Still life with...

Early September on Guemes

2011-10-24T04:17:00.001+13:00

A foggy look at the ferry dock back in September. We haven't had many super foggy mornings since then but this one did not burn off until 11am if I remember correctly.

When it did burn off, it revealed this boat and beautiful blue sky!

Guemes has not been the sodden land that I thought it might be. Guemes is situated in the rainshadow and so does not receive the rain that other places nearby get. I was not sorry to hear that. And I certainly wasn’t sorry to have to endure the weeks of beautiful sunny days when I first got here!

The ferry dock in the sun

I've had no shortage of extracurricular activities on Guemes. Last week, I finally got to yoga. When I first got here, I was good about getting out on the water in Marla's kayak. It's gotten a little cool and windy so the kayak got retired for the season.

Around the west side of the island from the house is this cliff. There is a lot of graffiti scratched into the soft sand wall.

Down the beach from where I'm living. Notice the old boat launch rails rusting into the water.

In September I had the pleasure of hiking on the brand new trail up Guemes Mountain. It's not a tall mountain but it's got great views from the top. And the trail is great! The Island community got together and raised money to protect the acreage on top of the mountain from being developed. The trail was just opened this summer. Below is a photo at the bottom of the trail (my camera quit just after I took that one) and of the great aluminum bike rack at the trailhead. For folks that want to walk on the ferry instead of driving over to Guemes, they can borrow a bike at Anderson's store and bike around the island. How cool is that?!

Blog Revisited... Guemes Island, WA

2011-09-15T02:29:00.003+12:00

Sunset from the beach in front of the house

Why am I here?

While I cannot answer the big question, I CAN tell you why I am here, on Guemes Island in Washington State, right now.

I am here as a work trader for Solar Energy International (SEI), a Colorado-based, renewable energy education organization. SEI gives in-person and online workshops in solar pv, hot water, wind electric, geothermal and micro hydro systems. They also run workshops that focus on renewable energy in the developing world. My boss, Ian Woofenden is SEI's Northwest and Costa Rica Coordinator and runs workshops up here on Guemes in the spring and fall. He also, as his title suggests, runs workshops in Costa Rica. In 2012, he is taking people down to Costa Rica for two courses, Solar Electricity for the Developing World http://www.solarenergy.org/workshop/solar-electricity-developing-world and Renewable Energy for the Developing World http://www.solarenergy.org/workshop/renewable-energy-developing-world-hands.

One of the ways SEI makes their training more affordable for people, is by offering this work trade program that I'm doing. I work for them for eight weeks and in return I receive eight weeks of workshops. It's a very good trade, and it landed me on this beautiful island.

My office when I am doing computer work (and when it's not too sunny to see the screen)

I've been doing a random assortment of tasking since my arrival. I was initially focussing on the marketing of the three fall workshops. There are still openings for these Guemes workshops if any blog readers are interested in renewable energy. The first, from October 10-15 is Solar Electric Design and Installation (http://www.solarenergy.org/workshop/solar-training-solar-electric-design-and-installation-grid-direct). That is followed by two wind workshops: Wind-Electric Design & Installation [October 17-22, 2011]
http://www.solarenergy.org/workshop/wind-training-wind-design-and-installation and Residential Wind Maintenance & Repair [October 24-29, 2011].http://www.solarenergy.org/workshop/wind-training-residential-wind-maintenance-and-repair.

More recently I've been back at the carpentry. Ian has a trailer that he uses to demonstrate renewable energy technologies during workshops and at events. It's quite cool, outfitted as it is with solar hot water and a couple PV systems. I'm adding some shelves and cabinet doors to keep things a little tidier. I also mounted a solar vent on the front of the trailer and will attach a solar roof panel to the side. It's been a nice combination of work; the computer stuff and the carpentry.

The trailer

Inside the trailer. Note the RE systems on the left-hand wall. Please ignore the mess!

Work at Summit... because that's what we do

2009-06-27T09:22:00.011+12:00

Just as our jobs at Pole exist for science so do our jobs in Greenland. Summit camp really came into existence during the second major Greenland Ice Sheet Project or GISP 2. This was and ice core sample 3053 meters deep that was completed in 1993 when it hit bedrock. It was done up at what is now Summit Camp. It is still one of the best continuous climate records and was the deepest ice core ever recovered at the time.
Transportation of tools and stuff in the clean air sector.

Well, it seemed as though the place to update my blog about Summit would be, at Summit. But with WiFi on the ferry to Martha's Vineyard (I left Greenland yesterday) there is no time like the present. So, with whiny dogs wagging tails, the smell of the ocean in my nose and the cry of seagulls drowning out the engine, I begin to introduce you to our work this spring at Summit Camp. That, after all, is why we were there!

Below is in the inside of the Flux facility where a number of us started our work at Summit. Flux was only put in last year and is a tower with a buried vault that is used to collect data about the movement of gases in and out of snow. There are a number of sensors (intake cups) at various points of the tower both above the snow and buried in it. These measure the concentration of various gases at those points.

Inside the Flux facility in the clean air sector

The idea is that we've always believed ice core samples to give us a realistic picture of the composition of our atmosphere over hundreds of thousands of years. Those cores, however, do not take into account the fact that gases move between different levels in the atmosphere and the snow. These gases may have cyclic movements over a day or over a season and so an ice core sample may catch only a moment.

The entrance to Flux, the buried buildings where data about the flux of gases in the snow layers is collected

The building where the data is collected and gases stored is buried beneath the surface in order to avoid creating artificial eddies in the wind and thus affect the data.

Fixing the stairs at Flux

Since it was put in, the buried vault had taken a beating and a bunch of stuff got tweaked including the stairs and the ducts. One of our first orders of business was to fix the stairs and to clean out snow that had accumulated behind the small building.

Above are the stairs and the space that we were clearing snow out of.

Our next assignment was the layout of the arctic pipe that would end up underneath the portable buildings at camp, once they were all moved to their new locations.

First the area was graded and hardened. Then we laid the pipe out on the flat and a snow pad was built up over it over the course of many days by one of the heavy equipment operators. It was important that the snow settle and have significant weight and pressure on it as it was built up in order for it to support the weight of the buildings.
All the buildings were being moved because of drifting. With an accumulation of about a meter of snow a year, when the buildings are dug out they end up sitting in a big bowl and the natural level of the snow rises up around them. By being set up on a pad that is higher than the surrounding snow, it is hoped that they'll get less drifted in and won't have to be moved again for quite a while.
Another project we worked on was building a new vestibule for one of the modular buildings that was getting moved up onto the pad. It was built out of SIP (structurally insulated panel) panels and went together reasonably easily with only some "arghs" and grinding of teeth.

And there you have it, a glimpse of work at Summit camp. Now that I'm in Colorado on my way back down to Antarctica, it seems that any more fun Summit Camp photos and information will have to wait until I go back next year.

Next week I head back down to Antarctica for another season. Instead of going directly to Pole, I'll be working out of McMurdo (big station on the coast) for about a month out of their Carp Shop. It should provide some new work adventures and hopefully some new inspirations for blog entries. Happy fall......

A zoo at Summit Camp

2009-06-27T06:30:00.007+12:00

Okay so there aren't may animals at Summit but some birds do come our way as does a fox now and again. This year, I think they were mostly snow buntings that made there way to the Greenland Ice cap only to pass away during a storm or cold weather. We did try and feed them occasionally but I gather that if they stop to visit us mid-migration they're pretty much done for. While at Summit these little guys went in for the warm places. They perched themselves under the black arctic pipe that we laid out and hovered around any dark-colored building, outhouses included.
Even though they sought out the warm spots, they did not of course let us pick them up. The photo at the top of the page was only possible after somebody found the poor little guy frozen. After finding him in tool bags and various locations on the job site, he now graces the front window sill of one of the buildings.

In 2006 a fox graced Summit with its presence and while nobody actually saw one this year, Chris and I saw some fox footprints on a couple of occasions. Pretty exciting but probably did not bode well for the fox, being so far from any food source. We can only hope it managed to rifle enough out of the carbage pallet to get where it was going.

Our other exciting visitor this fall, that I didn't see but a couple others did, was a falcon. One of the scientists caught it with his camera as luck would have it. And a few days later, our very own Commander saw it (assuming it was the same one) out on the back deck of the Big House.

Lastly, are the Summit bears that can always be counted on because they are made of plywood and as any respectable plywood bear knows it's a good idea to stick around camp. These guys are actually the furthest of the mile visibility markers running out from the station that allow us to tell the guard how far you can see from the station on flight days. There is not a lot of variety on the Ice so it's a joy to ski out and see these guys on a beautiful sunny day.

Weather at Summit

2009-05-13T21:21:00.002+12:00

Well, I've almost got a blog ready go from Summit Camp in Greenland. For the moment though, here is some footage of a fun weather day. Needless to say no flights came in today. We've had a couple of gnarly weather days since my arrival here. There is a little more visibility in this video than this evening when I walked down here to the bunkhouse. Enjoy
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Summit Camp

2009-05-09T03:08:00.009+12:00

The Big House, raised last year, high above the snow. It is set to be raised next year as well to avoid being drifted in by snow which accumulates at about one meter per year here, compared to less than ten inches at Pole.

Hello from Summit Camp, Greenland. Our location should be on a posting from a few weeks ago. We are located 400km from the nearest point of land up here on the Greenland Ice Cap, and within Northeast Greenland National Park. We sit above 10 000 feet elevation, physically higher than at South Pole but with less variation in false altitude than we get at Pole. Summit is a research facility run by CH2M Hill and Polar Field Services for the National Science Foundation and United States Arctic Program.

After two weather delays, we arrived at Summit on a C-130 from Kangerlussuaq. We got here on a Thursday which was nice as it was the end of the week and only had two days of work before a day off on Sunday. It is a small facility, maxing out at a population of around fifty I believe. That would make it crowded indeed. Right now we're sitting at around thirty and it can be quite cozy in the Big House during meals.

Pizza night (some Saturdays) at Summit. The cook prepares the dough and toppings and the crew has it it in the kitchen.

The camp is made up of a few buildings. The Big House (above) is like the mother ship. It's where the dining/entertainment/eating/ laundry/shower areas are all located. The office and communications are also located in the Big House. The white ball on top of the building keeps the snow off of our satellite dish and provides us with twenty-four hour internet and phone service, a real treat compared to the less frequent satellite access at Pole.

The Green House (above) is now dug out of the snow and will be moved this year. It houses the camp staff like the science technicians, camp manager, our awesome cook, the machine operators and maintenance personnel. The medical facility and medic are also based in this building. There is a lounge and a small kitchen in the Green House but residents tend to eat lunch and dinner in the Big House.The Shop (above) is the maintenance facility where our mechanic works. It also houses the main generator that runs the camp on diesel fuel brought in on the C-130s. The big machines on station are a CAT 933, a D6 and a Tucker. They are used to keep the drifting at bay, maintain the skiway and move cargo and other materials around. We also have a small fleet of snow machines, including on electric snow machine that comes up from the University of Wisconsin. Waste heat from the generator is used to melt snow which is our water supply on station. Above, Steve is filling up a tank on the sled with hot water to bring it over to the Big House where it is pumped up into a holding tank for our consumption.

And that is pretty much it for the main buildings. There are a number of other permanent and portable buildings on station used for weather balloon release and other science. There is an electric shack and a couple of antennas, some buried buildings and vaults. Our food storage is a walk-in cooler (freshie shack) inside the Big House and frozen food is stored in freezer trenches (made of SIP panels) located under the Green House (accessed by a hatch within) and in the snow just outside the Big House down a set of stairs. The cook plans meals ahead of time and retrieves food for the coming week into the Big House fridges and freezers or sometimes leaves the frozen outside on the deck of the Big House until it's to be used. Although it gets warm here compared to Pole (yesterday it was up to 12 degrees F), it has n0t gotten above freezing since I've been here. Apparently it can reach freezing though at the height of the summer. I'll be out of here before then but I imagine by the end of June when I leave, I might get to see some particularly balmy days and frankly, I can't wait.

Kangerlussuaq

2009-04-29T09:56:00.015+12:00

Well, here I am up in Greenland. Why I left the promise of spring warmth and sunshine I do not know but I am having a fabulous time up here so far. I arrived at Summit Camp (where the work is) last Thursday after two days of delays. One of those days we actually got on the plane and hovered above the camp hoping for the weather to clear. It didn't and we flew back to Kanger. Too much time on a C-130!

Kanger, as we call it is the home of the Kangerlussuaq International Science Support center which, as the name suggest provides support for science groups that come into Greenland. We flew into Kanger two days before we were to come to Summit and housed in this interesting building (below) where the offices for science support and dorm rooms are located. We were sent to the cafeteria or canteena in the Kangerlussuaq International airport for meals. The New York Air Guard who flies us to the South Pole from McMurdo also flies us to Greenland from their base in New York State.

The airport and tourism are the primary employers for this town of five hundred people. Kangerlussuaq was originally a US air base called Bluie West Eight, opened in 1941 after the US was given the responsibility for Greenland's security. Kanger is called Sondre Stromfjord by the Danes.

Kanger is an interesting town though there is really not much to it. Most of the buildings are prefabricated, many dating back to the military days. There seems to be a concerted effort to make the newer buildings in town brightly colored but some of the older buildings, including this apartment building below are downright industrial. The one below reminds me of some sort of communist apartment complex.There are few signs and the only way we found our way to the bar was a small Carlsberg sign outside an anonymous back door of the small convenience store. At said store, a twenty pack of beer cost a measly $80 US.

While in Kanger we were outfitted for our time up in Greenland. Our gear is similar to the stuff we receive for the Antarctic program. Insulated Carhartt bibs, Carhartt jackets, long underwear, hats, mitts, boots, etc. Everything we could possibly want for cold weather work though, as I've found out this week, the temperatures are rapidly getting warmer.
While in Kanger we did have the opportunity to ramble about. Others saw a muskox up on one of the slopes by town but I wasn't so lucky. I did see some caribou after a friend pointed them out (below)

Below is an image of a musk ox that somebody painted on a rock near town. Musk ox provide some sort of a living for people in Greenland. I'm not sure how lucrative it is but the yarn made from Qiviut (musk ox wool) set me back quite a bit. Below you can see a stack of musk ox pelts. There were a few stacks of these around town and also random bits of the animals themselves. The dogs appreciated those.

At the edge of town down by the water were the dog yards. I think of them as a community garden of dogs. The dogs belong to different people but they are all quite close together. I was prepared for the barking and whining of dogs when we showed up but they were all quite quiet which was a relief. They tended to be a lot bigger than the dogs I've seen running in North America and there were some very cute cuddly and attention-seeking puppies in the vicinity that were strategically located behind openings in the fence.

Another difference from the dogs back home is that these dogs pull these big sledges. Must be great for carrying caribou and musk oxen.....
And now my time in Kanger seems like long ago. I've been up at Summit a week and a half, gotten immersed in the work and celebrated two lovely, relaxing Sundays......

Greenland Bound

2009-04-20T22:36:00.005+12:00

Image above was taken from the Polar Trec site (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.polartrec.com/ptrecgallery/)

Yes, Greenland. Of course Greenland.
It's the natural next step after working in Antarctica. In fact most of the people who work up here have at one time or still do work in Antarctica. The season here tends to start in April and end in August, usually with time off in the middle when the camps are mostly inhabited by science groups. This summer at Summit Camp where I'll be working, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_Camp) construction staff will be there for the entire four month season.

As in the Antarctica program, the National Science Foundation contracts out the support work for the Greenland science to a big company, in this case CH2MHill Polar Services. Like at South Pole I'll be working with the construction crew. This being my first time up here, I still do not know exactly what to expect except that the camp at Summit is much smaller than South Pole. There are just a few buildings and most of the construction crew will live in large mountaineering tents instead of in the jamesway-style buildings we live in at Pole.

Last week my employment began with four days of training in Schenectady, NY. We mostly covered safety and it was quite similar to the training we do before Pole. I was pleasantly surprised, however, with the town of Schenectady. I didn't expect much from it but there were plenty of good places to eat at and nice neighborhoods to run in. I also enjoyed the novelty of having a hotel room and bath and television all to myself.

The old part of Schenectady is called the Stockade and used to be a walled community. The streets wind around in no predictable direction and every other house is labeled with a year. They all seem to date back to sometime in the 1700s which is after war and fire destroyed much of the city. These houses are beautiful and most have been restored immaculately, at least on the outside. While walking through this neighborhood, you almost trip over plaque after historic plaque, describing one corner or another and its significance in battle or as the location of the first mill or school or boat-building operation or... in Schenectady. Not for everyone but anyone who has any interest in architecture, old graveyards or American history would get a kick out of the Historic Stockade (http://www.historicstockade.com/).

These pictures were all taken in the Stockade.

Season Three Continued....

2009-01-17T06:07:00.010+13:00

Let's face it, I've been fairly lazy about updating my blog this year. But I have been reminded and I probably should do a little writing as the end of season three approaches. Another great season too. I feel pretty lucky. Below is my crew, hometown, New Hampshire folk except our fearless local leader (foreman) Steve who's from the West Coast. Not his fault of course!When I last left you three months ago we were flying over some of the Antarctic mountains, headed once again for South Pole. Well, I arrived in good spirits, having been reacquainted with old friends and met some good solid new ones.

It's a bit difficult to write about another season at Pole because they really are all so similar. Small changes in scenery and evidence of new snow piles on station engross us but our work is probably the most diverse thing in our lives down here.

Cleaning out a cold building over at MAPO, in order for a science group to move in. They did receive heat.

This season we started off with (and in fact our ending with ) a rash of maintenance on portable buildings on station. Below are photos of some of the buildings we worked on, in the field and out back of our shop. This tripod below had its footers dug out from the snow and the camera taken off of it so it could be stored out on the line, awaiting another purpose in life.
These buildings below were cleaned out and the plywood one directly below was outfitted for a winch that would be tethered to a small blimp. The blimp had some sort of instrument mounted on it to monitor ice particles in the air.

Above are the boys working on the roof, preparing it so that the winch cable can be put through and tether the balloon. In the Background are the other portable buildings being used by this science group.
Below is the frame that was created to support the winch cable after it had come through the roof of the building. The cable was small but quite tough, made from Kevlar if I remember correctly.
The tripod and this building below were part of AASTO, ( The Automated Astrophysical Site-Testing Observatory) which was decommissioned in 2005. AASTO was home to a number of experiments including measuring emissions from the earth's atmosphere and measuring turbulence in the atmosphere. There was also some talk that some studies from this building had something to do with extraterrestrial life! Okay, so I really don't understand what was going on there even after reading the information online but this green modular building is pretty cool. It is both skiddable and forkable and was created to plunk down anywhere on the continent as needed. This building got sent back to McMurdo this year for some new and exciting assignments.Below is the crate I made for the cryostat for BICEP telescope that got taken off-line this year. Eventually it'll have a new and improved cryostat put in so it can look deep into the universe again.
I got to practice working in different mediums with this one as the cryostat was actually in a crate inside this one and needed to be well cushioned. The cushioning product of choice for this were old (like 1970s looking) spring mattresses old gym mats, the kind that velcro to walls and each other. In case anyone needs to cut up said gym mats at any point, I suggest using a skill saw and then taping the new seams shut, maybe even using a heat gun to make the tape stick.

Above is the finished cryostat box, complete with sharp-looking metal edges made by our resident tin-knocker. Below is the South Pole Telescope (the big part on the left) with BICEP telescope's ground shield showing on top of the blue building on the right.

Above is Kate working on a platform for one of the solar outhouses; one of the portable buildings and the cryostat crate behind her.
And now I've left this blog so long that I'm in New Zealand with the wind blowing through the palm trees outside and ducks swimming in the pond. It's a far cry from that snowy plateau above. I can't say I miss it, but I did have yet another wonderful season. If I feel motivated I'll add some more South Pole info from this past year but I'm thinking my next blog might be filled with green NZ pictures (and sheep of course).

Antarctica Season 3 - En Route

2008-12-13T04:39:00.010+13:00

And so it begins again. I've been on the ice now for over a month and enjoying (almost) every minute of it. I am working on the same crew that I've been on for the past two seasons but with different folks. Below are some photos from the trip down which was fun and tiring and uneventful....

Now that I've been working here for a few seasons, I know people who live in Denver and so, during our three days of training I visited with some friends who worked down here last year. Below are Bob and Sarah, ready for a Halloween party. Bob worked as a carpenter down here last season. I'm in the dress and hat below that, a costume I wrangled in Boston before flying to Denver.

One of the most delightful changes this year was the addition of the Hotel So in Christchurch, New Zealand to our list of places to stay. What a trip these little rooms are. T.V., a glassed-in mini-bathroom and this crazy wake-up alarm that mimics the rising of the sun and finishes with images of the playing on the screen in front of you.

I traveled to the Ice with two comrades from seasons past (and many new ones of course). While in Christchurch we got in some fun adventures, including a walk over the hills to Lyttleton, a small port town. Other than the scenery, the fish and chips was by far the greatest highlight. From left to right in the picture below are Warren (operations general assistant), Sarah (welder) and Todd (electrician at one of the bigger field camps on the continent).
Knowing our feet would be stuck in big, sweaty boots for the next few months, we allowed them some freedom during the walk over to Lyttleton.

The C-17 flight to McMurdo from Christchurch

From Ob Hill, overlooking McMurdo Station

Scott's Hut in McMurdo has a very dehydrated seal guarding its exterior. That's what the grey blob is below.

This hydrated seal (below) was hanging out on the sea ice right near Hut Point in McMurdo. I don't know why it was basking on the ice but it seemed awfully far from any opening to the water. I also don't know why it was marked by a black flag but the seal didn't really seem to notice.

On the walk from town over to Hut Point, there are a few frozen ponds (or large puddles) with these fun bubbles frozen into them.

I don't know what these antennas are for but they they looked interesting, sat up on one of the hills in McMurdo.

While in McMurdo, I had the opportunity to leave town on a trip to the Ice Caves, about a 40 minute drive in this funny vehicle. I probably should have slept instead as I felt miserable the next day but the opportunity to see something outside town could not be missed. In retrospect it was well worth it.

Out on the frozen tundra waiting to enter the Ice Caves.

Inside the caves, the light was very very blue and the ice crystals were quite beautiful. Below is a picture of me leaving the cave. The trip was all very regulated. I think they let six of us in at a time, in order to avoid damage to the cave.
Above is our vehicle to the South Pole, the trusty C-130. Below is a picture of some mountains that I took from the plane to Pole.

Belated Blog: Vancouver and Trip With Ma Conchelos

2008-10-14T01:02:00.023+13:00

Leaving Alaska apparently did not mean that I would stop traveling for a while because Ma Conchelos and I had planned a much needed mother/daughter west coast road trip. En route to said road trip, I decided to visit old friends in Vancouver as they were fairly abundant there. Below are photos of my comrades.

Above: Dawn on the ukulele

Above: Heather, me and Genevieve

Gen and our all-you-can-eat-sushi receipt. Okay, so the sushi followed closely behind my friends as a reason to stop in Vancouver. I don't know if the receipt is legible enough but all of that cost us $30. Absolutely brilliant except that we may have had to stagger home feeling a little unwell afterwards.
Friends of Gen and I. Leah on the left has recently moved to Halifax, which I'm jealous about. And Graham on the left is a friend that I met in Halifax who currently lives in Vancouver.

Gen and I. We've known each other for twenty-two years!

Seattle to San Francisco

From Vancouver, I caught the bus to Seattle where I met up with Ma (Mary) Conchelos, after a much delayed flight. We stayed with a friend in West Seattle (I think) with a great view of the sound. Sue also gave us a great tour of the city during our stay. These houses below were down the street from Sue.

During our brief stay in Seattle, we met up with my friend Frank who had been my hiking partner in Denali. He lives in this funky part of Seattle called Fremont which really seemed too good to be true with art everywhere. They have a pretty fun website if you want to check it out http://www.fremontseattle.com/.
So Frank gave us a tour of Fremont after we met up with him and his folks (visiting from Germany) at the Lenin statue. I mean, of course there's a statue of Lenin in this hip hip city. As an aside and being that I'm currently back in Antarctica, I should mention that, of course there is also a bust of Lenin at the Pole of Inaccessibility in Antarctica (http://www.stuff.co.nz/4344635a10.html).

Seattle is a mecca for cyclists of course and when we went to the Ballard Fish Ladder to visit with the ambitious salmon, we came across this sweet ride.

Below: Salmon at the Ballard Lock

Below: Lilies by the lochs.

And now I find myself back at the South Pole which means internet time is limited and slow and blog updates will probably be even more sparse. Should have finished this one while I had all the interweb access in the world I suppose....

These photos below were taken at the sculpture park in Seattle. A really remarkable place to wander around. The image below was covering this huge wall in the entrance building.

This one is of the city, taken through glass that had images of clouds superimposed on it in different colors. The panes of glass ran along the length of a walkway that ran over the railroad tracks.
Pike Place Market. This is the stand (or maybe one of the stands) that guys throw fish around at.
From Seattle, mom and I rented a car and headed into Eastern Washington and down to the Columbia River. Below are some sights from the road of the vast and very flat landscape. What a difference when you drive over the divide, leaving the lush green for this arid landscape.
Yes, we rented a prius.... so hot! Though I'm still convinced the mileage wasn't what they claim.

Bridge over the Columbia River

We stopped, too briefly in Portland, Oregon and hit the key location, Powell's Books, where I would be happy to live in a corner and read the days away.

Then, we drove over to the coast, meeting up with some old trail crew friends on a beach near Florence. Sometimes I really have my doubts about cell phones and then there are the unknown health issues but they do become convenient when two people are on the move and trying to meet up in random locations! Below is one of the bits of whale we saw near Depot Bay. We pulled up at a bluff to get take a photo and ran into a retired couple there that was parked at Depot Bay for a month, counting whales. They had gotten off duty an hour earlier and so they headed down the road a mile to this location to, yes, count more whales! What a great volunteer opportunity.
I'm not sure exactly where some of these photos are except to say that they're on the southern Oregon coast.

Lighthouse near Depot Bay

This boat, the Mary D. Hume, came home to rest in Gold Beach, Oregon. She served as support to a cannery and, I believe, was used as a whaling vessel in AK. She has an interesting history and her story can be found at http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2264.htm.

And then we arrived at the big trees in Northern California. We drove down that oh so windy coast, admiring these huge beasts which dwarf their eastern relatives.
I think we saw these elk somewhere near the Avenue of the Giants. What you cannot see on the right is the house that they are parked next to and the twenty folks taking pictures. These guys were unfazed.

Not sure where the picture of the car coming out is but this is one I took while driving through one of the big trees. It wasn't far from Mendocino and was possibly worth the $5 we paid. The bathrooms, however, were attrocious. Glad I wasn't in an SUV and I wonder if they keep cutting the square whole bigger as our vehicles get bigger.
Our last stop before San Francisco was in Mendocino to hang out and visit with my friend, Brian. Before a schedule change, we had planned to stay at Jug Handle Creek Farm and Nature Center which is up the road from Mendocino, in Casper. We stopped by to visit and what a great place. They put people up in the house and these funky outbuildings (see below) and school groups come out and learn in the nature center. http://www.jughandle.creek.org/about_us.htm

Jug Handle's resident wild turkey population is below

Coast by Mendocino

Brian and I (and Abby the dog)

Me and mom braving the cold water.... as children frolicked in it, evidently without freezing.

And our last stop was Berkely/ San Francisco. We stayed with mom's cousin in Berkely and spent only one day in the big city. The trip was a tad short for all the ground that we covered. A little bit of a scheduling error on my part. But we did get a good and tiring ramble around San Fran. So bloody hilly!

A family friend, Gerald, met us in Berkeley and gave us a wonderful tour or part of downtown San Francisco. I don't think we'd seen him since 1985!

This was probably my favorite part of the city. It's the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. How's that for a mouthful. They have a collection of historical vessels that you can go aboard. They also have a restoration program and people were working on painting and rigging while we were there. Also, a school group had just shown up to spend the night on board one of the ships and were getting oriented as though they were new hands on the boat. I don't know if they had to swab the decks but they did have to learn sea shanties in preparation for the trip. http://www.nps.gov/safr/

The Golden Gate Bridge

All the bikes parked at the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station in Berkeley.

And there you have it, some photos from a whirlwind trip down the coast. It's interesting looking at these photos of lush green landscapes now that I'm back in a barren white one!

Leaving Alaskahhhh

2008-09-06T13:13:00.006+12:00

My last bit of time in Alaska was quite enjoyable. I spent a couple days in Palmer again and the rest in Seward again, trying unsuccessfully to sell my car. The poor dear Subaru will now be stationed for the winter up in the wild north, having to fend off grizzly bears and wolves but most likely just trying to survive through a cold snowy few months.

While I was in Palmer I had time so I went off to Hatcher Pass to check out this old gold mine that is now a State Historical Park. It's called Independence Mine, built in the hayday when gold was the thing. All in all seems like not a bad place to have worked, nice bosses, reasonable workdays. The website for the mine is http://www.dnr.state.ak.us/parks/units/indmine.htm.

Check out these old buildings. Most of the big ones were bunkhouses for the men and they were painted with aluminum paint. I've had a little experience with that stuff and I can only say I hope to never paint something that large with it, ever.

Not a kiddy train of course, but for moving valuable ore, and (less valuable?) men around.

Visiting with a new friend down at the Susitna (or maybe the Matinuska... I forget) river just outside of Palmer. The banks were mostly made of muck, the kind of muck a person might never make it out of.

And then back to Seward where I finally made it up to the top of Mount Marathon. This is from Wikipedia about the race up the mountain every summer... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Marathon_Race

The race begins downtown, on Fourth and Jefferson, in front of the First National Bank, and ends a block south of where it began, on Fourth and Adams. The halfway point is a stone marker^[1] atop Mount Marathon, 3022 feet (921 meters) above sea level, and a mile and a half from the finish line. The total race course distance is about 3.1 miles (5 kilometers). Leading racers will typically reach the peak from the starting line in 33–40 minutes, and reach the finish line from the peak in 10–15 minutes. Average speed uphill is 2 mph. Average speed downhill is 12 mph. Some runners travel at burst speeds nearing terminal velocity as they plummet down the mountain nearing certain danger or even death. It is not uncommon for the racers who finish to cross the finish line injured or bleeding, covered in mud and blood.
Needless to say I did not hike up the race route which is almost vertical scree but I did go down it partway with a fellow hiker. Bellow are some ptarmigan (the official state bird) that tried to hide out in the rocks at the top of Marathon. They were pretty successful actually, blending in well with the landscape.
I also headed back up toward Exit Glacier again, this time taking a longer tour of it. Pretty spectacular.

And then the day I was planning to leave and should have been packing, a friend invited me for a sail and really, you can't say no to a sail on a lovely summer day. His son, Tristan is up top while I'm pretending to steer. It was a lot of fun. Haven't been on a sailboat since I was five or six off the coast of Maine.
View of one of the boats coming into the harbor at the end of the day, rounding up the seabirds in its path.
There's the boat (the Swan) in her slip. They take out guests in the summertime from Seward (http://alaskasailingtours.com/).

On the road again

2008-08-14T10:36:00.010+12:00

Back in Seward twice now since returning to the northland from Whale Pass. Picked up my sweet Subaru and hit the road again. Now I'm back to sell said automobile and start my journey home. Here are some photos from the recent jaunt north. I didn't get up to Fairbanks like I'd hoped but had a wonderful (if not dry) journey into Denali National Park and got to catch up with my old boss from Pole, Chuck, up in Healy, just north of the park.
A sign on the side of the road that I passed as I walked along waiting for a ride between Anchorage and Seward. It took a lot longer than I'd thought so I've been trying to improve the karma by picking up hitchhikers now that I'm back in a car. Mom and dad, don't worry, I give them a good lookover and lie detector test before stopping the car for anyone.
Mountains around Mckinley which was hidden (as usual I guess) in a self-made weather system.
Chuck in work gear, at his friends' house in Healy.
Denali was a trip. Partly because of the process of getting a campsite and organizing to get into the park on one of their shuttle busses (you can only drive so far). I was lucky to meet a guy, Frank in Seward, who was headed up that way himself and up for some hiking. I'm still not sure I would have hiked alone, never having hiked off-trail before. So this worked out nicely and we met up the night before and just did one night in the park itself. This bear, above, was one we saw from the shuttle on the way in. I had no idea of the size of the park, really but it took us two hours to get from our campsite to the spot we got dropped off to hike and that was a relatively short distance into the park! You can let the shuttle drivers know when you want to stop to look at wildlife or other things out of the bus windows which was nice and our shuttle driver in gave us a pretty comprehensive tour.
Preparing to get soggy. It was a boggy start to our hike; got our feet wet right from the start.
Trying to keep the camera dry.
Trying to keep ourselves dry.

We picked a pretty easy route and I think it was only about eight miles over two days but lack of trails really cuts down on milage as many of you no doubt know. We covered a lot of it along this river (the Teklanika) which made walking a lot easier but still had to scramble back into the bush when there was no bank to walk on.
Enjoying some chocolate.
Frank at our cooksite. The park employees get you to camp where you can always see around you and put your cooksite and then your bear canisters 100 yards from it in a triangle so you can look at both spots and see if they've been tampered with (not by hooligans, but by bears).

And lo and behold, it cleared up the next morning which made getting out of the tent much easier and allowed us to have a dry breakfast and pack up. It did start spitting again but the downpour only really began again when we were just back at the road waiting for a shuttle to stop and pick us up. Worked out real perfect like.

Our grizzly-siting. Frank saw them first. It was a momma and two year-olds probably. They went there way and we went ours. We didn't see them again. We also saw one moose sitting down (again Frank saw it) and a ton of rabbits, a ptarmigan and a bunch of squeaky prairie-dog like critters.
The ptarmigan. I treed one down in Talkeetna while I was picking berries which was fun. It walked back and forth on this branch, gurgling like an insane chicken before finally flying down.

We went to Talkeetna after Denal and stayed in Chuck and Tracy's sweet sweet cabin. I read a little Laura Ingalls Wilder to get back to my childhood and went fishing though i caught nothing. I did learn about using an egg-loop as bait from this nice guy from Oregon. So many nice people!

We were given this silver by the guy who taught me about the egg loops gave us this fish which was tasty and it was full of eggs so I bought some cure for them and half are still sitting in the car waiting to bait some salmon should they decide to come in and if bait is allowed around Seward which it may not be.
A packboard (for all the ex trail crew out there) from a miner's cabin that was transplanted into Talkeetna by the museum. Haven't changed much.

Tracy and Chuck's cabin.

The night before I left Talkeetna, the mountain came out. McKinley in the distance. The next day I got the one below which was much better but I didn't know that then. I think I was on the Susitna River when I took it.
A breakfast of pancakes with blueberries, watermellon berries and good old NH maple syrup that's been travelling around since May. Oh my god was it good, sitting on that screened in porch with NPR on... Sigh.

Whale Pass- The Finale

2008-08-05T13:34:00.008+12:00

And so it goes, I'm back up north from Southeast, back in Seward, Alaskahhhh. Here are the final photos from Whale Pass where I had a killer time. It's good to be done work for a while but I relished my time down in Southeast.

I went out to pick crab and shrimp pots with some neighbors, Laura and pat one day. The pot didn't provide much but this great photo and I found out the shrimp would look great in a black light.

And more guns, of course. My new friend Cory who works at a fish hatchery out on Etolin Island for the same company that runs the fish plant in Whale Pass took me out shooting at one of the local quarries. I think this is a 45 but I really forget. Had some kick though and apparently (judging from the photo below) guns make me smile. I don't know if I should be worried or not.

When Daryel's daughter and grandkids visited we went over to the other side of the island to take a tour of El Capitan cave. Below are photos from the boardwalk out there. I forget how many steps there were but it was a lot. The whole boardwalk only took the forest service crew (or maybe they were contracted) five weeks to put in which I consider pretty remarkable, especially since it may very well have been raining all the time.

Entrance to the part of the cave that's blocked off for bat protection. The bat cave, if you will. There are no bats in it at this time of year though. They come back in when the weather gets cold.
Some nice flowstone.

There was only one spot that we could crawl into to get some squishy cave feeling and it was squishy. There were two of us in a spot that they've gotten six of seven folks in and it was pretty tight with two.

Me, Nicole (Daryel's daughter), Kylie and Jacob (the grand kidlets).

And perhaps, most exciting, before I left and with Daryel's recipe and smoker, I smoked up nine silvers to send home and bring with me on my travels. I only tasted it yesterday for the first time and it's quite nice. Tonight, I'll turn it into an omelet with some cream cheese.

Drying out the salmon a bit after it's been brined, before it goes into the smoker.
The salmon drying some more after coming out of the smoker.
When I left, I caught a float plane out of Thorn Bay instead of the ferry to Ketchikan. It cut down on a lot of travel time and was that much more exciting, getting to see some of Southeast from the air. Below is the Beaver that transported me.

Coming into Ketchikan, a total metropolis for Southeast Alaska.
The night I arrived in Anchorage, I slept at the airport and then hitched down to Seward, getting good rides but it took a little longer than I'd imagined it would. Below is a liquor store shop that I passed that made me chuckle. Only in Alaska, but probably also in other rural areas across America.
A pano photo from out in the bay at Whale Pass.

Whale Pass Continued

2008-07-23T15:22:00.017+12:00

Another couple of weeks left in Whale Pass. It's been wonderful up here (down here rather, coming from the main part of the state). Lot's of new experiences, good work and not too too much rain. Here are a bunch of photos from the last month or so. There are a lot of them, so grab a cup of tea and settle into Southeast Alaskahhh... or at least the Whale Pass area.

Daryel's big boat, parked on it's mooring, the Kwichack (pronounced Kwee-jack), named for the river.

Friends who live across the bay and have a mill and logging operation. They came over to haul out the trees that I'd limbed so I could buck them up in the comfort of the drive.
My first day fishing. Peewee, the neighbor's dog came with us to bark at anything, salmon, kelp, people, lures. He only fell in once, much to his and my dismay.
My first salmon. Coho. I caught two that day. Actually, that's all I've caught, period but I've eaten so much more.

Bucking up wood with the big saw, the Husky 371. This tree isn't big for out west but sure is bigger than anything I've bucked up back east. Really got to appreciate how key a real sharp chain is.

House and the cabin and the neighbor's house (right) from the boat.

Daryel in the Kwichak. We put some doors and cabinet doors back on that had been oiled.

After an early finish to a work day, I went and walked the boardwalk at Beaver Falls. There's a lot of karst landscape happening under this shallow soil and the boardwalk showed off a bunch of sinkholes and falls running into the caves. Tomorrow, we go and get a tour of El Capitan cave.

For the Fourth of July, this eagle posed for me on the way to Beaver Falls. Oh say can you see. Honestly, these eagles, they're like vultures and a dime a dozen. It's illegal to take feathers with you but they litter this landscape.

I've eaten so much crab here. Pretty crabbed out, but it should keep me going for a while and never will I be able to eat seafood in a restaurant or from a grocery store. How am I going to pay those outrageous prices when it's free here?!
Out in the paddle boat. Took the fishing rod but I kept losing the schools of coho and then couldn't get my paddle together to get back to them.
Another type of boat. Borrowed a neighbor's tandem kayak and went for a couple paddles just out of the bay. A little less awkward than in the rowboat. Should have taken the fishing rod with me, it was just a scenic adventure. Checking out the houses with only boat-in access. Must be quite a feat to build on one of these properties!

One of the many seals on the bay, hated by fisherman who lose lures and lose fish to these pests. Fun to take photos off. They liked the kayak. Maybe they thought I was one big red salmon.
The fish plant at Whale Pass. This facility and a bunch of others in Southeast are run by the Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (SSRAA). Basically, they are the reason that there is a large coho salmon runs and a sockeye run here for commercial and sport fishing. I won't go into details but info about the fish plant (located next to the weenie shack) can be found at http://www.ssraa.org/snow_pass_coho.htm. It's a very cool operation and I supplemented my work at Daryel's with harvest work at the plant. Mostly, this entailed filling totes with ice and fish and a little bit of fish killing. These fish are marketed as Snow Pass Coho and are some of the freshest in the fresh fish market.

Locally harvested cedar 2 by 4s waiting to be used to frame up under the porch before the skirting gets put on.

Collecting mussels and clams out by El Cap. I was trying to look bored.

Out in the little inflatable for a jaunt down the bay. Saw one bear on my travels though I scared it off.

Above is sea asparagus, a delicious salty treat. Good raw, better steamed. And home, apparently to some snails.

Whale Pass

2008-06-26T14:43:00.008+12:00

Hello from Whale Pass, Alaskaaahhh. I've been here almost two weeks now so it's about time to get a blog out before I start filling these pages with all the fish I'm going to catch. Went fishing for the first time yesterday and caught two coho/silver salmon. Apparently it was a really slow day but it was fun. Above I've put in the video of me shooting the MI Carbine in McCarthy when I was visiting Dave. The gun is his neighbor's. I felt very hardcore.

Whale Pass, Alaskaahhhhh. Southeast Alaska at that. Southeast is what they call the panhandle of Alaska. Not exactly the place I imagined myself when Rose and I drove up. Particularly because my car is still north, in Seward. You can't drive here. Or rather you can but it means driving all the way back down through BC to Prince Rupert and then putting the car (mucho dinero) on a couple of ferries.

Whale Pass has a population of 50 which jumps to a whopping 100 in the summer. Home to a few lodges, a hotdog stand, church, library (yes, library, where I am sitting outside, using the interweb right now), fire hall and post office. The post office is actually a building with shelves and post boxes where mail is left to be mailed and picked up from the boxes. I have no idea what you do if you want to send something priority. Presumably you either know the postage or you mail it from town, when you go to town that is.

Town is Craig which is two and a half hours away. Or maybe it’s Thorne Bay but I think most people go to Craig. I’ll get to see the big city when we run in for stuff on Wednesday.

But Whale Pass is beautiful and quiet and the fishing is great, though I haven’t experienced it for myself yet. This week. I did get my license so as to be a legal fisherman and avoid the two hundred fifty dollar fine.

Ketchikan

In order to get here, I opted for the larger of the carbon footprints and flew from Anchorage to Ketchikan where I caught the Interisland Ferry to Hollis, here on Prince of Wales (POW) Island.

From the ferry

I got this job while I was supposed to be looking for places to live on Craigslist. I was in Palmer and this ad showed up looking for somebody to do tree cutting and carpentering, two things I've been doing for the past couple years and rather enjoy. The wage was good but I had no idea where Whale Pass was when I enquired about it. Below is my boss Daryel, the writer of the ad. He came and picked me up in Hollis when I arrived and we made the 2.5 hour drive back north. Really, we passed no towns on the way but a whole lot of logged hillsides. And it was all logged by hand, the hills being too steep to put roads in. What other towns there are, are off that road we took, mostly on the coast.

A couple days after my arrival, after I got oriented and started hacking away at the mass of limbs and trunks left from a windstorm last fall, we went out and picked crab from Daryel's crab pots. The crabs in this bay are mostly Dungeness crabs. Smaller than Kings but they sure are tasty. We ate with the utensils shown below. The mallets are for breaking the shells. I regretted wearing my new hoodie during dinner. The legs for our first meal then the body meat for crab cakes a couple days later.

Whale Pass is located on a cove that is protected from the open ocean by Thorne Island. In the picture below, taken from the top of a hill off of one of the old logging roads (Road 2025 or something) you can see the southern entrance around Thorne Island and the cove that Whale Pass is on would be to the left of that but it's below the tree line here. The snowcapped peaks in the distance are on the mainland.

It's pretty incredible out here. Definately like no other place I've been. It's wet and lush. The main tree species are spruce and cedar (red and yellow) and there is some pine up in the marshier muskeg areas. Below is a skunk cabbage. They're everywhere and while people don't eat them, the deer seem to. Oh, there are no brown (grizzly) bear on POW, but I'm told there are many large black bear. I have yet to see any yet.

Some old logging machinery that's been left to rust not far from the house. Whale Pass was started as a logging camp in the seventies. They put the buildings on floats and logged all over the island, focusing on the trees nearer the coast first. Below is one of the local deer. They're called sitka deer, Sitka like another island in the Southeast. They're smaller than our eastern deer and have goofy round ears.

One of the local lodges, called Flyquest, a couple properties down from Daryel's

Above is Daryel's house and below is the small cabin that I'm doing some touch-up work on (trim, painting, putting the stove in, etc.).

People fishing out front of the house

There are a ton of bald eagles around. As you can imagine, they fish and fish and fish and you can always see them and here their funny voices. In these photos, they're vying for the carcasses of some salmon.

Here's the shop up the hill from the house. I'm painting some osb that's going to be put up on the ceiling as paneling.
And a constant source of entertainment is Tokeen the dog. He's getting on in years but still very puppyish. And there you have it, an introduction to my time at Whale Pass.

Mcarthy

2008-06-20T12:22:00.007+12:00

Alright, hopefully the film below will load because I'm adding shooting to my repatoir and I want all the world to see. Okay, the film is taking forever. It's probably too large or something but it's just me shooting a gun. I got to shoot multiple guns which was a hoot (if you can say that about guns). they belonged to my friend Dave and his neighbor Larry who I had the pleasure of meeting in the wilds of Alaskkkaaahhhh. Maybe I can attach it at another time.

The photos below are from the Kennecott Mine Town buildings in historic Kennecott, near McCarthy. It's a historic landmark and parts of it are being restored while others are begin stabilized. It's pretty amazing. It just goes up and up and up and there's tons of lumber in it. The mines in the area were copper mines and it was hauled out on a railway that is no longer there. http://www.nps.gov/archive/wrst/kennecott.htm

Jumbo Glacier (I think). There are a number of glaciers that converge in the area.
Sandlot baseball on a Friday night. Dustiest game of baseball i've ever played with almost more dogs than folks on the field with the most beautiful backdrop of anywhere I've played. Glaciers and mountains! A lot a lot of fun.

My friend Dave's house (another Ice friend). Dave works for the Park Service restoring the mine buildings. His place is in McCarthy on the road side of the walking bridge that crosses the river into town. If you want to drive into either town, you have to have a year pass or pay a pretty dear sum to the private owner of the land and the driving bridge. Still, I guess it's way more accessible than it used to be.

Dave's treehouse, the first place he built on his property.

Ru-ins with Ice People abound. Don Potter, me and Dave. Don's son lives in McCarthy and he worked down at the South Pole the past two seasons. His son Eli worked down there some years ago as well.

Bridge over to McCarthy and Kennecott.

Dave with a fro, at a river I've forgotten the name of after a great bike ride.

Bear prints

I just thought it was funny seeing the bunny (white) boots by this sign because that's one of the style of boots we wear at the South Pole. Apparently they where them up on the North Slope in the winter too.
Old railway bridge heading to McCarthy. Apparently vehicles used to drive across until one guy had the rear end of his truck fall through the timbers. He was okay but maybe that's when the riving bridge below was put in.

Another driving bridge closer to McCarthy.

Kurt (from the Ice also) and his float plane just outside of Glennallen. I stopped by to visit on my way from McCarthy to Anchorage to catch the plane to Ketchikan and then the ferry to Prince of Wales Island. And that is where I am now.

Palmer briefly and back to Seward

2008-06-20T12:00:00.008+12:00

Now, i'm sitting in the shade on Prince of Wales Island looking over Wale Pass and trying to remember the past two weeks. The bugs (white sox or white feet or something.... like blackflies with white feet) are keeping me awake.

Below is one of the places I looked at to rent when I was in Palmer. No electric or running water but a sweet cabin with an incredible view up on Lazy Mountain. The best part was probably that I got to meet Kay and Gary who are friends of friends of a friend in NH, and their two ferrets. They were kind enough to feed me and let me stay in the cabin during my last night in Palmer before heading back to Seward.
So, Seward-bound again, I stopped in Anchorage to pick up Josh's co-paddler and adventure film consort, Jeremiah Kelley. Below is Jeremiah interviewing Josh about his boat-building.

The always loveable sea otter. Now I'm thinking that this may be the animal to be reincarnated as. Previously, I had settled on a cat.

In Tony's Bar. There is also a stuffed wolf, of course. It's alaska.

Miller's Landing

Paddling with Josh and Jeremiah and their friend Jerry who had organized to take out three girls who are doing internships I think at the Alaska Conservation Foundation.

Josh was given this two man kayak that they had decided to use in order to film some of the local bits for their movie. We spent a day fixing it up and getting it sea worthy.

Alaskahhhhhh! To Seward and Homer

2008-06-09T12:48:00.011+12:00

And then we pushed on, arriving in Seward AK, home of another Pole friend, Josh Thomas. Josh and his friend JJ are preparing to paddle homemade kayaks from Skagway AK to Seattle WA through the northwest passage. So, Josh was a busy man but did make time to take Rose and I out on the water after recovering from a raucous night the evening we arrived.Out on the Miller's Landing water taxi. They use this boat to shuttle folks around Resurrection Bay and take out kayak groups that aren't starting right from Miller's Landing (http://www.millerslandingak.com/)

We also walked out another glacier (Exit), just outside of Seward and witnessed this beautiful moose poop art along the path.
Some boats waiting for a new life across the Bay from Millers Landing. They were parked at the big dry dock yards.
And this is where Josh has been working on putting the kayaks together since getting back from the South Pole. A friend generously lent him the work space and the boats arrived in pieces. They are almost finished now and JJ and Josh hope to get them into the water on Friday with a departure date of July 2nd to catch the ferry to Skagway. For more information on their trip and some entertaining clips you can check out their blog at http://blog.dudesonmedia.com/.

From Seward, we had to drive around and get Rose to the ferry that would take her from Homer to Kodiak where she started her fishing job last week. Another Pole acquaintance and friend of a friend (thank god they're everywhere) put us up in Homer and entertained us with this goofy pup.
Finally, I made it to Palmer, where I was supposed to start work but ended up taking a job in the Southeast on Prince of Wales Island. I fly down there next week. In the meantime, I met some wonderful folks in Palmer who let me stay at their cabin. I also got some incredible views of the valley, and one incredible view of this dog, in a Brat, in aviator glasses. Only in Alaskaaahhh...

Through Canadia

2008-06-08T14:13:00.005+12:00

Galena Bay Ferry (free... on the BC transit route)

At the turnoff to the Cassier Highway. Definately the more desolate of the northward routes. No gas for miles, yadda yadda.

Our motel in the middle of nowhere. Nice to have a bed though pretty pricey We saw a number of black bears on the Cassier and one lone coyote that tried to chase our car. We also saw two lone cyclists right at the point where we were hitting chunks of gravel roads. Tough guys but I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.

I think this was the most expensive gas of the trip. Something like $5.50/ gallon.

Yes, we made it. One gas tank, brake repair, axle, 6000 miles and a lot of gas later.

On the Alaska highway.

After getting into Alaska, we stopped off at the Matanuska Glacier along the Glenn Highway. Pretty incredible. Apparently, the front bit of the glacier was bought, along with land by a homesteader so you pay for access to the glacier but it was well worth it to be able to scramble around on the cool blue ice.

In the standard White Mountain Cafe shirt, being dwarfed by the glacier.

Montana to Canada (eh)

2008-05-28T15:37:00.008+12:00

Just as always happens at the end of a trip, I've let these blogs pile up. And now we're in Alaska! Rose is down on her boat off of Kodiak and I'm headed down to Ketchikan in the near future, once I figure out how best to fly and ferry there. Currently in the Palmer Library. Thank god (or maybe Carnegie) for librariesBelow are our pictures from Montana (Mantuna?) into Canada.

On the way to Livingston, MT

Joe and Becky (Ice friends) and their cat in Livingston

Elk (I think) in Yellowstone

At the springs in Yellowstone's Norris Geyser Basin

Buffalo (Bison)

Animal spotting with the pros. We saw a couple grizzlies, 3 wolves (from quite far) and a black bear.
Cutesy wootsy baby bunny under Doug and Jojo's wood pile.
At Doug and Jojo's house literally outside of the gates to Yellowstone. They both work in the park and are friends from the Ice as well.

We made it. The car got all it's big repairs in Canada.
Visiting my friends Carrie and Scott and their kids (Barret, Veyda and Tyler) in Salmo, BC.

Indiana to Mount Rushmore

2008-05-22T16:05:00.007+12:00

Now we're in Livingston, Montana, visiting some friends from the South Pole. They're everywhere! Below are some pictures from our travels up to the time we drove by Mount Rushmore. We should have stopped at the Crazy Horse Monument which I think is far more impressive but were too cheap to pay the $20 (which is well worth it probably and supports the creation of the monument which has no federal funding) and tired and cranky.

So this is how we were greeted driving into Indiana. No welcome sign, just expensive gas right off the interstate. A short drive past the toll rewarded us with gas that was 20 cents cheaper.

Rose called this the end of an era for road trips and it probably is given that gas prices just go up and up. We're expecting to get hammered in Canada where gas is always more expensive.

In Ottawa, IL we visited Rose's friends Adrienne and Leroy. It was a nice relaxing visit after a 12-hour day of driving from Rochester, NY. Leroy took us mushroom hunting and we got to drink beers and eat barbecue on Adrienne's family's property on a beautiful sunny Sunday. The golf cart and our feet toodled us around the property.

Rose and Leroy

Rose and Adrienne

After Illinois we drove north into traffic and into Milwaukee (and slightly cheaper gas prices) to visit Rose's friend, Stoj. The birthday shot of whiskey was for Mandi, a friend we left to winter at the South Pole. Needless to say, we got a little bit of a late start the next day.

How Rose occupied herself sometimes while I drove.

The next night, Tuesday, we got in late to this little cabin at the Budget Host Campground in Interior SD, just outside the Badlands National Park. (http://www.badlandsbudgethostmotel.com/). It was wicked cheap; our hosts were really nice and it was well worth it to not have to set a tent up late at night. There, that's my plug. We were greeted in the morning, not only with views of these great formations in the distance but also by Henrietta, the campground's tame buffalo. Classic.

Henrietta (above)

Wednesday morning we went for a walk in the Badlands which was incredible. We walked the flats for a couple hours just barely getting caught in a thunderstorm before we got back to the car. It's just such a weird, impressive landscape. I don't think I'd want to live in such a treeless place but it was nice to experience it.

Below is our wild buffalo sighting, happily taking advantage of the road sign. We saw a bunch of them as we drove out of the park, through the grasslands. Huge, wicked wicked huge animal.

After leaving the Badlands, we drove towards the Black Hills, SD. On a brief stop in the very very small town of Scenic, we came across this old jail, located across the street from the post office.

And then, of course, Mount Rushmore. Glad I saw it but the Badlands and the buffalo were definitely the highlight of this part of the journey.

Now, with a small exhaust repair (only $35) we're off to visit some other friends from Pole in Gardiner and then on to Canadia. The weather is cold and rainy unfortunately. It'd be nice to get some good views of that big sky but we take what we can get obviously. Until the last day or so, we lucked out with fantastic weather.

Alaska Bound - Rhode Island

2008-05-14T09:48:00.009+12:00

Hello from the road to Alaska. Rose and I are currently hanging out with a friend of hers in Milwaukee. We're slowly puttering our way across the country, intending to get Rose to Homer, Alaska so she can catch a ferry to Kodiak on June 3rd. Why Alaska? Why not. As Rose says, The Road Trip is a dying breed in this age of rising gas prices. That being said, the old Subaru may have to stay in Alaska if I can't afford to drive back (Rose is going to fly down to college at the end of August) but it's well worth the trip. Below are some of our pictures from New Hampshire to Ohio.

The Last Breakfast: Leaving from the Moonbeam Cafe in Gorham, NH. From left to right : Curtis, Rose, Kate and IThe Redwood Library, Newport RI. The oldest publick (yes ..ick) library in America

First stop was Rose's family in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Amazed at all the history. I mean, I know New England is full of it but it still blows you away. That and all the money that people had so much money back then. The Vanderbilt mansion blows your mind. Gold and marble everywhere.

The Breakers, The Vanderbilt's mansion on the coast, Newport, RI.

A face on a fountain or something at the Breakers. It's all in the details. I guess when you have the money and time, it's all about details.

The Breakers

A goofball on the kids' playhouse at the Breakers.

Rose in front of the kids' playhouse at the Breakers.

Welcome to New York State. Gas prices.

From Rhode Island we headed up to visit my family in Rochester, NY. Thus began our long relationship with I90 which won't end until we hit Idaho or Washington.

My dad grew up in Rochester, NY and I grew up going there to visit Grandma (yes, I'm an only grandchild too! how good does it get?) and family a bunch during the year. I think I might have missed out on the Garbage Plate at Nick Tahou's though until this past week. Basically a white hot and fries but with ground beef and onions and peppers loaded on top! Cardiac arrest.

It was a nostalgic trip for me, heading down to Charlotte to visit Lake Ontario, pick up some frozen custard and visit the carousel. The beauty of it though was that though the carousel (104 years old or something) was closed until Memorial Day Weekend wasn't open, the guy who runs and maintains it shut the windows and gave us a ride on it. I was giddy and (for those who know her) Rose was laughing madly.
And we return from our nostalgic trip to Charlotte to find a Toyota Corolla with Ontario plates in the driveway of my cousins' house? Rose asked if it might not be some other Canadian relative but it was not. It was my parents who'd come surprise us and to see us off from New York State. How sweet is that? So we got to see my parents and relatives, including my Great Uncle Gordie, my grandma's brother. IHOP took care of us, the great American institution that it is....
We visited Mount Hope Cemetery, opened during a cholera epidemic and current home to Frederick Douglas and Susan B. Anthony. And a happy groundhog.

The Rochester Redwings, farm team for the Minnisota Twins, formerly the farm team for the Baltimore Orioles were playing while we were in town. When I was little, my grandma would take us to the games at Silver Stadium (now they play at the new Frontier Stadium) and shake her fist, whooping like Arsenio Hall. I haven't been to a game since the new stadium was up and it was great to see a good baseball game. The train went by the outfield and we were treated to a decent fireworks show after the game was over. The Redwings lost .
Then we started driving through states. These photos are to show off my White Mountain Cafe shirt. Illinois didn't see fit to welcome us, except with $4.19 gas right off the interstate!

Work on the Ice

2008-02-11T09:42:00.012+13:00

Okay, one more blog from the Ice even though I now find myself in green New Zealand shortly after a rainstorm. For the past week, I've been visiting an old friend and loving the moist, warm air and plants and grass.

This blog is just a bunch of pics of work we did at the South Pole. The crew I'm on does sort of a hodge podge of different stuff.

Ladders we made (for safety) and put up on a bunch of buildings. You know, in case people get snowed into any of these buildings... or something.

Kevin (on my crew) "sleeping" on the table saw. The guard's on so that's okay.

Josh (on my crew) with the beacon sign. The station is divided by the snow runway where the C130s land so when plane's our moving about, pedestrians, snowmobiles and other vehicles have to wait on one side of the beacon which lets them know to stop.

Shelves I made for the greenhouse utility room.

Curtis and Kate (on the iron crew-night shift) putting those stairs together (aluminum ones in the background).

Project: Sewage Outfall

Two new sewer holes had to be drilled this year to take the sewage from summer camp. We were responsible for building boxes to go over the holes and around the pipes to allow people to work on the connections should the need arise. Any connection that might have to be worked on usually needs a box around it as the snow drifts in quickly. Those boxes or hatches usually need to be raised as the level of the snow rises over the years.

Me, Josh and Chuck in the shop

Project: Firebox

This is some sort of fire suppression system that sits on the runway in case one of the plane's wings catches on fire. The foam inside was freezing and might be rendered useless so we built a box to go over it. The black colour causes it to absorb sunshine and stay quite a bit warmer than it might otherwise. We use solar toilets when not in the station and they are painted black for this same reason. While they don't become very warm, they're comfortable enough to sit in without a coat on. Black, insulated boxes also get used to cover up connections that aren't supposed to freeze.

All the latches and handles on the box are intended so the panels that make it up can be removed quickly in the event of an emergency. We never had to test it.

Project : Mast on ICL (Ice Cube Lab)

A mast (tall tower of pipe) was put up on one of the buildings across from the ten meter telescope (below). There was a camera or some sort of sensor at the top that allowed the ten meter folks to set the mirrors on the telescope properly.

We put up the mast, five foot piece at a time. Each of them stacked together and somebody watched ropes on each of three sides to make sure it didn't fall over or lean too much.

Project : Flying the QUAD telescope

One of the South Pole's telescopes became a little outdated. It got taken apart this year and flown out of the ground shield (big bowl around it) with a crane. We helped take it apart and directed the crane from the top and on the ground.

Finally (bottom pic), Chuck and Josh built a very beefy crate for the telescope's mirror, worth (not kidding) hundreds of thousands of dollars). It was then sent off the continent.

Project: Handrails for RF

Safety is a big motivation for some of the jobs we get. This big white ball houses a dish that talks to the satellites for us, allowing us to have phone and internet connections with the real world. Our job was to build safety railings out on the deck so nobody would fall off when they were working on the smaller dish out front. We had to wait until the satellite went down so as not to get sterilized.

We took measurements and then built most of the railing in the shop. The deck at Marisat (the ball) was a great spot to watch planes coming in to Pole.

Project: Jeffreys

I might have spelled Jeffreys wrong but it's called that for the last name of one of the members of the group. They were installing an instrument that tracks the sun. Unfortunately I can't find any info on line.

The heavy machinery operators dug out a hole in the snow and deposited a building there, burying it but allowing access. We installed a mast that allowed them to have a receiver for a satellite connection. We also built and installed a fence that was put around their instrument in order to keep the wind off of it for the most part. There was a fence in existence that we were unable to find on station. It is called the hammerschlag after the guy who invented it and wrote a paper on it. Basically it's a tall wooden fence with a third of the area covered by posts or something like that. We had a lot of fun saying hammerschlag. I think the guy was Dutch.

Project: SPRESO
(http://www.usgs.gov/features/south_pole/)

This is a seismic vault outside of South Pole station. The hatches had been covered up by snow so we extended them and extended the ladders inside.

There is an electrical cable, ground and communications cable that runs the length (five miles?) from the station to the vault. We built boxes for areas along the length of cable where it was spliced and so that people could get down into look at the cable in the future without digging it up. They want to know how taught the cable is getting and how much it's stretching as SPRESO moves away from the station every year.

Below is one of the vehicles we take out when we work outside of the station. Sometimes (if we don't have to take much with us, we take the snowmobiles but the Piston Bully is much preferable as it allows you a space to get out of the cold.

Our Crew photo
From left to right: Kevin, me, Jack (our supervisor), Chuck (our foreman) and Josh

And there you have it. If I post anything else soon, it'll be lush and green maybe with bits of ocean...

Station Dedication and some work and play shots

2007-12-22T05:33:00.000+13:00

Hello again,
I’ve heard from a number of you that I ought to update my blog and I apologize for not having done so sooner but it is that much harder to motivate the second time around. I’m having a fabulous season but it really is so much the same as the first.
However, last year I neglected to write about and show pictures of the work I do down here as much as I should have. Instead you saw pictures of toga parties and Christmas and such.
Following I’ve tried to include pictures of work and day to day life here at Pole and I hope to blog at least once more before leaving.

Picture in front of the Dome

Today (January 12th our time) we celebrated the dedication of the new South Pole Station. As many of you know, the old station, finished I think in 1975, was the big white dome. Inside that dome were a bunch of buildings that housed folks and offices and such. The new station, which has a capacity for about 150 people is close to being completed and so this year, the International Polar Year, some of the bigwigs from Raytheon and the National Science Foundation were brought down to celebrate. It was a pretty fun day, actually (I’m always a bit dubious of ceremonies); the station participated in the taking down of the flag from the top of the dome.

My fearless leader, Chuck Speidel and three others climbed to the top of the dome, took down the flag, brought it down where it was folded by some ex-military folks and then passed along a daisy chain of station personnel until it got to the pole (geographic and ceremonial).

The ceremonial pole was then moved to just in front of the center of the station and each of the twelve flags around the pole was moved by somebody with that nationality in their blood. The twelve flags represent each of the countries that originally signed the Antarctic Treaty. Finally, we passed the American flag daisy chain style again to the main entrance of the station.

We then cleaned and worked and ate lunch until the DVs arrived around 2pm after a 9 hour flight directly from Christchurch this morning. They were supposed to have been in McMurdo already but most weren’t there yet due to weather delays. They were welcomed and brought into the gym where speeches were made and people were thanked. I’m being a bit quick but they speeches were nice and they were short. This was followed by the raising of the flag on the new poles outside the main entrance and then the cutting of the ribbon and hurrahs. There were also many photos during the ceremony and during the tour of the DVs that followed.
We also got to eat a celebratory dinner of lobster and steak made by the awesome kitchen staff. Really, it’s amazing the quality of food you can get at the bottom of the world!
I was a bit suspicious but it really was great to be here for this celebration and see the reactions of people who have spent a good deal of their lives making this project come together. Some people on station have been down for ten or more seasons and have lived under the dome and experienced a whole other existence here. All and all, life is pretty good down here. Not a thing like those who were here in the fifties and totally alien to those explorers who first made it down. There were two mentions of Sir Edmund Hillary today as well, who passed away a couple days ago. His last visit to the ice was last year and unfortunately he was unable to make it to Pole. He did, however, camp out when he was in McMurdo, at some ungodly age. The dedication seemed like a very fitting place to remember the man.

Photo in front of the new station

Putting up the sewage outfall in summer camp

Building walls to cover the sewage hole (with the shirt of the best cafe in Gorham NH on)

Sliding walls of outfall into trench

Frisbee golf out the South Pole

Thanksgiving

Putting up the beacon sign
The beacon is a blinking light that is turned on to alert folks not the cross the skiway that planes land on. The skiway divides the main station are from the Dark Sector where much of the science including Ice Cube and the new Ten Meter telescope are located.

Our crew on the roof at MAPO (in the dark sector)

Me, Josh and Chuck in the shop

Pole round 2

2007-11-07T06:02:00.000+13:00

I have a blog, written a couple days after I got back to Pole but now my computer is in with the ITs for configuring and the blog stuff with it. It's dated anyway I guess.

It's been an interesting few days. Definately a faster adjustment period the second time around. The big news is that we're waiting for planes to arrive still. The folks before us, coming out of McMurdo had to wait there for good weather and working planes and so did the folks after us. So far I think it's been about five days of waiting for them. The other day, a couple planes boomeranged which is to say they left for Pole and then had to turn around due to weather after circling. Of the three planes that left McMurdo that day, two had to land at the Italian Station and one made it back after a very turbulent period of circling over Mactown. Needless to say I'm glad I made it here though I hear Nate and Curtis, two friends from NH are "stuck" in Christchurch. Jealous.

I'll write a more coherent blog later and hopefully be able to upload photos. Also, I'll gladly take suggestions about what to write about. Hoping to be more informative and maybe focus less on the partying this year. We'll see.

Good Weather and moving in

2007-11-04T09:16:00.000+13:00

Between here and McMurdo the weather finally cleared, allowing our winter-overs to leave after days of waiting. It also allowed a plane-load of summer folks to come in after having been forced to wait for days in Mactown and been put through a pukey (litterally) boomerang that brought them to Pole only to find they couldn't land. The pukey part was the return to Mactown where they had to circle in turbulance before they could finally land! So the station's summer population is almost complete and work goes on as usual.

I'm finally putting out my blog from last week that I hadn't gotten around to putting on line yet, partly due to technical difficulties, partly due to laziness.

The winter-overs' plane upon arrival

Well, I find myself at the South Pole once again. This time I get to blog in the comfort of my own room which has yet to be unpacked.
It’s been a really interesting return here. First, it was hard to leave the beauty and the good folks in New Hampshire. Secondly, there was all the training to do in Denver, mostly a repeat of last year. And while I wasn’t dreading it, I had no idea if I’d know anybody in my group. As it turned out, I knew a couple and there were a few other folks who had been down before. Everyone else was awesome and if and when I ever have to sit through boring safety lectures and such again (next year?) I would choose to do it with them.
In Denver I was given a sweet room, king size bed, the works but managed to get out a bit with a friend from there. A couple of us went downtown with them to watch the Red Sox absolutely slaughter the Rockies in the first game of the World Series. The game itself was a little boring after the Sox started to win by huge amounts, but the venue was great, a brew pub in downtown Denver which totally impressed me. Mind you, all I’ve seen of Denver till then is the hotel strip. Boring.
The training was pretty standard and then the flights began. I’ve got to say I can do without that long flight from Los Angelas (where we’re routed through) to Aukland but I guess there’s not really an alternative. Please don’t try and calculate my carbon footprint while I go to Antarctica. It’s not going to be impressive. Or, rather it will be, but for horrific reasons. Watched some good movies, ones I hadn’t seen yet. Mom, they offered Snow Cake in the alternative category so I watched that for one.

Bill at LA Airport (the only green spot in sight)

(Below) At the gardens in Christchurch

We arrived in Christchurch at about 10:30 so I had time to ramble and get humanized (read showered and changed) before meeting a friend in the city. Man, that place is amazing. I guess we got good weather. They’d gotten rain for some days prior but when we were there, other than it being a bit brisk, it was beautiful. We rambled about, checked out a movie and got some good eating in as well as some climbing in the hills between the city and Lyttleton, a port town which is also very picturesque. All in all, it was too short a time in Christchurch.
We flew to McMurdo (Mactown) on Tuesday my time and arrived to find that planes to Pole had been backed up due to mechanical errors and the weather. It looked as though we might be stuck in Mactown which is not idea. It’s a town of 1100 or more and our presence (including a few flights that had come in prior) were taxing the bed space and making people cranky. Luckily, we did get out almost on schedule the next day and I was quite relieved. I’d ben psyched to get back to the Ice but when I got to McMurdo I was feeling quite ambivalent. Not like I was going to turn around but psyched I was not anymore. The long and the short of it, though, because I want to get to bed asap, so as to fend off a cold and get up early to get this sent, is that I am psyched to be back. Ambivalence was gone when I got off the plane and got hugs from old friends. I didn’t have that warm fuzzy reunion last year being new and it’s good stuff. Once people figure out who you are that is, under all the bulky clothes.
Arrival in Mactown (the camera crew is for NBC's Today Show)

So yesterday and today have about moving in. My room is still a mess; i’m only partway unpacked but I got to ease into work today, outfit my toolbox and such. The only drawback has been the ridiculously cold weather. Now, it’s actually getting warmer, as those who’ve been here for weeks (or the winter) prior can attest but it is uncomfortable. Mostly it’s due to the wind. Cold as in -38C or -36F and then with the lousy 27 knots of wind it brings us down to -59C or -75F. Yuck. Another good reason to have been down last year. I know it can’t last or hope it can’t. Mom asked me to find out how global warming is affecting Antarctica from this end. Asked one guy who’s come down for years and he says Pole at any rate is not getting warmer. Reminded me we’d had a significant number of days at -50ish (I think F) last year.

2007-10-09T15:56:00.001+13:00

Carter Notch from the helicopter
Okay, it's almost that time again. Currently I'm in the homeland for a seasonal Thanksgiving. Unlike the lower 48 (and Alaska and Hawaii) we celebrate Thanksgiving at harvest time, not the beginning of the starving season.

Below are some random photos. Some good leaf shots although none do justice to the colours this year. Fantastic.

Mia, Dave and Abby's psycho dog came for a jaunt with my parents and I over at Mt. Crag in Shelburne which is located not far from where I live. Mom and dad made their final NH visit of the season a couple weeks ago.. just in time for the leaves.

Here's my abode from the back/front yard depending on how you look at it. The view side I guess. Marian lives in the winterized house on the right and mine is the rustic one on the left. We've had a bunch of bears in the past few weeks, happily munching on the apples. One night I saw a mamma and two cubs rambling around in one of the apple trees. After mom and one cub took off, the last chubby hungry cub kept eating till he went out too far on a limb and dropped to the ground. Unharmed but probably a little embarrassed.

During my last couple weeks of work we closed up Lakes of the Clouds and Madison huts, the two most prone to inclement weather. Had a blast though and the dogs joined us for the Madison closing.

Mia on one ofher favourite shelves.

The crew up at the summit of Washington

Sally and some rime ice the day we started closing Lakes

Storm and Chris, ace helicopter riders

Below are some photos from the flies where we fly stuff in and out of the huts using helicopter. Gone are the days of using mules. Now we bring in the big (and much faster) guns. We use old fishing nets to put the boxes and sundries in. Barrels of grease from the grease traps and human waste gets flow out as well.

Madison Hut from Above

The new paint job I gave the snow plow.

Gratuitous Gecko shot. She loved the ditches we dug up at Carter Notch Hut for the new septic system.

At the end of July, my old trail crew friend, Matt came back east for a wedding so we and his two friends (one was the groom a couple days later!) went for a hike over in Grafton Notch. We got amazing weather and some beautiful views before the clouds rolled in.

I couldn't stay for the whole hike so I hiked out after one night. This was the view from one of the Bald Pates on the way out.

2007-07-11T08:27:00.001+12:00

Okay, I don't know what's up with blogger and I'm too lazy to track down the solution but for some reason while I'm writing this, all the photos that I uploaded are in code so I'll have to flip between the preview and this editing page to write about them. Argh.

But also as I'm writing (Saturday night, NPR on, post softball game over at the RMC), the rain is starting so that's nice. We had one nice weekend day and though it'll mean I can't get the lawn mown, I'm okay with a rainy Sunday.

I'm back in New Hampshire as, presumably, all of you know. Although who knows who reads these things, eh?

The picture above was taken on my back porch, or rather the porch of the connecter bit of the house that attaches mine to my landlady's. Affectionately called The Link. My porch on the old house is steller but needs some serious repair, both structural and screen repair and this one is very bueno for starting (and continuing plants on. The gondola was from Wildcat ski area down on route 16. They auctioned them off when they took them out. I'm told they were great for hot boxing.

Below is the house I live in. It's ridiculously large for one person. Three bedrooms, very rustic and very cozy once I got over being one person in a regular house. I think the ideal house size for one is something like the cabin I lived in last year. One room, small bath, but maybe with a kitchen area and better storage. I've managed to spread my life into this one nicely though I do spend most of my pondering and hanging out time in the kitchen.

The house was built in 1936 or something and the wall under the shingles is all there is. No insulation, just studs but nicely done so it doesn't look unfinished. Woudn't want to winter in it though. My landlady, Marian's house is full-on winterized and they both have great views although I think she sees a little more of the presidentials. Pretty awesome to roll over in bed in the morning and see the field, apple trees and the mountains.

When I first got back to NH, I caretook up at Gray Knob, one of the Randolph Mountain Club cabins for a few days which was a great way to chill out and not really work while working. It was kind of crazy though being alone for long periods (relatively) because I realized I hadn't been alone since leaving NH really. South Pole was always people and then I hung out with folks almost constantly in New Zealand. Really nice to be able to do that though. For pictures of the cabins and such you can check out the RMC site link on the side. The one companion I did have over one of the nights was good old Nate of Rumney who was at Pole with me. Nice to have a compadrew visit on snow shoes. The trail (usually pretty icy at that time of year) was pretty good hiking as the North Country had just gotten a good whack of snow. Did some butt-sliding up above tree-line and on my descent back to the valley. Below is Nate and I on the rock I spent a couple sunny days reading on.

I went back to work for the Appalachian Mountain Club Construction Crew after caretaking and then took a week off in June to work for my old Trail Crew. It was awesome hiking for the week. Four days we patrolled, cutting down blowdown trees with axes and chainsaws. Mostly though we hiked; the trails weren't too badly blocked after this winter.

Below is the beaver dam on the Four Soldier's Path down by the Pond of Safety. It's been there since we built the trail in 2002 but this year the beavers really made it big. It was never actually on the trail but now (or at least in June) you had to walk on the dam. Mad animals. Pretty smart though.

When we patrolled to the pond we got to eat lunch there. When we were camped there while building the trails years ago, we often saw moose sucking the weeds from the bottom of the pond in the morning before work. No moose this year, though I did see a doe and fawn on my way to work on this short cut road the other day. Same road I saw a mamma bear and her we (small lab-sized) cub who high-tailed it up a tree before sidling back down after I passed.

My garden, over at Doug's house went in again. It looks a whole lot different now but this is the beginning picture. Normally you can see Madison and Adams over the trees behind it. Must have been fogged in.

Dinner at Storm's house one night. First barbecue of the year. That's Sally, who is a caretaker at one the AMC shelter site's currently and planning on winter caretaking Gray Knob. The dog (the most awesome dog ever) is Gecko, Storm's faithful companion and helped him caretake up at Gray Knob one winter a few years ago. Winter caretaking is too bloody cold for my liking.

And then the rest of these photos are of my view. It really is awesome. Sometimes I wish there was more to do around here, like music to go out to and whatnot but mostly it's pretty great and there are a good number of steller folks around if not multitudes of people in general, if that makes sense.

Okay, I lied, the two photos below are of Tuckerman Ravine on the side of Mount Washington. The building is Hermit Lake Shelter, home to the Tucks caretaker. Their responsibility other than search and rescue is to feed info and chocolate bars to the ridiculous numbers of hikers that come up to the ravine or through it on their way to the top of Mount Washington. Pretty impressive place though.

2007-03-12T19:23:00.000+13:00

And now of course it's actually March 24th and I'm officially 28 and I'm leaving tomorrow for the land of Freedom and the rocket's red glare, etc. So I'd better finish this entry at least, seeing as Takaka was so long ago, soon to be in a land far away.

March 16th from Wanaka

I cannot believe it's been almost a month since I last wrote and of course, travelling there is so much to say. Currently I'm existing in Wanaka, leaching of friends of Tim's. Tim being a surveyor at the South Pole this summer.

Takaka

Let's see.
Upon leaving Jen, Will (and Theo's house) up in Palmy, I stopped by a friend's near Wellington to hang out for a night. Even got to feed the eels that live in a stream by his house. The following day I wandered aimlessly around Wellington, bought myself a book, hung out on one of the many lawns and read, waited for the ferry at 10:30 to take me down to the South Island.

The trip was incredible. I don't know that I could have done it on American ferries, but I lay my sleeping bag out on one of the decks (it was a beautiful day) and went to sleep for most of the ride, waking for the trip through the sounds into Picton.

From Picton, I hitched to Nelson, after many hours of waiting on this small road adjacent sheep farms. The sheep kept my moral up a little but I was still pissed off at the lack of rides I got. I stayed at a hostel in Nelson and the next day had some lovely rides that got me to Takaka and dropped me right off at the Hangdog View from one of the climbs at Payne's Ford

(campground for climbers more or less) where Tim and Jared (South Pole electrician) and their friend Jay (McMurdo heavy machinery operator) were staying. I guess really I just love seeing familiar faces. I spent a few good days with them, wander around the area, swimming, reading, eating good food and going for a walk with a couple other Antarctica guys, Zach and Todd that were also at the Hangdog.

Jared, the toothless wonder

Me climbing

Chewy, the Hangdog dog, that follows climbers out to the rock

Tim climbing

Jared and Zach in a cave by the cliffs

One night, while at the Hangdog, we all went up to this cave behind the cliffs to look around. I have never been such an interesting cave before. Completely muddy on the floor with beautiful stalagmites and stalactites. Probably nothing like caving in wee tiny spaces but I think it was about as wee as I could handle.
Zach and Todd and I went out to Farewell Spit up on the tip top of the western part of the Golden Bay peninsula. It was pretty incredible, miles of a sandy spit, protected at the end of it for the birds. Mostly it was incredibly hot and my sandwich got sandy. Between the two sides of the spit, there are a bunch of dunes you have to cross over. Sort of felt like slogging through the desert I imagine, which I never really want to do I realised. I wouldn't mind meeting a camel though. The conservation are in this part if pretty neat. In order to get to the spit, you have to walk through protected farmland, actually a working sheep and cattle ranch, complete with very civilized stiles to get you over the fences.

Zach and Todd, the intrepid explorers at Farewell Spit While up in the Golden Bay area, I hooked up with some New Hampshire friends and Ice friends who were staying up in the very small town of Collingwood. We spent one day on a walk up near Farewell Spit to Wharariki beach (pronounced Farariki). It was a lovely day spent walking over sheep-filled hills (can you hear the baa-ing in the background?) and then to this awesome beach. The best part by far were the young seals playing in the tide pools. Really their eyes are just too big. They were kind of alien and having way too much fun!

I went back to the Hangdog in hopes of hooking up with Todd and Zach again to go hiking with. They had left but Tim and Jared and Jay were still there so I had a nice day of hiking and then Stephanie (a Polie) showed up and we got up to the truly golden sands of Golden Bay. We went for a short walk in Abel Tasman park to this beach that was just beautiful and basically empty! I mean, where are all the people?

As Stephanie was headed down to the Wild Foods Festival in Hokitika on the West Coast as well, I joined her for the ride down in her trusty car Pinky, stopping along the way to get some good scenery in and cursing the rain occasionally. We actually lucked out with the weather and never had to deal with multiple days of rain.

A Weka at one of the DOC campsites

Stephanie and I

The golden sands of Golden Bay

2007-02-26T11:49:00.000+13:00

February 26th - From Palmerston North

Greetings from Palmerston North, New Zealand. It's been about a week since I left the Christchurch area for the North Island. Made it here on two-lovely little puddle jumps (via plane that is). The second plane, from Wellington to Palmy couldn't have had more than 20 seats on it, and great views for all. I did sleep most of both flights though, thus giving up most of the view.

Pre-beach house, I spent four days in Christchurch surrounded by Ice folks. On Saturday night after luckily running into another Antarctic guy, Rose and I joined a couple folks at the Canterbury Crusaders rugby game. We figured what more New Zealand experience could we hope for. While it was a blast and the Crusaders one, I have very little idea of the finer points of the game, or any points for that matter. It was also a lot more mellow than we'd expected. Perhaps it was because it's only the beginning of the season or perhaps the Crusaders aren't a very favourite team. ..

One day we went out to the port town of Lyttleton to hit this lovely cafe, the Volcano. This photo is from the deck of the Wonderbar, a pretty hip bar across from the cafe. Not much going on in town and I feel as though I wanted to go to sleep during most of the day but we did have the most awesome meal. Drinks at the Wonderbar

Dinner at the Volcano Cafe where most of us had the smoked salmon something and Rose had the most fantastic mashed potatoes I've had in ages. Real honest to god potatoes, no powdered, frozen, ones from a thousand miles away!
Rose finds chicken -on-a-stick

We had a great week at the house in Kairaki Beach. So good to see the ocean and be with good folks. We celebrated Miss Rose Meyer's birthday in fine style with much gluttony (shish kabobs, bangers, booze and cake) followed by an illegal fire on the beach. I also did a lot of sleeping, as in ten hours a day. Fore those who know me well, you'll know that's basically unheard of. I kept this sleeping habit here in Palmy too, requiring three naps this week! Feeling much more awake right now though; maybe I'm all caught up.

Bill on the barbecue

Mandi with the dinner prep

The birthday monstrosity (the cake, not Rose of course)
Around the fire

Mandi and I love EVERYONE! Even though we wrote this for the winterovers.

Gratuitous dead-fish photo from the beach. Everyone needs a dead fish in their lives and doesn't it look cool?
And then I spent one more night in Christchurch before flying up to the North Island. Spent a good time at the Dux de Lux with Ice folks, wicked good sushi dinner and then more beer and no sleep before my 7:30 flight. It's so nice to look at all of us hanging out on the patio and know that at home the good skiing has just begun and there'll be no patio-sitting for months. I'm glad the skiing's good though.

So here I am up in Palmerston North, the student city. It's about an hour north of Wellington, inland and called so called because this city is full of colleges/universities. Jen and Will (Jen has been one of my best friends since I was ten) moved here last fall so that Jen could attend vet school and Will go to teachers college. And that's what they're doing, this week. So I caught Jen just before school started and we had a really nice, relaxing week with a little hard work.

Jen exercises for a friend of hers that lives just outside the city, so on Monday and Wednesday we went for long rides (like three hours) on the roads and up this kind of crazy path in the hills.

I rode Punch, the less skittish of the two horses. They're both Irish draft I think, used by their owners for hunting. The hunt season begins in March and these guys haven't been ridden most of the summer so they're just getting back into shape. I was really quite excited to feel so comfortable riding again after so long. I figure it's been at least ten years.

Me on Punch along the road. Most of these hills seemed to have sheep on them. Seemed like not a bad life for them.

Jen on Gus

I don't know that I've ever enjoyed riding quite so much as I did here, free to go almost wherever we liked.

Jen and I had lofty goals for a big hike which we bailed on happily. But we did succeed in getting to Kapiti Island, off the west coast.

Kapiti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapiti_Island) is a nature reserve, sandwiched by two marine reserves on either side. It's tiny, only ten miles long and only something like sixty people are allowed on the island each day. We got there on a very expensive ferry. People aren't even allowed to land their kayaks or anything on the island except maybe at a teeny tiny part on the north side that is still privately owned. The place is beautiful and home to a great many birds, many of which are uncommon or endangered.

The Kaka- a brown parrot who sat on everybody else's shoulders but ours apparently.

Most of the birds on the island (cats, rodents, possums have all been eradicated along with the grazing stock that farmers used to keep on the island) have been reintroduced to the island or simply brought there to have a safe place to breed, off the mainland and away from people. We didn't see any of the really exotic, hard to find birds because they are either nocturnal (little brown kiwi, spotted kiwi and ruru) or there are simply very few of them. The takahe, which Jen desperately wanted to see is one of the latter. It's a flightless bird related and similar looking to it's flying relative the pukeko which are abundant. I stole the two photos of takehes below from wikepedia.
We did see lot's of these guys, the wekas, who are, I guess very good at getting into peoples bags and stealing lunches. They're quite cute and always digging about in the ground for whatever it is that they eat.Jen up at the tower on the highest point of the island. On clear days we were told you can see the South Island from here. Unfortunately it was a bit overcast the day we were there.

This was our best friend on the island, the wood pigeon. They're quite beautiful, much more so than they're city cousins and also very friendly, or rather not very scared. I was allowed to pet this guy while he sat and chowed down on some sort of orange seed thing on a tree.

So that's Kapiti. We had a great day there and it only started to rain on our way home. In fact the waves were also up a bit, which made for a pretty exciting boat ride. Tomorrow I leave these two academics for Wellington and then for the South Island. It's really so much fun to see old friends in a completely different environment because so much is the same and the surroundings are so different. And it was really good to have a place to relax and hang out at with good folks again. I think i'm much more into that than busting around seeing as many places as possible. And we had great fish and chips twice this week!

Jen and Will and TheoTheo

2007-02-11T20:42:00.000+13:00

Okay, done!

One season in Antarctica is over. In fact, it now feels like a million years ago. I've already been in the ocean (which is much warmer than the Nova Scotian Atlantic, let me tell you) and seen my bare feet in the sand and lain out in the sun and been on a bike ride and.... slept a lot!

There's probably a lot to say about the last few weeks at the Pole but I can't think what that is now. I knew I should have written from there when I had the chance. Alas. I do remember wanting to sleep a lot and having a lot of fun still.

Rose and I finally got off the station. And really, there is no point in leaving the station but psychologically it's quite nice to break free. We got to work on a project out at SPRESO which stands for something to do sith seismic and basically spent a day and a half out there, surrounded by white and flat and only a glimpse of the tiny station in the distance. There is a building buried in the snow that needed some touches. We put on a ladder extension and nailed on a two-by for a gps unit to be attached to. It was remarkable to see how much nothingness there really is up on the polar plateau.

Towards the end of our summer it was quite hard to focus on anything but leaving, and travel plans. I really do miss the folks I lived with the last few months. And, alternately, it's nice to be away from everyone. Well, not everyone. Some of us are currently renting a beach house in Kairaki Beach just north of Chrischurch, NZ, but as you all can imagine, it's much different than living and working with folks twenty four seven. We can all wander away from the house at will and frolic in the ocean or lie around watching movies. And cook! I have an apple pie on the way tonight and it is so so nice to be able to make my own food, even to buy it. The buying will probably get old after a while but I'll never get tired of cooking after four months where the only thing I made was granola.

Below are a mishmash of photos. These are from Mactown where we stopped for a night between flights. I was glad to have the day of paid, sitting around but rolling into a town where I knew few people and had little interest in getting to know any more had little point. The views were nice though and the ability to walk around in running shoes, working in some new up and down muscles, after months of flat walking in bunny boots.

The vessel was in that brings goods to the Ice and then takes all our garbage home. We fly it from Pole to McMurdow where it gets loaded onto this thing!

One of our friends happened to be working with the loading of the vessel, so she gave us a tour briefly. It was nothing more than a huge rusty ship but exciting nonetheless. This is what took us into town from the plane when we landed in McMurdo.

Nate, Me and Matt on our flight from Pole to McMurdo. I slept most of the way. I've been sleeping constantly it seems.

Our arrival in Christchurch, IN THE DARK! We got in around 11pm, cleared customs and had to go to the Clothing Distribution Center, drop our clothes off, get our mail and hotel information and then into town where we found a really obnoxious bar that served food before hitting the hay.

In the kitchen at Pole, you have to wear hats. This is one of the options.

Rose, me and Sarah at the Women of South Pole picture, acting like idiots. It was awesome to have some quality girls at the Pole to hang out with and be girls with.

Women of South Pole pictures, taken for the Women of South Pole calender.
Some pictures of the berms before I left. There is some wierd stuff out there.

The construction jamesways that we work out of. Our shop is the one second from the right.
Tunnels between the arches, where the heavy shop, old heavy shop and fuel are.

The station from outside the main door.

Underneath the raised station. Apparently it can still be raised more.
Where the recyclables go.

The skua shack where one goes to get new-used clothes. I found a sweet pair of tennis shoes and some good warm shirts. As people were leaving for the winter, there was a lot of good stuff to be had.

2007-01-24T05:07:00.000+13:00

Our resident skiway mammels.

It begins again… another ending, another transition. The first flight out that took friends we'd worked with all season, left yesterday. They continue until the end of February when only the winter-overs will be left until next October or November.

But in the meantime, we have been having fun. After New Years and two short work weeks, there was another definite lack of energy, not power plant energy but people energy. However, a true rally was made for one, John Dove's (aka Johnny Love’s) birthday party and the second James Brown bingo night. I might have already mentioned that James Brown is our chef but doubles as the totally mad bingo caller. And when I say mad, I mean totally totally crazy.

Johnny Love’s birthday was celebrated during dinner in the galley with a huge cake mountain (he works as a back country forest ranger or something out in Shasta when he’s not here), masks of his face and of course, alcohol. It made for a rowdy pre-bingo evening and led into a dance party and another late night. I ended the night watching the movie version of Rent which was a little disappointing. It did make me want to go check out a musical when I get off the Ice though.

Other big extracurricular events were the Spelling Bee which I took second place in. I lost with the word schizophrenic but I did win a $50 gift certificate to the Volcano Café in Littleton, NZ.

We had a drive-in movie night last Sunday that Mandi and I made a cardboard van for. It was held in the gym and the mattresses won out against the van (with chairs inside) for comfort so I ended up chilling on the gym floor to watch Spaceballs and ran away during the original version of Texax Chainsaw Massacre.

We also celebrated Kara’s birthday, South Pole style. Which is to say we celebrated in the Carp Shop after work with nachos cooked on the barbecue. I highly recommend it. They were put on pans, loaded with stuff, covered with tinfoil and then stuck on our huge, industrial barbecue that was made, I think, by a winter over. The result was pans full of lovely smoked nachos.

The same barbecue was kicked again for some burgers prior to SPIFF last Saturday night. SPIFF being the South Pole International Film Festival. One of our crew members, Joe, made a thoroughly enjoyable western, of which the whole crew was part. The rest of the films were okay. Alright, the films were fantastic. It was hard to hear some of the dialogue as everyone was laughing through most of the showing. Some of the films from previous year’s movies can be found on the Google video site. None of this year's have been posted yet. Not only are they entertaining but they are also a great way, I think to see what the station and our neighborhood look like down here.

Below: cold food storage in the Dome. Formerly where the whole station was located.

Below: A sundog

Below: Pictures of the storm at Pole two weekends ago. Cold and windy (more than usual anyway)

2007-01-10T04:36:00.000+13:00

Our Crew L-R Matt, Joe, Me, Kara, Jason, Jack (supervisor) and in front, Chuck (foreman)

HAPPY NEW YEAR ETC.

Well, a happy New Years to you all. I got to celebrate the coming in of 2007 17 hours ahead of those of you in the eastern part of North America, except for the Maritime provinces of course where I only got to be 16 hours ahead!

I was a little surprised at the lack of madness of this New Years. People were up late and most made midnight but there was not the insanity of some of the parties here and even from what I hear, past years.

It was a fun time though. Lot’s of dressing up and real live music, which I’ve been dying for. I can’t wait to catch some concerts in the outside world somewhere. The night started off with a bluegrass band and then a more everything band (with some of the same musicians). The party was held in the gym so there was ample room to dance but people took quite a long time to hit the dance floor. I think I made it to one am and happily woke up with no hangover. I think part of the reason for the lack of insanity probably had to do with the low low energy level that seemed to be shared by most of the station. Post-Christmas weekend, we were just all dead dog tired.

Preparing the gym

Our British rock star

Katie, Mary, Kara, Lisa

The Brits
A much-needed distraction for us during the week between Christmas and New Years when we were all draggin ourselves to work and back and finding places to be horizontal when we weren’t working, were the two groups of skiers (British and Indian) and solo skier that arrived at Pole.

Hannah McKeand (www.adventurehannah.com) beat the record for a solo ski from Hercules Inlet to the Pole.

The British crew was made up of four British Marines who skied here from Patriot Hills and actually returned on skies powered partially by kites. Their website is http://www.polarquest.co.uk/ and they were fantastic storytellers.

Glen and I with the Brits at the Pole

The Indian crew(www.nausenaadventures.com) was, I think, eleven-strong, including two guides and none (except the guides of course) had been on skies prior to last April! They are the first Indian team to ski to the Pole and four are the first Submariners to ever reach Pole, far higher than the below sea level they're used to. They also started in Patriot Hills.

The Brits gave us a slideshow shortly after their arrival and the Indians gave a talk following it, as did Hannah. For having just skied to the South Pole, they were all in fantastic spirits and quite entertaining. Having done a tiny bit of skiing just around the station, I don’t envy them their hardships at all. I’ve noticed a difficulty in skiing here and wondered about it. One of the Brits brought up the point that there is so little water in the snow on much of the continent that skis don't slide over it well. On the upside, it doesn’t stick to your ski but on the downside it’s kind of like skiing on sand!

And so on…. January 9, 2007

Our current lives are pretty much monopolized by talk of travel and leaving this place. The winter-overs probably talk about how nice it’ll be when the station is much emptier and they’ll have their own spaces. My deployment date is February 10th.

New Zealand is our first destination, then travel for many of us. Then, myself and others are planning the rest of our lives or rather the foreseeable future (like the next 6 months). Others are planning the fun times they’ll have not working in the off-season, which a surprising number of folks do.

Currently my breainstorms go like this.... I’m thinking of re-opening my retired trail crew career in Alaska or NH, apprenticing on another farm or working on becoming an electrician (to supplment my future farming earnings), not necessarily in that order. So you see, not unlike six months ago and probably a year ago, I’m back to the unknown. However, I do feel as though, barring some major unforeseeable event in my life, I’d like to return to this place, maybe even to winter. So there is comfort in having that plan and that guaranteed income.

Of course, all of those life plans and rational grow’d up stuff comes after some R and R, hiking, tanning and farm-hopping in New Zealand!

Rose and I working in one of the dishes, taping up the seams so the microwaves can bounce around freely.

On New Years day, the geographic South Pole marker gets moved to the new geographic Pole, as it is constantly moving. There was a brief ceremony and the new marker was put in place. Every year the winter-overs have a contest to design the new marker. Below is the marker and the plaque with the names of the winter-overs from last year.

On the 7th, we were visited by two pairs of helicopters. One pair was privately hired (at what cost, who knows?) and the other was a pair of Russian Military helicopters.

Check out all the advertising on the red chopper.

2006-12-28T04:46:00.000+13:00

Tuesday, December 26th

Well, I wanted to write about Christmas and I will but today was definitely eclipsed by the power plant failure. I hear that the heat exchanger blew which through glycol all over the room. There were no serious serious injuries but three people were taken to bio-med with smoke inhalation.

Most of the day the power was out all over the station while the plant was aired our and then the glycol cleaned up. It reminds us what a precarious place this is to live sometimes. I can’t imagine if this had happened in the winter.

Merry Christmas from the Pole

Christmas

On a positive note, Christmas was an absolute blast though I’m paying for the lack of sleep right now. It began with a party in our shop on Saturday after work for the FEMC folks (Facilities Engineering Maintenance Construction).

We pulled some couches from the summer camp lounge, set them up outside, created some ambiance inside and brought in a sled full of beer. It was really nice though I had to get a nap in part way through the party. Between hanging out at summer camp lounge and the carp shop, I got some stellar dancing in.

The next day (Christmas Eve day-Sunday) I absolutely did not want to get out of bed, so I didn’t, until 10am when I decided I might want some filling breakfast. That night, our crew joined the second dinner at 5:30 which was incredible. I’ve never had Beef Wellington but I’d eat it again in a second. In fact I did eat it again at brunch the next day. Dinner was stellar. BK, the Station Manager, read to us about Christmas dinner at the Pole back in 19 ought something.

The cook of the expedition (I forget who’s) scabbed together snow and some sort of booze and something like 15 raisins to prepare a desert for the dinner. Needless to say our desert was much better…. Cheesecake with raspberry sauce, Chocolate Ganoche cake, pumpkin pie and many many cookies.

Our wine stewards

Unlike at Thanksgiving I did not double the size of my stomach and so felt quite nice after the meal. Post-dinner, a bunch of us watched Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton. Not great, not too bad. I found some coveralls to replace my skirt later and went sledding South Pole style… that is on a couch on a man-made hill.

The sled hill (which has now disappeared) was made by the dozer drivers. It had a long run toward the carp shop and a short but nerve-wracking steep side. We put the couch on one of the big plastic sleds we tow behind the snow-machines, and then on two of the banana sleds pontoon-style. Pulling the couch back up the hill was a drag but at least we had somewhere comfortable to sit while we got our breath back. The rest of the night was spent in the bar, continuing my weekend of dance.

Christmas morning was celebrated by riding a snow-machine and eating more amazing food, at brunch, complete with real maple syrup from ma and pa Conchelos. The snow-machine was rid in the Race Around the World, which is essentially a two-mile race around the Pole where, theoretically, all of the time zones meet. Most people walked it, some ran it or skied it and one guy biked it! Hometown (sort of) boy Curtis won the men’s running race by forever and our giggly girl from Montana, Rose won the women’s which means they’ll get to head down to McMurdo for a race there at some point in January.

Topt:Ice Cube's vehicle (a sauna I think)
Middle: Mandi and I on our sled
Bottom: Curtis before his win

The rest of the day was spent horizontally watching movies (or rather sleeping through them on the floor of the lounge), playing chess and scrabble in true zen Christmas style.

Finally, after many painful hours of waiting for my present-opening buddy to wake (she works nights so sleeps until about 7pm), we opened presents in the summer camp lounge. Although not quite the same as opening them with family around the tree, it was much preferable to opening presents by myself in my room!

My package by the time it arrived, after a soaking and a a beating

All-in-all, this Christmas, though not as warm and fuzzy as it is at home, was quite nice: restful and glutinous as it should be.

Tim and Ryan, all iced up post-sledding

Dancing in the galley again

Curtis in bubble wrap (Christmas eve)

2006-12-11T05:26:00.000+13:00

Tuesday, December 12th

After days (again) of swearing to write in my blog, I’m finally going to catch up, if my wake up time coincides with the satellite tomorrow. Currently, the satellite is down at noonish so there are no more lunchtime e-mail checks.

But what better day to write on than one that reminds me of home style weather. This place is dry, so very dry typically, and today we got humidity and a bit of precipitation. And while it leads to that bone chilling damp feeling, it’s a feeling that reminds me of home so I’ve embraced it. I also have to admit that I did very little work outside today. The poor buggers who had do, even if they too are from frosty, damp climes, may have another feeling about this weather.

Christmas is coming and somewhere in this world the goose is indeed getting fat but not so at Pole. We’re too weekends away from another big holiday and there is little to remind us it’s coming aside from a few decorations.

Our Christmas tree before the move
The tree that some metalworkers made a few years ago and has been sitting on one of the millvans until now, is up near the Pole. Large lumps of snow have been placed outside by the pole also, to be turned into snow sculptures. There are a few decorations up in the galley with more to be put up and a gingerbread South Pole dome was created the other night by one of our

bakers. But conspicuously (and not sadly) absent is the madness and advertising. It would be nice to be inundated somewhat with Christmas carols, Christmas parties and all of the warm fuzzy stuff that goes on in the Real World but I’m sure some of that will come next week. Like Thanksgiving, there’s gonna be volunteer food prep (including another gingerbread house) coming up and I’ve heard rumours of a Christmas movie night, but that might just be my crew.

Toga
I can also deal with a mellow weekend in between, having partied in a sheet this weekend much too late. Something I definitely did not expect (but am not entirely surprised to) while standing in the bathroom down at summer camp, was people walking between their jamesways and the summer camp lounge in bedsheets, across the snow. Saturday was a much advertised toga party. It was a blast. I was a bit hesitant and thought about stopping in, spending most of the evening relaxing but it was worth it to get my dance

on a bit, get a bit of a buzz on and dance around in my bed sheet. There were also a remarkable number of styles of toga. Perhaps those of you with more of a history background can enlighten me to the era.

Wednesday December 13th

A groggy start to a clearer day…. I woke up at 3:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Since I was going to get up at 4:30 anyway, I stumbled my way up here in order to use my time wisely. I don’t know how it happens because I don’t do a thousand extracurricular things but there seems to be so little time around here to get things done.

Last night was a granola-baking night. I can’t remember if I mentioned it but Kara and I rotate granola baking because, well, we both love to eat our own homemade granola. It’s really nice to be doing something in the kitchen because of all the things there are to do here, all the comforts of home, there is no place to cook, unless you work in the kitchen and then you probably have no desire to cook on your time off anyway. So granola days are great, other than feeling guilty for being in the way, and the night cooks bake it so all that’s required is prep work. And… I don’t have to pay for the ingredients so it’s full of cashews, almonds, dried fruit… and pine nuts. Yes pine nuts. Once, while living in Ottawa and embarking upon a batch of pesto, I went to the Superstore and purchased trail mix in bulk and then proceeded to add a whole wack of pine nuts so that I wouldn’t have to pay the $20 a pound for them. Of course then I had to go home and take them out of the trail mix but on my limited budget it seemed well worth it. I think I put on a movie while I did it.

One interesting thing I learned while in the kitchen last night was about how different cooking at altitude is. Eli’s (one of the night bakers) latest gingerbread creation is having a difficult time holding together so she’d patched it with icing sugar and had glued the pieces with icing sugar. I asked why she hadn’t melted white sugar into a glue (remember our gingerbread making days Liesel?) and she told me that it doesn’t melt here! Madness. Totally explained the grainy, sugary baklava a week ago.

One of my other outlets recently, and probably one of the reasons for feeling like there is so little time in my days is that Mandi and I made t-shirts for the arts and crafts show last week. Mandi's brilliant idea... we made I Love JSA shirts. JSAs being Job Safety Assessments which we fill out for every job that we do. Basically, we have to think about the type of tools we're going to use and dangers and hazards at our work sites and address the things we're gong to do to mitigate any disasters, such as wearing our PPE (personal protective equipment), tying off ladders, etc.

We used a silkscreen (that turned up in one of the millvans full of frozen spray paint... this place gets weirder and weirder) and the screen printing ink they have here and got a ton of clothes from the Skua (free stuff nobody wants anymore) shack down by summer camp. It was loads of fun, been ages since I printed anything, and it was received quite well, even though we were poking fun at our daily safety sheets. We made a whopping $28 on Sunday as well as chocolate and postcards. Our safety lady on station and our supervisor got free shirts.

Below left: Mandi and I with JSA Joe (our happy 1/4 inch plywood mannequin) in his safety gear.

Below right: our table full of JSA wear and our filled-out JSA sheet