Homeward Bound

  

Team Icebird24. (from left to right) Jeff, Dwayne, Alan, Kyle, Martin Richard, Nils, Christian and Arttu

 

Day 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24. Preparing for, and departing from the Polar 5 and Icebird 24 campaign.

Day 20 (Sunday 28th April) was a prep and packing day. First up: the corner reflector. There is always a bit of a risk when you leave gear in cold, icy and windswept landscapes for a few days (or more) that it a) blows away, b) is eaten or c) both a) and b). Luckily, the corner reflector remained intact and fcaing due west as we left it a few days before.

 

Jeff and Nils happy that the corner reflector remained intact.

Second;: dismantling and packing up the CryoSAR hardware. This was expertly completed by Dwayne, the aircraft mechanic / engineer who pays attention to the weight and balance equation of the survey aircraft. When equipment is installed or removed, it is essential that the aircraft is complaint and correctly balanced so that there is no threat to the aerodynamic stability of the craft. For such a large aircraft this is generally not an issue but federal compliancy must be maintained at all time. Once de-insalled, the system was warmed up indoors in preparation for packing.

 

The CryoSAR in "warming mode"

 

The system packed up.

Third: farewell to the Polar 5 DC-3 and our AWI and KB team. The Icebird24 campaign was always planned to continue to Eureka, Station Nord and Longyearbyen.  But the CryoSAR was due to return from Resolute Bay. There are good reasons for this parting, not least because the paperwork required for international customs import/export of a radar system such as the CryoSAR is significant enough that we deemed it unnecessary. And so, a day earlier than planned, the onwards team left Resolute Bay for Eureka and more survey flights out over the Arctic ocean, the last remaining ice shelves off Ellesmere Island and some glacier overflights in Svalbard and possibly Greenland.

 

The AWI Team heads to Eureka

As it turned out, the onward flight for the AWI team sounded rather less comfortable than all our previous flights. Flying at 16,000 feet with oxygen and in cloudy conditions, it sounded like we had the better deal by staying at the warm, food-plenty PCSP and awaiting our return flight home. 

 

Day 21 (Monday 29th April) Departure day for Team UW CryoSAR. First thing to do was to navigate the shipping of the system back to Waterloo. Shipping freight from remote communities is straightforward but the freight offices generally only open within 2 hours of an inbound commercial aircraft. And there is a strong encouragement made to show up at the airport for your flight 2 hours before. Since the freight offices and terminal are not always the same, we decided to bring the radar equipment with us to the airport check in and figure it out there. 

 

In the end, the most effective way of shipping the gear was via excess baggage. Which adds stress since we know the stories of checked luggage and airlines. So it was decided that since we had to break the journey in Iqaluit and Ottawa, Ottawa would be the final airline stop and we would drive the remainder of the way from Ottawa to Waterloo. This would avoid the Pearson airport baggage shredder. 

 

CryoSAR and personal check in bags.

So we were ready......and then the flight was cancelled.

Day 22 (Tuesday 30th April) Departure attempt #2. After a added night at PCSP, we finally boarded our flight and headed to Iqaluit. Lucky for us, we were met by Jason, my former grad student from Waterloo and who is now the brew-master and manager at the Nunavut Brewing Company (NuBrewCo). This is the only brewery in Iqaluit so it is something of a unique entity. I cannot think of a more impressive manager for the company and that is so aware of the community needs as Jason and it is super impressive the way he manages the business. 

Jason and his family have lived in Iqaluit for a few years now and we were very fortunate that he was able to show us around Iqaluit. This is the territorial seat of government with the parliament buildings located in town. Iqaluit is perched on Frobisher Bay so it is a coastal town (like the majority of Nunavut settlements) and the sea air is pervasive, even in winter. The town has a lively vibe with people from all over making up its community but according to a fellow airplane passenger, the Inuit community makes up about 20% of the population of Iqaluit.

 

Jason, Jeff and Richard

 

View over Frobisher Bay

 

View over Frobisher Bay

 

A very tasty pilsner from NuBrewCo.

Day 23 (Wednesday 1st May) A day in Iqaluit and onto Ottawa. Jeff and I spent a day wandering around Iqaluit. We were happy to drop in at the visitor centre and the museum, which is in an old Hudson's Bay trading Company house. There are several places to find Inuit art to look at and even buy. And the food offerings, especially at the Black Heart Cafe were great. 

 

Frobisher Bay

 

The territorial mace (narwhal tusk)

At 4pm our flight was due to leave so we mooched our 2 carry on bags, and 8 check-in bags to the airport in preparation for departure. This time, no cancellation and we were on our way to Ottawa where we arrived late at night and booked a room for the final journey home to Waterloo on 2 May.

Day 24 Home. A drive through the Ontario Haliburton Highlands and Muskoka airport set us up for the final ride back to Waterloo. After the highs of flying the Arctic, it was nice to be back but now the real work begins: how good is the data that we collected on those flights and what did we learn for the next time? There will be much interest in the data we collected both from our instrument and also from the systems that AWI flown. But the real beauty will be the science we can do when we put all these data sets together. As I have mentioned before, the data sets we acquired on this campaign are second to none - no one has acquired quite this level of quality data and we feel super lucky to have been able to be part of this effort. We hope we might be able to repeat it in 2025 but in the meantime, there is much work to be done.

....maybe see you in 2025 !