We’re here! Though the trip was a little more eventful than we may have liked, we are now all safely and happily in Eureka and ready to go.
Our trip started on a gorgeous Toronto Sunday morning, when the U of T team (Tobias, Rodica, Annemarie, Clive, Ashley and myself) arrived at the airport at 8am only to discover that our 10am flight to Edmonton had been cancelled. We were put on standby for the next (midday) flight, along with the hundred-odd other people scheduled to fly on our plane, but things didn’t look hopeful… the plane was oversold by 18, and all of the subsequent flights for the next 2 days were sold out. Needless to say, we didn’t make it onto this flight – though Tom, who had sensibly booked this flight from the start, did, and so did all of our luggage. Twelve hours later, the same luggage (sans Toms…) was still going around and around on the baggage carousel when I arrived in Edmonton via Winnipeg, Annemarie and Rodica arrived via Vancouver, and Ashley, Clive and Tobias arrived on the last flight out of Toronto. We had, of course, missed our connecting flights to Yellowknife, but fortunately we’d made the smart move of leaving behind our super-organizer, Kaley, so that when we arrived bleary-eyed into Edmonton, rooms had been booked for us to stay in, flights has been arranged to Yellowknife the next morning, and our charter flight to Eureka had been delayed. An early start this morning followed, though everything went smoothly, and we were reunited with Tom (and his luggage, which had made it in late the night before) at Summit Air in Yellowknife around 10am. A little after 11 we were in the air again, this time in a Dornier 228 charter plane. For those of you who have never seen the Arctic, I’m going to attempt to describe the view from the window, though those of you who have will know that I’m not doing it justice…
Imagine land stripped bare of everything… no trees, no plants, no people - just a fine dusting of snow. Think of how you’d be able to see the effect of all the processes that shape the land – the vast areas smoothed flat by wind, the cracks and gullies formed by rivers and meltwater pools and the scrapings that glaciers have made in years gone by as they flowed and retreated across the land. This is what you see as you fly north from Yellowknife. As you get further north, the covering of snow thickens, and there is white and only white as far as the eye can see, yet it is at no time uniform. Where the land meets the water, cliffs rise. Wave-like patterns show up in the snow. The shadows stretch for long long ways, wind-blown patterns texture the surface and cracks show up clearly. It is breathtakingly beautiful, and most of us are glued to the windows for most of the 6 hours it takes us to reach Eureka.
We arrived at Eureka to temperatures of -39C, mostly clear skies and a team from the weather station to greet us. After a much needed dinner we got oriented, toured the station and moved in. We’re all very excited and looking forward to a good day tomorrow.
Bec