More pics here.
http://picasaweb.google.ca/alex1whit/ArcticTailsAndOtherStuff#
Squeaked into Resolute - 20 minutes later and the fog would have been too thick to land - Murphy and the Examiner clearly out of practice. The Arctic in all its stunning desolate in your face indifferent beauty, Arctic Poppies and mosquitoes included. Iqaluit to Nanisivik mostly cloudy but it opened to allow us to land and I felt that eerie shiver - back again, without the stress and again gobsmacked by the splendour of it all. Out of Nanisivik over Arctic Bay and Admiralty Inlet and the same patch of ice - I'm sure it was! - that we had to dodge in Berri almost exactly 2 years ago - past Prince Leopold hugged by the cloudbank and across Berri's track from the photo in an earlier blog post. Into Resolute and Kira drove me in the NASA mule to the insulated box of the Arctic Hotel and then we went out into the Arctic night to look at downtown Resolute and the ice in the bay. Cold wet wind across the 1000 year Inuit settlement - whalebone and a walrus skull - and more poppies. There's a bear warning in force so one on watch all the time...
0345 now (1845 tonight in Sydney) and the BBC in the background - still low cloud and gloom outside - I have my window open because the room is way too hot - I can see the tail of the battered old HS 748 that brought us in. If the cloud lifts, Twin Otter to HMP in a few hours. Woohoo!. I have my Naturalist's Guide to the Arctic from the airport shop in Iqaluit and I'll try to do better with the descriptions as we go. Slow link here and uploading pics not a little tedious. I need Marvin for the car parking work but he'd be utterly incapable of describing the exhilaration of being back - awestruck astonishment too at being only about 40 miles from Berri's eastward turn two years ago. Doesn't seem in tune with humdrum reality.
http://picasaweb.google.ca/alex1whit/ArcticTailsAndOtherStuff#
Squeaked into Resolute - 20 minutes later and the fog would have been too thick to land - Murphy and the Examiner clearly out of practice. The Arctic in all its stunning desolate in your face indifferent beauty, Arctic Poppies and mosquitoes included. Iqaluit to Nanisivik mostly cloudy but it opened to allow us to land and I felt that eerie shiver - back again, without the stress and again gobsmacked by the splendour of it all. Out of Nanisivik over Arctic Bay and Admiralty Inlet and the same patch of ice - I'm sure it was! - that we had to dodge in Berri almost exactly 2 years ago - past Prince Leopold hugged by the cloudbank and across Berri's track from the photo in an earlier blog post. Into Resolute and Kira drove me in the NASA mule to the insulated box of the Arctic Hotel and then we went out into the Arctic night to look at downtown Resolute and the ice in the bay. Cold wet wind across the 1000 year Inuit settlement - whalebone and a walrus skull - and more poppies. There's a bear warning in force so one on watch all the time...
0345 now (1845 tonight in Sydney) and the BBC in the background - still low cloud and gloom outside - I have my window open because the room is way too hot - I can see the tail of the battered old HS 748 that brought us in. If the cloud lifts, Twin Otter to HMP in a few hours. Woohoo!. I have my Naturalist's Guide to the Arctic from the airport shop in Iqaluit and I'll try to do better with the descriptions as we go. Slow link here and uploading pics not a little tedious. I need Marvin for the car parking work but he'd be utterly incapable of describing the exhilaration of being back - awestruck astonishment too at being only about 40 miles from Berri's eastward turn two years ago. Doesn't seem in tune with humdrum reality.
