Images of

THE ARCTIC

Summit Panoramas

Photos © 2004 Seth White

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Lake Ferguson is a mile or two from Kangerlussuaq, and I rode up to have a look the evening after we arrived. There is a little hut on the side of the lake - for the "Kangerlussuaq Roklub", which I would imagine is, you know, a rowing club. It was a very peaceful scene, and it was nice to sit a while and relax after a couple sleep-deprived days of travelling. I was the only person here, and there weren't even any mosquitos around to bother me. So I sat a while, pondered a few things, and tried to soak up my first real look at Greenland.

Here is a view of the whole of Kangerlussuaq, from the road on the way back from the lake. Like I say, it ain't much on aesthetics. The airport dominates the area and pretty much splits the town in two parts. In fact there is a little red light on the road going by the end of the airstrip which tells you to stop when a large plane is preparing for takeoff...and would blast you with jet wash. The first things I noticed about the place when I stepped off the plane were the rugged glacier-carved cliff faces on either side of the town.

A few days ago I was in the Green House working when I heard a C-130 arrive, so I went up to the roof. Here is a look at Summit Camp from this vantage point, on one cloudy day. From left to right: The Big House (with a giant comms radome on top and the American, Greenlandic, and Danish flags flying), the outhouse (with pointed roof), a couple cargo pallets and snowmobiles, the RAMAS (Radiometer for Atmospheric Measurements at Summit) building, a Tucker Sno-Cat, an auxilliary generator module (orange hut), the wooden sauna hut, a supply milvan, the generator hut/shop area (semi-circular structure...a Polar Haven I think), another milvan, the loader, and the LC-130. Today, by the way, was the first Sunday of my visit at Summit. And it was extremely relaxing. Summit itself just doesn't seem like a super-high-energy kind of place (maybe the altitude has something to do with this?). The main thing, though, is that the current crew is a very low-key group. They work hard, but mellow is the operative word when describing the social interactions...which is just fine by me. So, today, I did the following (as if you really care): get up at 9:30, mosey to the Big House, eat breakfast and have a cup of coffee, do laundry, go to the RAMAS hut for a short tour from Sven (a German Ph.D. student here setting up the instrument), walk around and take photos, chat with Paola, plink away on the computer making panoramic photos, sit in the sauna for a half hour, eat dinner, drink a beer and play Risk with Katy, Sven, and Larry, and finish up this webpage. Sue, the cook, has Sundays off like everyone else, so you forage amongst the leftovers in the fridge for your grub. Grub which, by the way, has been excellent. It is a close call as to who has spoiled yours truly more: Dani at Palmer or Sue at Summit. Oh, and I didn't take a shower today. Water is made here by melting snow using waste heat from the generators, and conservation is practiced by all. The general rule is one load of laundry per week and one shower every 4 (or sometimes 3) days...so tomorrow is shower day. The cold and dry atmosphere keeps one from getting too skanky, however I have found that a shower is VERY welcome after 4 days. Yeah, I'm rambling again...exercising my prerogative of filling this web server space with still more ineffable twaddle.

This is "tent city", i.e. the summer berthing for overflow population (read: mostly beakers). Currently, there are 13 people on station, 6 of which are in tent city. Jim, myself, Sven (beaker), Florence (beaker), Katie (staff), and Dave (staff). Both Katie and Dave actually prefer the tents to the berthing module. Anyhow, tent livin' in the middle of Greenland ain't so bad and I'm sleeping well every night. The only real problem is that that I practically do a polar plunge every night when I have to get into an ice cold sleeping bag. Oh, and I don't really dig using the P-bottles...

I took a panorama of Summit Camp from the top of the green house a few days ago, so here it is. This, by the way, is the view from directly above our instrument's optical collector. Following up on that shower thread from above...I understand that showers are fourth on the list of water consuming activities here. First, by far, is dishwashing. Toilet flushing and hand washing are somewhere in the middle, followed by showers. Although you could generally wash your hands with less water than you typically use, directly rationing water use when it involves cleanliness of the hands is not a good idea. OK, cool. Also, toilet flushing is already pretty much at a minimum, since we only flush poop, not pee alone. OK, fine there too. But dishwashing, that's another story. Dishes are done by hand, and each sinkfull is probably 10 gallons. With three meals a day, you end up with about 8-10 sinkfulls (most people don't keep washing dishes in skanky water, so they rightly refill once or twice). So that's a lot of water. Why not get a dishwasher? Or, why not have the rinse-and-sanitize setup like they have at Palmer? I understand that a dishwasher is indeed on the way, but the odd thing is that they actually used to have a dishwasher here years ago! So the point is that diminishing communal hygeine by limiting showers to once every 4 days seems irrational, especially considerint the dishwashing scenario. This, however, is at or near the top of my list of bitches about Summit Camp, which says something. From direct personal experience during my limited time here, my accumulated bitch list is relatively small - much shorter indeed than the list of things that are done well.

Last night (Saturday, August 15), I finally got around to showing some movie files I had from the McMurdo winter and South Pole summer, including a few from the inaugural South Pole Film Festival. I bought a DVD last August from Anthony (Scott Base) which had a bunch of time lapse films set to music, as well as a film by his wife Christine (McMurdo). Excellent stuff. I also got a CD with some South Pole Film Festival movie files from Jon the summer chef when I was there this summer. Then, I got another DVD with an hour-long South Pole documentary by Tom Pi (and some better quality versions of a couple Film Fest movies by Tyler Regan) from Holly while we were on the L.M. Gould. So last night a few of us watched these films, and afterwards Jim stuck his head out the door and reminded us that the sun was setting. Big deal, right? Well, the past 5-6 days have been sort of miserable, with constant wind and overcast skies. This was especially sucky because during the time I've been here, we have gone from 24 hour sunlight to the beginnings of the day/night cycle. So I wanted to catch a good sunset here. However, since our first sunset about 10 days ago, I hadn't really seen a good one. But yesterday was perfect - calm, clear, and sunny. We figured this could well be the best chance before we leave, so I ran over to the green house and grabbed my camera to take a picture or two, intending to just walk out a ways to catch the sunset. Then, along comes Toby on a snowmobile with Jim and Katie in tow on a sled. They picked me up and we drove out to this little snow berm...which serves as the highest point for, oh, about 500 miles in any direction. We stood there for 30-45 minutes and watched the sun slooooowly go down. It was the longest sunset I've ever seen, including those at McMurdo (which is actually 6 degrees closer to a pole, but there are mountains along most of the horizon and the sunrises/sunsets don't intersect a nice flat horizon like they do here). So the sun gradually made its way below the horizon, changing shape from a disk to a semicircle to a flattened blob to a straight line (!) and then disappeared. We could see the horizon rippling for about 10 degrees azimuth on either side of the sun due to fluctuations in the atmosphere...a neat effect. I'll have a couple more pictures of the sunset on this page before I leave (which has to be tomorrow, I suppose).

Here is another panorama of Summit Camp, also from the roof of the green house. This was also taken yesterday. It was a very nice, clear day, but later in the evening when the sun went down it got cold, fast. It was the coldest night yet (I think it was the first time it got well below zero since I've been here) and I pretty much huddled in my sleeping bag for 20 minutes before I really got warm. But then again I probably had 5-6 drinks of beer/wine since dinner time....so that doesn't help one stay warm. However, I think yesterday's weather conditions probably helped bring on the beautiful hour-long sprinkling of diamond dust we had around midday today, as well as this afternoon's lovely snowfall (where every single snowflake was a perfect crystal). Awesome.

After arriving back in Kangerlussuaq, we had a couple days before the flight to Schenectady. The weather was absolutely beautiful the whole time, and I managed to get a few excursions in. For me, the highlight of the whole trip was going to the ice edge. Kangerlussuaq is about 15 miles from the start of the Greenland ice cap, and there just so happens to be a road leading out to said ice cap (this is a rarity for Greenland). This road actually leads onto the ice, ending at Camp Aurora...a secret testing ground for European auto manufacturers (primarily Volkswagen, I believe). They bring their newest prototypes out here to put them through their paces...safely out of view of inquiring auto mag photographers. I heard they used to do this somewhere in Labrador, but moved here after a bunch of photos suddenly appeared in some car mags. Well, whatever the history, there is a nice dirt road that leads all the way to the ice edge. One day, some of us drove out there with bikes in tow. There is a gate a few miles from the ice edge itself, but we found it unlocked and drove all the way to the end of the dirt road. Then one person drove back while the rest of us pedaled home. Of all the rides I've done, this was top 5 without a doubt, and a few more photos are here. The weather was spectacular, and in fact it got warmer as the day went on...so the jacket, gloves, hat, and layers of clothes I brought were completely unnecessary. Anyhow, we got to the end of the dirt road and found that it was in somewhat a state of disrepair. A shovel was busy working on rebuilding the road at the land-ice transition area, so we walked up just a little ways and took a few pictures. This is the view looking out over the start of the ice camp. What can I say other than "wow". At the edges of the ice, there were massive hills of gravel that had been deposited by the glacier, creating a surreal landscape.

A little bit farther along the road back, this was the view. Camp Aurora is somewhere out there on the horizon. I heard some amusing stories about the whole affair from some of the staff, such as the not-so-effective veil of secrecy that surrounded the building of the site...and scores of camoflauged cars pouring out of a 747 and then roaming around the town with their hot shot test drivers because there were some delays in getting things prepared. I have to think that being a test driver for these companies is one of the best jobs going, especially when you get to come out here and roost around on the ice in the latest in European auto technology. Of course, being a schlep like me and getting paid to come work up here is not too far back on the list.

I was struck by this view in particular. The massive wall of rock that the glacier had pushed up by its edge here was something I had not seen before. It would have been fun to hike out to the top of this hill, but the river in between the road and the glacier was flowing pretty fast by this time. I probably took 300 photos on the way back to town - I couldn't resist stopping and walking around. I think it took a good five hours to ride the 15 miles back to Kangerlussuaq, and if I'd have been by myself it would have taken 10.

The river that goes by Kangerlussuaq and dumps into the fjord is fed by the ice. At this time of year, scores of waterfalls pour down from the glacier and build the river into a massive, raging current by the time it reaches the town. Also, the glacier gets discolored at its edges due to the dirt, and takes on this smooth grey texture...sort of like elephant skin. And of course chunks of the stuff are constantly breaking off, so you are advised not to wander around underneath it.

The end of this glacier, with a beautiful lake in the foreground. Unrelated aside: cigarettes in Greenland carry some pretty explicit warnings. Printed in big black letters on the side of each carton you will see such advisories as "Smoking can kill you" and "Smoking decreases sperm count and fertility" and "Smoking is addictive. Don't start". No ambiguous legalese here. Smokes are taxed at a pretty high rate, and so is beer. But wine, strangely enough, was pretty reasonable...and the duty-free store at the airport and the supermarket (Pilerssuisoq) both had good selections. Beer, on the other hand, was limited to third-rate swill (all Carlsberg products). You get Carlsberg, a couple types of Tuborg, and some other stuff, all at about $50 a case. Yikes. Most of the beer sold in Kanger, however, was made in Nuuk. Carlsberg has evidently set up Tuborg franchises worldwide, with dozens of breweries in various countries. I forget who told me this, but someone at Summit said they drank Tuborg in Nepal...which was actually made in Nepal. Hmmm. Another person told me that Tuborg in Denmark was actually a pretty good beer. I can't substantiate this, but I can definitely verify that the Greenland variety of Tuborg is NOT a pretty good beer.

This particular view best captures my impressions of the Greenland scenery. In a word: vast. But at the same time, there is this whole little intimate world of delicate shrubs, lichens, mushrooms, mosses, scrubby trees, and insects at your feet.

On another day, I tagged along with a small group to Kellyville, a small research station about 10 miles from Kangerlussuaq. Nearby is this, the Sondre Stromfjord port. Here, oceangoing ships come up the fjord to dock as the water is too shallow near the town itself.

I took a bike along on this trip too, and rode back to Kangerlussuaq. The road between the town and the port is, I hear, the longest paved road in Greenland at a whopping 10 miles. This is the view of Kangerlussuaq as you crest the last hill before reaching the town.