Sigh

The first evolution of the National Science Foundation's chartered fleet of Hercules, ski equipped (LC) 130 cargo aircraft has been completed. We have a peaceful 10 days to catch our breath before another exciting show; April 21 - the 25Th. Meanwhile the NY 109Th Air Guard has flown away to their home base in Scotia, NY for a short R and R before taking to wing again on a week long re-fueling mission to Alert Bay, Canada high on the edge of northern Ellesmere island.
The remainder of this month's flights are for the staging of the upcoming inland ice traverse (known as GRIT: Greenland Inland Traverse....unfortunately there is not an open contest on renaming this most uneventful of acronyms) from Thule to Summit Station by tractor. During May, there will be almost three weeks of flights, mostly to the North, to Thule supporting an ongoing ice coring project called, NEEM, as well as the traverse. During June and July, at the peak of the arctic summer a magnificent attempt will be made to choreograph the movements of airplanes, cargo and passengers; as the solstice reaches its apogee so does the intensity of the myriad of researchers studying Greenland.
Despite a day of bad weather up on the ice cap (the story about the tents being blown away has been corrected by an eye witness at the camp; the tents were not blown away, they merely failed) preventing any flights, mechanical problems with the planes, technical woes and the infamous learning curve (where is the curved part anyway?)we were able to get 5 missions flown in successfully moving almost 70,000 pounds of stuff, from people to fuel to snow machines.
Today is clear and cold and bright but not warm. Steve detailed his grandfather's fishing pole while I cleaned up our community kitchen. Since the 25th of March, we have been sharing our limited space with all of our fellow staff as they made their ways and way-lays to and from. Now the place has come to a calm of five quiet souls from a boisterous hurricane of 15.
On Monday we will begin putting together some of the cargo we have received so far this year for the season's upcoming research projects. One such item is a canister of high-test "Cajun" bear spray and a box of heavy gauge electric fencing. The archaeologist who intends to bend his or her face to the briefly yielding polar earth, diligently sweeping away sand and grit with a paint brush, does not desire to be interrupted by "Nanook" the great white bear.

Tuesday

Winter returned to the head of the fjord. Everything that was water yesterday is solid ice again. Snow flurries and is hurried aross the hard land as quickly as it falls by a very dry, very cold wind. Two tents were blown away yesterday at Camp Raven. They experienced gusts up to 35 knots. Fortunately there are a few permanent hard structures there with heat and everyone is fine.
Out of three planes scheduled to fly today (one to the summit of the ice cap where Summit Station is located at 10.000 ft, and two more for the final put in of Camp Raven) only one tried; but "Skier nine five" (we refer to the "Hercs" by their tail numbers) given the go ahead to attempt a flight up to Summit, had to shut down due to a mechanical issue before ever leaving the tarmac.
After diner, broiled tuna steaks with quinoa and peas follwed by our very special dessert of rehydrated, dehydrated strawberries and canned pineapple, I took a walk about.
I passed the musuem which is closed untill summer and snooped around inside an abandoned USAF building marked by a placard outside as the "FUELS FACILITY". Since the heat has been shut off since the end of the cold war (no pun intended) paint peels from the walls. A parts manual for an old MACK truck engine lay on the floor open to a page with an illustration of a filter group. The next room had a station with a venting hood and some testing equipment, most likely used for anyalasing fuel samples. Cansiters of fuel lay around amongst the curls of paint and leaves of paper from some other forgotten manuals.
I went back outside following the runway towards the old USAF medical clinic, another building given up by the US to Greenland Home Rule. Every window has been broken. The old wooden stairs are not much better off. The corrugated green steel siding has faded but the red on white first aid cross looks fresh. I enter the second floor through a broken window over looking the fjord but as soon as I am inside I leave again. I did not bring a flashlight and the peeling walls, heavy doors and long abandoned rooms are not nearly as inviting as the arctic air.
Now I am in some sort of a bone yard. Wrecked volvos, rabbits and Russian Nias lay around half in half out of the crusty, dirty snow and cracked ice. Parts of "reindeer" (caribou) poke out of the frozen snow; tufts of white hair, antler, bone, sinew and hoof. I crouch to read something I recognize to be english. It is a baggage tag from SAS that says, " luggage is like an ice flow on the outside and an archipeligo on the inside". I am not sure what this means.
There is a 50 something foot steel hulled, hard chined sailboat on a trailer that looks like it was built out of the same enormous timbers the US used in constructing some of their buldings with. I notice the boat has been strapped to this trailer with some of our cargo straps. She is missing her masts, rigging and rudder.
As I walk the street that follows the fjord back to the KISS building, I pass some sort of club house for locals. Outside the door are musk oxen hides piled four feet tall. Parked vehicles range from toyota pick ups to land rovers with snorkels and tundra tires. I see a man walk in with seal parka and jeans. A little girl in moon boots roams the street playing with a cell phone. As i pass along outside the recreation center (also built by the Americans) I can hear the distninct sound of a game of raquetball.
In front of the post office, some one is gathering up the plywood signs with pictures of poltical candiates for the mayor of Sisimiut Komune. The head of butchered musk ox, saved for its horns and skull proturdes from a snow drfit. In the tall yellow grasses a raven gave a small stone to its mate who took it from his beak with her own.

Spring thaw

The past week has been full of activity; sound reasons for my lack of blogging. Sunday was supposed to be the big day of camp put ins. We hoped for a minumum of three flights to Raven. I awoke at 0400. When I looked out the window of our room I saw pink lenticular clouds hovering in foramtion above the not too ditant ice cap. These harbingers of stormy weather are awesome to observe, but often times, there threats become promises. Though we went through all the motions, (the first plane was loaded by 0700) the only birds to soar in the strong winds and blowing snow yesterday morning, were the ravens who are busy playing with their mates.
By afternoon the sun had broken through. This has been the week of the begining of break up. Everything that was frozen is thawing. The river has begun to melt. A channel of moving water procedes into the fjord. Strong torrents run down the middle of steep sandy roads. Lakes stand in the midst of flat areas that were soft with snow only a few days ago. Rivulets decending the granite bulwarks along the watson river leave silty deposits that look more like satelite images of aluvial Martian formations than anything else I could suggest.
I look closely at the shrub willow for sign of budding; there is velvet down on the tips of their branches. Deep in the heath, past the fallen leaves of last years dwarf alder and the bones of a caribou, one can see the brightening green of a liverwort or moss.
I leave now to go and begin another day of loading planes, shuffeling boxes, moving cylinders of propane, sneeking glances of the ravens free falling on wind.

April

One week has passed by quickly. The weather remained cloudy with light snow. In this arctic desert, snow flakes may come tumbeling out of the clouds all day leaving only a trace of accumulation. Not accounting for drifting, I would guess that there is less than 4 inches of total, current, snow pack here. Non the less Steve and I struck out on a fine ski this recent Sunday logging almost 20 km on lake Fergusen ( the local water supply) across its lenght and back. The sun came out, which shone brilliantly on the fresh white hills. In contrast, any crevice or bold releif in the rock, was sharply etched by the wind. As I moved my skis across the frozen lake I saw an arctic fox up ahead of us in the distance putting down yet another line of tiny paw prints. When we stopped for lunch in the shelter of a massive boulder an arctic hare bounced out form a bunch of shrub willow turning off into the snow blending into the color of his own.
Flights to greenland are ramping up as we prepare for two camp "put ins" next weekend. Put INs, are the innital flights or flight, into a camp in which the first LC 130 cargo planes bring in the crew along with all of the important life support systems they will need. Barring a jag of bad weather, several conclusive "missions" will be flown untill the camp is up to "summer" season speed.

I have yet to down load our recent photos which will take some figuring as I do not yet have my personal lap top on the island.
Tomorrow morning I intend to begin daily postings in order to help give a bettter feel of exactly what its like to live and work here.
As we do work over 60 hours a week, and still cook our won meals, bare with me as I bump along with this web log. I have yet to do it much justice.

The strangest thing about yesterday is that one of the 109th pilots brought us a pineapple.