D'Iberville Untouched

Eli has been having a lot of fun with my new travel camera, and he's been sending me some more pictures when he has a chance.

Today, he had a bit of a break because the planes were not able to fly.

Too much snow!

These are some more pictures from his Father's Day day-trip to D'Iberville, which reminds me of Tess of the D'Ubervilles a little bit.

Eli:  D'Iberville was an arctic research station last inhabited in the early 1990s. 

The Top of the World

Eli is, quite literally, at the top of the world.

Until the end of the month, Eli is in Alert, Nunavut, which is the northernmost permanently inhabited place on Earth by humans (and not elves). 

Alert is on Ellesmere Island, which is a little hard to imagine as an island because the ice around it is a polar ice cap.

The permanent population is 0, however, it is a military and scientific base, and so there is always some personnel up there. 

All of the Canadian territories boast of being North of latitude 60. 

Yellowknife is precisely 62°30' North, and we are about 400 kilometres from the arctic circle, that invisible line where the sun is up for exactly up for 24 hours on the summer solstice and down for exactly 24 hours on winter solstice.

Right now, Eli is above latitude 80 (and just so you know, 90 is as far as the scale goes). 

Alert is at latitude 82°30'05" north, and is 817 kilometres from the geographic North Pole and Santa Claus, although Alert is actually North of the geomagnetic North Pole, meaning that compasses would behave oddly there.

The girls are beside themselves because Eli is SO close to the North Pole!

Ten Years Ago, Today

Ten years ago, June 16th fell on a Monday.

On Tuesday, my good friend Jody was going to have her wisdom teeth pulled out, and I was her chaperone.  She needed one, trust me.

June 2003 marked the end of my first year of teaching.  That year, I taught third grade 60% of the time, meaning that I only taught Wednesday through Friday, so helping Jody out as she lost her wisdom was easy to fit in.  We were both done report cards and looking at a sunny summer ahead of us.

I lived waaay out in Shad Bay, so I was planning to sleep over at Jody's apartment on Hollis Street Monday night so I would be able to get her to the hospital on time and not have to worry about inbound Halifax traffic.

Of course, as Monday evening approached, Jody wanted to go out to celebrate her last night being wise.  You know, just "in case" something happened and we couldn't go out until the weekend.

Catching Up: March, Part 2 AKA Family March Break Vacation

I'm not going to comment on my lack of blogging. 

I'm just going to write, because that's the best way to write.  One letter at a time.  Tap, tap, tap...

This is the Big Burning Thing (official name) on Great Slave Lake during the Long John Jamboree, near the Ice Castle (March Break).

The build it up and then light it on fire to watch it burn.  It was fun.