Evolution

I just sent an email off to some friends of our's stating how this blog might very well be undergoing a state of transition. I began writing it pretty much under the influence of chocolate cake and the encouragement of another friend, who said it was easy and could be done just like that (snap your fingers)! The impetuous was to leave a trail for where on the planet Steve and I are and what we are doing there. A blog seemed to have a much more serious level of commitment to it than say, e -mail. Which I was never committed to. Secondary motivations were there too: Greenland does not offer up much literature published in English explaining what Greenland is. As our friends, whom we were eating this cake with and speaking to about blogs, are both travel writers with a very successful book about Mexico, now in its 13 edition (or is it 14Th?) do this for a living, I received much encouragement about blogging on the subject of Greenland. Also, as one posts on their blog, they are nearly daily, writing. This is good fodder for the hopper. But as one writes in this freestyle format one lacks an outline or a goal to meet or develop any congruent idea. The way I blog is similar to the way I ski down the mountain; I may know the general area I am going to go to, but for the life of me, I wont know what I am going to ski until I have skied it. And so my writing about Greenland has evolved into my witting about writing. I guess I have developed a bad case of, writers blog.
What I don't believe is that for any one who is consciously recollecting memories of a past that was at times fabulous , though at other time, traumatic, the experience would be easy or pleasant. There is the desire to burn all the damn stuff I have inscribed with my thoughts during those years on the sea and forget about it, though we all know this isn't possible. ..The forgetting about it. There is also an urgent expectation for myself to cull through it all, as I did the fish and the crab, sorting out what is worthwhile from what is just crap and preserving the "keepers".

Fishing

Ever since I started thinking seriously about writing a book, I have begun doing some light research on the state of the Bering Sea crab fishery. Any one who considers their self to be an, up to date on contemporary affairs, kind of person, will be able to guess what the biggest hitter is out there on the world wide web even if they, like me dont watch TV.
The television series, The Deadliest Catch, produced by the Discovery channel corporation. Not only does TDC pop up all over the screen whenever the key words, crab, Dutch, Bering Sea or commercial fishing are used, but the site itself offers up a myriad of further links: the local newspaper of Unalaska, the Aleut corporation's own history of the Unangan peoples (named Aleut by the Russians), employment in the fishing industry and a hyperlink to the USCG.
From TDC's home page I can navigate around and look at boats I used to be familiar with captained by men whose faces I at least remember, though a few of them, I knew. I even worked for one of the captains who will be featured in this season's upcoming or already on going show.
And so, I posted a comment on the TDC's blog site which featured this old skipper of mine who has been married for 15 years, has two children, (and admittedly likes spending time with them) and prefers gardening of all things during the off seasons. If you were to spend some time surfing around in TDC's website, you would find this a rather unusual dossier compared to most of the men who captain the boats. For example, in an interview with the skipper of the, Wizard, when asked about his family, you could tell he had become a little bit uncomfortable. Or maybe to be fair, he was embarrassed, caught off of his tough macho guard. He blushed, made bashful movements in his chair and finally said, "The most important thing in my life". The trouble was, he had already given away this answer, between the lines so to speak, in regards to how he felt about fishing, his boat and being a captain on the Bering Sea. So before I posted my comment, I carefully read through all of the other people's comments. I did not want to sound arrogant or sentimental or God forbid, to say something that might cause a row of some sort. But there didn't appear to be anything overly spellbinding or even pertinent, mostly just fluffy little 3 liners about wanting a date with one of the crew members or a pep- o -rally inspired , "GO Deadliest Catch Go"!
Sigh. This is difficult for me, but also inspiring. I realise I am supposed to be writing about Greenland but in a way, Greenland is writing about me. Fishing thoughts and memories have always been flowing through me as if they had a tidal current all their own. I don't expect these sensations to ever completely go away, and so I write:
I introduce myself as having never watched the deadliest Catch, but of having worked on the decks of such boats for eight years. I then give sensitive honest credit to Capt F of the Early Dawn, a very good man indeed who was never out of line, rude, crude or unimproved. Perhaps that is why he has a wife of 15 years. I thank him for having the guts to hire a women and for paying her full share and allowing her to work one of the most prestigious positions on a crab boat deck, the rail. After I sign off, I leave for the green House. Thoughts start flooding in: What if he contacts me and asks me to be a crew member and I become just another character on the Discovery Channel? What if the Discovery Channel contacts me? What if no body even cares?
After all those years out there in Dutch Harbor beating the docks for jobs on boats that are now famous actresses in a popular documentary, I sense the Ego beginning to rise. If I were a "guy", maybe there would not be such a loud voice coming from the previously so well silenced Id, but as far as I can tell, in over four years of production, not a single "girl" has ever stood upon the working deck of any one of those boats and that irks me, because I know, it cant possibly be true. And now there is a connective thread between me and one of those boats. It is weird, but even from a capitalistic point of view, although I tend to be more of a socialist, if I were to be hired as a TDC crew member, I could really market this unwritten book of mine. ...I mean, "come on!" look at what the making of Hollywood's The Perfect Storm did for Linda Greenlaw! Besides, worrying parents and concerned, loving others, seriously, compared to the days when I fished, (when there were no camera crews or crab rationalization laws to keep the danger level in check), this stuff today has got to be a piece of cake! Plus you get two pay checks for being a sailor; one from the boat and the other from TV!
But according to the great philosophers , there is no such thing as chance. Which means, be careful what you wish for. And, as Steve points out, I am training for a triathlon..........
As a testimony to this life, we have all too make sure we do our best. If not to ourselves, then at the very least, to others. Of course, without doing unto ourselves first..........anyway, I was once interviewed by an anthropologist who had received a grant to go to Antarctica and talk with the women in the trades. Up until that year, there was little to none of this type of historical data. She felt it was very important. The number of women working on the Ice had increased from less than 2 percent in the early 1970's to over 45% in the later part of the last century. I reluctantly told her my story and she was almost annoyingly adamant about having my picture taken in the shop next to the bulldozer I was working on. I refused, saying that I was no different than any of the other "guys". I had learned this behaviour as a survival mechanism (in fact one skipper wrote my name out as Shawn in order to get around the companies policy of not hiring women due to fear of sexual harassment suits) called, don't act like your special. This developed into a credo. I even worked for a women who owned and skippered her own crab boat, who once gracefully bowed herself out of a television interview with the Anchorage daily news. I forget what she said verbatim, but it was roughly, "I am not special".
The thing is, she was. And she still is.
I did not live through the women's liberation movement. I have seen a few females act obnoxiously about their modern day emancipation. One moment they wont allow a door to be held open for them, then the next they are bitching about having the man not open the door in front of them. I understand that I may have taken allot of things for granted in the past, but some world traveling and some maturity (a grey hair) have inspired me to re think most of these things.
The sexes are different. Men can be flight attendants and women can be crabbers. But, it is wrong when they do it to prove some kind of a point or to get some sort of self aggrandizing attention from there position. But whenever any minority goes against the grain led by adventure or desire, passion or curiosity, there should come, from society, an awareness of this unusual circumstance. An acceptance. And certainly, if a documentary is going to call itself a documentary, it should do its best to document the truth and to learn how to at least try and partially dissolve its mantra of rough neck tough guy machismo in which they have steeped this "real life" depiction of the industry in. After all isn't it enough that we as humans have almost depleted all of the worlds seafood stocks without having to make it seem like a bunch of Quipeqags are still out there with harpoons and tattooed faces killing the leviathan? Shouldn't we take a pause from all that manifest destiny style guts and glory and show the more meaningful side of this rapidly diminishing life style? Rather than scare people out of their armchairs into a deeper and deeper depression for having to go to an office job which requires a commute (actually more people still die in traffic accidents than on the sea) why not show that there are still a places in the world where we can spend our lives with nature. There are still fisherman and skippers and gulls and sunsets and cold sparkling mornings at which dawn is all your own....
I have seen grown men break down and cry. I have seen guys leave the boat with their head hung low after only one short trip. I have seen them fight each other over loosing a bet on a ball game and I have seen them shaking from the DT's so badly they cannot light their own smoke.
I have also seen them hugging each other and calling their Moms over the single side band radio just to tell them they are OK.
I doubt any of this gets shown either.
I felt a glimmer of hope when surfing TDC' links.; there were two "crab related blogs" posted by seemingly female names. I was thrilled that they might be women deckhands, but no. One was a women who wrote erotic romance tales. The other was a relationship advisor who loved crab fisherman. Wink Wink.
My head is smart enough however to recognise that even though two of the world's oldest professions, like peanut butter and chocolate are, "two great tastes that still go great together" there has also got to be a more modern version in which this stereotype is abandoned for valor.
I suppose all writers need to have their minds re-steeped in that which caused the idea of a great enough subject to write about, in the first place, from time to time; to get the description of any fine tea down well enough to seek its flavor, one must not merely recollect a memory, but have a sip from a freshly brewed cup. Though the experience may be different the writer is too, and this is exactly the point, if the writer is aware of having changed, then how can he or she write honestly about that which has changed too?
And how could she not be in the least bit be tempted by a chance of being documented in a role so unique, so familiar so inspiring, whose televised image of, "smart like tractor strong like bull" could use some serious censor.
I would defiantly wear a tutu.

The Snow Bunting

I go out like the contents of a glass
into water, into wind.
Diluting, freezing, becoming vapor.
No, I do not go out like this, but in wool and synthetics,
worm -spun-silk, cotton stuffed with eider down.
My feet are in socks
then socks again.
I push them into smoothly smudged rubber boots.
Warm, old, arctic boots ,once white, now have the look of a news paper, worn.
What happened to the small bunting flown so far off his course?
Flying over, then dipping his body low enough to chirp.
He belongs in the turning of the willows near where the sled dogs live,
rattling on towards the fjord.
Not here, up on the void-less ice cap going out, like the contents of a glass.
Into water, into wind, into snow..............


Sometimes birds are blown off of their course or loose their migratory way. Though small flocks of geese have been seen, arctic sand pipers and snow buntings are more common. They appear in the air low and flitting, an obvious anomaly to the summit of the Ice cap where nothing has ever lived or would ever choose to live, except for a few strange people bundled in clothes melting snow for water.
The other day one such snow bunting graced us with his tiny presence. We always put out a bowl of hot water, which will last a few hours in its liquid state. Sometimes the birds take shelter in the lees then fly away. other times they die here and their frozen bodies are placed in special perching places safe from any further harm until they are completely buried in the accumulating or drifting snows.
This little one simply disappeared. We all like to hope that he made it back home to the sea's more temperate shore.

A man out standing in his field.

This morning we ate our oatmeal. With flax seeds and walnuts and yogurt and prunes and for Steve, maple syrup. Real ample syrup. Some people from Vermont brought some up this past summer. I prepared the bread dough for its final raising before the oven and we talked about our plans for the day. I volunteered to take out the trash. Our trash consists mostly of food scraps and cans and plastic bags and cardboard boxes. Unfortunately recycling is not yet an option as Greenland is still burning all of their trash. It is cost prohibitive for the NSF to charter the NY Air National Guard to fly an annual estimation of 4 tons of waste back to the States. However, the NYANG does agree to fly it back to Kangerlussuaq from Summit Summit. I have just tried to give you a hyper link to Summit's own web page, complete with daily weather updates, by writing code. We shall see if it works. But I digress, the trash that Summit generates gets packed into a rectangular box built up on top of an air force pallet. The rectangular box has a lid. So on trash day you go around camp with a sled and collect all the garbage and then tug the sled over to the trash pallet where you try your best to cram it into all of the empty spaces inside the box. Once the trash pallet is full, we go through a process of removing the outer plywood form, drawing up the mess with cargo netting that has already been sleeved inside the box long before any trash was put in.
This may sound confusing so I will make a short film of the transformation when we do it , which we will be doing soon as I can no longer fit down inside of the box to compact the existing trash.
The hardest thing about taking out the garbage is ignoring any whims to pilfer things. If you think it is expensive for the NYANG to fly trash home, think about how much it would cost us! Of course, we do recycle the things none of us could live with ourselves for NOT recycling like ink cartridges, batteries, aluminum and copper.
After taking care of all of my municipal duties, (power, water and waste) Steve and I went back into one of the three, 20 foot long, insulated, heated container vans to count widgets and bits.
It was a most remarkable day.

Culling

While I am riding one of the stationary spinning bikes, Steve is sorting through the walk in cooler. He decides that the pineapples need to be cut up. They are perfect, remarkably so. Eating a slice of this tropical fruit reminds me of the places I have been to, where you can go outside bare footed and not have to worry about your naked flesh sticking to the metal grating and peeling off. Lately I think allot about swimming. I have all of this "ocean" around me but its surface is impenetrable. I go "sailing" off on my skis staring down the horizon. I imagine seeing birds come skimming along the waves. I look into the sun set and the deepness of the cold smells like salt. One of the science technicians tells me that salt particles have actually been detected in some of the airborne particular filters, so this is possible. I fill my lungs twice more despite the sub zero medium. The solitude is too easy to take for granted. The cold too easy to wish against. Other life styles trot across the mind like clouds in the sky. One minute this, another minute that. But the magnitude of simplicity and stillness and peace so gently reminds me that, despite the altitude and the flatness and the eye- lash- gluing freeze from my breath, the challenge here can also represents something so similar to that saline spirit of sailing; by allowing one the room needed to day dream about clouds in an atmosphere so clear, one can lay in bed and watch Sirius blink and flash and twinkle through binoculars, I sense the soul of the universe and my heart is content with just that.

Comments

I have been reading up about blogging in my, Blogging for Dummies manual. I have an announcement; it should now be OK for you to leave your comments. I had the comment format radio button ticked that would only allow subscribed readers to leave a comment. Sorry for that! That is why some of you have had trouble with this before. Why I did not appreciate your troubles earlier, can only be blamed upon my own ignorance of the formatting capabilities left in my control as an amateur blogger. Now let's see if "commenting" works. I do not expect you to comment if you are not so inspired, but if you are enticed at all by something or have a question or want to point out mistakes or wax philosophical, please do so. The true beauty of a blog is that it is not intended to be all about the author. At least this one isn't.....But is about the author, me, sharing my thoughts with you, and you should assume a clear freedom in sharing your thoughts with me.
Naturally, if you don't have any thoughts you feel you want to share, then I will not begin to wonder about you by singling out the whomever it is that hasn't left a comment by writing about the person or persons who haven't left comments, thoughts or random baloney.
Speaking of random baloney, it is -41 F right now and the waning moon can be seen standing out amongst Cassiopeia, Ursa major and Orion. The snow is squeaky hard like a Styrofoam drum. Before all this, at about 6:30 PM, the setting sun painted the snow pink and shadows stretched out for what seemed to be one eighth of a mile. Last night there was a pallor of green in the northern sky, the first hint of Aurora Borealis.
I am on to reading Aristotle now. His interpreter is much more difficult to digest than was Plato's. It is like being able to be reading, while being inside of a tornado of fascinating ideas while being, just being.

Swashbuckler

The blur of whiteness coddles the cold. Though the sun shines, and will soon enough set, I must walk with my face looking down. I study the carvings of wind over snow. The relief of crystals, drawn violently across drifts extending, has the grain pattern of wood. We walk out one mile. The light is turning ocher. My wrist grows numb from the wind working its way in between cuff and sleeve and skin and bone. All morning we discussed vacuum presses and glue lams; we want very badly to build our own furniture. This conversation continues now as we walk into the wind. It sounds to me as though I am talking into a tin can packed with goose down but somehow, Steve responds to me. Maybe it is the big, fur hat over the small, wool beanie muffled by the neck gaiter and hood that causes words to sound so flat and long.
The building, that is the most aesthetic here, is the sauna. I don't really mean that, but in a a way, it is. It is modular. It is built of scrap plywood. It is small and tidy. It has a wooden interior with a small window and river rocks that sit in a stainless steel tray on top of the oil burning stove. There is a pleasing scent of oils: eucalyptus, lavender, and tea tree. The place is kind to the soul; warm and quiet and soft. Even the fueling of the day, tanks and drums, reminds me of a home- style farm chore. My work feels separate from the rest of camp's scientific duties. My tasks are both necessary and voluntary and that alone makes me happy. When I sit in the sauna I think about our friends and I think of home. I think about ways to save the world from ignorant, wasteful, car -dependent sprawl . I imagine building  large, geometric solids-- perhaps out of wood--if not, at least, from toothpicks and gumdrops. Do we have any gumdrops?
This energy is strange. I am tinged with the melancholy that comes from being steeped in the constant hum of a generator, working out maybe a little too much, planning projects for home, and reading philosophy. I wish for the green grass of home and the wormy earth. I am pulled away, as if a leaning tree in strong winds, towards being home, far away from this see saw sphere of an arctic space station. But following what we know to be good advice isn't always as fun, or as interesting, as it is to go pounding through the challenges of life. Enduring the suffering makes good books.
The strongest medicine about this place is the reality of its isolation. Accepting this, working with this, casts an odd illumination over my being, welding together the euphoria of the ice cap's splendid uniqueness with the temperament of it's cold cold song, sung from so lonely a pair of frozen lungs that ever breathed on this earth, builds character.
Somehow, we are not of its world and we will not stay.
I go now to sit and listen to the colors of the sinking sun.

Crepuscular

The daylight is being squeezed out of this place like water from a dish cloth. What we see of the "day light" begins around 6 a.m. and ends before 9 p.m but long shadows need sunlight; and the gaseous star that gives this Earth such time telling slants, has long been dulled behind low level storm clouds or ground blizzards. As the equinox approaches the color of our world grows dim. To try and find one's way over the many directional drifts is a weird sensation in this gray light which is called,"flat". In flat light, the whole of the space you exist in is no more or no less the equivalent of the insides of a white plastic bucket; the proverbial, "bowl of milk". The "ups" are surprisingly more sudden and steep than the "downs". One must lean their whole body forward as when climbing a slope. But, unlike most stable slopes belonging to Terra Fimra, the soft unconsolidated snow sloughs off and you are slipping backwards again into your own boot prints. Once summiting this 4 Ft wave of snow, you walk softly, blindly, though all around you it is bright white. The depression, or trough is approaching.... is approaching .....is ,here! and you are either now already "down" it, on the some- what flat, some- what hard-packed "mean" level of the Summit of the ice cap or, you are falling off the drift, laughing at yourself for being so childishly clumsy.
It is not over. Though the typical, historical, weather pattern brings warm temperatures and high winds from the South, this year it has been blowing from all directions of the compass. This causes many drifts to stretch out across the landscape, similar to a confused sea whose breaking swells, still having a dynamic nature, while moving and growing, become solid. In this region of white, tormented by a now almost month long gale, it is impossible to predict what face you will be struck with which you must ascend and then when will you tumble to the bottom.
We have yet to face extremely cold temperatures this Phase. By "extremely cold" I am making references to the, anything from-minus 40 F and below -type cold. The coldest day to date, -20 F, lasted only a few hours.
People often ask,
"Have you seen any examples of Global warming"?
"Yes".
What more of an example could the thawing of a snow trench-freezer, and thereby its contents, used for storing meats and stuff, in a root cellar -like -space beneath an insulated hatch cover in the floor be? Or these strange weather "patterns" that do not seem to have any pattern in mind at all, unless a pattern can become a continuous cycle? Or the design and chemistry of the snow flakes themselves; no longer so often dry, tiny, needles, but plump, maritime -powder- day -stuff which we are more inclined to see falling upon Mt baker, back home, in Washington state.
This past July, Steve and I visited my Parents in rural Maine. We visited many friends and even had the chance to speak, though briefly, at a local international language school where my very dear friend, Patti works. In front of the Penobscot School's students, I talked about Greenland. Most specifically, the languages spoken there, being Greenlandic and Danish. During the questions I was asked the inevitable, almost breathless: "haveyouseenanysignsofclimatechnage", question.
I told a story about a fact I had read in the New York Times a while back:
In Greenland, first of all, you are not permitted to buy land, but can request it and then claim it for as long as you live. The boundaries of a recently claimed piece of land were simple; from the salt water up to the glacier, being so wide. The Dane, reporting to the 'Times, had said that the climate had warmed up so much he had now much more land (than when he started out). The glacier, of course, has been retreating back into the ice cap.
Though this is excellent for farming, it is, or at least I consider it to be, also an excellent example of climates changing.
I hope you like rubber boots, potatoes and shaggy cows, and though our future can at times seem rather crepuscular, just reflect upon how moving that dimming light can be as it sparkles in the cleavages and crystal like facets of the ice.

Today we needed water over in the Big House. I drove the snow machines out of the shop and then fired up the Cat, and drove it out of the shop. Next I scooped up a 5 yard bucket full of snow and dumped it into the snow melter in order to make water. As the fresh snow is melting, I drained 200 gallons of water from the plastic tank on top of the Generator Module into the "Pig" - remember the "Pig"?. Occasionally I would go back outside to the snow melter to poke down the clumps of snow into the water or monitor the level of rising water in the "Pig". The melter is heated by a waste heat loop off of the generator. It is like radiant floor heating cranked up to 150-160 degrees F. This waste heat circulates around inside a copper pipe underneath a grate in the melter. The primary rule of importance when draining the melter is to leave "seed" water in the tank. "Seed" water is simply enough water left remaining in order to allow the melting process to occur at a much faster rate than it would otherwise. The day is not cold. the wind is not blowing too hard. The sun actually poked out. I could identify clouds.
Once the "Pig" was full of water, I backed the Cat up to the water sled and hooked up to the yoke of the sled. Tracking across the white drifts I peer carefully ahead. The topography around camp is dynamic. One day flat, next day hummocky. The old sled that the "Pig" is lashed to is made of wood and sinew, and requires care. I park by the stairway to the back entrance of the Big House. I climb out of the cab and up the stairs to get the water hose, connecting one end to the male coupling at the indoor tank in the Big House, I then go back down stairs to hook the hose up to the other coupling on the pump.
I plug the pump in to a remote outlet that hangs in the wind and throw the switch. Then I go back upstairs and drink tea while the water fills the inside tank with 220 gallons of water.
After this process I track back over the snow, disconnect the sled, plug it in so that the pump will stay warm and will not freeze and crack, dump more snow in the melter and then, back the Cat into the shop.
Now it is lunch time. Steve arrives around the back of the shop with one of the snow machines towing an insulated panel. He has been building a tunnel into the Green House. Together we lift and slide the panel into place bridging two walls of snow.
I go to shovel out some of the windows of the Green House and one of the buried utility boxes where plumbing and heat trace wires are run.
The wind turbine thrums. The whirring and buzzing of scientific equipment blends in with the muffled engine noise from the power plant.
One day, late last week I saw two small birds, probably migrating sand pipers, fly over.
The sky is so white, the snow seems blue.
Any thing flapping in the wind or let loose accidentally could be a bird or another person or a box or a thought.

As care takers of this remote, Arctic- out-post, there is plenty of time to read;
Konstantin Dimitrich Levin thinks: "In infinite time, in the infinity of matter, in infinite space, a bubble - organism separates itself, and that bubble holds out for a while and then bursts, and that bubble is -me". -From, Leo Tolstoy's, Anna Karenina.
Yesterday afternoon I was skiing in a very odd flat white light towards an undefined place. Not an horizon, not a vanishing point, or even a place made soft, as in fog, but towards nothing. I wondered if I had died; how could I prove I had not? Was this skiing into muted whiteness "heaven" or purgatory? The more I began to think about the home made peanut butter cups Steve had made, sitting behind me on a warm shelf back in camp, the more I began to think, "This must be Hell. I am 4 miles away from those little delectables and I cannot see in any of the seven directions. Further more, they may all be gone when I return"!
Luckily, there were three left when I arrived, though a friendly little skirmish immediately broke out between the four of us over who would get to eat them all.
Now I am on to reading Plato's, Timaues. My interest (and my goal) is to be able to read, with comprehension, Casey's "The Philosophy of Place". Casey's book, written in the late 1990s, is about cosmogony (the theory of the creation of the universe), cosmology,( the study of the creation of the universe) mythology, Being verses Becoming, nothingness, sameness, chance and causation.
I was drawn to this title while digging around in the depths of a used book store on my way to Greenland. I had imagined it would be a difficult read what with its infinite references to Kant, Hildegarde, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Ovid, Plato, Homer and Zeus. I did manage to read 100 or so pages last fall, but quickly realised I had some major shortcomings; I had never studied Greek Mythology, I was rusty, at best, with Genesis (to say nothing of the rest of the world's creation myths)- had never read any of the great philosophers, and, I had not yet been able to accurately define cosmogony.
Were I at home, this heavy reading would not be allowed the same amount of time that I so generously can give it here; for I would be stirring the compost, digging in the garden, tinkering with the old 'Benz, visiting friends, learning about bees, skiing down "the Mountain"or puttering around in the shop.
One also has time to pay strict attention to being disciplined with a physical fitness regiment. I became inspired after running with a friend in Kangerlussuaq (and reading a Russian novel largely about suffering) . She, not being much older than me, proved much stronger than me. I reflected upon another friend, at home, who only a few years ago not only would not have been able to imagine what she is doing now on a bike, but would have died trying. Now I am unable to keep up with her, unless we are climbing up a mountain, but even that may have changed.
I suddenly understood that my nonchalant character of being able to hop on a bike and ride 25 plus miles or to pull on some running shoes and pace out 6 miles up a logging road without training, would either come to a screaming halt or might just never get any better. The only marathon I ever ran, though it was over snow, and was in Antarctica, was slow.:5.5 hours.
I was so slow the recreation crew, putting on the event had packed up the finish line and had gone "home". Only Steve, who had been skiing alongside of me, congratulated me. Two USCG cadets, off for a hike, gave us the time as neither of us had thought to wear watches.
And so, out of the blue, I decided to reclaim an old desire; to race an half Iron man. A half Iron man covers 70.3 miles in one day, and is divided up between swimming, biking, and running that is if you haven't had your jaw broken by some one else's flailing foot). I found a race on August 16 . 2009 at Lake Steven's, Washington. I will actually be home then and so have set my sights towards this date as a new training goal. I have been riding the spinning bike, rowing the rower, cross country skiing, lifting weights, stretching and following along with the athletic (impossibly fit) dancers featured in the NY City Ballet conditioning program (Gulag) DVD.
Wednesday is my rest day. After work, I eat, then promptly prepare for bed. I read allot on Wednesdays- and research geeky stuff on the Internet like triathlon training, sports nutrition, dry-land swimming techniques (swimming out of water) growing oats in western Washington, milk cows, plow horses and chicken concentration camps. That is, coyote and raccoon proof chicken keeping.
The highlights of this past week at Summit have been Steve's carving up of a fresh watermelon, the peanut butter cups, slot car racing, watching, "Waking Ned Devine", a moment of fair weather in which we actually saw the sun, last night's brief, full moon, and my having recently discovered that 3 out of the 4 of us love banana pudding!
Steve does not love banana pudding.
We have half a dozen #10 cans full of banana puree, lots of real whipping cream and cases of Nilla wafers.
I am placing a bet that Steve doesn't really know that he secretly loves banana pudding and that by the end of our time here, we will be all out of banana puree.
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy".
-Stephen King

Thou shallt not eat only the fruits of the freezer trench

Tonight we are being treated to an authentic Mexican dinner by chef Andy and his assistant, former Mt Washington Weather Observatory Meteorologist, Kate. We have an abundance of fresh cilantro, limes, avocados, and tomatoes. Well, fresh as in, they wont be coming from the insides of a can.
Today the wind is blowing 20 knots which means the ambient temperatures are in the high teens. I had to turn the diesel sauna down to low.
We are all recovering from eating banana sourdough pancakes with maple syrup from Vermont and bacon from some noble pig whose life did not originate down in the freezer trench from whence he came. The freezer trench, is a long, narrow excavation in the snow where the bulk of the frozen food is stored. There are about 25 steps to descend down into this high Arctic supermarket from which we can take food for free; though this can pose problems for us when we return to the "real world" and have to remember to pay for our food at the check out counter, it is one of the luxuries of care taking a remote geological observatory.
Early this morning, before I had my tea, we began discussing the Paleo Diet. This is eating nothing that has been processed by any one other than yourself. Of course, meat, eggs, herbs and vegetables are easy, bee keeping and dairy become more complex and the most labor intensive of all: grains. I have been researching the different grains and legumes we might be able to grow in our valley. I have discovered that, out in the San Juan islands, there is a small farm that received a grant to experiment with rye. I caused a big sensation saying that I could take my sea kayak out to this island, fill it up with rye, paddle back to Bellingham and tow it back out to our home in the bike trailer. The grain that is, not the kayak.
I have a cousin, Jeff, who worked for his father, my Uncle Steve, who was a Mill Wright. I remember Jeff showing me a miller they had purchased at an auction that would thresh and grind grain into flour, sift it and then bag it. The whole machine was made mostly out of wood. In Tolstoy's Anna Karennina, the existential land owner, Levin, goes to the feild to cut with the Muzhiks (peasants) and falls into meditation scything from which he finds peace. I begin to day dream about hand scything 2 acres of leased river valley land, and possibly finding an old wooden milling machine like the one McRee and Associates acquired from some antiquated realm of the South.
We are fortunate to be here with another couple that shares not only a similar philosophy about the importance of simple living: self sufficiency by local farming, renewable energy, health and vitality being restored into the earth and arguably more importantly, into the community, but also has a similar sense of truly absurd humor and precious wit.
I suppose it is obvious that we have time to dream up here. Maybe it is a by product of the wide open landscape, like the ocean. Maybe it comes from not having any cares other than our routine chores. Last night I dreamed of ravens soaring over head and of swimming in an eddy in a river in up state NY. But those are not the dreams I nurture. No, I move about through my time here carefully considering such things as the Paleo Diet, the scything of oats, the milling of grains and the tending of bees. If I have learned anything from these years of contract work it is that one can be a fisherman or a farmer, or a ski bum or a polar gypsy mechanic. Even if one does not know how to play the accordion, does not mean they cant dare to dream of it.

The ordinary day

Every day begins with a read out of the temperature and wind speeds. This morning at 6 am the outdoor temperature was -4'F. with a wind speed of 4 kph. An hour later the temperature had dropped to -17'F. After my morning meditation I pulled on my bunny boots and slipped into my parka. I went outside and walked across the drifts dusted with a fine sugary powder. In the east, there was a pink smudge where the sun was obscured by low clouds and freezing fog. This tender blush of color, unusual to the eye that has adapted to a typically horizon-less white, was touched with a familiar insight subdued; that dawn, in the lower latitudes will yield a spectacular spectrum of colors. This hushing orb of damask rose sat out in the distance just above the snow like a single giant thing. We shared our presences and disappeared, I into the garage, it into the fog.
The "gen shack" is a modular container unit about 15' long by 7 feet wide. It sits inside the first half of the garage tent. Inside the gen shack is the power plant, totally self contained.
I look around inside at all the gauges that make up the waste heat system, at the online engine, at the temperature inside the module, at the fuel level and then I navigate through the soft key screen for the information I need to log from the generator's interface program.
Once I am sure that all systems are well, I go back over the the Green house and read the sight glass on the water tank. The Green House has a 200 gallon capacity water tank plumbed directly from the snow melter which is located just outside of the gen shack. By gravity feed, the water runs through plumbing in insulated arctic piping called, Bondstrand, which is buried deep beneath the snow. To complement the insulating properties of the snow, there is also wired, heat trace; imagine an extension cord that does nothing else but create resistive loads high enough to safely generate heat.
If the tank is low, I simply open a ball valve and let the water fill the tank. This takes a few moments, so I usually sit down upon the stoop in the mechanical room and stare at the wall and think.
The next run is over to the Big House to check on the water status there. The water tank in the BH has a 400 gallon capacity, but this one requires a pig in order to fill it, which is pulled over behind the tractor once a week. The "Pig" is simply a 200 gallon tank mounted to a Nansen sled (think wood and sinew and Polar expeditions) with an electric pump. The "Pig" got it's name from the original mobile water sled which had been covered with spray foam insulation ( giving a most dimply surface effect) and painted pink. Since then, a snout and a tail has been added to the original "Pig", but as this old "Pig' now leaks, its duties are reserved for parades.
After the rounds, I find something that is generally working well, break it and begin diagnosing what went wrong with it after it and I had our confrontation. Usually it is something that I have asked, politely, to come out of hibernation in order to do work in sub zero temperatures.
Snow machines, snow blowers, fuel oil heaters, fuel pumps, electric pumps, door ways, and sleds all seem to suddenly wish they had never signed up for high latitude service. In order to get closer to the tropical desires they yearn for (I blame disillusionment on the snow blower for this one) they refuse to work; guaranteeing a tow or a lift inside.
After work we work out, eat, discuss the day, talk about our dreams for home, or anywhere warm, and go to bed with our books.
All night I am tuned into the hum of the online generator. I is nothing like being lulled to sleep by the waves. It is like being a cross country trucker with an autopilot waiting for an oncoming car.
Eventually I doze off. In the morning, instead of birds and leaves and insects or laundry flapping or chickens scratching there is the sound of the engine purring away.
And maybe a pink blur, warming in the east..............

Burying the Green House

At midnight last night I was still awake. Altitude induced insomnia frequently occurs. We are eating allot of avocados and bananas. This has nothing to do with altitude induced insomnia, but has everything to do with grammatical errors. We also make fresh squeezed citrus juice. The supply of these tropical fruits is abundant enough for us to continue with our "Pago Pago" diet for at least two more weeks. Tonight's diner menu:
Potato leek soup, Cornish game hen with wild rice and wilted spinach and beet salad with a balsamic reduction followed by stewed fruit and scones. For breakfast we have been religious about eating our oatmeal which we garnish with flax seed, walnuts, prunes, soy milk and maple syrup. There is an alternative motive to this abundance of fiber rich foods: the more the toilets flush the less likely there will be any freezing of the outfall pipes.
We have all been riding the spinner cycles (well, all of us except Steve. Since there are only three bikes, Steve "rides" the rowing machine). We work out to cadence specific rock music, selected by our staff of one time bike racing, Andy, or to the directions of the pro cyclist on the DVD. Recently Andy remembered that there are some videos of the Tour dE France around, so now we will be using these as the carrots in front of the donkey cart while at, over 10,500 feet above sea level, "adrenalized" music pushes us into anaerobic states of joy.
Oh and for work? Well, I screwed a 24x6 inch piece of plywood over an intake vent on a diesel powered heater which lives outside inside a plywood box. This, to prevent snow from filling the box over the winter. The heater is only used during the summer to heat the inside of another arched tent where the "do not freeze" science cargo is stored.
Meanwhile, the science technicians, Andy and Kate, launched a NOAA weather balloon with it's carefully calibrated ozone sonde. Steve and I watched. Then I closed the enormous garage door by hauling away on a chain. Glad to be able to utilize my old tall ship sail raising skills, I was nearly tempted to break into song:
"Cape Cod girls they have no combs.........."
But I did not.
Steve got out the soap and the vacuum and has begun talking about shampooing the carpets.
During lunch Andy and Kate have been watching original episodes of Flash Gordon. Steve now wants a shiny black cummerbund. I am secretly fashioning GBI (Galactic Bureau of Investigation)insignias for all of us to wear on our uniform......eh em, I mean, parkas.
Today it is snowing softly, There is not enough of a breeze to change the course of the light powder to anything other than 90 degrees straight down. That's not true, as I look out the window, the 2 knots of wind is just enough to put the Angel dander on a bit of a slant. Yes, Angel's have dandruff too; they don't try to cure their dandruff, but are pleased as heavenly punch that they do have it. This is a very noble act, or I could say, "Angelic" since all the skiers of the world have found such infinite amounts of joy from skiing down, in and through this stuff and are endlessly abundant with giving their prayers of thanks.
Now I must go skiing in order to prepare myself for my day's work.