journal3

Arctic journal continued....

July 14, 1996 Sunday in the Park at Agate Fiord
Moving day at last! And what do we come to find at our new home? Fog as far as the eye can see and fiord full of the biggest icebergs you ever did see (well, since I had never seen an iceberg up close and personal, they really were the biggest I had ever seen. This thing in the picture just screams, "CHECK ME OUT! I'M COOL!" We wouldn't find out how cool until the day we were supposed to leave.

July 15, 1996
On a clearer weather day, the icebergs are just all that more visible. In typical fashion at this campsite, the sun waited to make an appearance until the evening hours. We're on the beach, it's colder here because we no longer have all the ridges to block the weather. We had another set of philosophical discussions over dinner and somehow the topic of rushing into the sea like lemmings and me screaming, "I don't care if there's fog and I can't see, I'm going to drill the section!" came into play. We've been away from civilization for way too long.

July 21, 1996 And on the seventh day....
All the students rebelled, stripping their tents and dancing around the bonfire made from the burning of the sacred wooden crates. The skies opened and there was much rain and snow. And all that could be heard was the faint static of the radio flaring to life and the words:
"Two-six, this is Agate Fiord. Resolute, we have a problem..."
Welcome to Okey-Dokey Swamp. This is what happens when it rains four days straight. Our little stone path literally disappeared under the water. Just wait until the snow arrives. Two days later, we awoke to John whistling 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire' and 5 inches of snow around the tents.

Okay, technically this shot belongs a lot farther up on this page, since this is from our recon work at the Agate Fiord site. We hiked up the back of the section (last picture) where we found an igneous sill at the base (the knob to the right). We hope to use the samples collected here for paleointensity experiments. Even farther up (in the distant background) is the ridges formed from the salt intrusion of the Otto Fiord formation as well as the Isachson Ridge. Huge pieces of gypsum were falling off the ridge like giant snow balls.

August 1, 1996
"This is the sign!" "It's a sign alright... going out of business."
It is a bad omen when you have two clear days of weather in a row. I guess this means we won't be getting out on the 3rd. No bone bed here, though we did find a gastropod bed and a conglomerate layer with tree trunks in it (literally, tree trunks). But, the others are getting the last of their measurements for their mapping project here, and we get to spend an agonizing afternoon re-packing all the boxes and guessing their weight.

August 5, 1996 On the road again....
Oh, hail the mighty prophet! Not only did we not get out on the 3rd, we barely made it out on the 5th to catch the plane at Resolute, with 40 minutes to spare. Nothing like cutting it to the last minute. However, this did afford us the opportunity to check out the Otto Fiord formation that had been taunting us since we arrived at the site, and get a few more scenic shots in before the flight out.
My last journal entry in the field was on the 1st; it seemed taboo to write of not leaving while we were stuck there.

It is a rather strange feeling to be in long underwear and a zillion layers at 9 am in the morning, mourning over the loss of your helicopter to another camp, and be in the middle of a heat wave at 9pm when you've landed in Ottawa, Canada. We made quite the impression on the hotel attendants at the Radisson. I wrote my final journal entry on the plane ride to Ottawa, pausing to watch the sun actually set, a sight I had not seen in nearly 6 weeks.

So, there you have it... an edited version of my field journal with illustrations to match. I've spared you the gory details of field latrines, runny noses, mud in every possible receptacle, as well as the unexpected little pitfalls that we are told are supposed to build character. Hope you've enjoyed the ride.
Rory D. Cottrell

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