JPG: Stories: Photo Essay: When Holga went in the Arctic (Part II/VI)

Photo Essay

When Holga went in the Arctic (Part II/VI)

By stouf

27 Dec 2008

Week 2 (Dec. 27, 2007 to Jan. 2, 2008)

Day 8: 27 December 2007

Position: 71.14.156°N / 124.32.746°W

06:00 – I wake up for the first net. It's too early, I haven't recovered from yesterday, and my arms are killing me. I met Josée in the corridor (Josée, Marc and I are the "zooplankton team") and she told me that she could do the net alone... I felt so grateful. And went back to bed. Zzzzzz....

09:00 – I wake up again. I feel a bit better. I prepared the tripod with Marc.

11:00 – We went on the ice to prepare the ice-camp. We've built a big tent with Ramon and Steeve. We've been quite efficient; in one hour it was ready and steady, with a hole in the ice to sample water from inside of it. Working on the ice is great. We use many toys, like chainsaws, snowmobiles, and shotguns (only the licensed people, of course).

Here are the plans for sampling zooplankton from the ice: We make a big hole in the ice, put a tripod over it, with a pulley in which passes a rope. From one side of the rope, the net goes into the hole, on the other side, a snowmobile lifts it up...

15:00 – We were just back from the ice when the captain started a fire drill... Everyone has to take life jacket and go onto the back deck of the ship. Then, we are divided in teams that are assigned a task. My team had to push the helicopter outside of its hangar... Then, everyone went onto the ice, close to the safety tent. The captain explained to us that we took our life jackets to use them as mattresses in the tent, to isolate ourselves from the frozen ground. In fact I was really wondering why we were taking life jackets... There is no water around us. Only ice.

Day 9: 28 December 2007

Position: 71.21.467°N / 124.57.946°W

08:00 – We start getting prepared for the sampling from the ice. But apparently, this morning is too cold to go on the ice. A strong wind drops the temperature at -58°C. We've been told that we cannot do our sampling because these temperatures are dangerous, so we minimize our work to ensure the sampling hole remains unfrozen. So we went on to the ice and took out the 10 cm of ice that had formed during the night in the hole. It was not so cold, we had very warm clothes and Marc and I thought that we could have done the sampling... But maybe we were wrong. I don't know if we could have stayed out there 2 hours more.

23:00 – I'm going to bed, it's been an exhausting day. I repaired the tucker net. I'm quite proud of what I've done in one hour. Then we did some experiments on zooplankton for our friend Gérald who's in Québec. It's normal; everyone here works for himself, but also for others that aren't on board. I'd like to have a long night of sleep now. Please.

Day 10: 29 December 2007

Position: 71.23.472°N / 125.07.789°W

09:00 – This morning was quite warm (around -20°C) so we went on the ice for sampling. We started by sending a CTD which is a probe that collects the physical parameters of the water while it's going down. CTD stands for Conductivity (which is used to compute salinity) Temperature, and Depth. After that, we did a plankton net. So we used a snowmobile to lift up the net from the hole after it had reached 200 meters depth. I was driving the snowmobile and Steeve was sitting behind me with a radio to keep contact with Marc and Josée who were at the hole. After lifting 170 meters of rope, the snowmobile started to spew a large amount of smoke. So we stopped where we were... Marc and Josée finished lifting the net by hand.

So Steeve and I were stuck in the middle of the ice, far from the ship, with a dead snowmobile, and no one carrying a shotgun. So after 5 minutes of complete peace and freedom in the middle of the ice, away from the normally continuous noise of the ship's engines, we went back walking...

Finally, crew members arrived and took care of the snowmobile. That's very practical, we scientists play like spoiled kids on the ice, and when something breaks, we have great mechanics that repair our errors...

14:00 – We've organized a team to go and take down the tent, because we're moving tomorrow. We're going to a new position. I had almost forgotten that this ship could move.

Tonight is Saturday night, I'm sure we're going to have a lot of fun at the bar...

Day 11 : 30 December 2007

Position: 70.57.902°N / 123.27.884°W

12:30 – I woke up late this morning. Yesterday was a crazy night, we really had a lot of fun... In the morning, we started moving at 08:00. It's always surprising how strong is the noise when we break ice. It's incredible; you really think that we're going to sink... Today was a quiet day.

20:00 – We're stuck in the ice, and apparently, we're going to have trouble to get out of here.

Day 12 : 31 December 2007

Position: 70.58.576°N / 123.28.825°W

07:00 – The chief scientist called us onto the ice to try to free the ship... I didn't go on the ice, but others went, and tried everything they could. Chainsaws, Jiffies, ice-picks... Trying to comprimise the ice around the boat. It looks like we're really stuck. Are we going to need to call for help? I heard the only other ice-breaker around is the Captain Dranytsyn, a Russian Ice-breaker. But it will be very expensive, and a bit an "international shame"... We'll see later...

16:00 – Everyone helped on the ice to free the boat with chainsaws, axes, ice-picks, jiffies, saws and even hands.

16:30 – All engines reverse at full power. Nothing after five minutes... And then... The boat gently slipped backwards. We're free!

Tonight is New Years Eve...

Day 13: 01 January 2008

Position: 70.59.675°N / 123.34.119°W

11:00 – Yesterday was a great night. Just great.

During the science meeting, I was told to go on the ice to prepare a new hole for the net. So I went, and made the hole. Ramon and Steeve helped us again. We were very efficient. We're a really good team, I think.

17:00 – Ramon, Elizabeth and I were invited to dinner at the captain's table. It's a serious moment, but can be fun.

22:30 – It was an exhausting day, and now we have to do a net from the moon pool. So I did it with Josée... Josée looks to start being ill, like flu or something. But still, she works, she's very patient. And she's always smiling. It's a pleasure to work with her. Now, I'll sleep, tomorrow, we're going on the ice for sampling and it's going to be very cold because of strong winds.

00:30 – An incredible noise makes us all jump up and run to the bridge. It's ice that is moving, and the strong wind is also pushing us backward from our static position.

Now we're going away from this compression point... It was a bit scary... Ho, we left all our stuff around our hole. I don't know what is going to happen tomorrow... We've lost everything, tripod, saws, ice-picks and the pully... We'll see tomorrow, I'm tired.

Day 14: 02 January 2008

Position: 71.04.521°N / 123.55.104°W

08:00 – We arrived at a new position. Winds are so strong that temperature drops at -60°C... All operations are cancelled for today.

When you're close to the ice, the wind blows snow on the ice and it makes the same sound that you hear when you pour a sparkling beverage in your glass. It's a very sweet sound, hypnotising you and makes you forget how dangerous it is. I shot two rolls to make doubles with my lomofriends Jelga and Vicuna... I'm still not sure of my exposure times in the bulb setting. We'll see later. I hope I won't be disappointed. So we left our hole behind. I heard that we'll maybe take the helicopter to retrieve the stuff we left on the ice... We'll see tomorrow.

01:00 – I couldn't sleep, so I went outside because I had the hope that they were there. And yes, they were. Northern lights filling the sky, like a colourful dancing smoke. So I woke up Ramon and we had a nice photo session... I still hope my exposure times were good (about a minute or more).