(If you just want to see the pictures, start scrolling)

During July 1999 I was in the North Canadian Arctic for the entire month as a part of a geological field expedition led by Professor John Tarduno of the University of Rochester (Professor Tarduno's Arctic website). Seven hundred miles from the north pole, and far north of the northernmost Eskimo settlements, our team of 5 hardy (and whiny) souls -- Professor Tarduno and four students -- stayed at four different localities on Axel Heiberg and Ellesmere Islands (marked above in order). The four camps were all roughly at 80 degrees North latitude. For the geographically challenged, let me put that into perspective: Barrow, Alaska (the northernmost point in Alaska) is only at about 71 degrees North. And Barrow, I presume, is mad cold. Heck, Rochester is way down south at 43 degrees North, and it is mad cold. Everything north of Florida seems to be mad cold. Too bad that plate tectonic processes are so unbearably slow; otherwise, I'd find a way to get America nicely centered on the equator. Hey, there's plenty of room in the Pacific.

The immediate response I receive 95% of the time I tell people I was in the Arctic is this: "WOW! Cool, the south pole? No! The north! Wow. That's amazing.... (pause) ....Now what in the world were you doing there????"

Good question. One that I wish that I could answer myself. Well, I had better give it a fighting chance because if Professor Tarduno ever stumbles upon this page, I need something to prove to him that I wasn't in it just for the cool helicopter rides! So, here goes: if this doesn't make sense, take heart. I don't get it much either. Professor Tarduno is a paleomagnetist and, in keeping with the complexity of that word, he studies all the things that one can study about the remanent magnification of rocks. When igneous rocks are cooling, or when sedimentary rocks are deposited and begin the lithification process, magnetic minerals in the rocks become aligned with the earth's magnetic field.... never mind. Nobody who will be reading this will care anyways! Getting to the point: the purpose of the jouney was to collect all kinds of rock samples (dating to the Cretaceous) that are useful for paleoclimatic information and dating purposes. Professor Tarduno is interested (through the sweat, blood and tears of grad student slave labor) in increasing the knowledge of the climatic record of the Cretaceous period. For the geologically challenged, Cretaceous = a very long time ago.

Without further ado, THE PICTURES:

Here we are Christina (blue), Karrie (purple), Pete (yellow). I (Doug) am hiding behind the camera. This is at our first base camp. The six 150-pound boxes full of food and rock-drilling supplies had been waiting for us when we arrived there. Rice, pasta, Tang mix, Milky Way bars, NutraGrain bars, oatmeal. That was our grub. Milky Way bars essentially amounted to currency up there, and were far more valuable than the dollar. There were nights when, under the influence of my growling stomach, I nearly offered Karrie 5 dollars for her Milky Way bar. Now look to the right; see that white thing? That is our communal tp, complete with metal green shovel. Talk about a Port-o-Let! And an entire ISLAND to find a good place. All that was missing was a good newspaper to read. Finally, see the rocks on the box lids? They were supposedly for keeping the wolves out of our food. Don't ask me why wolves are bothering to live so far north. I pity the poor creatures, seeing how there is nothing to eat except for lichen and lemmings. But that doesn't mean I'll let them into my MilkyWays! Forget that.

PETER! He is probably contemplating how the heck he got sucked into coming up to the Arctic. Below him is Glacier Fiord, frozen over.

Our Helicopter. Courtesy of the Canadian government (at a nominal price of 1,000 bucks an hour.... thank you U.S. taxpayers!). It took us from camp to camp throughout the month. We moved our heavy boxes of grub and supplies with the sling that hung from the belly of the chopper. Attaching this sling was interesting: as Karrie is demonstrating below, one simply hooks up the sling to the chopper hovering directly overhead, and then runs away really fast before something really bad (like death) happens. Then the chopper flies away with our 900 pounds of food and equipment hanging below it.

Why was the chopper cool? Because you could fly over rugged, pristine land that (very, very) few humans have ever seen. This picture is of a river on Axel Heiberg as it rushes to Glacier Fiord. Now this is the problem with Arctic rivers: you get up in the morning after a cool "night" (no, it never did get dark when we were there), and you cross a narrow, shallow river to get to the field locality where you pretend to investigate rocks all day. The sun blazes during the afternoon, the temperature reaches to the mid 40's, and by the end of the day you return to find the river twice as wide and twice as deep, swollen by glacial melt. You consider crossing for a moment, but the rumble of boulders heavier than you are in the stream make you think again. Well, this is exactly what happened to us with this stupid river on our second day in the Arctic. We ended up hiking downstream for over a mile to find a (moderately) suitable place to cross.

Here we are flying over Thompson Glacier on Axel Heiberg. Check out the smaller glaciers flowing down from an ice pack in the background. Cool, right?

Pete again. The yellow tent was our home for a month. Yes, one month. In a 36 square foot tent. No, it didn't small all that great. I mean, what can we do about that? We can't shower, and we are working 8 hours a day, and the Arctic is dirty. The tent will smell. But it is not like we didn't try to remedy it! You know those scented Baby Wipes? They make wonderful air fresheners. Just hang one up at the top of the tent. Martha Stewart would have been pleased.

See those little dots in the lower right hand corner? Those are our tents at Camp #2, near Expedition Fiord on Axel Heiberg Island. These were our stomping grounds for 12 days or so. The photo is taken from a nearby ridge that Pete and I climbed.

The first evidence that I was actually in the Arctic and that I am not just pulling this out of nowhere! That is me, complete with glacier, river and rock. Since I lack anything else to comment on, let me use this opportunity to speak to all you guys out there: hey, if it is a wide selection of ladies you are looking for, don't go to the Arctic. It's just not the place to be. Go somewhere else. And while I am at it: girls, if you are looking for a handsome, intelligent, compassionate, self-sacrificing guy, don't go to the Arctic. The field is slim, and mainly consists of boorish mining prospectors and scientists who are too busy doing science in the Arctic to spend time with the family they left behind in the States.

Here I am again (or at least my outline), now above the glacier that was seen in the background in the last photo. My advice to guys out there still stands.

In camp, with that same glacier in the background. You can see the four tents, right? Well, the yellow and blue tent that looks really expensive and is far separated from the rest is, predictably, Professor Tarduno's personal mansion. The four of us were not allowed to get within 10 meters of it. I would wager that he had all the fixings in there: television, VCR, Internet, good food, lots of Milky Way bars. The other 3 tents are all of the exact same North Face model. But beware of attempting to equalize these three tents! That would truly be an egregious error! Two of these three yellow tents are indeed equal in stature: they housed the two girls and the two guys, respectively. The third tent though.... oh, man, the third tent. Condemned from the beginning, a goat amongst sheep, the third tent was christened the "GhettoTent". We allowed it to survive only because it housed our equipment and our rocks. That is it. We all did well to condition ourselves to avoid the GhettoTent at all possible costs. The GhettoTent is in the right foreground for your viewing pleasure. Look while you can, because it is liable to be obliterated from existence at any time.

Transitioning to other things that have been obliterated from existence.... Pictured to the right of the hammer is a backbone of a champsosaur, a crocodile-like dinosaur. For the paleontologically challenged, dinosaurs lived long, long ago. In the Cretaceous. Such champsosaur fossils were the subject of a paper Professor Tarduno published in the esteemed "Science" magazine last year. Yes, I was the one who found these bones....

.....but Karrie found cooler things. She found a complete, gorgeous turtle shell. Big one, too. If you ever want to see it, the turtle shell will probably be in an Edmonton museum within a couple of years. Here she is checking out something that Pete thinks he found. Karrie was the teacher's assistant for this journey, and we always went to her for the answers so as to not annoy Professor Tarduno with our ignorance. Karrie is very knowledgeable! This is how the conversation is probably going.... Pete (or Doug or Christina, as the case may be): "Karrie, I think I found something important. What do you think this is?" Karrie: "Hmmmm.... it's nothing." (and then Karrie tosses the rock in the river and life continues).

MORE COOL CHOPPER SHOTS! Glaciers moving at Sanjeev pace....

Twin Otter plane, with underinflated tires that allowed us to land anywhere the ground is flat. That is all the gear that we brought up, including tents, personal stuff, shotguns, clothes, books, a radio, etc. We had just landed on Ellesmere Island in this picture, about to go to Camp #4.

I am writing a letter to my best friend in the whole world, Sanjeev. And check out my facial hair! Yeah, this is my first ever beard. You don't know how long I have been waiting for one of these. I remember coming to school on the first day of 8th grade, and seeing a couple of my precocious classmates sporting thick goatees. Ever since then, I have wanted to have a beard. It took nearly eight years, but alas.... The yellow dot on the far right are the tents at Camp #4 on Ellesmere Island, 80 degrees and 38 minutes north.

On the night of July 31st, we pulled out of Camp #4 and moved all of our stuff to Eureka, a Canadian military base. I showered (as did the rest) for the first time since the end of June. Going without a shower for a month wasn't half bad. You get grubby for three or four days, and then just stay at the same level of grubbiness after that.

Our parting shot, before leaving Eureka and the Arctic to travel back to Rochester. Professor Tarduno, Karrie, Chris, Pete, and myself. Guys, my advice still stands. Do you see any girls in the background? No. Just rocks. And ice.