In the crisp air of the last two days, a strange optical phenomenon has distorted the camp surroundings. Along the horizon in every direction, a warped image of the ice sheet rises up into the sky. This stretched and mirrored mirage is caused by the refraction of light traveling through the intensely cold, still air […]
While wintertime snow rarely falls on this part of the ice sheet, strong winds are constantly relocating snow onto new dunes, and eroding the surface of others. When the wind lifts the snow overhead, diffusing the light of the sun into a flat gray haze, you completely lose your ability to discern variations in the […]
The sun doesn’t rise, in the expected sense. It breaks the horizon, moving laterally, and traces a low path just above the southern skyline. And after it sets, the sun continues its shallow sweep, tracing the same arc, now just below the horizon. The hushed minutes of sunset stretch into hours, each color of pastel […]
For the first week at Summit, the new science techs shadowed the experienced science techs around the research station, gradually taking on their responsibilities. At the end of the week, a pair of aircraft were called in to carry the outgoing crew back to civilization. The new techs scrambled to ask their last few questions, […]
The other two science techs here at Summit, Jason and Yuki, do much of their work in a small building about a kilometer to the south of the rest of the station. It’s located in the prevailing upwind direction, and is isolated from the rest of the buildings to best capture the clean air and […]
The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, …they swung and shimmered loosely with more grace than the most skillful dancer. — Philip Pullman, ‘The […]
Every sightline between Constable Point and Summit–the Greenland coast and the dome of the ice sheet–reveals a world of ice. But even in the ocean-like expanses of the ice sheet, an amazing diversity of textures exists. Both the motion of glacial ice pressing seaward over the underlying terrain, and the action of wind-blown ice particles […]
As on the mornings before, we met at the hotel breakfast buffet to eat cold cuts and cheese, dark bread with icelandic butter, skyr yoghurt, cucumbers. A few folks, gone native, were wolfing down pickled herring and squeeze-tube caviar. A good weather forecast had come in, and as evidence of our optimism, the table was […]
After a week of wandering Akureyri, Iceland and waiting on the weather, our crew received the go-ahead call from the Norlandair pilots, and boarded Twin Otters to fly across the Denmark Strait and up to Summit. The trip traversed several hours of cold ocean, an imposing landscape on the Greenland coast, and finally began to […]
With strong winds and low visibility impeding our travel onward, we’ve now spent an extra four days in Akureyri. Folks wander to the breakfast room each morning before dawn, to wake up, eat pickled herring and skyr yoghurt, and assess the weather. Around 8 am, conversation usually hits a lull, as thoughts turn to Tracy’s […]
From the warmth and comfort of a hotel room in Akureyri, Iceland, I’m staring at my pile of cold-weather gear. Heavy bibs, balaclava, leather mitts. Rugged, well-insulated, reassuring. But I’m also glancing over at a weather report that shows a temperature of –44°C and winds of 15 knots. The report is from Summit Camp, a […]
