Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Sun Dogs

The sub-arctic sky produces some beautiful sights. There have been the atomic bomb sun rises, the etherial shimmering of the northern lights, extremes of night and day. Today I chanced uppon a pair of sun dogs and 3/4ths of a circum-solar rainbow. Ok it was caused by ice crystals high in the sky.






Monday, March 12, 2007

The Seasons of a Geologist

It is winter



It has been winter for a rather long time and will be winterish for some time more. Every thing is still white; the lakes are all covered in ice, with the occasional traffic. There is a lot of traffic in and out of camp as we host crews for the winter road and others. The newest development is the hauling of the 20 year old core form the neighboring camp of Nicolas Lake to here so it can be relogged and all sorts of other fun stuff. 900 down 3 or 4 thousand to go.



It is the core hauling that is the origin of this posting, the work it self is hard and dull, dig out boxes, label, wait for truck, warm up in truck and repeat. I had my camera with me that first day which I used to produce a self-portrait of a geologist in winter. Which is best compared with the other season out here Bugs, or as the optimist would have it summer.







The geologist of winter, note the thick beard, and emerging glacier from the sinus cavity. The ice extends much of the way up to the brain.







The geologist of the other time of year and the frequently found cloud of mosquito’s black flies and occasional orbit of horse flies. Missing from this photo is the less then frequent enough fighter escort of Dragonflies.



I will return with word on my adventures on night shift, and the joys of crushed rock