Midnight Sun

Since I read a book called Arctic dreaming, I have been enamoured with the place. One of the last great wildernesses on this planet, it has held a strong draw for me. The question had always been how to get there. How to visit this gem without months of planning and a second mortage on the house. Not that I had a house to mortgage, but it costs a bit. The solution turned out to be patience. Get a job connecting internet “Simply anywhere” and off we go. Sadly, from a purely co-ordinatary point of view, I did not cross the arctic circle. Yet, I was within spitting distance of it and there is no difference in the land one side or the other. Indeed the sun even stays up 24 hours a day this late in June. The photo you see above was taken at 00:07, seven minutes past midnight, looking almost due north.

I got to walk out of camp one night, out of the valley we were in an onto the plains above. Truly, it felt like another planet. Aside from the lichen and snow, I honestly felt like I was on Mars. After my interest in the various Mars missions and seeing amazing photos from that planet, I felt like I was on a different world. A little rover moving around looking at rocks would not have been out of place here at all.

The other thing that you are struck with up here is the space. For 2 hours we droned north in a twin otter over endless waterlogged tundra. Endless. From horizon to horizon, flat like the sea. For two hours of flight, almost 450km. Not a living soul, not a hut, not a road, just tundra. And then a camp, in the middle of nowhere. We flew low most of the way, really low. We buzzed the camp at only a few metres above the ground and pulled an amazing turn, out wing tip only metres off the tundra.

The place has infected me even more, like I thought it would, and I eagerly anticipate return with more time and friends.

Labrador

Once more again in planes. This time across the whole North American continent as far as the province of Labrador, and then up north into the bush. The country up here is Canada as I imagined it. Lakes and trees and glaciated granites sticking out. No roads, no towns or farms. Float planes and helicopters only. Which is exactly what it was. The 40minute flight out of goose bay took us up into true wilderness, complete with black flies and mosquitoes. Only now, a week later am has the itch finally subsided. The camp itself, there for a Uranium deposit, was a ramshackle collection of structures on the shore of the lake. I flew in by twin otter and a helicopter sat in a tiny clearing. Two teams of geologists and two drilling crews were on site, and they were shuttled around by some very deft flying by the pilot. After most of my work was complete I got to go for a little spin in the helicopter to pick up some geologists. It was good to get out the camp and above the biting flies. Not that I mind the wilderness, but would lack to meet it on more intimate terms. For despite our truly remote location, we lacked for nothing, and I even put in the high speed internet. I personally would prefer to have a bag on my back, or maybe a canoe and truly explore this place, rather than spin in and out. I never got much out of camp on foot, always having too much to do as there were issues with the system.

Still, I would rather be doing this that stuck in an office, as in the world of internet connectivity technicians, I have the coolest job!