...ok next round will be people!
Saturday, July 30, 2011
...ok next round will be people!
Photos!
After some downsizing and through an internet session at the Community center, I can finally upload some photos! I apologize for the weird organization of them...my internet connection ends in 1 hour!
Ripple pattern in the flood plane of a river bed...I just think it looks really cool
Monday, July 25, 2011
Industrial, yet remote, July 23, 2011 (Day 3)
There are no locks here. You leave the car keys in the ignition and building doors are closed with massive metal hatches. It’s like some weird industrial utopia…contradictory? Fundamentally, yes. But here in Thule it seems like a fitting description. All of Thule and the surrounding land (not covered by ice!) is open tundra. Thule Air Base lies in a valley. To the North and South, Thule is bound by ridges; to the west is North Star Bay and to the East are glaciers and the edge of the ice sheet. All piping is above ground and the buildings are raised since the ground is permafrost. Within minutes of walking you are in open tundra. Industrial, peaceful and safe, all at the same time. Very strange.
I’ve been going on evening runs to serve a dual purpose: learn the surrounding land and make myself tired enough to sleep in spite of the sunlight. I ran north from our flat top (aka building 353, they have flat roofs) and up North mountain. On my way out of town I saw three black Arctic foxes playing on pipes at the edge of town. They were small, cat like, and ridiculously cute. I continued up the road to the ridge of North Mt. and found myself at the top of massive basalt cliffs overlooking the bay, Dundas Village and Dundas mountain. For those of you in Seattle, these cliffs are somewhat like Vantage, WA; though not quite as columnar and incredibly chossy. The road I took faded out and I continued on, cross country, along the cliff’s rim. At this point I had traversed far from any roads and decided to take the direct, off-road route south, down North Mountain and back to Thule. In my off-road adventure I was more worried about tripping on thin black wires that crisscross the entire slope than unstable rocks and loose dirt! There is wiring, piping and remnants of human activity everywhere. At first glance the surrounding land seems raw and untainted. On foot, up close, the Thule Air Base “network”, both past and present, is clear. I imagined what would happen if I accidently kicked one of the wires… maybe a satellite would shut down, or some alarm system would go off. I have no idea how far I ran, with the open landscape I find it difficult to gauge distances.
Thus far I have yet to see a bit of tundra free of human impact. Trash, random building materials and sifted rock piles are everywhere. It doesn’t seem trashed per se… just thoroughly explored…
Dundas village, both old and new, are north of Thule. “New” Dundas village seems like a misnomer. The buildings have bold green, yellow and red exteriors but are mostly abandoned. Their windows are broken out, the rooms are gutted, the doors are left open and the paint is chipping. The spaces, however, must have been very homey and livable in their prime. Near the center of the town there are two sled dog corpses, their harness are attached and their tales are still fluffy and soft looking. Its eerie, as though this place was abandoned rapidly, or something tragic happened. According to some researchers who have been to other small towns, seeing animal corpses in a small Greenlandic village is not abnormal. Old Dundas village is a collection of remnants from a very old settlement. One hut, made of wood boards and insulated with peat, still stands. I have yet to learn the history of these villages and hope to make it to the small exhibit describing them.
Some interesting facts I have learned:
The landfill is located on the bay. Seepage from the landfill is draining into and contaminating North Star Bay. They are currently moving massive rocks and boulders to cover the landfill and construct a barrier between the landfill and bay.
There is an undetonated nuclear bomb in North Star Bay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Thule_Air_Base_B-52_crash
The Top of the World (TOW) club, the only bar on the base, is currently closed because a guy bit someone … strange, maybe true, maybe a tall tale J
And for reference, Dundas Mt. is a mesa on a peninsula, North of Thule…Working on photos and maps!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
33 hours and counting…(day 1 in Thule)
The day, perhaps more aptly called a travel marathon, began at 4am, July 20th. The streets were clear and the world felt like a cement slab; asphalt and concrete covering everything in sight. The feeling of smoothed, perfect unending paving had begun to wear on me this year and I seemed to notice its presence more in the past few months...a sign that it is time for me to get out for the city for a while. The day was a blur of transitions, car to building to lines to gate to plane, repeat. Until I reached Thule my interaction with ambient, natural air was isolated to the blast of heat and humidity I felt walking down the jet ways. This contact with the uncontrolled, natural world dissipated as quickly as it hit me with each transition into air conditioned, fluorescently lit concourses or passenger cabins packed with people.
My itinerary took me to Baltimore via Detroit, MI. By 8pm I had worked out still more clearance issues regarding my entry into Thule and received a hand printed boarding ticket. The flight boarded at ~ 1:30am July 21st. All flights to Thule are on a DC-8 cargo plane built in the early 1970s. “A dump truck with wings” one man told me. Perhaps this is why, upon getting a boarding pass, you write your name, next of kin and their phone number. Two men in their 50s chatted with me about Thule, they were co-workers, but more accurately: “practically family.” They informed me that one of the pilots was a friend of theirs and had been a submarine controller…he now flew cargo planes, apparently “its practically the same.”
The man who checked me in, George, was also collecting boarding passes. A veteran with AMC and the regular Thule boarding official, he was aged, deliberate, calm and consistent. As I handed him my boarding pass he paused and told me “Is this your first time to Thule? When you get to Thule, you are going to have a problem there, there is going to be an issue when you land.” Great, more clearance issues, I thought…he continued “ So when you land, be careful because there are a lot of polar bears up there and they like pretty little things like yourself” I laughed, as did the man behind me. Thanks George, I’ll watch out! ;) “Thule is a real adventure” another man told me. Just what I was hoping to hear…
This was not a day of ‘riding off into the sunset’ …this was a day spent careening towards the sunrise at hundreds of miles per hour until there simply is no sunset at all. The sun appeared at around 3am. Here, all day and all night, the sun circles overhead. There will be no darkness for weeks.
Approaching Thule I could see ice bergs in the water, the edges of their submerged keels glowed a vivid aqua beneath steel blue water. From the air this place is all ice and rock and snow. From the ground you begin to see signs of life. Bold purple and yellow wildflowers dot the glaciated landscape, willow trees the size of ground cover spring from crevices in the rock and lichen clings to the surface of glacial till.
The base at Thule is as stark and simple as its surroundings. Most buildings are low lying, weather worn, prefab constructions sided with the type of material you would expect to see on a refrigerator. Building 353, the Arctic Research Center, will be my home for the next 1.5mo. It is like a trailer on steroids; basic and homey with one long hallway. Dorm like bedrooms sit between rooms turned into make-shift labs. Outdoor loving researchers fill the rooms, labs and common space.
I have been on the go for 33 hours, with about 4 hours of intermittent sleep. The cool, fresh air and bright midday sun (its 5pm) is invigorating.
I will look into posting some compressed photos, but uploading images can be megabyte intensive and is discouraged.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
San Juan Bike Touring
Last weekend Val, Nathan and I covered around 200 miles of road via bike. I had suggested a touring ride to Val and she ran with it! I owe her a huge thank you for all the planning she did to make the trip happen!
We started at 6am from Val and Nathan's house in Lake City. Each of us packed light, but Val took the true minimalist route with a 1-pounder sleeping bag and small ground cloth. I borrowed panniers from a fellow grad to use with my recently jury-rigged bike rack. My gear consisted of a sleeping bag, emergency bivy, fleece pants, a fleece jacket, hard shell and some snacks. Light and fast!
Biking north along the Interurban trail, we linked up bits and pieces of bike paths all the way to Edmonds, WA (~15 mi). The sun was up and the roads still clear of traffic, gotta love summer mornings! From Edmonds we caught a train to Mt. Vernon (22.00$). The transition from bike to train was seamless with the use of Amtrak's bike storage (only $5 more than a passenger ticket). From Mt. Vernon we biked to Anacortes, WA, located on the northern tip of Whidbey Island (~20 mi) where we caught the ferry to San Juan Island.
The ferry ride was a nice respite following our last 20 mile leg and the views were fantastic. The rocky coastlines with pine trees clinging to their edges reminded me of my summer in Bar Harbor, Maine. I took full advantage of the onboard cafe's Chowder and soft pretzels! Best biking food ever.
From the ferry terminal on San Juan Island we set off to loop around the island. I inadvertently cut off a chunk of Val's originally planned route, but the shorter version still logged a good 30+ miles and brought us to Lime Kiln State Park just as a pod of Orca whales were passing! It was amazing to hear their spouts as the whales surfaced and dipped back into the water. Just prior to reaching the park Nathan discovered a missing screw in one of his cleats and could no longer unclip from his pedals. Due to the missing screw and the onset of knee pain he rode back to the ferry terminal while val and I finished the island loop.
Reunited at the ferry terminal we indulged in ice cream and sat in the midday sun until our next ferry arrived. Our next loop took us around Lopez Islansd, another 30+ miles. Then back on a ferry to Shaw Island where we freedom camped in a small clearing by the bay.
With Nathan's knee issues and anticipating a slower pace we decided to head directly home the following morning. We took a ferry back to Anacortes and biked the 60 miles down Whidbey Island, stopping for hand tossed pizza and calzones along the way! From Clinton we ferried to Edmonds and biked back to seattle via the interurban trail, (approximately 40 miles by bike). We made it back to Val and Nathans house around 10pm.
If you want to do this trip you can find the biking routes in a book on bike touring Washington (sorry I forget the actual book name!). Also, the ferry fee ($15.50) only has to be paid once! Once you are in the San Juans, island hopping via ferry, with a bike, is free!
Final stats, 180 miles covered 6,000ft gained.
Final stats, 180 miles covered 6,000ft gained.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
neon paper
I love blank paper. Really. I get excited about the possibilities it holds, and inspite of the cliche, the possibilities are endless. Its just there, waiting to be filled with thoughts, ideas, emotions. Unbiased and open, perhaps listening even. So, I write a lot. My first journal had a neon pink, stuffed plastic cover and a heart shaped locket...I broke into it a few years back and read the scrawls of an independent 10 year old, vowing to never pierce her ears (cartilage doesn't count ;) and a dream about Zorro rushing in to save the day. I have numerous journals, their bindings literally bulging with paper mementos stuffed between pages filled with handwritten accounts of my travels. The pages are wrinkled and worn from backpacking in snow, rain and sun, dusty from staying in a rural Malawian village and perhaps even a little tear stained after visiting Hiroshima. The physicality of a filled journal, the wight of all those bound pages bearing the stains of each day's experiences, is in itself a satisfying thing. Even just holding the two, hundred page lab notebooks I have filled since starting grad school gives me a sense of accomplishment.
Perhaps this is why blogging has never really appealed to me. The obtrusive glow of an LCD screen glares back at me, burning my eyes in the late night when much of my writing and reflection takes shape. Plus, its hard to type when you have stowed all your paper mementos, maps, postcards and cookie fortunes in the space between your Netbook's keyboard and screen. It is also not advised to take Netbooks into the wilderness on backpacking trips. Finally, rain, desert dust, coffee spills and all of life's smudges and stains that add to a journal's value only degrade the value of your computer. A short-circuited "A" key on the keypad could serve as a serious infringement on your creative expression...and that may be the least of your worries in a rain, dust, coffee spill scenario :).
But, I like sharing my experiences and want to keep you!, my family and friends, updated on my life's adventures and whereabouts though words and some of the one billion photos. So this round of travel, I will be attempting to maintain both a handwritten journal and this little blag which neatly avoids spam emails.
T-minus 13 days and counting! Then I'm off to Thule Greenland.
Reg. the title:
I used the term "Jerry Rigged" numerous times today while describing my quest to attach a standard, hefty, weight bearing bike rack to an aluminum framed bike with absolutely no brazons. i.e. its not made to take this type of rack. However, it seemed like a bad idea to put a seat post clamping rack on a carbon fiber seat-post... So, Jerry -Rig it! Turns out, Jerry-Rig is a combination of two sayings: Jury rigged and Jerry Built.
As for the title, perhaps I'm moving through life in a Jury-Rigged manner: seeking out and collecting up all the opportunities, tools and friendships I can at any given time, in any given place, and trying to put it all together in some clever, functional and satisfying way that produces something valuable. Each place I live provides new pieces and parts, rendering the past a temporary construction that is built upon with the future, an ever adapting, endlessly developing Jury-Rig.
cheers!
Perhaps this is why blogging has never really appealed to me. The obtrusive glow of an LCD screen glares back at me, burning my eyes in the late night when much of my writing and reflection takes shape. Plus, its hard to type when you have stowed all your paper mementos, maps, postcards and cookie fortunes in the space between your Netbook's keyboard and screen. It is also not advised to take Netbooks into the wilderness on backpacking trips. Finally, rain, desert dust, coffee spills and all of life's smudges and stains that add to a journal's value only degrade the value of your computer. A short-circuited "A" key on the keypad could serve as a serious infringement on your creative expression...and that may be the least of your worries in a rain, dust, coffee spill scenario :).
But, I like sharing my experiences and want to keep you!, my family and friends, updated on my life's adventures and whereabouts though words and some of the one billion photos. So this round of travel, I will be attempting to maintain both a handwritten journal and this little blag which neatly avoids spam emails.
T-minus 13 days and counting! Then I'm off to Thule Greenland.
Reg. the title:
I used the term "Jerry Rigged" numerous times today while describing my quest to attach a standard, hefty, weight bearing bike rack to an aluminum framed bike with absolutely no brazons. i.e. its not made to take this type of rack. However, it seemed like a bad idea to put a seat post clamping rack on a carbon fiber seat-post... So, Jerry -Rig it! Turns out, Jerry-Rig is a combination of two sayings: Jury rigged and Jerry Built.
"Although their etymologies are obscure and their meanings overlap, these are two distinct expressions. Something poorly built is “jerry-built.” Something rigged up temporarily in a makeshift manner with materials at hand, often in an ingenious manner, is “jury-rigged.” “Jerry-built” always has a negative connotation, whereas one can be impressed by the cleverness of a jury-rigged solution. Many people cross-pollinate these two expressions and mistakenly say “jerry-rigged” or “jury-built.”"There is now a bike rack attached to my bike. It involved a trip to the hardware store for longer screws, nuts, p-clams, and some electrical tape. Its unclear wether the setup is "Jury-Rigged", "Jerry-Built", or in fact "Jerry-Rigged"...Hopefully its the former of the three options since I'm using it to carry my gear over 180 miles of road biking to, and on, the San Juan Islands this weekend!
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/jerry.html
As for the title, perhaps I'm moving through life in a Jury-Rigged manner: seeking out and collecting up all the opportunities, tools and friendships I can at any given time, in any given place, and trying to put it all together in some clever, functional and satisfying way that produces something valuable. Each place I live provides new pieces and parts, rendering the past a temporary construction that is built upon with the future, an ever adapting, endlessly developing Jury-Rig.
cheers!
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