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Tuesday, May 29, 2007
A Couple of Islands
"Photo by R.Tanabe"
I'm off to Manitoulin Island this week for another site operator search.
The destination is Gore Bay, on the north shore of the island. Waiting
to cross the Swing Bridge at Little Current. It is only a one lane
bridge.
I went out to the site at Burnt Island, not really an island, it is well
connected to the main island. A popular place during deer season.
The closest town is Silver Water. I saw this sign.
Here is the sign in proper context.
It was a beautiful day on the island.
Sunset over Gore Bay.
Looking out to the North Channel.
Gordon's Lodge in Gore Bay.
See the bird on the rock?
A close-up.
Went for a drive after dinner.
Not sure what type of birds these are. I think they are Sandhill cranes.
Lots of deer out in the fields at dusk.
The Lodge from across the bay, my room was in the building on the right.
A lighthouse out on Janet Head.
Light on!
Light off!
Wildlife was abundant on this trip. I saw a black bear run across the
highway just outside of Sudbury. I also saw lots of deer and Great Blue
Herons on the island.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Iqaluit to Alert
Woke up this morning to a howling wind and an Environment Canada Wind
Warning for Iqaluit. Just what we needed, to be stuck in Iqaluit due to
the weather, luckily the wind was going the right way. The day started
at 6:00 am in the Iqaluit Airport.
We did some more hurry up and wait. Other flights with First Air were
taking off so it was only a matter of when, not if we would take off.
Some photos of the Iqaluit terminal inside.
The check-in desks for the commercial flights.
A sign about polar bears.
A Nunavut tourism display booth.
We finally departed Iqaluit at 08:50 am and headed to Thule, Greenland
for fuel. A shot as we were getting close to Thule.
We landed there around 11:45 am and were on the ground until 01:00 pm.
The waiting area in Thule.
The last of the sun for at least a week.
We finally touched down in Alert around 2:45 pm, much to the relief of
the nine people heading south. The following are random shots taken from
the herc.
Some of the cargo inside the herc.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
No Plane this Week...
The title says it all. By Monday afternoon, the word had gone out that
there would be no plane coming in this week. Which means I'm stuck in
Alert for at least another week.
A picture of the artifacts case in the front lobby of the station.
The main linkway which connects all the houses on the station. The blue
floor is new.
This photo was taken at 11:00 yesterday morning.
I saw the two young wolves yesterday morning after breakfast. I was
watching them from the cafeteria windows, I haven't seen them outside
yet. Last night was darts night, I managed to come in first and won the
$70 top prize.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Fire Alarms in Alert
We had a fire alarm last night at 11:30pm, I had turned in early, so was
woken up from a good sleep. We had to meet in one of the bars with our
arctic gear and wait. We were there for about an hour before we got the
all clear. The alarm was from one of the buildings down by the airfield.
This morning I went for a walk outside. I didn't get out yesterday, so I
walked around the main complex. The weather was cold, with blowing snow.
The main entrance to the main building. It was around 10:00 am when I
went for my walk.
The sign outside.
One of the snowplows trying to catch up on all the snow that has fallen.
A couple of the guys delayed with me keeping busy on one of the fresh
air ducts outside.
The Welcome to Alert sign.
Looking back up towards the main station.
Picture of me for the girls.
There are two planes scheduled for next week, but it is early, at least
it increases the odds. I'm only delayed a week, there are people who
have served 6 months up here and were suppose to leave this week.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Lunch in Halifax
I'm down in Nova Scotia this week, today and tomorrow I'm in the Truro
area and then down in Kejimkujik for the rest of the week. Today was a
travel day, so we had the opportunity to have lunch in Halifax.
Across from the restaurant was NovaScotian Crystal, it is on the
waterfront and the glassworks area is open to the street. Here is the
one guy blowing the glass.
Then he passed it off to another guy who added the handle.
The glass jug with handle.
The oven.
Somewhere along the waterfront.
Some of the boats in the harbour.
Close-up of the floats on the boat.
A lighthouse on Georges Island.
Some jellyfish in the harbour.
This is a cool play structure on the waterfront, it is shaped as a boat.
A sign outside the visitor information centre.
A sign on the wharves, "Wooden Wharves Please Do Not Smoke".
It was low tide at mid day.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Around Town
I can now say I have been to the remote interior of Alaska and survived.
On the second day I went for a walk around town. And when I say town it
is just a few buildings. It wasn't quite 24 hour sun, but pretty close,
there were only a few hours of night, the days would start getting
shorter by a few minutes each day until they hit 24 hour dark by
November. This is the building I stayed in, it is part of the Bettles
Lodge.
This is the new National Park Service Visitor Centre that was being
built. It was replacing a previous one which burnt down a few years ago.
The NPS, the Fish and Wildlife Service, airport and the Bettles Lodge
are the main employers.
There are only two lodges in town, but both are now owned by the same
person. It use to be separate families and it was pretty much a
Hatfield-McCoy type of deal. Eventually one drove the other out of
business.
A close-up of the moose skull.
Much of the time I was in Bettles it was sunny, partly cloudy. Yesterday
we watched a storm blow around us. There was thunder and lightening, but
we missed most of it.
Some stats on Bettles. Although it is called Bettles it is really
Bettles Field, the original town is downstream, but was pretty much
abandoned once the airstrip was built.
The main Bettles Lodge. There is a large portion of tourists from Japan
and Germany. The majority of them pay big bucks to come in
February-March during the prime Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis)
viewing period.
It is a Historic Place.
The Bettles Ranger Station. Most of the National Parks Service staff are
seasonal, except for one lone guy who stays through the winter to keep
the buildings going.
We had to make another trip out to the site. The mosquitoes were even
worse than the previous day. Those birds in the picture are actually
mosquitoes.
Everyone had on their bug dope and bug jackets on today.
Here I am in front of the lodge.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
South of Anchorage
I had some time on my last day in Anchorage to take in some sights. I
decided to rent a car and drive south of Anchorage towards Portage Lake.
This is Turnagain Arm, you can see the mudflats in the foreground. A
couple of people have died after venturing out and getting stuck in the
fine silt and then being unable to get their leg free as high tide comes
in.
This is McHugh Creek, just one of many that flow down towards Turnagain
Arm.
This was Beluga Point, didn't see any belugas though because of the low
tide.
Looking east in towards the arm.
A compass on the ground to orient yourself.
Some wildflowers near one of the lookouts.
Most of the drive was in cloudy overcast skies.
A timer picture of me.
Turnagain Arm is one of the few places in the world (about 60 places)
that have tidal bores. The Bay of Fundy being one of the larger tidal
ranges.
This was closer to the Portage turnoff.
There was no sign prohibiting the use of firearms.
I was able to see a moose in his natural habitat.
And then I saw some muskox by the side of the road.
And wouldn't luck have a brown bear was off in the distance.
There were a couple of wood bison minding their own business.
I wasn't sure if this moose was thinking of charging.
You must of figured out by now that these animals weren't quite as free
and wild as they look. Close to the Portage Lake turnoff is the Alaska
Wildlife Conservation Centre. This place takes in injured or
orphaned animals. You can either drive through it or park and walk
through. Here is a close-up of the Wood Bison, this herd was from
Canada, they are there for a couple of years and then they will be
released into the wild.
They had the Sitka Black Tailed deer and elk mixed in together.
Caribou or "reindeer" grazing in their compound.
This was a Plains Bison different from the Wood Bison above.
The brown bear sitting for a picture. As you can see there isn't much
between the bear and me, it is about 6ft away, behind an electric fence,
the fence and then a rail fence on my side.
This cabin is the remenants of the 1964 earthquake that hit Alaska, it
register 9.2 on the Ricter scale, the largest ever in the Northern
Hemisphere. The town of Portage was destroyed, and many areas dropped so
much that the saltwater killed much of the low lying forests and
surrounding vegetation.
This bird kept flying around when I was walking along a trail.
This is Portage Lake, the icebergs are from the Portage Glacier. The
glacier comes down and enters the water and extends about 100 feet into
the water.
The glacier use to extend right across the lake, in order to see it
close-up you need to take a cruise boat up to the face of it.
If you drive a little further there is a viewpoint where you can
actually see part of the glacier.
The Begich-Boggs Visitor Center, the glacier use to reach the visitor
center in 1911.
This either the Burns or Byron glacier.
A hanging glacier in the distance.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Dairy State
I'm down in Madison Wisconsin this week for the National Atmospheric
Deposition Program annual meeting and scientific symposium. The
hotel/meeting area is next door to the state capital. In the afternoon
there was a rally over at the capital, when I walked over it turned out
to be a Barack Obama rally and the key speaker was John Kerry, one of of
the early runners for the Democratic presidential ticket.
At this point I could hear the speakers but I wasn't sure who was
speaking. Other than the Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin ther was no
indication who was going to speak.
The view of the State Capital building.
I think my camera is on it's last legs, while I was taking pictures it
started going screwy. It looks cool, but it isn't suppose to look like
that.
It turned out it was a Obama/Biden rally to get people out to vote
early. John Kerry spoke for about 15 minutes, in 2004 when he spoke here
he had Bruce Springsteen with him.
There was a group of McCain supporters trying to drown out the speech.
Some of the people a rally will draw.
I took this guys picture for Angela.
It was interesting standing there watching some American politics on our
Election Day. 
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Now This Is Snow
This site also does upper atmosphere measurements for Environment Canada
as well as tropospheric ozonesondes. On this morning the operator was
doind an ozonesonde.
It was a bright sunny day, but not too cold, only around -5°C.
Preparing the weather balloon.
Ready to launch, prior to launch they have to get permission from the
local airport.
Up, up and away
This intersection had five stop signs. You can count four of them, plus
the one I was stopped at.
Some of the snow is up to the second floor. This is all snow that has
fallen, no drifting here.
The snowbanks are almost twice as high as my car.
The snow is higher than the stop signs.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
One More Day in Goose Bay
In the building there was an old typewriter, haven't seen one of these
in awhile.
The weather wasn't as nice today, they were calling for 5 cm of snow and
increased winds.
There was this place called Fur Harvesters. A closer look at the sign
above the garage. Not sure what they do with the Scrap Meat.
Gas prices in Goose Bay were $101.40.
Some of the snowbanks on the main road. Notice the pedestrian crossing
sign, with that much snow, there are no sidewalks. People have to walk
on the main road.
The waiting lounge at the Goose Bay airport.
My flights back to Toronto were on time, was able to walk of the Goose
Bay to Halifax flight and then walk onto the Halifax to Toronto plane.
Because of the connection, my luggage was at the top and it was one of
the first bags out in Toronto.
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