Alert, Nunavut, Home of Canada's "Frozen Chosen"

There's an old saying around here: There are three ways you can leave Alert, as a chunk, a drunk or a hunk. With pretty much all-you-can-eat buffet meals, $2.50 drinks and a great workout facility it's no surprise how that saying came to be. While resisting gourging remains a challenge substituting bar nights for gym nights has gone pretty smoothly, with an added incentive of a free t-shirt for an equivalent of 500km of exercise, I'll be keeping fit and having fun in no time!

It may come as a surprise to many people but there are actually fairly frequent flights out of Alert, usually averaging about 2 per week, with many more during busy periods.

Last week we had the honour of receiving the Chief of Air Staff of Canada, LGen Watt. I immediately took a liking to him, not only because of his uncanny resemblance to the Gretzky family, but also to his sense of humour. He made the astute observation that the station looked like something out of Mad Max, which I couldn't agree with more!

Aside from the fun and games I do actually have a job to do here in Alert and have been enjoying slowly but surely learning the details. Once I have a better grasp of exactly what is going on I'll go into greater detail but in the meantime I can go over the encounters while travelling to the GAW lab from the station.

There are a number of small fresh-water lakes situated around the station (one of the reasons for the location) from which we pump our water. Below is the pumping station I pass on a regular basis while driving to the lab.

The sightings don't stop at the landscape as I become aware of a Yagger (a type of arctic bird which is prevalent in the region, so I've been told) no more than 100 yards from the lab.

The real excitement arrives in the middle of the day when Laura (a co-op student at the lab) informs Adrienne (the current operator) and myself that she's spotted the Lemming that lives under our shed. We all run outside to investigate the situation and quite rudely startle little Laraquette who retreats under a large flat piece of shale.

My usual excited mood as a result of critter-cravin and landscape-lookin was turned more somber on July 31st as the 59th anniversary of the Lancaster crash memorial was held. The story behind the event is that in 1950 the Lancaster was making a fairly routine mail-drop to support the weather station in Alert when their navigation failed and they crashed. Later, when the station personnel attempted to extradite the deceased out of Alert there was again equipment failure and the plane was grounded, with repairs estimated to take an additional two weeks. As a result the deceased were buried on site and a memorial erected to honour them.

The ceremony was very informative and paid tribute to this and many other sacrifices like this which have made the CFS station at Alert a reality.

There's plenty more to come including more animal sightings, so set your phasers to STUN and make like the resonant frequency of a pair of parallel metallic bars joined at one end and stay tuned!

Byron

Ellesmere Island's #1 Blog Author