Build up to the campaign...
As of about 8PM this evening, the entire ACE Arctic validation team was assembled at the Eureka Weather Station. Clive, Kevin and Michael had gone in on February 12 with the CANDAC work party to get a headstart on the MAESTRO, SPS and DIAL setup and operations. Annemarie, Tobias, Dejian, Tom, Richard and I arrived almost a week later, on the 18th. Everyone traveled through Yellowknife so we could use planes with a larger cargo capacity than the Twin Otter that flies out of Resolute Bay.
Annemarie, Tobias, Dejian and I flew from Toronto to Edmonton on Thursday February 16. The weather conditions were deteriorating over the day. Tobias and Annemarie's flight was delayed 15 minutes for a quick de-icing. By the time Dejian and I left, the rain was freezing on the runway and our flight ended up being delayed by 4 hours. We waited 2.5 hours in the line to get de-iced (including 30 minutes where the grounds crew could not work because of lightening) and then half an hour before we could take off. Meanwhile, Annemarie and Tobias tried to enjoy downtown Edmonton in the -25 C (before the windchill) conditions sans longjohns.
On Friday morning, we met for breakfast and then caught our flight to Yellowknife. The weather was great and flight uneventful. Annemarie had arranged a tour of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories for our team so we went downtown and saw the Visitors Centre and took a quick look around the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre. We met our tour guide Moses at the entrance to the Legislature and spent 1.5 hours finding out about consensus government in the N.W.T. The architecture was really amazing - wood, stone and zinc were used to reflect the natural world and lots of glass allows natural light and views of the surrounding countryside into the building. The building, constructed in 1993, is the first permanent home of the Legislative Assembly. Previously, it had met part of the time in a building in downtown Yellowknife and spent the rest of the time meeting in communities around N.W.T. We learned about the shared history of N.W.T. and Nunavut which were one territory until 1999. There are 11 languages used in the legislature including English and French and simultaneous translation can be arranged for all. We saw the chamber and the caucus room and the artistic and cultural displays around the building. Following the tour, we met up with Richard and then took a walk to the old town to find some dinner. We went to Bullock's Bistro and enjoyed northern sized portions of buffalo. The food was excellent and we added an ACE Arctic campaign sticker to the large collection of graffiti on the ceiling. Thanks to Moses for the great dinner recommendation! Around 10 PM, Tom called to say that both he and his luggage had arrived in Yellowknife. So, we had the team together and were ready to go to Eureka.
Saturday February 18 at 6:30 AM, Richard, Tom, Dejian, Tobias, Annemarie, Al (the weather station SPM who was flying in with us) and I arrived at the Summit Air hangar. The weather in Resolute was questionable (ice fog and high winds) so we had to find out if there was enough fuel in Eureka in case the plane couldn't stop there on the way up. Also, the pilots had found that only one of the liquid nitrogen dewars was filled. We decided to delay a while to allow the weather to improve in Resolute and to track down more liquid nitrogen. Tom, Dejian, Annemarie and I went off for breakfast while the pilots tried to locate the local liquid nitrogen suppliers at 7 AM on a Saturday morning. By the time we came back, they had found out that there was no liquid nitrogen left in Yellowknife and the company insisted that they had filled both of our dewars. We decided to leave the empty dewar in Yellowknife so it could be refilled and sent up later.
We finally left Yellowknife at 9:45 AM MST. The first leg of the flight, to Cambridge Bay, took 3 hours because we had headwinds. While the plane was refueled, the team took a washroom break and attempted to do a quick charge of their laptops and ipods. Then it took another for 2.5 hours to Resolute Bay for another refueling and washroom stop. We also had a quick visit with Aziz. A final 2 hour leg brought us to Eureka at 8 PM EST. Flying from Yellowknife was great for the amount of freight that we could carry but it was quite hard on the team members. Though the seats were more substantial than those we are used to in a Twin Otter, everyone was rather sore by the end of the 7.5 hour trip in the Dornier 228. Rai (the SPM who was finishing his tour), Jobie, Pierre, Oleg and Paul met us at the airport. While our group had dinner, the CANDAC crew delivered all of our equipment to PEARL which was a great help. The rest of the evening was spent catching up with people and settling into the new accommodations at the Weather Station.
Overnight, Michael and Kevin ran the DIAL from midnight until 4AM for a second night of measurements. Unfortunately, the conditions were not very good with blowing snow and ice crystals limiting their measurements. The initial setup of the DIAL went well and the laser output power is similar to what was obtained last year (~45 W). They also cleaned the optics and optimized the alignment of the lidar. So far, Michael and Kevin had one excellent night of measurements on February 17th. They also used the new water vapour channel filters for half the night.
Best regards,
Kaley.