FROM HERE TO THERE...

Left Thule, Greenland this morning at 9:00 EDT and spent 6.5 hours in the Herc en route to Trenton, Ontario. Some final pictures of the Arctic.

The white band in the middle is actually the front end of a glacier.

One of the reasons the temperature here gets so cold, when the winds come in over the glacier.

Our plane being prepped for take-off.

Heading into the hangar to wait for boarding. The door gives some sense of scale of how big it really is.

Inside the hangar, the vehicle is used to tow the Herc in and out of the hangar.

Just one more...

We landed in Trenton around 15:30. The temperature was about 15°C, it was nice to see green grass and fall colours on the trees, actually it was nice to see trees period. About 15 minutes after we landed, we heard that the Airbus has just landed, this one was bringing back the bodies of two soldiers. As we came out, we watched as the families of the two soldiers headed into the terminal. It's good to be home.

According to the sign on one of the hangars, Thule is the Top of The World.

We left Alert Today and were only in the air for 90 minutes over to Thule. We are over nighting and flying back to Trenton on Friday. Compared to Alert there are a lot of foxes in Thule, it seems everywhere you look you'll see a fox.

Saw more white ones today.

In past trips to Thule, either the weather has been crappy or there has not been enough time to walk around. Since the temperature was only about -5 °C and sunny we went for a walk around the base.

We tried to walk as close to the water as we could.

One more photo of Dundas Mountain.

It was a great day in Thule.

It was nice to see the sun again.

Another fox on the way back, they were hanging around the dumpster.

We went for a little tour around the base today to see some of the sites in Alert. First stop was the Memorial site at the end of the runway. They have a couple of monuments for the crews that died in two separate plane crashes in Alert. The first is for the Lancaster that crashed in 1950.

The other is for a Hercules CF130 that crashed in 1991.

A shot of the Arctic Ocean.

This is the Met Shack, the military weather observer works here. It is located down near the runway, they call it Met Horton's, because they have the only Tim Horton's coffee maker on the base. The bars on the window are a new addition, in the summer they had a curious polar bear clawing at the window.

Next up was the mandatory photo op, the Alert location sign. That's me on the right.

A giant inukshuk.

Our work at the lab is done and now we start the waiting game. Today it was mainly cloudy, but at times you could see the sun in the distance shining through.

I figured out how to set the white balance on my camera for these dull days, now the snow looks white instead of the blue tinge from days past.

A new sign since the last time I was up here.

The main entrance to main building.

This is a picture of the runway, tomorrow we may go for a walk and see some of the sites around the base.

No spectacular sun shots or mountains in the distance, the weather was quite different today then the past few days. It was foggy early in the day and then it started snowing lightly. The temperature was warmer, about -15 °C, but the wind picked up for awhile. Days like this it's hard to see a horizon.

This is taken from roughly the same spot the day before.

The latest news is that there will be a plane on Thursday, but anything can happen, so until I'm actually on the plane, then I'll believe it.

Not something you hear a lot up here, because everyone knows it cold. Spent another day at the lab and we're making good progress. The temperature is still in the -20 degrees celsius range, but we have been lucky with very little wind. Can't stay outside with the camera too long, it starts to complain. Here are some shots from today.

Our mode of transportation, there is a new truck but they are waiting on a part for one of the tracks.

The lab, looks like it is in the middle of nowhere, actually it is in the middle of nowhere. From where the vehicle parks or drops us off, it is another 10 minute walk to the lab.

The mountains look close but they are pretty far away.

The sun moving across the horizon.

The snow on some icicles.

Looking towards Crystal Mountain, the rope in the foreground is a lifeline. It helps you find your way back to the lab, in case your out at an instrument deck and the weather turns bad.

When we were leaving the lab, it started to get fogged in.

A zoomed in close-up of the previous shot.

This is Dave waiting for me to stop taking pictures.

With the delay getting up here we lost a couple of days of work and now have to work to ensure we are done by the time our scheduled plane arrives. There was a major on our plane coming up, he is here to investigate the fuel spill. We talked to him at dinner today and he said he would call Ottawa on Monday to find out about the plane for this coming week. It turns out he sits a couple of offices away from the guy who does all the seat bookings to Alert.

The weather today was good, sunny and clear, although the minus 20 degrees Celsius is a little hard to get use to. Took some pictures of the mountains around the lab. This was taken around noon.

Part of the lab building.

The sky is spectacular when the weather is clear.

Inside the lab, which is home for the next few days.

Back in August, the Prime Minister made a visit to Alert, part of his visit included visiting the GAW (Global Atmosphere Watch) Lab. Here is Harper's message in the guest book.

Even though we were almost to Alert, nothing is a given, especially up here. We took off from Thule this morning around 0900 and were scheduled to land in Alert around 1030, it was a nice clear day in Thule on take-off. Apparently as the plane made it approach to Alert, the sky was clear as it circled to make the landing, but in the time it took to line up again, the fog rolled in and the pilot had to pull up from his approach. Again he circled and made a second attempt, again he had to pull up. We circled for a while and then the pilot came on and informed us that we were heading back to Thule. Sure there was nice scenery to see, but being on the ground would have been a lot better. This was from our first trip over to Alert.

One of my favourite sights is seeing glaciers from the air.

The views are amazing as you fly over.

Flying back over the water towards Thule.

Can you see the face in this ice floe?

After we landed back in Thule, it was another wait around and see what the orders are from Winnipeg. There were a couple of options, re-fuel and then make another attempt at Alert, if that failed go south to Iqaluit, or west to Resolute Bay. Staying in Thule wasn't an option because the airport shuts down for the weekend (run by Danish civilians). After receiving weather reports from Alert, it was decided to try one more attempt, and luckily we were able to land without incident. A lot of happy people on the ground (especially those waiting to leave for the past two weeks) and a lot of happy people in the plane. Some more photos from the second trip to Alert today.

This is called Dundas Mountain.

There were a lot of icebergs close to Thule.

Just one more.

We landed in Thule by 1430 EDT, our stopover for the night. The weather was about -5 degrees Celcius and no wind. There were quite a few foxes running around the base, including this guy.

They aren't too timid, they don't come right up to you but ignore you until you're really close and then they scamper away.

We managed to get off early this morning, it was approximately 0600 hours when we took off from CFB Trenton, en route to Thule, Greenland. It wasn't a direct flight as expected, we ended up stopping in Pond Inlet for about an hour. They had to drop off two mechanics who were going to do some work on a twin otter. This is our plane in Pond Inlet.

A bunch of houses near the airport, I guess everything is near the airport.

Some of the mountains and fuel tanks.

More of the buildings in Pond Inlet, you can see the frozen ice rink to the right.

The airport terminal sign.

The exit sign in the Pond Inlet terminal.

See last week's posts, we've been delayed another 24 hours, and the rate/luck we've had 24 turns into 48, turns into canceled. I guess being stuck at home is better than being stuck up there.

Going...not going...maybe going...definitely not going...going. Pretty much my conversation with Susan this week regarding my trip to Alert. Around noon yesterday, we found out there were two seats available for next weeks flight if we wanted them. Since the prospect of going up while there is daylight makes a lot of sense, especially when there is work to be done outside, we took the seats. We are now back to the wait and see, call Trenton, wait and see. No chance of an Airbus, so it will be a CF-130 Hercules all the way there. Will keep you posted.

Just received official word that there will be no Airbus flight to Thule this week. Next weeks flight is full and so on and so forth. We will reschedule for November, not a great time of year, but after mid-October it is dark 24 hours so what difference does it make, other than the temperature will be dropping. The monthly average temperature for October is -19.4 °C compared to -26.4 °C for November.

Still in limbo over whether I'm heading to Alert this week. My CC-130 Hercules flight was canceled on Tuesday. The latest is there is a CC-150 Polaris (basically an A310 Airbus) scheduled to leave at 1100 hrs on Friday for Thule, Greenland. There has been no confirmation that we are booked onto that flight because the biggest question is getting us from Thule to Alert. Here is a DND photo of a Polaris.

It is amazing how the Taliban can have such an impact on my day to day routine. As a result of the senseless killing of four Canadian soldiers today in Kandahar, Afgahnistan, my scheduled flight to Alert this week was canceled due to plane availability. The plane that was scheduled to take us is now being sent to repatriate the bodies. Although the flight has been canceled, we still have to call everyday in the event that they find a plane. When I called tonight they said there was the possibility of a Thursday flight. All we can do is wait.

Next scheduled trip is up to Alert. Waiting for confirmation that the equipment is actually up there. This will be the start of a busy fall. Among the places that I'll be traveling are Saturna Island, Kejimkujik, Regina, Eastern Townships, Newfoundland, Peterborough, Chalk River and Mount Brydges.