Arctic Adventure 2010

9 Oct 2010

So, here I am, after 10 years of dreaming about Ellesmere Island, today I left Montreal heading for Eureka. After about 5 hours of flight, my first stop was in Edmonton for less than an hour in order to take a connecting flight to Yellowknife. Just after taking off, I was amazed by the perfectly rectangular shape of the Alberta farms, all exactly the same size, and impressed by the good quality of the agricultural work. Later the landscape become similar to a minefield – lacs everywhere. After one hour and a half, I arrived at the Yellowknife airport.

Arriving at the Yellowknife Airport

We went to the hotel (The Coast Fraser Tower) and I found it convenient to get free wireless internet in the rooms. On the other hand my Rogers cell phone didn’t get any signal, while my colleagues with Tellus did. We went then for a walk in town, and it was familiar to see usual things, like your bank. On the other hand, my credit card worked twice, then stopped. Probably my bank tries to protect me for suspect remote transactions.

Out in Yellowknife

We took this opportunity to do some gift shopping. Unfortunately, at 2000$, this item was a bit too expensive:

Gift shopping - 2000$ each

Today was cloudy and probably tonight at midnight too. May be it gets clearer at the end of the night. That’s too bad because the northern lights (auroras) are mostly at midnight. BTW, Yellowknife is one of the best places to see auroras.

Tomorrow morning we should take off at 8:30 am and we should arrive 7 hours later in Eureka after 2 stops in Cambridge Bay and Resolute to refuel.

10 Oct 2010

We took a taxi at 8:15h to go to the hangar of the company Summit Air. The driver was black who come there from Africa, through the US, because his brother lived there. He mentioned that most of the people in Yellowknife work in mining, some in diamonds mining. They work in 2 weeks shifts (2 weeks far north, 2 home in Yellowknife). They have high salaries, so everything is expensive in Yellowknife, beyond the fact that most of the items for sale come from the south. I didn’t know that the diamond shops there were actually presenting Canadian diamonds.

Immediately after taking off, one can again see this view, similar to a minefield or Everglades.

Canada as a mine field

Then the view bellow became overcast, so only later we realised that the ground became snow covered.

First view of Canada's Arctic

… and even some first little icebergs

little icebergs

Then, here I am in the Cambridge Bay airport, our first stop to re-fuel on the way to Eureka.

Making friends at the Cambridge Bay airport

Believe it or not, this is a fully featured airport, including luggage-band…

Cambridge Bay airport luggage-band

… travel desks …

Cambridge Bay travel desks

… and public phones,

Cambridge Bay airport public phones

as it deserves a fully featured town, with school buses …

Cambridge Bay school buses

… and bus stops.

Cambridge Bay school buses

If you ever want to go to a college, here there are some opportunities.

College opportunities in Cambridge Bay

or if you want a local show, here it is.

Show in Cambridge Bay

If you want to travel in the area, here it’s the network of air-plane companies offering scheduled flights (the name of the companies are shown in the legend)

Scheduled flights network in the Arctic

and a such plane just arriving at Cambridge Bay

Scheduled flight arriving in Cambridge Bay

Finally, here it’s a last view of the town after taking off

Last View of Cambridge Bay

We are heading north again to our next stop, Resolute Bay. Here it’s how it looks inside our Twin Otter plane

inside plane - front

inside plane - rear

and how it looks outside

Landscape on the way to Resolute

Ice on the way to Resolute

and finally at the Resolute Bay airport

Arriving at the Resolute Bay airport

which it’s again a fully featured facility, including luggage-band.

Luggage-band at Resolute Bay Airport

I take the opportunity to immortalize my presence in this frozen world at the Resolute Bay Airport.

Standard picture at the Resolute Airport

Here it’s another map of scheduled flights across the Canadian Arctic (other companies). I checked and from Montreal one can get to Ikaluit for about 1500$ round trip. From there to Resolute it requires another 3000$. From Resolute to Eureka there is no scheduled flight. A rented charter costs 25000$ from Resolute to Eureka and it’s necessary twice (once when you go, and once when you came back). Therefore for 5 people, it means 10000$ per person for a round trip Resolute-Eureka. In conclusion, a round trip from Montreal to Eureka costs about 15000$, depending on the number of people.

Another Arctic Air Flights Network

and finally the last view from Resolute, on the way to Eureka

Last View of Resolute Bay

Progressively, the rocky mountains of Ellesmere Island show up

Rocky mountains in Ellesmere Island

Glacier on Ellesmere Island

You may have noticed the wooden box in our plane. Inside it was another passenger, Brutus, actually coming home from a make up trip in the south (see details later).

Brutus returning to Eureka

11 Oct 2010

This is the main entrance to the Eureka Weather Station. One can notice the configuration of the dish antenna to capture geostationary TV satellites, which here are near the horizon.

Eureka Weather Station

and of course, the post office address. One can actually send items to this address at the normal rates inside Canada. BTW, the Eureka principal meteorologist can do immigration forms too.

Eureka Post Office

Finally at my place of work – the astronomical domes where the new star-photometer will be installed. Near it’s the blue 0PAL facility of CANDAC (actually for the time being one uses this facility too)

My place of work @ 0PAL facility

Here it’s a view of the complete facility for the star-photometer, from left to right: old dome, new dome and control container (which is heated, with power and internet connection etc.).

Star-photometer facility

12 Oct 2010

In order to let you feel the atmosphere inside the station, here are some views from inside.

View from kitchen @ Eureka

Coming back to Brutus, here it’s he’s new location. He was the birding male of a wolves pack used to be around Eureka. The next few pictures are self explanatory.

New place for Brutus @ Eureka

Brutus's Story

Brutus movements tracked by satellite

Brutus's suspected killings and rendezvous sites

Here is the main play and entertaining room. The polar bear skin is from a bear who started to come too close to Eureka. That would have put in danger the staff and it was shut down.

Playroom @ Eureka

Finally my own 5 beds room. Actually, the per diem cost of this all inclusive resort is 450$.  It means that my 3 weeks trip here should cost a grand total of 25000$, including plane. For 10 times this price one can go into space for few minutes with the new Virgin Galactic rocket.

My bedroom

13 Oct 2010

Here are some pictures taken just before going to work. The first shows the view to the frozen fiord (in summer it’s open water), the harbour with two barges and some of the old first buildings of the station.

Eureka's harbour

not to mention this strange sign because I didn’t see any regular bus passing by.

Unexpected BUS STOP sign

One of the last Sun rises of the year (at about 10 am).

Sun rise @ Eureka

Here it’s a closer look of the domes.

With the starphotometer domes

It might be interesting to show this robust and nice equipment in work from the 70’s – it’s the main weather data reading panel.

Main readout instruments @ Eureka Weather Station

14 Oct 2010

Our instrument is ready for calibration, but we need stars and the forecast shows overcast for the next days. Therefore I took a trip by car to PEARL (15 km). At about the 80N latitude indicator, I met this musk-ox pack. It’s amazing how such a big animal run away as soon you get too close to them.

Muskox at 80N

Or better see this short film.

I cannot tell the excitement for finally arriving at the most desired PEARL of the north.

Arriving at PEARL Upper Atmospheric Observatory @ 15 km from Eureka

Therefore, I took some pictures from the roof.

On the roof @ PEARL

Fiord view from PEARL

I couldn’t resist to make some trekking around to see and feel the environment.

Some trekking out of PEARL

Even in this challenging environment, I found some flowers for my girls back home.

Still some flowers

This will probably be one of my favourite pictures at the retirement.

Crossing 80N

15 Oct 2010

One can see here some optical effects at sundown – in the same time the so called sun-pillar and sun-dogs. I suspect that the reason is scattering on a high and thin cloud layer. One should note the vertical light (the pillar) and the two horizontal spots near the edge of the picture (the dogs).

Optical effects at sundown

Here the radiosonde balloon is filled with hydrogen an read to fly.

Release of the Vaisala radiosonde at 6:15 pm

16 Oct 2010

This seems to be a very nice day, with clear sky, with lots of hope for a clear night  to do star-photometry. Suddenly, I made an important scientific discovery – here it’s the reason for the well known Arctic pollution.

Electric diesel generators @ Eureka

Here are some morning pictures of the domes of telescopes and the star photometer. One should notice the very nice, clear and colourful sky on the background.

Star photometer facility and 0PAL on clear sky

Dome of the new star-photometer @ Eureka

While I’ve been working, other people from Eureka went near the airport to play with some fluffy harmless polar wolves (15 min video – select a higher resolution). Warning: Don’t do that on your own!

After spending few days with indoor preparations, for this clear night we were finally ready to work on stars. However, it wasn’t easy to concentrate on work while having  some wolfs just near the dome (so, where we were) and howling around for hours. But you know, it’s not easy to find a good and safe job these days.

17 Oct 2010

Today it’s my lucky day and I was allowed to release a radiosonde balloon at UTC time 19 Oct 2010, 00Z. It was actually released at 23:15, so 45 minutes before the recorded value, to take into account for the ascension time.

radiosonde release @ Eureka, 19 Oct 00Z UTC

As the wind at the ground was zero, the balloon went strait up until we lost it from the view. It reached 31 km altitude and here it’s the meteorological data produced.

radiosonde data @ Eureka, 19 Oct 2010 00Z UTC

The evening was clear and we finally managed to finish the installation and the alignment of the new star-photometer. Now we’re ready for measurements. It was  a really  successful day.

18 Oct 2010

Today was cloudy, so I went to visit the SAFIRE facility near the airport. First on the way it’s Fort Eureka, a military facility occupied mostly in the summer. To avoid security issues, here it’s just a picture from far away.

Fort Eureka from far away

At the place were my colleagues filmed the wolves two days ago, today we found only their kids. The adults went probably to find some food.

fluffy harmless baby polar wolf

It’s strange that the adults wolves were not there, because the food was just next door. These musk-ox seem to eat the whole field of snow.

musk-ox eating "snow"

As surprising that might be, but grass is actually growing on the permafrost, even if not as green as in the south.

grass on permafrost

Finally we arrived at the SAFIRE facility which it’s a long wave radar (see the field of antennas) for sounding the atmosphere.

SAFIRE facility

On the way back, I’ve seen the Eureka International Airport, which I didn’t figured out at my arrival at Eureka. The airport may not seem very modern, but the runaway already allowed the arrival of few Boeing 747.

Eureka International Airport, NU, Canada

When coming back at the Eureka main building, a polar wolf was just in front of the door. I was alone, but probably I’m so ugly that the wolf was scared away.

One should certainly emphasise that Ellesmere Island is a paradise for natural archaeology. It seems to have been the floor of the sea, as here one can find plenty of fossils. For example, here it’s just one fossil of similar 6-7 the cook of the station has found nearby last summer. I think that here one may easily make a museum of natural sciences.

Aquatic fossil at Eureka

This looks as wood but it’s actually a fossil, so rather a rock. It seems however that it could still burn. I’d love such think on my living-room!

Wood fossil from near Eureka

19 Oct 2010

I don’t know if there is a connection with the fact that I’m nearly staying on the magnetic pole, but my sense of orientation has a glitch since I came here. My bedroom is at the second floor, so I have to go up stairs and then turn left. Even if told myself already thousand times, at every single time I turn right. I’m at the sea level, so there is no lack of oxygen. Strange! I hope this will not affect my driving skills back home!

Concerning our work, after several important issues, the stellar photometer is up and running well. Now we just wait for stars in order to measure the nocturnal aerosol optical depth.

Stellar photometer installed @ Eureka

20 Oct 2010

Well, I didn’t have a very lucky day today – an unexpected big issue with the mount of the telescope. At least I had the chance to release this weekly ozone measurement radiosonde.

ozone balloon release

21 Oct 2010

We keep trying to investigate the problem with the mount of the telescope, instead of actually making measurements. We are not in a very good mood. Nevertheless, here’s how it looks the fuel storage at Eureka.

Fuel storage @ Eureka

May be this shy first Moon could make a change!

Shy first Moon @ Eureka

22 Oct 2010

Today, we started with a huge deception very early in the morning when we concluded that the problem with the mount must be an electronic box that we cannot fix here, and therefore our mission it’s compromised. Then at the end of the day, a kind of ecstasy, when, after removing the cover of the mount, it suddenly started to work properly and we initiated a night full of measurements. The Moon may have been helpful, after all.

First night of measurements @ Eureka

Here it’s our first set of nocturnal aerosol optical depth measurements at Eureka.

First set of nocturnal AOD @ Eureka

Being near the North Pole, the night sky has some particularities – the Polaris  star is near the zenith, all the main solar system objects are near the horizon and most of the stars never rise or set, just move parallel to horizon. For example, now, as the sun doesn’t rise up any more (but it’s never too far down the horizon), as soon it gets really dark, one can see Jupiter (and eventually Uranus near) moving around just near the horizon for the whole night. It’s even amusing – it should be the case for other external objects of the solar system too (the internal ones are probably under horizon near the Sun). The Moon is never very high as well.

Given the fact that the Sun is now 24 h under the horizon, I was hoping to see the upcoming Hartley2 comet getting closer to the Sun than anywhere else on Earth. Unfortunately, the full Moon being now up and reflecting the light on the snowy surface, the crepuscular light being near the horizon for long time, the Eureka weather station intensely making light pollution (as anywhere in Canada, supposedly for security reasons – I don’t know however who could ever come here to still anything), make up a night sky quite bright, being impossible to see anything fainter than 4th magnitude, even with binoculars or a small refracting telescope. I tried for find Hartley2 for hours, without any success. However, I have to mention that far from Eureka, later in the polar night when it’s really dark and when the Moon is not up yet, this dry polar sky is one of the best in the world to observe the stars.

23 Oct 2010

After a good night of measurements, one can enjoy the morning twilight view.

Morning twilight @ Eureka

Here it’s the evening 360 view, behind Eureka, with twilight and moonlight.

24 Oct 2010

Finally, as the instrument finally works, last night we left it to take measurements alone and have a nice Bingo at the Eureka station. It happen that I won 15$. I hope I’ll not get use to it.

Bingo @ Eureka

25 Oct 2010

We’ve heard that some muskox should be around, waiting for pictures. Therefore, some of us went for a walk. I took the opportunity to record this view of Eureka too.

Eureka colours

Don’t make any mistake, I’m not the shepherd of this horde.

A walk with the muskox

I just love this picture.

Just to keep in mind this view

Being so dry, the snow is like powder and any wind can blow it in the air making ice crystals.

Powder snow

I must find an explanation for this colour distribution of the sky.

Moon fantasy over Eureka

Going on the main street to down-town Eureka, it’s sure to remember the name of the streets.

Street signs @ Eureka

As my departure from Eureka approaches, I took some new pictures with the station, here showing its geographical coordinates.

Eureka: 89o59N 85o56W

and again the main entry.

Welcome to Canada - northernmost entry point

After the lunch, we heard that some polar wolves might be around the airport, near the Eureka military fort. Therefore we went there for a visit.

Eureka military fort @ Eureka airport

Here is a harmed wolf exposing some blood.

harmed wolf

Even a bird was around. May be to get some rests from the wolves lunch.

Must be a predator bird

Finally we found the wolves pack, on this beautiful Arctic landscape.

Let's try to make some friends

and this is the real staff… an encounter with a big and nice specimen….

a potential friend coming up

We didn’t impress him much, so he came to sniff a bit around us. It’s not necessarily a good experience to be sniffed by a polar wolf.

Feeling sniffed

I think that these movies could give a more realistic feeling.

26 Oct 2010

This morning I went very early to the instrument and when I went out of the dome, I found myself in front of the movie star wolf from yesterday. Being alone, I didn’t take the chance to play with it, and I just jumped back inside the dome and just wait there for a while, you know…

Later on, I took some pictures of the instruments used by the main weather station for recording meteorological data.

meteorological instrumentation field @ Eureka

and the opposite view of the instrumentation field, now including the radiosonde building.

radiosonde launch building

I found interesting to show here one of the northernmost gas pomp in the world.

gas pomp @ 80N

27 Oct 2010

Today I had the chance to go again at the PEARL station, on top of the mountain, which is at only 600 m altitude. The operator asked few of us to help him to mount a new instrument.  Even there, Canadians are proudly showing their colours. Here’s the Canadian flag on a nice background.

One can see as well here that the Moon is no longer full. At this time of the year, when the Sun is long time near the horizon (you know precisely where it is), the phases of the Moon and the relative position of the Moon and Sun, make obvious the fact that the Moon is actually illuminated by the Sun. I believe that if the humanity would have evolved here, may be the Heliocentric Universe would have been figure it out much earlier in the history.

Canadian pride at PEARL

Then I immortalised myself on this colourful background, when the sun never rises again.

again that view of the fiord from PEARL

Here the wind makes some modern sculptures…

a beautiful angle

Here I made my own Inukshuk.

near my Inukshuk

… and a wider view of the fiord intersection.

view from PEARL

and the Eureka station as seen from PEARL.

Eureka seen from PEARL

May be this 360 deg view could make a bit more justice to the surreal environment.

28 Oct 2010

Here are some really strange double layer clouds.

double layer clouds

strange clouds

The only thing missing here was the Star Wars laser beam action. Here it’s the night time view of the Dalhusie University RMR Lidar.

Dalhusie Univ. RMR Lidar

29 Oct 2010

Believe it or not, today’s my last day at Eureka. After a night without sleeping trying to solve an interference between our instrument and a nearby radar, and some very good measurements, I joined the weather station technicians to measure the ice thickness in the middle of the fiord.

making a hole in the middle of the fiord

Of course, they gave me the pleasure to work a bit… and finally found out it’s 60 cm thick… it wasn’t easy. As my little princess gave me a letter for Santa Claus, I’ve put it in a plastic bottle and left it in the whole. I’ve heard that this is his icy mailbox.

measuring the ice thickness

I didn’t have much time left, so here I am in front of the plane which will carry us south to Yellowknife. It’s big enough to go there without any refuel stop, but we’ll make nevertheless one stop to take additional passengers from Resolute.

our plane for Arctic escape

As there was a little time to wait in order to charge into the plane the famous HSRL Lidar (going south for repairing), I played the MUST play game in the Arctic. If it’s very cold and very dry, the boiling water thrown in the air, evaporates almost completely, so there is almost no water coming down.

hot water doesn't fall down, evaporates instantly

Then we took off and, after a while going south, there is some hope to see the sun again.

going to see the Sun again

30 Oct 2010

After spending the night in Yellowknife (and bought some frozen musk-ox steaks and sausages), I took a taxi to go to the airport. The driver was from Somalia, speaking Romanian (he was student in Bucharest), knowing Romania more than many Romanians, and singing with me “si-asa bea oamenii buni, de sambata pina luni” (i.e. so drink good people, from Saturday to Monday). I gave him a hug and then enjoyed a sunny day outside the clouds, heading for Calgary.

Finally a sunny day leaving Yellowknife

Being over Alberta, it appeared again the view of the perfectly rectangular farms. However, near Calgary the land is not as perfectly flat as near Edmonton.

Albertans rectangular farms

One may even see the Rockies at the horizon.

Rockies at horizon

This view seen from the airport, of the Calgary down-town, with the Rockies on the background, concludes my adventure in the Santa Claus fairyland. I hope you enjoyed the trip as much as I did.

back to civilisation in Calgary