Final Post (for now)

Well, I am home and tanning. This will be the last Cold Lake post, unless I go back. Really don't know when or if that will happen. I had hoped to sum up everything in this post, but the blog really stands on its own.

Hope you got some enjoyment out of it and learned something, I know I did.

If I move on to another blog (if anyone comments and wants that) I will post it here.

Now, fill your boots!

Where ya'll clicked in from

I signed up with clustrmaps to keep track of the visitors to this blog and the map as of Monday 3/26/2007 is below. I really don't know what to make of it, but I think it is interesting.

Gone

When you leave after being in a place for 6 weeks you would hope to have gotten to know that place. I'm sure I have utterly failed that.

My time in Cold Lake was delimited by the demands of work and the schedule left no real time to explore and get to know the place and the people. Outside of the initial ski trip and that ill-fated Sunday trip, I really didn't do anything but eat, sleep, work and ride to to work.

Somehow I got more than 100 non-work related posts out of that, I really don't know how.

So, as I am leaving and contemplating this place, I guess I am going to have to come back (with a car of my own, I hope) if I really want to get to know Cold Lake.

I'll be back with a post about the future of this blog and my blogging from home sometime in the near future.

Repetitive Music Syndrome

Nearly everyday for the last 36 I have had breakfast in the hotel coffee shop. Nearly everyday for the last 36 I have heard the following songs:
Martina MacBride:My Baby Loves Me Just the Way That I Am
Alan Jackson:Summertime Blues
Lorrie Morgan:My Night to Howl
and
Brooks & Dunn:Rock My World (Little Country Girl)
I believe some people can ignore the Muzak, but the above list is a little hard to ignore, day after day.

Other things I didn't get a picture of

Northern lights. Not evident on the 2 whole clear nights in Cold Lake so far.

The 'east german guard gate' that I mentioned very early in this blog. It has been retired.

The 'first nations' people ice fishing. They did it at Primrose Lake twice, but I couldn't get a picture from my station.

The scraped snow mountains in grocery store and mall parking lots.

The black background signs. I've been wanting to take a picture of that since I went to London, Ontario.

Wildlife

I promised Maria I would put these up tonight. I did not take the deer photo, one of my coworkers got that one before I got here. I did take the skunk picture. You should have seen me stalking it (from behind, like a moron) trying to take its picture. I didn't want to get sprayed, but I wanted the pic.

From the archive

Brown snow. I could take guesses on how brown snow is formed. But I probably couldn't publish the comments. Brown snow is formed when you through out the coffee that got cold walking between buildings.

That reminds me

Somethings you won't see now that the camera is dead.

Farm equipment rising from the melting snow. It appears that they just leave farm equipment in odd places to be covered with snow and emerge sometime later, so bits of it are coming up now that we are getting a little melt up here. Unsuspected hay bails have been popping up these last few days.

Actual snowmobile stop signs.

The rotary phone in the lobby. How can it still work?

The whole layout of my cold weather gear. That's a promise I now won't be able to keep, sorry.

How coin operated car washes work up here.

The driving range and boardwalk.

The imperial oil energy center. They are building this huge building in -25C, snowy weather. It's been pretty amazing watching it go up.

Deer, wolves, coyotes or foxes.

I've seen a bunch of things that I haven't been able to photograph while moving at 100 kilometers per hour.

Camera is well and truly dead

Photos in posts after this will be from the saved shots on the hard disk. Oh well. Maybe I'll get a new camera when I get home.

Beer and Clamato

I noticed no one commented on the Beer and Clamato post from yesterday. I cannot get across how discussing this is to observe. Some guy even ordered it in the coffee shop on the Sunday night after I got out of the "frontage road".

Camera on last legs

My camera is really, really near death. Here's a few pictures that were taken the last couple of days.This is me using the (rotary dial) house phone at the hotel. I really wanted to get the rotary phone, you don't see one of those every day.
This is a copy of the NWF Daily News on my knee in the car on the way back to the hotel. This is the page where Maria's picture was Sunday. The only paper from FWB that we got up here since January and it happens to be that one.
Here's out the window from the car. Still trying to fix the camera, but no luck. Vicki, I need a new digital camera.

Oil Sands

These silo looking things all over Cold Lake (and down at least to Bonnyville as flingy-lingy finally guessed are part of the oil industry.

Imperial Oil (2/3rd's owned by Exxon-Mobile) runs several projects getting oil from the oil sands in Alberta. Its biggest project is the Cold Lake in-situ field where they get the oil out by injecting stem into the ground and extracting the oil underneath.

Canada's oil sands reserves are said to be greater than the entire rest of the world's petroleum reserves combined.

These "wells" are all over. The oil company gets the mineral rights from the provincial government (the landowners only own the first 1 foot of dirt under their property unless they owned it before Alberta became a province in 1907), and only have to pay the farmers the value of the land they are occupying (in other words the annual value of the amount of say wheat that could have been grown on the area the oil well is taking up), although the farmer does not have to sell. If he doesn't they buy land from his neighbor near his fence and just drill at an angle.

Because of the explosive growth of the oil patch in the last few years, salaries are out of sight in the area, home prices are going through the roof and 21 year old mechanics with Royal Canadian Air Force training are leaving the service when they get to Cold Lake to work the oil patch making $150,000 a year (Canadian). It is also why the Edmonton Journal help wanted classifieds are full of quarter page ads from cover to cover begging for workers. Not just in the oil industry, either, because everyone went to work oil there are no craftsmen or service people to be found. This was a major reason we couldn't find anyone to tow us out of the snow, all mechanics and drivers work for the oil industry and none of them work in service stations or drive tow trucks commercially anymore.

See what you can learn waiting for a tractor to pull you out of the snow?!

Bleg for Golf Camps

Does anyone know of a good summer golf camp near Ft. Walton/Destin? Thanks.

Secrets of Waffle House

Since flingy-lingy was so amazed that I can bring Waffle House menus into Canada, I must now reveal that I have the keys to the secrets of Waffle House. Here you see the cook's guide (cheat sheet, really) to the orders of his customers, how the position of condiments on the platter reveals the order of the customer. Perhaps no non-Waffle House employee has ever been privy to this kind of information and I ask you dear reader to use this advanced knowledge carefully.

We have a winner

Flingy-lingy has a correct guess. More later tonight. Meanwhile I will post this in flingy-lingy's honor, the only prize he gets.

Worst Thing about Canadians in Cold Lake

...a lot of them (and I mean a LOT) drink their beer mixed with Clamato Juice. I am not kidding about this. Clamato Juice is Tomato Juice mixed with Clam Juice, and I don't even want to know how they get clam juice in the first place. Apparently it is an Alberta thing, and the vast majority of Canadians do not commit such atrocities on beer.

Last Clue

3 of the smartest people I know have failed to identify the object on the right. Although they each had well reasoned analyses.

The clues so far have only been that they are in a lot, but not all of the farm fields in the area. They come in ones, twos and threes.

The final clue is that they are part of Alberta's biggest export to the U.S., a part which makes Canada the biggest exporter of this commodity to the States in the world (reason enough to put up with "that great big sucking sound" that is NAFTA). It is also why Albertans are somewhat touchy about being compared to a certain U.S. state. But I don't want to make it too easy.

Guesses?

Still haven't gotten any guesses (serious ones anyway) about the thing I went to photograph the day I got stuck on the "frontage road".

Here's one that I see everyday on way to/from range. There are tons of them around, all out in middle of fields on farms (or ranches).

Ask and ye shall recieve

I have quite a few topics I had been saving, for the days when I didn't have any "fresh" material. One of these had to do with moose. So I got a comment with a request for moose pictures and I am happy to oblige.

This is a "cow" and her offspring. They are regularly in the woods on the west side of the road to the range, but always in the trees. Never very close to the road, but not very far either.

Mooses around here are infested with ticks, and there is no easy way to get them off. So with the cold (these pictures were taken when it was -19C, about 1 below 0F) they are quite lethargic. The do move when you stop the car to take their picture, though, but they don't go very far.

I was told they are named after what they were called by the Algonquin Indians, "mooz" or something like that. It means twig eaters, and I can tell you that twigs are about the only thing they could be eating in these woods.

Big Snow this morning

We got about an inch of snow this morning. An inch of rain is nothing in FWB, but an inch of snow can look pretty impressive. Here's an idea of what it looked like coming down.

A day in the life

Not for the faint of heart or easily bored, this is what everyday (except Sunday) has been like here in Cold Lake for me. Note that this is a little exaggerated, since I picked one of the good days. This past week has been much, much more boring and spirit-killing. Next week threatens to be even more horrifyingly dull.

4:50 Alarm, Check weather on Channel 50, read news on-line
5:30 Shower and dress (need to do a post on just this ordeal)
6:00 Breakfast in the coffee shop
6:50 Get gear duffel and Laptop and head to the Lobby
7:00 Through gear into back of SUV and climb in
7:05 Get Coffee at Esso Station, make locals do Star Trek Hand Signal and call us aliens
8:00 Arrive at Range, get gear out and put in high bay
8:15 Gather in break area and plan day
8:30 Put on gear
8:45 Go and open 2 of the 4 systems, troubleshoot the ones where the TIVO won't boot
10:00 Log into control room and take control of a station
10:10 Check settings, turn on IR and do initial calibrations, tune cameras, 10:40 stand outside freezing trying to get e-mail
11:15 PB&J in break room, talk about problems you've had getting system going
11:45 Begin Calibrations
12:30 Test Calibrations
12:45 Aircraft taxi's, check cloud cover, notice that ceiling is <2000 ft and you'll be seing lots of gray on the scopes.
13:15 Attempt tracking
15:30 Complete tracking
15:45 Archive data, stretch legs, make Morrocan Mint tea in break area
16:00 Get print outs of calibration tables and put with archive disks for Sys Engineer to process
16:30 Go and close 2 of the 4 systems and perform graceful shut down on the systems
17:15 Close control room, log off of work stations and lock door
17:40 Remove gear
17:50 Put gear in SUV and turn on SUV to warm it up.
17:55 Begin trip back to hotel
18:40 Arrive at hotel, put gear into room and run to sports bar attached to hotel for dinner, watch curling while eating
19:15 Call from home, too tired and mentally exhausted to be a good conversationalist, feel guilty about it.
19:50 Hang up
19:55 Blog some, to try and lift spirits, watch weather, read
21:00 PJs, teeth, cholesterol meds, bed
21:30 Lights out

Thoughts on a month in Cold Lake

I've tried to keep the blog on a relatively even keel. It is pretty hard being away from your family and friends for a whole month, in any place, let alone one so DIFFERENT as Cold Lake.

Part of the problem was, of course, being here during the extreme weather. It was scary and sobering and a bit overwhelming at times. Wind chills of -30C and below can kill you, but mostly you can get killed if you are stupid (see previous posts), and stupid seems to get worse as the weather gets pleasant. Today got to about 38F, about +3C!, and it did actually seem pleasant, but with the melt and refreeze cycle it is actually more dangerous, driving and walking-wise than previously.

What gets me down (and I am pretty down as I type this) is the sameness. Every day is the same, and no matter how many pictures of strange and entertaining (to me) things I post, it is no vacation here. It is work, but I'm not blogging about my actual work.

I am going to put up another post tonight to try and get across the crushing sameness of everyday here for a month.

It ought to be an opportunity, being in another country, living in a very strange (from my perspective) land. But as far as being a tourist goes, I think I haven't done anything.

As far as blogging goes, this has been an enlightening experience. I thought this would just be an easy way to share pictures and experiences with a few family members and friends, but I guess it has become therapy (and yes, I needed therapy after last Sunday) for me.

I truly appreciate the comments. Especially Dave, Flingy-lingy, RKW and TaraEliz, but also from those anonymous people I didn't even send the link to. It keeps the world from closing in.

What will I do when I finally leave Cold Lake, and the time is not now so far off?

Apologies

I promised 2 long posts for my 1 month anniversary here tonight, but it isn't going to happen. I am beat and don't feel well and it turns out that yesterday was the actual 1 month day. So instead I will try to do it tomorrow or Sunday.

Here, to tide you over, is what the smooth, driven snow surface looks like as it begins to thaw. Since it gets so cold here every night, what is happening is that the sun melts a little of the surface that then sinks through the fluffy porous snow and causes these pockmarks to show up. Underneath slippery ice is building up and becoming dangerous, especially for Floridians.

1 Month

Today is my one month anniversary of being here. I expect to do two rather long (and probably pictureless) posts this evening.

Shards

When the melting starts, the snow doesn't actually disappear overnight, like it used to in Vicksburg, Oxford, Dallas or even Lytham. In areas where it has been crunched down a lot, busy walkways, the entryway to the hotel, paths we've driven on a lot, etc. the snow has compacted to ice and it gets brittle.

Walking around (before yesterday when it all froze back) sounds like breaking glass, because the ice is thicker than I imagined. So on our concrete pads, you get to step on and break the ice like you would break a plate glass window.

It is more satisfying than popping bubble pack.

Gray

Here's what today looked like at Primrose Lake (or here in the hollywood special effects section of the McKinely Global Warming Propaganda Chamber if you prefer).

That may be the cruelest thing about this particular season. The sun comes out a few days, it warms up to -1 or -2 and you think that spring's right around the corner. Sunday I didn't even wear longjohns. Then we had yesterday and today.

I think my camera is dying

We had a really good sunrise here in the climatology lab this morning. I Tried to take a couple of shots on the drive in, but my camera decided to go all impressionist on me. Does anybody know if this is how Jackson Pollock go his start?

Does anyone know if my camera is really dying? Is this a symptom of a camera that has had it with cold.

Actually compressed and shrunk as they are here on the blog, they don't look nearly as weird as full size.

Sunbow

Does anyone know if this is a sunbow? I caught it walking back to the building this afternoon (it was -25C with a wind chill of about -30). It looks like the clouds are arranged just so and they reflect the edge of the sunlight at the same shape.

I've seen some strange cloud and sky shows here, especially when the sun is out.

So why did I turn onto the "frontage road"

Here's the picture I suffered for.

This is the only triple I've seen but I can see doubles and singles of these on a lot of the farms we pass on the way into the range in the mornings. The are on lots and lots of the farms in this area.

Does anybody know what these are? I'll post the answer later.

And for Dave only, how did I get these into the McKinely climatic lab, eh?

Fake out frontage road

Here is where I turned onto the snowmobile trail. Note the full size stop signs. In town the snowmobile trails have miniature stops signs and I will try to take a picture this morning. Note also the truck tracks (or so I thought).

Saw 300

Instant classic. Joe Bob Briggs would love this movie.

More on Tim's not-so-excellent adventure

Here's what the truck looked like when it was stuck.This is a close up of the same picture.

Dire Straits, or, My Longest Post Ever

9:20 AM (or so I thought) I am probably 30 kM out of Cold Lake going towards Bonnyville. I am going to be way early for Church, a common problem I have.

I have passed the several things that I want to post about on the blog, and I see one just off the frontage road to my right that I want to photograph (later I'll post about that, much later). So I turn on one of the "grid roads" and turn again sharply past the full size stop sign for the frontage road and drive about a 500 yards down the frontage road wondering why it hasn't been plowed, yet. Yes, it is covered in snow, but I see tire tracks and just figured that because the farmers probably just use it to get to their fields there was no hurry to plow. Besides, I had driven on snow covered roads on the range, so I would just be careful.

But as careful as I was, I soon slid off onto the shoulder and wheelwell deep on the right side of the SUV into the snow. No traction. For about 45 minutes I dug out snow from the wheels and rocked back and forth. No joy. I should mention here that it is going to be a warm day and I am heading to church, so I did not wear my boots, I didn't even bring my gear at all. I am wearing Church clothes, Church shoes and regular (non-thermal) socks.

OK, call my co-workers, I know we have a tow rope, this has happened at the range they'll get me out.

Well, eventually got Kevin, who didn't have the big tow rope , but he got a couple of towing straps from Wal-Mart and came to get me. Meanwhile, I also called roadside assistance from the vehicle manufacturer, just in case. When they finally connected me with a local tow truck driver Kevin had arrived and after trying to pull me back onto the frontage road, gotten stuck himself. The local driver figured out where I was and promptly said he couldn't help me, good luck.

As an aside, you should know that I couldn't tell them where I was. I had scribbled directions on a scrap of paper from Microsoft Streets and Trips, but they were just "left on Hwy 28(55) and then right on 46th Street". Which ultimately got me to the Church, but I am getting ahead of myself, but gave neither me nor them any insight into just where I was. I really had no idea and didn't use common terms that they use, I was just an American lost somewhere in Alberta as far as they knew. The main contention was whether I was on 55 or 28 and I just didn't know. Further, I couldn't give them a cross street without hiking through the snow about a quarter mile (and after that awkward shoveling my back hurt so much I could barely move). When I did give them the cross street, it was RGE RD 440, which was meaningless to the roadside assistance people. Finally the local guy said he knew where I was, but I was too far off the RGE RD for his cable to reach me, so good luck.

I started calling Bonnyville towing companies, but no one was in on a Sunday. Finally I got one towing company to answer, and it was the same guy who just told me good luck! But he happened to be close (RGE RD 442) and he would swing by to see if there was anything he could do.

We tried shoveling Kevin's truck and got it out once, but then it went right back in. The tow truck guy stopped at the RGE RD, but wouldn't come down the frontage road to us. So I walked to him. Meanwhile a van stopped and a lady was talking to our tow driver. I figure he's going to help her and just leave, since he had already said he couldn't help. I finally got to him just as she drove away and I finally met Ted, the tow truck driver. He gave me an education.

It turns out I had turned onto a snowmobile or Quad trail. There was an old railway line that ran from Edmonton to Cold Lake and now it is a snowmobile trail and of course it is never plowed. But, I said, there are full size stop signs, the signs for snowmobiles I had seen in Cold Lake were smaller. Well, friends, snowmobile trails use full size stop signs, as I am here to testify. The tracks I had seen were not from trucks, but from Quads (4-wheelers I think we call them at home, some of them road by later and said it looked like we were having a bad day) that also run on the trail. Trucks can't go on there and my best bet would be if a local farmer had a tractor that could pull us out.

Oh, and it's daylight savings time in Canada, too and I had already missed Church, and in fact I probably wasn't early at all.

Remember, also, that the two stuck vehicles are all the vehicles our team has. Unless we get out, no one goes to work tomorrow, the guy who's flying back from Florida is stranded at the airport and we don't have a ride back to Cold Lake.

It turns out that the lady who stopped has a farm with her husband and kids. And her husband had the tractor out feeding the cows and she'll be right back with him!

But my luck held, as her husband had gone to town to get some tires fixed, and she can't drive the tractor. However, a farm on the next "grid road", which is what the locals call the RGE RD, also has a tractor and maybe they could help us.

Ted the tow truck driver gave me a lift to the farm on the next grid road, but he didn't have a tractor as we could plainly see from him using his truck to pull out a hay bail. Had we tried the Kruegar's, over yonder?

Ed Kruegar said he would help us and went to get his tractor out of the barn. Ted took me back to Kevin, who had given up on shoveling, finally. Ted then left us because he had other work to do. He couldn't pull us out, but he got us in contact with a farmer who could, or so we thought.

Ed's tractor finally gets to RG RD 440 and turns down the trail and about half way down goes off into the deep snow. ...and his wheels are spinning. Eventually, using his front end loader (he was backing toward us) he pulls himself out of that snow and drives back to the grid road turn off. Thank God I didn't get a 3rd vehicle stuck.

We walk down and talk to him. Nice man, had been a pilot in the Canadian Air force for 33 years and had been to Eglin. We asked him for ideas and after trying a trucking company his friend used to own (out of business) and the tower the oil fields workers use (their truck was too far away) he got his wife to call a man who fixes tractors. He wasn't home, but his dad (who used to run the first business we tried to call) was. We talked to him, his name is Carl Pardell (he has 4 or 5 clients from Florida that he guides on hunting trips), and he was afraid to come out with his tractor because the trail is kind of sensitive and the local counsel (whatever that is) forbids people to drive on it.

Ed talked to him (did I mention that I was wearing Church shoes, not boots, and not thermal socks and I was standing on, and sometimes in, snow?) and they decided to call the local council. Of course, my luck still holding, they couldn't reach anyone one on the council (did I mention that my cell phone had started that annoying beeping it does when I run out of battery?).

But they did have a friend who used to be on the council and Carl called him. He told Carl that he could do it at his own risk. I assured Carl that it was my responsibility, since it was my truck going on the trail that caused it and I would appear before any council he liked to admit my culpability, if he would just come and help us, please. He said he would be there in about 1/2 an hour.

Ed stayed and talked with us for a while and I learned a lot about land and mineral rights and the oil business in this province, but we'll save that for later postings.

Carl came. This is what salvation looks like.
It is an 8 wheel MF (Massey Furgeson, for those of you unfamiliar with farm equipment) with a snow plow on the front. First he plowed up close to us, several times backing and filing where the snow was especially deep or loose. The we hitched up a tow rope he brought to Kevin's truck and away they went.
That is Carl towing Kevin back down the snowmobile trail while Kevin attempts to reverse his way onto the section that Carl had plowed. It didn't work and Karl basically just towed Kevin back to the grid road. Good thing we got the insurance on these vehicles.

And this is what it looks like being towed backwards out of a skimobile trail that I never should have been on in the first place. Live and learn.For the record Vicki laughed when I told her of this excruciating 3 and 1/2 hour ordeal.

I finally got to the Church 3 or 4 hours late and took some pictures because no one was there. Came back to Lakeland Inn and took painkiller and hot bath and now have an icy-hot patch on my back.

Thank you to Ted, the lady in the van, Ed and Carl. Good decent folks all.

Stop Signs for Snowmobiles are Full Size

This is important.

Long post to follow. Well after a hot bath, several painkillers and an icy-hot patch.

Sunday Morning Quickpost

On my way to St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Bonnyville. I have called but haven't gotten an answer. I'm assuming that Liturgy is no earlier than 10 am (norm in North America as far as I know) and it is a pretty easy route with no snow on roads (unlike last week).

Thaw continues. Probably ought to post on psychological aspects of this (on me).

Will probably see 300 this afternoon.

More posts after that.

The coveted 100th post goes to

You see the strangest things when the snow starts to melt

9 Today

Happy Birthday to the birthday girl . Wish I was home for your big day today. Yes I used a bad picture on purpose. Happy Birthday.

Blog Update

I have removed all the work related stuff I wrote from this blog. Sometimes, it is not enough to just be careful, and for situations like this it is best to have no question at all. So all of that is gone now and no more will be posted in the future.

Camera

I was snapping pictures like the one on the right here trying to document the chaos caused by global warming on the local Cold Lake bio-sphere. As you can see the entrance to our control shelter melted right away in the 2 consecutive days of above zero sunny weather. I imagine lots of Florida is already under water with this kind of melting going on.

But the odd thing was I noticed that my camera snapped this next picture instead of the one I intended above it. Could it be, could the Global Warming deniers have gotten in and sabotaged my camera to prevent me from bravely documenting the grave damage to our mother earth.

Now we see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

Sunrise

I hadn't seen this very often (actually not at all) during my stay here at the cool pool. Sunrise over the Lakeland Inn.

Apparently there is this big ball of fire behind the clouds and today when they dispersed a little I could see it! It was great.

Just 4 more posts before number 100

What can I possibly have planned for that momentous occasion?

You'll just have to keep coming back to find out.

You don't see this everyday (in Ft. Walton)

And here is the collateral damage caused by global warming of icicles.

The handle of our snow shovel and hoe (we use that for breaking up any snow that turns to ice on the bottom of the snow we are shoveling from our walkway) has become coated with ice from the runoff of the roof icicles and now have formed their own.

Also on the corner of our building is a piece of plywood that has become its own icicle generator.

Take that! Global Warming.

Icicles, continued

This did not start out to be a photo blog, but apparently winter wonderland photos are popular back home. So here is an assortment of icicles on our building today. Better look at them fast before global warming kills them just like the other one.Northeast corner of building
Southwest corner. Note new growth on the former companions of our mascot icicle that was so crudely destroyed my man's insensitve use of carbon based fuels.
This one is just above the entrance we normally use and has sprouted from a break in the gutter.

aitch eee double-hockey sticks

After the mission today (which was our best day, yet) we had some time while we were transferring data for post processing. I took a few pictures of Primrose Lake. I even took one of myself standing on the lake, but I'm not happy with that one so I will have to try again sometime.

As I was taking these lake pictures on this absolutely brilliant day (it was only about 0 to minus 1C when I took these) I was struck by the thought that in the very center of Dante's Inferno is a great frozen lake (Satan is imprisoned in the center of the lake and those who betrayed their benefactors are frozen into the ice).

That was a big surprise when I first read the Inferno, but I never really connected it with frozen lakes like they have in the great white north before. When you are on the lake it is so silent and seems so vast that it is hard to describe.

I learned today that when one of the pallets returned to earth last Wednesday without benefit of parachute and impacted the lake it did not break all the way through the ice, but did break through the top layer into the sludge, or slush we would probably call it. Apparently when lakes freeze like this 3 layers are formed. The top and bottom are solid, thick ice layers while the middle is a wet icy sludge. The 2000 lb pallet apparently found that sludge layer.

Tales from Global Warming

When the ice and snow finally melt up here, what will be discovered underneath. Here we can see a toaster oven rising, Phoenix-like, from a snow where it was lost in white silence, seemingly forever. Yet, now in this age of rapid global climate change, what chance does it have to remain in quiet anonymity. Nay, what chance do any of us have if our carbon footprints keep rising and damaging our planet, revealing her hidden scars like this. Look upon this toaster oven and ask not for whom the timer dings, it dings for all of us (or it would, if it wasn't some cheap flea-market knock off that one of the techs booted into the snow back a while back).

Sunny?

Weather Underground Forecast says sunny next 3 days. I wonder how much of a
melt will happen. Already the (paved) roads are almost completely clear to
the shoulders, something I hadn't yet seen.

Also maybe more wildlife if we get some melt. Yesterday there were wolves on
the range as we were shutting down for the day. None of us had cameras at
the time.

I will take pictures as I can.

Post edited by request

Some Pictures from Great White North

I had some requests for more pictures of the frozen north.Frost forest overlooking the Primrose Lake.
Another view of the frost forest.

Inuksuk

This is just inside the entrance to the range on a hill on the east side of the road in.

It is called an Inukshuk (although the proper Inuit spelling is Inuksuk, hence the title of the post), and it is a milestone or directional marker used by the Inuit of the Canadian arctic for navigation.

When Canada has the Winter Olympics in 2010, it will be the Olympic symbol. One of my co-workers pointed it out. He sees good.

Don't look if you have a weak monitor

Post removed by request

Update:Monday Windchill

Just sitting here blogging while on hold with Proflowers trying to make sure somebody's flowers are delivered on time and thought I would update the wind chill post and address some comments.

• The Canadians are not laughing at me. They were cold and miserable this morning, too. And that's just the hockey teams that were staying in the hotel over the weekend.
• The humidity here (at test time) was 76%. Not a "dry" cold here at all. Which is why the Canadians were complaining, too.

Photographic Proof!

This was breakfast this morning. Yes, once again, I was able to arrange for yellow corn grits to be served at the fringe of the Yukon. Of course, it is the Southern fringe!

Monday Windchill

-29C (-20F)

I believe that it is pretty cold

Hazards of Range Work

Original post removed by request.

New Feature

The weather bug on the right is new. The meteorological people from AETE have been monitoring the weather for our test missions this week. While they were there they installed a new weather station and put it onto Weather Underground. So now I have put a bug on the right giving the current conditions about 300 yards from our main building and control shelter. So this is a much better representation of the weather I'm facing at work.

As I type this entry it is 8 degrees below zero Farenheit, -22 Centigrade (or is it Celsius?) and snowing.

GPS Coordinates for this weather station (and therefore just a few yards from my work spot) are lat:54.75 lon:-110.05 el:2305 ft.

Icicle's Fate

Saturday morning as we got in, the icicle had grown overnight, due to the combination of a relatively sunny day and the warmth of the building providing water and the -12 overnight temperature providing the refreezing .

It even looks like their might have been a merger in the works, as our icicle is sort of bending towards the smaller one on the right. Ominously, though, it can be seen that the corner of the roof, near the downspout is clear of snow and the forecast for Saturday was for a sunny afternoon, with the air temperature rising to 4. Not a typo, that number is positive!

This turn of events was to have devastating consequences for our icicle, which I your intrepid correspondent do not now fear to blog to you, the hopefully interested reader.

Here is the picture from the afternoon, after the mission. The sunny day can be seen in the brightness of the metal siding. Alas, our icicle could not survive such a ruthless onslaught of nature's forces. I had been a global waming skeptic, some might even say denier, but nay, no longer can I deny the destructive forces of climate change on those things we hold dear, such as this icicle.

Who among us is so hard-hearted, to not be moved at this tragic loss? And who among cannot readily see that climate change is too blame.

And hear, dear reader I must ask you to examine your conscience and decide, each and every one of you for themselves whether to look upon this next image. I would be negligent were I not to caution you that this image is so distressing, so disturbing that you may want to turn away rather than be exposed to the very real threat that is global warming. Y-O-U H-A-V-E B-E-E-N W-A-R-N-E-D!

The difficulties of writing this blog

Post deleted by request

Saturday Night

Just a couple of html adjustments to the site. More tomorrow, including the fate of the icicle.

Power Lines??!?!?!!!

The frost point happened overnight so when we got to work today we saw frost over everything. Including the powerlines. I had seen this in Texas and Mississippi as a result of freezing rain, where it often breaks the lines from the weight of the ice. Here the buildup isn't usually so great, and there isn't much freezing rain, but just the frost in the air can coat the powerlines until the sun melts it away (about 3 this afternoon).