Arctic arrival

[compilerbitch]

Where do we go from here?
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

I'm posting this from Resolute. It's... cold. Bright. Sunny. Midnight. Strange, familiar, unfamiliar, weird. It's a long way from everywhere.

I'm not that good at expressing my feelings in prose, but the following photo captures my impression of the bleakness of this part of the arctic:


Resolute bleakness
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

Scale is weird. It's very hard to tell how far away something is. Is it a polar bear? Is it a signpost? Is it a paper cup much closer? That sounds silly out of context, but it's one of the most striking impressions I've had since arriving. The other one is a nagging feeling that something has gone wrong with time. During the arctic day, or at least what would be day in the same time zone much further south, there isn't a proper sense of time passing. I now realise that I somehow automatically track the passing of time relative to, if not the position of the sun, but perhaps its warmth, brightness, angle or some combination of these things. Here, the sun doesn't do what you expect it to, and it seemed to cause a strange disconnect inside myself, a feeling of knowing, intellectually, that all is well, but feeling deeper down that there is a degree of wrongness here.

Nevertheless, it's completely stunning. Really, truly, stunning. The quality of light is extraordinary -- there is a crisp clarity about it that begs for a really sharp lens and a lot of resolution. Large format weather.

The rest of this post is more snapshotty than I generally tend to go for, but I wanted to try to capture a bit more of what's going on around me, so I can give more of a feel for what this trip is actually being like.



dangerpudding, on board the 737 cargo aircraft from Edmonton to Yellowknife
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

Sarah on board the 737. It's like being in a normal 737, but the overhead bins are tiny, and the bulkhead basically left us with something like 4 or 5 rows of seats.



Cargo 737 at Yellowknife, in the rain
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

We stopped off at Yellowknife on the way to Cambridge Bay, which offered a chance to stretch our legs. And to get wet. Which was good. I think.



737 unloading cargo in Cambridge Bay
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

Cargo 737s have a big door in the side that's not there on a normally configured 737. I think it's cool, anyway.



brian1783 on board the Beechcraft 100 from Cambridge Bay to Resolute
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

A long, loud flight on a small plane. Great stuff!



Beechcraft 100 Cockpit
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

And... none of those bulkheads you aren't allowed to see beyond here.



Beechcraft 100 in Resolute
(Photo: Haughton Mars Project/Sarah Thompson)

This is the Beechcraft on the ground at Resolute.

Comments

[void150.livejournal.com]

Beautiful. Not really how I'd have pictured the arctic, but wonderful stuff

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Was there anyone on any of your flights who wasn't on LJ? ;^b

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

One youngster who's on myspace and spent most of the time hanging round in the galley. ;)

(Do they have galleys on little planes?)

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

These are great, it's very exciting!

[gfish.livejournal.com]

There really is something different about the quality of arctic light.

Also, still jealous. :)

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

i'm sort of jealous except i know if i actually went i'd freeze solid in the first five seconds and spend the rest of the trip shivering off little crystals of ice

[gfish.livejournal.com]

The current weather report says it's 4 C there. Chilly, certainly, but not freezing.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

not literally freezing, no, but i grew up in the uae. i took a trip to monterey today (around 16C, some wind) and i was uncomfortably cold even with a windcheater.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

Woooo! Please keep up the volume of piccies!

Any idea at all about possible whereabouts of my black jeans in your flat?? We have packed and tidied everything and they have ran away..

[ko.livejournal.com]

whoa! nice! have a great adventure!

[lsur.livejournal.com]

Very interesting indeed, especially your observations on the sense of time - looking forward to more!

[arkady.livejournal.com]

That sky is stunningly blue! I can certainly see now why Resolute was picked to simulate Mars; it does look very alien and barren. I look forward to more pics!

It'd be cool if you could capture a sundog on camera. :-)

[fluffthebunny.livejournal.com]

Beautiful.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Don't know. Try my laundry pile in my bedroom?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Wow indeed. No wonder they chose this area for the Mars project. Is there any kind of vegetation (moss, lichen etc.)?

I know about the time perception thing. When we were in Norway somewhere beyond the Arctic Circle we thought one day "We should stop for dinner, it's about time" and realised it was already 22:30 and the sun had not even begun to set. I can imagine this being stretched even more further North.

It wasn't as bad in Antarctica because we didn't even go as far South as the Antarctic Circle.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

"Resolute bleakness" is great, and I like seeing the airplanes and so forth.

I'm surprised at the scale issue. I guess it means we (well, the evidence is directly only about "you") use foreground objects to gauge things more than I thought. So that's interesting.

[rfmcdpei.livejournal.com]

Thanks for showing this. I'm more familiar with areas of the Arctic that aren't quite so barren.

[lady-illflower.livejournal.com]

Wow! That black and white photo is just so pretty! (The top one kind of made me chuckle.)

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

That is one stunning sky shot :-)

And I like the one of Jay lots, too!

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

Wow.

The scariest thing is seeing so much bare earth: nothing grows here. For those of us who live in a temperate climate, that's jarring and disorienting - especially when we see a whole panorama of it.