5/31/16
A couple of months ago I was hired to be a science technician by Polar Field Services in support of the NSF sponsored research (NOAA, CU, UNAVCO, etc) going on in Greenland, specifically at Summit Station located on nearly 11,000 feet of ice at the top of the Greenland Ice sheet. I had training at NOAA, UNAVCO, and PFS in Boulder all last week. This following some interesting other trainings: Wildlife Chemical Immobilization at the Phoenix Zoo, ArcGis in Gainesville, and Wilderness Medicine First Responder (WFR) at the University of Utah.
I'm excited to have the opportunity to help out the science in Greenland and this job will be great for connections and future jobs; however, I am much less excited for this job than I was for my previous polar positions because it will mean I am away from Elisha for 5 long months, which will be very tough. Greenland is also a lot more remote in terms of communication and internet than Antarctica, which makes it tougher as well. I already miss her!
Today I flew from Denver to Albany, NY where I took a cab to Clifton Park and stayed at a hotel there. I shopped for food for the long flight and then had some food, a swim, skyped Elisha, and then went to bed as we had a 5am pick up the next morning
6/1/16
5am pickup by the NY Air National Guard for a 8:30 flight (LC-130 Hercules plane) from Stratton Airforce Base to Kangerlussuaq via Canada. We stopped in Goose Bay, Newfoundland to fuel up and for a bathroom break. They usually give us icecream at the stop, apparently, but they didn't this time. It was very cold up there and was a shock from hot and humid NY. When we got on the plane, we were informed there was a mechanical issue, so we had to deplane and sit in the little airport for an hour and a half. This time they brought out icecream! We again boarded the crowded LC-130 (no true seats..you sit on hard benches and webbing) and headed to Greenland. There's only 6 windows in the whole plane, but I got to peak my head out for a bit of it to see the cool mountains and glaciers. (see previous blog for pics) Made me wish I could go down and explore.
We landed around 9pm and were briefed in the KISS building (Kanger International Science Support). We were given some pizza and coke and shown our dorm rooms. Fellow Science Tech Elissa (not to be confused with my love Elisha) and I headed out to explore the town a bit. We walked around until after midnight. The sun sets here right now but it doesn't get dark and sunset lasts forever. We got some nice glows on the mountains and fjord in the area. Overall Kanger is a dumpy town with an airport, 2 restaurants (a thai, pizza, beer grill and a cafeteria in the airport), 2 bars (in the thai, pizza, beer grill and the airport) a few curio shops, a small supermarket, a couple hotels, lots of random storage type buildings, and lots of military barracks. It's mostly Danish military here but the locals are Inuit and very friendly. There's unique military history here. The US had a base here during WWII and again took it over during the Cold War as it was an important DEW (Distant Early Warning) site for nuclear attack from Russia. Actually a lot of the bases and settlements up in the Canadian and Greenland Arctic are due to the DEW system. We are now staying in old army barracks for our dorm in the KISS building. About 500 people live in Kanger.
6/2/16
We had breakfast and then went to gear issue to receive our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather Gear). It gets extremely cold in Summit, so Elissa and I made sure to choose our gear wisely. We had been told we'd be able to take a truck to drive the 25km up to the one of the glaciers coming off the ice sheet, but all the trucks were busy all day, so we had to make other plans. There was a tour flight over the glaciers and over the herds of muskox for $140, which Elissa and I both thought was definitely worth it, but we couldn't find the 2 other people needed to make the 4 person minimum. We walked around the town a whole lot trying to find people, but to no avail. So instead we ended up checking out bicycles and biking up to Lake Ferguson. From there we ditched our bikes and hiked up a ridge for nice views of the fjord and lakes. We could also see the large ice sheet in the distance from there. We were hoping to come across some Musk Ox, but did not find any. But we did find some Caribou sheds and bones. Oh yea, that reminds me for lunch I had a pulled musk ox burger and Elissa and Reindeer Stew. It was warm today and we were hiking in t-shirts, but the mosquitos were crazy. The Tundra was just full of them! It's mosquito season here.
Upon Returning to Kanger from our hike and bike, we biked to the other side of town to check it out and then had a beer in the airport bar. We then migrated over to the thai,pizza,beer grill for dinner and a few more beers. I ended up ordering the Panang Curry with Musk ox. Talk about crazy cultural fusion! Very tasty though! The bar was full of Danish military and we watched them play an interesting game of pool.
Elissa and I chatted a lot today on our adventures and she's a pretty cool gal. She's leaving behind her recently serious boyfriend Dan, and I can tell she's very nervous about leaving him for so long. Even more so than me. When we originally signed up for the job, it was supposed to be 3-4 months, but now it's 5, so she's quite upset about that. She's much more scared than excited for being in summit for 5 months. It's good we both have similar feelings b/c then it makes it easier to talk about. In fact, she's so sort of stressed by it, she's considering talking to Matt (our boss about it). Wondering if it looks like her relationship is going downhill if she could leave. PFS is smart and pays slightly less than half our salary each week and the pays the rest (a bit over half) at the very end as a completion bonus, so you lose up to $10,000 if you leave early. Of course we'll greatly miss our sig others, but I think we'll be okay, and we'll settle in. But Summit is definitely the real deal. It will make McMurdo look like a metropolis and it's definitely very isolated and in an area with really 0 topographic/vegetative/feature diversity as it just sits on a giant, flat ice sheet. But if Greenland folks are like Antarctic folks, I'm sure we'll have fun. But will still definitely miss our sig others!
Elissa is a Geophysics undergrad major and Oceanography master's degree person, so she has lots of cool things to teach me. I've always loved Geology and she knows a lot, so that's cool that I can ask her lots of questions. We seem to get along well, which is great b/c we will be working closely together for 5 months. We are the people with the longest deployment (by 2 months) of anyone here. She's an active and outdoorsy person and has worked in the Alaskan Arctic before. But we've definitely bonded in our missing of Dan and Elisha and in a fear of the long, cold, isolated job ahead. So anyways, the good news is we have good humor about it and that we get along well so far, which will be nice for the long run!
Tomorrow, off to Summit Station!
A couple of months ago I was hired to be a science technician by Polar Field Services in support of the NSF sponsored research (NOAA, CU, UNAVCO, etc) going on in Greenland, specifically at Summit Station located on nearly 11,000 feet of ice at the top of the Greenland Ice sheet. I had training at NOAA, UNAVCO, and PFS in Boulder all last week. This following some interesting other trainings: Wildlife Chemical Immobilization at the Phoenix Zoo, ArcGis in Gainesville, and Wilderness Medicine First Responder (WFR) at the University of Utah.
I'm excited to have the opportunity to help out the science in Greenland and this job will be great for connections and future jobs; however, I am much less excited for this job than I was for my previous polar positions because it will mean I am away from Elisha for 5 long months, which will be very tough. Greenland is also a lot more remote in terms of communication and internet than Antarctica, which makes it tougher as well. I already miss her!
Today I flew from Denver to Albany, NY where I took a cab to Clifton Park and stayed at a hotel there. I shopped for food for the long flight and then had some food, a swim, skyped Elisha, and then went to bed as we had a 5am pick up the next morning
6/1/16
5am pickup by the NY Air National Guard for a 8:30 flight (LC-130 Hercules plane) from Stratton Airforce Base to Kangerlussuaq via Canada. We stopped in Goose Bay, Newfoundland to fuel up and for a bathroom break. They usually give us icecream at the stop, apparently, but they didn't this time. It was very cold up there and was a shock from hot and humid NY. When we got on the plane, we were informed there was a mechanical issue, so we had to deplane and sit in the little airport for an hour and a half. This time they brought out icecream! We again boarded the crowded LC-130 (no true seats..you sit on hard benches and webbing) and headed to Greenland. There's only 6 windows in the whole plane, but I got to peak my head out for a bit of it to see the cool mountains and glaciers. (see previous blog for pics) Made me wish I could go down and explore.
We landed around 9pm and were briefed in the KISS building (Kanger International Science Support). We were given some pizza and coke and shown our dorm rooms. Fellow Science Tech Elissa (not to be confused with my love Elisha) and I headed out to explore the town a bit. We walked around until after midnight. The sun sets here right now but it doesn't get dark and sunset lasts forever. We got some nice glows on the mountains and fjord in the area. Overall Kanger is a dumpy town with an airport, 2 restaurants (a thai, pizza, beer grill and a cafeteria in the airport), 2 bars (in the thai, pizza, beer grill and the airport) a few curio shops, a small supermarket, a couple hotels, lots of random storage type buildings, and lots of military barracks. It's mostly Danish military here but the locals are Inuit and very friendly. There's unique military history here. The US had a base here during WWII and again took it over during the Cold War as it was an important DEW (Distant Early Warning) site for nuclear attack from Russia. Actually a lot of the bases and settlements up in the Canadian and Greenland Arctic are due to the DEW system. We are now staying in old army barracks for our dorm in the KISS building. About 500 people live in Kanger.
6/2/16
We had breakfast and then went to gear issue to receive our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather Gear). It gets extremely cold in Summit, so Elissa and I made sure to choose our gear wisely. We had been told we'd be able to take a truck to drive the 25km up to the one of the glaciers coming off the ice sheet, but all the trucks were busy all day, so we had to make other plans. There was a tour flight over the glaciers and over the herds of muskox for $140, which Elissa and I both thought was definitely worth it, but we couldn't find the 2 other people needed to make the 4 person minimum. We walked around the town a whole lot trying to find people, but to no avail. So instead we ended up checking out bicycles and biking up to Lake Ferguson. From there we ditched our bikes and hiked up a ridge for nice views of the fjord and lakes. We could also see the large ice sheet in the distance from there. We were hoping to come across some Musk Ox, but did not find any. But we did find some Caribou sheds and bones. Oh yea, that reminds me for lunch I had a pulled musk ox burger and Elissa and Reindeer Stew. It was warm today and we were hiking in t-shirts, but the mosquitos were crazy. The Tundra was just full of them! It's mosquito season here.
Upon Returning to Kanger from our hike and bike, we biked to the other side of town to check it out and then had a beer in the airport bar. We then migrated over to the thai,pizza,beer grill for dinner and a few more beers. I ended up ordering the Panang Curry with Musk ox. Talk about crazy cultural fusion! Very tasty though! The bar was full of Danish military and we watched them play an interesting game of pool.
Elissa and I chatted a lot today on our adventures and she's a pretty cool gal. She's leaving behind her recently serious boyfriend Dan, and I can tell she's very nervous about leaving him for so long. Even more so than me. When we originally signed up for the job, it was supposed to be 3-4 months, but now it's 5, so she's quite upset about that. She's much more scared than excited for being in summit for 5 months. It's good we both have similar feelings b/c then it makes it easier to talk about. In fact, she's so sort of stressed by it, she's considering talking to Matt (our boss about it). Wondering if it looks like her relationship is going downhill if she could leave. PFS is smart and pays slightly less than half our salary each week and the pays the rest (a bit over half) at the very end as a completion bonus, so you lose up to $10,000 if you leave early. Of course we'll greatly miss our sig others, but I think we'll be okay, and we'll settle in. But Summit is definitely the real deal. It will make McMurdo look like a metropolis and it's definitely very isolated and in an area with really 0 topographic/vegetative/feature diversity as it just sits on a giant, flat ice sheet. But if Greenland folks are like Antarctic folks, I'm sure we'll have fun. But will still definitely miss our sig others!
Elissa is a Geophysics undergrad major and Oceanography master's degree person, so she has lots of cool things to teach me. I've always loved Geology and she knows a lot, so that's cool that I can ask her lots of questions. We seem to get along well, which is great b/c we will be working closely together for 5 months. We are the people with the longest deployment (by 2 months) of anyone here. She's an active and outdoorsy person and has worked in the Alaskan Arctic before. But we've definitely bonded in our missing of Dan and Elisha and in a fear of the long, cold, isolated job ahead. So anyways, the good news is we have good humor about it and that we get along well so far, which will be nice for the long run!
Tomorrow, off to Summit Station!
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| Musk Ox Panang Curry |
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| pronounce that |
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| How Elissa feels a bit |
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| on our hike |
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| classic females |
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| reindeer soup and pulled musk ox burger |
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| cute cabins scandinavian style |
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| lake with ice sheet in the distance |
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| Kangar |
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| ice sheet |
1 comment:
What language do they speak there?
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