The trek south begins...
The morning broke clear and cloud-free. The pilots had requested that we be ready at 7:45 AM (for “wheels up” at 8:00 AM), so Marj and Donna provided us with breakfast a half hour earlier than usual (7:00 AM). After a few delays and a couple rounds of the "hurry up and wait" game, we were finally airborne at 8:45 AM. There were ten of us on the plane: the last of the ACE team (Tobias, Annemarie, Dejian, Jeff and I), the outgoing CANDAC crew (Pierre, Paul and Jim), Peter C. and Heather, the MetTech.
There was increasing haze and cloud on the way from Eureka to Resolute. There were some picture taking opportunities but most people opted for sleep. We arrived in Resolute at about 10:40 AM. The outreach group heading to Grise Fiord had long enough for a restroom break as the rest of the group going to Yellowknife removed their luggage to lighten the plane. As Dejian, Jeff, Tobias and I came out of the terminal building, we got to wave goodbye to the rest of the team as they went off the South Camp Inn for lunch and a comfy place to wait until the plane returned.
The flight to Grise Fiord was amazing. The weather was clear and it was a very smooth flight. The south eastern part of Ellesmere Island has incredible cliffs and, as the pilots brought the plane lower, it felt like we were going to scrape them. We circled over the hamlet and then came in to land with some heavy braking. I think we just missed going off the end of the runway. Everyone in town heard us come in as it was near lunchtime when we arrived.
We were met at airport by a friendly Co-op staff member who gave us the ten-cent tour on the way to the hotel. Because the plane schedule had changed, we did not have lunch arranged at the Co-op hotel. We made ourselves peanut butter and jam sandwiches for lunch. It was definitely not an Annemarie-safe place to eat lunch. After we ate, Ray (the manager of the Co-op) took us for a tour of Grise Fiord. Grise is the northernmost community in Canada (in North America for that matter). It is rather small - only 145 people live here. It was really interesting hearing about the history and lore of the area. However, the truck was a little too small to have all five of us jammed in to it for so long. Jeff and Tobias found it quite tight in the half-a-backseat of the extended cab.
The tour ended at Umimmak School where we met with principal Avalon Smith. With him, we were able to make some preliminary plans for our work at the school. Since most of the students are doing traditional and cultural skills training in the afternoons during our visit, we will do our workshops and activities in the mornings. We will start tomorrow with a session on ozone science with the Senior class (Grades 9-12). The general presentation to all ages will be delayed until Monday so that we can invite any parents or community members who are interested to come too. Avalon has given us permission to use the computer lab in the school when needed. We are very grateful for this kind since there is no internet access available at the hotel. It is a bit slow because it is a dial up system and it brings back memories of the internet access we used to have in Eureka before the CANDAC communication system was installed. While Jeff and I worked on our computers, Dejian and Tobias went for a walk to the "dirty" iceberg (as one of the locals called it).
We had dinner at the hotel and enjoyed the Nunavut sized portions and excellent cake. Melissa will be our cook for the time that we are at the hotel. There are five of us staying in Grise currently: Jeff, Tobias, Dejian and I as well as a MetTech from Resolute Bay who is filling in for the local weather observer who is out of town. We worked late into the night to prepare for the presentation on ozone science and had a visit from some of the Senior boys on their way home from the gymnasium. They were intrigued by the images they could see on the wall that we were using as a screen and wanted to know what we were doing.
Meanwhile, the other half of the group got down to Yellowknife in good time. Jim was able to catch the last plane to Edmonton and the rest are scheduled to go out tomorrow morning. Annemarie reported that they had a very good flight from Resolute to Yellowknife. She writes: "The flight from Resolute was AWESOME. First off, they took out the extra seats so we had much more room. Secondly, they let us all FLY THE PLANE. I suspect this is because it doesn't have auto pilot, and the flying conditions were pretty calm, so they wanted to take a break." Now, Dejian is curious to find out if the pilots will let us do this on the Twin Otter flight from Grise Fiord to Resolute Bay.
The last ozonesonde flight was this evening but the rules stipulate that all bets must be placed in Eureka. For the record, it was a Raven balloon and it reached 7.7 mbar (31.0 km). If everyone placed their typical bets, Oleg would have won.
Best regards,
Kaley.