From Here To There... Archive

It's looking better

Tonight will be my 18th night away on this trip. Seems twice as long.

The plane left Trenton this morning and headed for Thule, Greenland. It should be here tomorrow morning to pick up 15 of us and drop off 22. It sounds like we will be spending Friday night in Iqaluit and then back to Trenton on Saturday. I hope it is sunny, I guess anything will feel warm compared to the -32°C today when I went out for a walk.

I went for a walk around the main complex this afternoon. It is a clear night (day) so the moon and stars are out.

To the west there is still a hint of daylight on clear days.

I saw the "Trashman" out picking up garbage from the dumpsters.

The wolves came around to see what was going on.

You can see my shadow on the ground.

While I was crouched down trying to keep the camera steady, one of the other ones was walking up to my side.

Here is one of the lifelines they string between buildings when there are bad storms. The wolves hang out under the buildings for shelter.

The Alert skyline.

Home Sweet Home

We ended up leaving Alert on Friday at 10:45am, it was nice to be getting on the aircraft. We had to stop in Thule for refueling and to pick up a guy there. Here we are getting off the airplane and heading into the OPS building.

We got some good news while we waited, we were not going to Iqaluit for the night, instead we were going directly back to Trenton. We would be home a day early. It was avery long flight, just over 7 hours from Thule to Trenton, not to mention the 1.5 hours from Alert to Thule. In the end it was worth it, there was no sun in Thule, but there was daylight. We flew through sun and then back into darkness. I still had another 2 hour drive home after we landed. And finally on Saturday morning I saw the sun again, you don't realize how much you miss it until you haven't seen it for 3 weeks. Here is one of the air crew checking the aircraft before we took off from Thule.

Today Claudia, Angela and I were playing road hockey and there was an older gentleman walking down the street. I was wearing my Alert fleece and as he passed he was looking at us. Then I heard him holler "When were you in Alert?", after telling him I was there for the last three weeks, he told me he was there 25 years ago, he was in construction and he built alot of the buildings. He was curious if things have changed, he remembers making alot of money because there was nothing to spend it on, I told things were still the same.

Back in the field

After a couple of days at home, I'm back in the field. I was originally scheduled to travel to Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora on Monday, but due to my delay in Alert, my trip was pushed back a couple of days. I flew into Winnipeg ans stayed in Kenora on Wednesday night. Thursday morning I opened my curtains to see about four deer.

On the way into the site I saw a pair of bald eagles. Here is one in the trees.

Here is the other one in flight.

Shortly after that a rabbit ran along the road. On the drive from Winnipeg last night there were alot of deer along the sides of the Trans Canada. The weather has been good, some snow and mild temperatures.

Fresh Snow

It snowed last night.

It was a light snow that covered all of the trees.

Close-up.

The path from the site.

A sunshine recorder.

More eagles before heading home...

We finished most of what we had to get done before heading home.

On the way out we saw more eagles, we stopped to watch this one.

We had one of the students throw a snowball in the direction of the eagle so it would take off.
 

Some of the scenery.

Heading into Winnipeg.

The Winnipeg Airport.

Some of the fire fighting water bombers.

A British Airways aircraft on the tarmac.

We ended up catching an earlier flight out of Winnipeg. I should be sticking around Toronto for awhile.