlight of the run was when Gilbert, an old, soft-spoken mechanic that walks with a cane (but was too proud to use one for the long 1.5km walk uphill from the runway) received the torch and broke into a stilted jog for his short leg of the route.

Above is a picture of the whole team at the Alert sign at the beginning of the run, as well as one outside of the gym where the temporary cauldron was lit upon its conclusion. I know that we all look pretty much the same, but if you enlarge the pics I'm under the W of NWT and 5 left of the cauldron.

Luckily, upon lighting the cauldron outside we sang Oh Canada, which counted as our warmup for the choir. We walked in from the cold and literally sang our song the second we'd gotten out of our tracksuits. Honestly?...we rocked :D We weren't amazing or anything, but if you heard our first practice 3 weeks ago (when we were "better than nothing") you'd be mightily impressed! From what I've been told, the CTV vignette didn't have any clips of it...which is just as well :)

The finale to the evening was the fact that I was bartending for the meet-and-greet in the bar. Let's just say, Sundays are usually dead, but we made more in 3.5 hours than we did in 7 hours for TGIF. New people are always fun in Alert, and we'd gotten 39 all in one go.

They all left the next morning at 8am, after being in Alert for only 13 hours. In case you're wondering how the flames moves around the country while not in the possession of a torch bearer, the lantern above is the answer.

Was all the planning, lead up, stress and backache worth it for an event that was over in the blink of an eye?

Absolutely.

Please Remember those who fell today,
Graham

Olympic Torch Run Today!

Well, as you can probably guess from the lack of blog updates these past few days, things have been steadily ramping up towards today. The Olympic Torch is scheduled to arrive today at 5pm!! All the events are planned, the stage that Byron had the build is done (I cut some wood and was the official Assistant Lifter of Heavy Objects), I've got the bar stocked for the Meet and Greet tonight with all the media and the Minister that's coming up and we've had our last choir practice.

As exciting as this all is....I can't WAIT for it to be over and for life to calm back down!!

I'll put up as many pics as possible in a few days. Watch for any coverage likely on CBC or CTV.

Graham

Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween for you folks down South, but with our weekly party happening on Friday we all celebrated last night. I honestly don't know why, but here's another horribly embarrassing picture of me for the whole world to see.

I've got to be fairly diplomatic and political talking about my costume. There are people out there that know why I dressed as I did, but I'm not going to go into specifics about the character on such a public forum. It was a great idea provided to me by my Toronto-based boss Andrew while he was up here in mid-September. The sweatpants were provided by Byron, glasses from Kevin, wig from Mom. I had to buy the t-shirt, as I needed some extra room for my 'padding' :)

I almost defended my Best Costume title from the Medieval Times night, and while I was a definite fan favourite Byron beat me out with a stunning, working Transformers outfit. He looked like a robot standing up, but he could crouch down and turn into a tank. It was truly amazing...and HUGE. He only had about 1/2" clearance in the doorway (sides AND top) getting into the bar! He had my vote all the way, and the EC GAW lab guys swept 1st and 2nd place, so we're happy.

I did my best to catch up on my sleep last night too. I was woken up briefly at 8ish when there was an announcement telling us that we were now in Storm Condition 1 due to a combination of wind and visibility. We're currently at -22°C with 15m/s (55km/h) winds. That works out to -55°C windchill and a complete whiteout with the loose snow we've had on the ground from the past few weeks of calm weather. I slept in until 1pm knowing that I couldn't go outside anyways....at least that's how I justified it to myself as I rolled over :)

Finally, being in the choir finally has an upside! I convinced the CO to get us all Alert t-shirts that I could embroider with my Latin "We Are Better Than Nothing" slogan, so that was great. But, as I was talking to Carl (Tradie, in charge of the store) I noticed that he had a really nice Alert Rugby shirt on. So, I talked to the CO and now we all get $80 shirts instead. Screw the silly phrase...these shirts are nice! :D

Have a great time trick-or-treating tonight knowing that I can't even step foot outside! Miss you all,
Graham

What's this?

There's free shipping to Canadian Forces posting locations from now until Christmas? Alert is one such location?

Not that I'm expecting parcels or anything...I'm just saying is all :)

I don't have the official memo yet, but your local post office should know about it. Anything going to a Belleville Stn Forces PO box should be free of charge until Christmas. I hate that I sometimes have to get things sent up and you guys always foot the bill...so consider this my gift to you.....although I'm not really sure how that works :P

Haven't posted in a while, mainly because things have been pretty routine. On the work front, Byron and I have settled into a smooth schedule. In terms of "extracurriculars", the torch is coming up pretty soon, and so we're having some activities this weekend. I was made team captain of Team Sumi (one of the 5 Olympic mascots), so I'm basically the fall guy for when our team fails miserably :) The sport challenges are fine, but the snow sculptures that we're making leave a lot to be desired. Our team is going for more of a 'participation' look, rather than trying to be any real challenger. I'll post up the pictures once we get it finalized. Also, in addition to being conscripted into the choir (which, in my personal opinion, STILL sounds atrocious) Byron is making the stage for it and other presentations to be made. Since Byron's making it, so am I :) So, if you see a stage on the news, it will be partly (a small, small part) my handiwork.

I realized that I haven't put up any animal pictures yet, so I'll throw in a wolf to keep you interested. This is maybe the most sheepish looking wolf I've seen...especially with the snow on his nose :) They're staying away from Station a lot more this term, and this was a few weeks ago while it was still (obviously) light out. We're down to a faint glow at noon. By the weekend we'll likely have no light at all.

Miss you all, Happy Halloween!
Graham

Crisis Averted

UPDATE: A wig has been procured, and it should get here in time for Halloween. Thanks to everyone that tried to track one down for me!!

Well, as I'm putting up a new post I might as well throw in some stories and a few pictures. For the sun setting officially on Tuesday, we had a HUGE bonfire out of all the crates and pallets that came up during Boxtop. This was a BIG fire. The only problem for the evening was that the people in charge of starting the fire were the firefighters :) They were a bit timid, but eventually we got it going and it went like the blazes. You might not be able to tell from that first picture, but the fire itself is likely 40 feet in the air.

I also took some pictures without the Visible light filter on, making for some interesting results. As Byron mentioned, this one looks like the people watching the fire are witnessing a nuclear blast!

Finally I took a full spectrum shot and took only the green channel to make a pretty nice looking shot.It's only twilight-y for an hour around noon now. Soon it'll be dark until Christmas for me.

Talk to you all soon,

Graham

Doh, Ray, Mi, etc.

As I'm sure most of you know, I was a singing virtuoso in my younger years. I think I hit my prime in Grade One with my stunning rendition of "Bah, Bah Black Sheep in E minor" at the school talent show. So, it should come as no surprise to you all that I have joined the Alert Choir............yeah, right.

Let's just say, since Byron went to the Olympic Torch Relay planning meeting and was volun-told that he would be in the choir, he thought that it would only be fair to volunteer me as well. We've had one practice last night, and all I can say is that the Commanding Officer of CFS Alert himself said, "You guys are better than nothing." I'm thinking of translating it into Latin (Nos Es Melior Quam Nusquam) and getting it put on T-shirts for the choir to wear :) In all seriousness though, we have to sing a song that is the official torch relay song to be sung at every stop the torch makes. We aren't that bad, in as much as no large-ish group of singers can sound truly horrible. If we can manage to learn the french portion next week, I give us at LEAST a 50/50 chance of not making fools of ourselves come showtime.

Well, my picture for the photo contest didn't win any prizes, but I'll put it up here to show you all anyways. Click it to view it at a larger size. I really liked it, but I guess the judges didn't :) There were dozens of amazing entries, many of which put mine to shame...there are some phenomenal photographers up here. The landscape really lends itself well to pictures too....at least when the sun's up!

In other news, I am putting out an All Points Bulletin for a grey wig that looks something like the picture below (~2-3" long, straight), or at least longer and can be cut down to the right style. This is URGENT and would need to be sent up early next week at the latest. So, if you have one that you want to donate, or can obtain one, please e-mail, comment or send a carrier pigeon (in a little parka), but let me know and I'll get you mailing details. This costume could win me top prize hands down if it all comes together!

Happy Oktoberfest everyone!
Graham

Happy Thanksgiving!

You should all be thankful for the fact that (according to Environment Canada) it's 6°C down in Ontario. I find it fairly humourous that you guys have a "frost warning" in effect :)

I was doing some outdoor work on my Thesis for an hour today (I promise, I'll talk about it eventually) and at -17°C it was chilly work. As well, due to local topography I think that we've seen the last of the sun for a good six months. It's still relatively bright (see the picture below taken today at 1pm), but the actual orb won't crest those hills until the first week of March, 2010. The last of the direct sunlight is still falling on the American Mountain chain to the North-West of us and, as Craig commented today, it looks like the Paramount Pictures logo.

As we were driving around to get back to Station, we saw loads and loads of tracks from foxes, wolves and lemmings. The funniest was a lemming track that disappeared for a good 4 feet, then reappeared a little way away. As I drove past, I thought that the lemming had jumped this distance. I was fairly impressed! I got out to take a picture of it and I realized what had happened. Even the tiny weight of the lemming had been too much for the fluffy new layer of fallen snow and so he'd just fallen through, submarined along for a bit, then popped up again :) Apparently they kind of look like a dachshund when they run, as they're long and skinny with very short legs that appear to be moving WAY too fast for the actual speed of travel :)

 

I'm thinking of you all eating a nice turkey dinner with family and friends tonight. We get our big meal with all the fixin's tomorrow, INCLUDING one (1) glass of wine :P It's a big joke on station, but hey, it's better than nothing! Tuesday is then the Sunset celebration (with a BBQ) and then Friday is Oktoberfest.

I know I can't believe it, but I left exactly one month ago today. Time is flying by!!

Graham

Going, going....

Partly to inform you, partly to bump that costume picture off the top of my blog, I'll let you see what it looks like here at noon, sun-wise.

This was taken on Monday at solar noon (when the sun is the highest in the sky...not 12:00), as that was the last clear day that we've had. Today was -14°C with a 55km/h wind. The windchill was hovering right around -40°C!! Guess what day it was in the lab schedule too....that's right, flasking. So, I was outside for a solid 30 minutes straight.

The sun is dropping by a sun's width every day, and by early next week it'll be gone for good. The days will still have some light to them (as you get for 20 or 30 minutes after a sunset) but by early November it will be midnight dark almost all the time :) I think I'm a little crazy in that I'm actually looking forward to that. My favourite times up here last term were in the dark, and I can't wait!

After the lull in plane arrivals, we've had two in the past two days, bringing 34 new (or returning) people to station, changing out more than half of the population! It'll be a few days until I have people's names down, that's for sure.

When I took the above picture, I also turned 180° and snapped one on the Northern horizon which displayed a great near-full moon. I'll admit that these aren't the greatest shots, but a good camera doesn't make a good photographer :) There's actually a photo contest on up here right now with several categories. I've got one image that I'm going to submit, and if it does any good I'll post it up.

With the Toronto Boss gone, life is settled down to the standard routine. It's a nice and relaxed pace that will hopefully let the days fly by until December 23rd, my newly tentative, pencilled in, probable, potential end date :P After last time, I'm not making ANY plans for a good week after that, but if all goes to plan (from plane schedules, to mechanical failure, to meteorological events to the pilots just not wanting to fly that close to Christmas, etc) then I could be home as soon as early, early morning on the 24th (if it's a charter). Don't worry...I'll be home before you all know it!!

Miss you all,

Graham

The Dark Knight

I guess that title has multiple meanings, what with the impending final sunset coming up in the next two weeks, but I'm thinking of it more in terms of my costume from last night. That's right...costume.

Friday was both my first night back bartending, as well as themed Medieval Night. Byron and I decided to dress up as knights, using beer cans to make the armour. I made mine out of Guinness cans, Byron made his out of the backside of the cans (so we were dark and white knights). I also added a helmet, lance and shield to my ensemble. The whole outfit was razor sharp, and took about 12 hours to make, including can filleting and taping, but not including the "collection" of cans :P No, I didn't drink them all, but we did make an attempt to do our part :) I can't believe that I'm posting this, but here is my suit, sans lance, which I made later that day.

We also decided to add something to the festivities while bartending. The current bar game is trying to throw a quarter across the bar to a small shot glass taped near the ceiling (wins you a free drink). I wanted to do something using the little plastic balls that you get inside of cans of Guinness (of which we were now in great supply). We were contemplating a catapult of some sort, to keep with the Medieval theme. Instead, Byron came up with the idea to make a Plinko style board. So, we got a sheet of plywood and got to work. We made a 20 x 20 grid of offset nails that is maybe the coolest thing I've ever created :) It took less time then I thought it would, with 2 hours dedicated to laying out the grid and only 30 minutes of teamwork to put in all 440 nails. We charged $0.50 to put a cup under one opening, up to 4 cups, and then you chose where to drop the ball from. Sure, "Ye Olde GAW-thic Plinko" isn't REALLY Medieval (we work in the GAW lab...get it?) but it was a hit.

Finally, the last event of the night was the costume judging. Now, it might not come across in the picture, but while we spent 12 hours on our costumes they looked like we spent about 15 minutes :) They were pretty ratty. So, little did I expect what happened....I managed to win King of Alert! I definitely took the costume off the second after the judging though. It's hard to serve and use a till when you can't touch your arms in front of your body. It also cut up the insides of my arms on the beer shrapnel. I DID wear the tin foil crown all night :)

It's been stormy since I got here, and no planes have been able to come in due to both mechanical and meteorological problems. We should get 2 in this week, although there are rumours starting to swirl even now that they might be delayed. Not that we're running out of food or anything...but some some things like milk are getting scant!

Talk to you all again soon,
Graham

Long Hours...Short Days

Since I got on the plane Sunday night, I've worked every day up here! Needless to say, with that amount of hustle and bustle, the last 2 weeks have flown by much faster than I could have thought possible.

Most of the work stems from the fact that the flight I came in on was one of the last of 'Boxtop' (the bi-annual resupply event). For the GAW Lab it was the largest Boxtop shipment in history...we sent up 90,030 kg (200,000 lbs) of materials and supplies!! Unfortunately, the plan was to load the majority of said materials onto a flatbed trailer and then drive them up to the lab. But, also coinciding with my arrival to Alert was the first real permanent snowfall of the season. That means that we need to break open all the crates here at Station, pack them up one truckload at a time, and drive them up to the lab bit-by-bit.

To make things even MORE....intensive....when the shipment was unloaded, it was deposited with all the things that we need at the VERY back of the pile, with dozens on spools of electrical cable weighing in at 10,000 lbs each at the very front :) So, today was spent with a forklift basically taking the entire yard apart, then putting it back in the opposite order. Since none of us Environment Canada people can drive the forklift, all three of us "supervised" while Oliver the Traffic Tech struggled to interpret three sets of drastically varying and poorly thought-out hand signals. I didn't see any problem with my signals for "Up" (thumbs up) and "Drop it there" (thumbs up) and "I'm clear" (thumbs up).

It is a little bit like a geeky Office Worker/Scientist early Christmas though. Breaking open crates and finding wonderful surprises inside. "WOW, new office chairs!"   "SWEET, bubble wrap"   "OH BOY, a nephelometer!"......OK, it's actually not very exciting at all :)

I really am completely in "winter" mode up here. I realized it when a buddy told me he was going to the driving range, and I almost asked him when he'd gone down to the States...only to realize that it was 20°, not -18° in Ontario, and there was lush grass, not 2' of freshly fallen snow.

Drove Vicram, the week-long visit Tech, down to the Alert sign to get some pictures today, so I snapped one of myself with the Waterloo sign that was previously buried in snow my last visit. Puts it into perspective how far away you are from the ones you love! (click the picture for a larger view to see the distance...and the horrible beginnings of Alert Beard v.2) Also included a picture of the lab from my first visit up early last week...was VERY weird to see it without snow up to the roof. I worked on pieces of equipment at "ground" level last term outside that I now need to stand on my tiptoes to access!

 

Days are getting shorter a lot more quickly now. It is full dark between 6:30pm and 4:30am now, but each day that is extending by 15 or 20 minutes!

I don't want to seem bitter or anything...but I hope you all get heat stroke :P
Graham

Wanted: Chiropractor

I’d say that I was surprised our flight up was abnormal…but abnormal tends to be the norm up here, so nothing new there.

The first change was that instead of a 6am departure, it was bumped back to 9am. Sweet deal, extra 3 hours of sleep. Get on the plane, taxi out, stop…or, at least ‘try’ to stop…discover brake problem, go back to terminal. We sat (or lied across) airport terminal chairs until 1:30, when they loaded us back up for another go.

Off we went…to Iqaluit. Yeah, due to a strong headwind, we were 5 hours just to Iqaluit and had to have a one hour refuel stopover. Pics below show some of the sights…alright, almost ALL of the sights. More langauges on signs then I've seen anywhere in Canada. Another 4.5 hour jaunt up to Thule landed us there around 11:30. We then proceeded to fly directly up to Alert without staying overnight in Thule…rolling in at 2:30am. 18.5 hours of travel.
With only a few hours sleep the previous two nights, it goes without saying that sleep on the plane was a must…hence the chiropractic post title. Ever slept upright with your chin on your chest? I’m still stiff. The heater in the plane was also broken, so it was -5° or -10° the whole way up. I did manage to get some pleasant daydreams in, but other than that it was cold hell. Luckily it was also a VIP flight, with several Colonels, including the 8-wing Commander (the Trenton Air Force head honcho), so if anyone can get money to fix the heaters, it’ll be them.

Will talk about some new things going on up here in the next few days. Just getting back into the swing of things now.

Miss you all already,
Graham

And so it begins.....again

Well, it's me again. A few people have been commenting that they're starting to check my blog again now that I'm prepped to go back up to the Wonderful White North, so I thought I'd chime in once before departing.

As some of you might know, I was slated to leave September 1st this fall, but due to [I think] the Boxtop resupply we were bumped back to a September 14th departure. This worked out fine for me, as it gave me time to get some last minute thesis stuff (I'll talk about that later) together, as well as make some important decisions concerning other aspects of my life :) As it stands now, I fly out at 6am Monday morning (reporting to Trenton AMU at 4am...urgh) just like last year. I believe that I'm also on a C-130 again with the nightly stopover in Thule, Greenland.

Other than that, I survived the last school term and am excited to start a new work term...oh, and make money, that's always nice :)

Because these posts look boring with only text, I'll stick in an infrared picture (thesis related...will fill you in later) of my backyard. I LOVE this new camera!


Talk to you again from the North Pole,
Graham

Heading Back!

Well, as Mom pointed out, I DID say that I'd post an update about my fall plans when they finalized....so, here they are.

I WILL be going back up to Alert in the fall for my 5th and final co-op term with the University of Waterloo. I'll be up there for another 4 months, from September to December.

This blog'll open back up in September to keep everyone down south up-to-date on my antics :)

Graham

My last post

Well everyone, this is it...my last post on my Alert Co-op '09 Blog.

I thought that I'd give you all the story of my 'interesting' trip home last weekend. I already told you the story of Todd playing his cruel joke on me that turned out to be a true cancellation. Well, I'll continue from there:

So, instead of flying out Wednesday morning on the C-130, the flight coming North made it to Iqaluit, then had engine trouble. A flight came up from Trenton with parts that day, so they were fixing it. Wednesday night, a smaller plane took the passengers (stranded in Iqaluit) and our food and ferried them to Thule. They hopped on a Boxtop flight and arrived around 9pm. Thing is, there was a rumour floating around station (from credible sources) that the same flight 'might' ferry US back to Thule that same night. So, while playing in the pool tournament (3rd place!) I didn't drink (much) and awaited news. Every person that came up to the bar had a different story, but finally the CO came up and announced the plan. When the plane was fixed in Iqaluit, they'd call up to us. We would then hop the next Boxtop flight to Thule, where our plane would meet us and then fly us down to Trenton. Simple, right?

Next morning (Thursday) we get the call and hop on an empty Herc down to Thule (Pictures below). I was able to get some good pictures there...as we were stuck there without news until FOUR PM! So, we went to the Top of the World club (Thule's bar) and had lunch. Around 4 we got news that our flight was still broken...which we could only laugh at at that point. Plan B? Hop on a C-17 flying to Trenton via Yellowknife. For those of you that don't know planes...all the cargo that can fit in a Herc can fit ON THE LOADING RAMP of a C-17. The fuselage of a C-130 can fit inside the C-17. If you're not getting my drift...this plane is ginormous! LOADS of leg room :P It's also a jet, so it flies almost twice as fast as the Herc. We took off from Greenland at 11pm, and landed 3 hours later in Yellowknife at 11pm :)There was a bit of a scare mid-air. Halfway to Yellowknife, our C-17 was re-tasked to instead fly to Winnipeg the next morning, then back up north. Needless to say, that didn't exactly go over well with us. Fortunately, 30 minutes later it was reversed...although we went to bed that night not having a very firm idea of where we'd be heading the next afternoon. The hotel was nice enough (see below) but for $150 a night, it had better be. We went to the Black Knight pub for a drink before bed, and were summarily bludgeoned by the cost of beer. After 4 months of $2.50 tall cans, $7.25 for a pint hurt the wallet a bit.Finally we got on the plane again, and I even managed to catch some rest snugged in between some luggage on the floor (more comfortable then it sounds). We rolled into Trenton at 9pm and Dad was there shortly to help me with the final leg of my 2 day, ~6,500km journey. (Then, of course, I hopped on a plane a day later for a 900km jaunt down to NC...that's a lot of miles!)

I know that above I said this would be the last post, but.....for those of you that haven't heard, I'm 99% committed to heading back up to Alert for my last co-op term this September to December. I'll likely put up a quick post confirming this if I decide to go for it, then I'll resurrect the blog in September to keep you all entertained again :)

I guess this is where the blogger says goodbye. I must admit, this blogging thing is pretty fun. I had a great time putting some of my adventures down in print, and I hope that you took some enjoyment from reading them. Until I'm next at 82° 29'N 62° 30'W.......stay warm :)

Graham

Charlotte, NC

Ok, so I lied. You're going to have to wait until next week to get my last post about my trip home. Dad and I booked a flight to North Carolina for today, and I'm currently writing this from our hotel in the True "down south".

Not related to Alert whatsoever.....but I GET TO SEE TIGER ON FRIDAY!!! Unbeknownst to Dad and I, we booked our trip and then realized that Tiger was going to be playing in the PGA event just 20 minutes away (he's not likely staying at our hotel :P ). So, we're going to go see him. That can cross one item off my "List of Golf Things To Do Before I Die": Watch/Hear/Feel Tiger Woods crush a drive.

Graham

Graham Pope is in Waterloo

Well, I'm home. Interesting trip to say the least. I'll put up a post about it likely tomorrow (make that today :S ) with some pictures, but let's say that the highlight was drinking in Greenland at noon, then Yellowknife at Midnight :)

Graham

Well....

Isn't that a funny coincidence. Talking to the CO about the rumor that Todd started, and the PA goes off that the flight is delayed an indeterminate time due to mechanical failure.....so yeah.

On the bright side, I'll get one more chance tomorrow night to win Pool :)

Graham

Leaving Alert...wait, No, wait, Yes

Ok, so I was all set to put up a nice, sentimental post about leaving Alert and how much fun I had on my last day here. Here's a funny story instead:

Lunch time. I go up to the Chief Clerk, guy named Todd. He's in charge of the planes and bookings and such. "So Todd, where's the plane at?" Todd freaks. He's been having a busy day, and there are 20 people calling and dropping by every 15 minutes asking him the same question that he doesn't know the answer to yet. I apologize, and move on with my meal, making a mental note to ask the Met Tech later on about the flight.

Hour and a half later. Adrienne has me run down to the MIR to get some medical supplies. I pass Todd in the Linkway. Remembering lunch, I bite my tongue and don't mention the plane at all....which is why I knew it was bad when he was like, "24 hours man". "Really Todd? 24 hour delay? Wind in Iqaluit?" (I'd been watching the weather and Iqaluit was blustery). "Yeah Graham, sorry." Graham: "Ahh, no worries, it's Alert, right?" And we both head off. I'm bummed, but it wasn't unexpected.

20 minutes later. Todd on the PA: "Attention attention all station personnel. Please get all luggage to the HAPS Ramp immediately." Now, luggage was supposed to be there an hour ago, so I figure, "Hah, that Todd...playing a trick on Graham. The plane is actually doing fine!!" So, I call him up, with every expectation that as soon as he hears my voice he'll break out laughing at the great joke he pulled on Gullible Graham....not so. He calmly explains to me that 24 hours isn't enough time to get our luggage back, and that the traffic techs need to pack the pallet up to load onto the plane. "I'm sorry man, but it's 24 hours. Nothing I can do". **Sigh** "I know it's not your fault, Todd. Just was hoping that you were joking with me, thanks" That's right...I THANKED him!

1.5 hours later. Page on the PA: "Attention attention all station personnel. Would all personel leaving on Service Flight 86 departing tomorrow please ensure that their B25 kit is at....." At this point I will NOT quote the expletive that I used to describe Todd and his cruel, cruel "joke" that he played on trusting, old Graham. Needless to say, I refrained from calling him the second time...because I would probably be able to hear the strains of his laughter drifting through station all the way from my office.

Well played Todd. Well played.

The horrible irony is....the flight might still ACTUALLY be delayed due to wind :)

Really excited to visit Iqaluit, and then eventually get home. Loved my time up here, will most likely be back, but it'll be nice to see the sun go down (literally and figuratively) on this adventure. Thanks for all your support and comments, they helped me stay [relatively] sane up here.

Graham

Road....well, Sky Trip!!

This weekend I was able to go on one cool trip. As some of you might know, on Thursday a group of 8 people from both Canada and Germany flew into Alert in a DC3 from Greenland (originally from Germany). Today they continued on to Eureka to the south, and their eventual destination is in Alaska. They are doing IPY (International Polar Year) research...everything from measuring aerosols to solar radiation to ice thickness. Their plane is basically our lab with wings.
Anyways, on Saturday, their engineer didn't need to fly along on their daily excursion, so the seat was tossed to their hosts...Adrienne and myself. Adrienne was super nice enough (THANKS ADRIENNE!!) to let me go along, as long as I took lots of pictures and filled her in on the details.

We took off and started with doing spirals at 500 foot intervals over the station to do some radiometry work. Below is a picture of station that I captured. It's not the best, because they were using the lab and the station as their baseline, so we were always right over them, but it was still fun to see from the air. I also got a picture of the same hills that I've been putting up all winter with the sun....but from a slightly different vantage point!We then flew WAAAY West to the western edge of Ellesmere Island. That in itself isn't too cool, but what WAS cool is that we did it at about 200 feet above the ice dangling "the Bird" below us at about 50 feet off the ice measuring thickness. I got some great video that shows the ice just rushing past.

We then came back East, and flew over Ward Hunt, a camp that's even more North than us (although not permanant) and got some more pictures. Finally came back to the Station and got some other pictures of a Twin Otter that had just landed.I'm leaving in a week and a half now, so there will likely be only a few more Alert posts. I'm anxiously awaiting the golf season...but I'm really sad to leave,

Graham

Pop Quiz!

Which of these is a polar bear?

(A)

(B)
If you answered B, then you're a winner, and smarter then an Ice Shelf scientist today who saw a "bear" which turned out to be a wolf. I mean, come on...4 foot at the shoulder, 1500 pound bear versus a mangy grey wolf? How do you screw that up. Still, there was some excitement for the afternoon while the gun team was scrambled and such.

Mom: I'm tired enough that my sleep hasn't been affected at all. It was easy to sleep in the dark, and odd working (but I didn't feel tired at noon when it was pitch black out). Now, it feels normal during the day, and I'm tired enough at night that sleeping is a breeze. We have shutters on all the windows, so your room is dark enough to get a good rest. If I keep having more bar extensions until 12:30 (like last night when I was bar tending) then I'll definitely have no trouble sleeping...it'll be getting up that's the problem :)

Graham

The last solar frontier

In my 3 months up here so far, I’ve experienced several types of sky conditions: 24 hours of pitch-black, midnight darkness (Jan 6 to mid-Feb), a gradual daily transition of increasing twilight (mid-Feb to Mar 1), the first sunrise in 150-odd days (Mar 1) and increasing daylight hours (Mar 1 to present). Now, tonight is going to be the last special event that I need to witness. April 5^th is the last night that the sun will go below the horizon. At approximately 11:15pm tonight, the sun will rise for the last time until mid-September…24 hour daylight. I took the picture below last night on my way home from the bar at 12:30 (i.e. after sunrise). It is WAY too easy to lose track of how late it is when at midnight it looks like a nice 7pm sunset down south.

I thought that I’d throw in some more pictures of the lab for you to see. One thing about the snow up here, although there isn’t much of it, it moves around. Total, we’ve only gotten 60cm of snow all winter (60cm = ~60mm of water = well below the standard definition of a desert), and the average snow cover up here is in the mid-30cm’s. Due to the low, low temperature though, there is no liquid water in the snow pack to hold anything together. With the high winds, the snow is pushed around (in a process called saltation, for you physical Geography folks out there) and gets packed tightly enough that it almost feels like concrete. It also forms drifts around basically everything. The pictures below don’t do it justice, but one is taken from the roof of the lab, and the other is taken from true ground level looking up. The drift is about 25 feet high!

I’m also taking some time out of my day now to run some high-tech scientific experiments…..ok, maybe not. I’m running the time honoured “Does it break when you freeze water in it?” experiment. I’ve got a pretty big freezer to work with, and at -35 things freeze pretty quickly. My most fun one yet was a 20ml scintillation vial that exploded in 8 minutes :)

I also just got word today that my flight back will likely route through Iqaluit instead of Thule. Most people complain about that, as everything is really expensive, but I say, “Who cares?”, because I get reimbursed for it anyways! It’s just another cool locale to explore and get some pictures of. As long as I get back in time for school, I’m happy.

Graham