I hope to have a longer post about Hallow'een up soon, but in the mean time I give you photos of my children. Both Travis and Hilary had costumes that they wore at their school parties, but it was a cold, wintery night here last night and we opted for just made up faces and warm outdoor clothing for their trick or treating.
No photo of Hilary's face paint apparently exists...
I remember being a little startled when I first saw a Dandelion up here. There isn't, after all, a lawn to speak of within hundreds of kilometres of here.
I was even more surprised to learn that the Dandelion species that are up here probably are not one of the common introduced species seen in the south, but native species. Uluksan in the fall is one of the best places to find them, which is exactly where we found many this past weekend.
(And while unrelated to the rest of this post I couldn't resist this clump of Prickly Saxifrage and its patterns and colours).
Of course where there are Dandelions and children together two things are required: picking some for mom, and blowing Dandelion seeds everywhere.
Last month my boy turned seven. He is turning into such a mature little kid, surprising me with both his responsibility, but also his joy that he embraces life with. He can be introspective at times, when alone, but he delights in playing with others. And delights mostly in being out of doors, rain or shine there is nothing he likes better. He has a touch of Tom Sawyer about him, getting others to do his tasks for him. I hope that changes with time, but often I've come into our side of the House, to find his friends cleaning his room while he watches TV.
He greets me every morning (and often during the day) with a hug, and although he sometimes pesters his little sister he clearly delights in having her around. Probably the thing I like the most about him is his wonder about the natural world. He has a keen eye for the small lives, and a memory that astounds me.
I missed much of the main part of the celebration of his birth. Once I put out hot dogs everyone I took off to Victor Bay to get Qupik, one of our elders. By the time I drove the four kilometres and we returned five dozen hotdogs and two cakes had been consumed, "Happy Birthday" had been sung, and the presents opened.
As usual there were a lot of games, for adults and for children and a couple of hours later it was done, and the crowd dispersed. All the following photos are Leah's, except the ones with her in which I took using her camera.
Travis wanted two cakes this year, Superman and Lightening McQueen. I'm actually quite proud at how the Superman cake turned out.
There were lots of friends and family, and people for the games.
As it was a rare nice day, everything was held outside between the decks, here is the cakes, and the blowing out of the only two candles we could find.
There were, of course, presents...
and a lot of games...
but who cares, there's a moth over here.
The games were watched with interest by those not participating...
Sometimes very intently.
And when it was over, Leah got to take a well deserved rest.
Okay, I've been lazy. Its been much easier to post photos than to take the time to write anything. And as a result I'm getting farther behind on posts I've wanted to write. It is hard to believe more than two weeks have already past since I had not only a day off, but the opportunity to get out camping with Travis.
By the time we got finished with the client that was leaving, and got organized it was already past supper when Travis and I parked at the dump and headed out to our canyon. I swear, either camping equipment has gotten heavier, and the hill over the dump has gotten steeper, or I'm getting farther and farther out of shape. Travis insisted on his own pack, and carried a change of clothes in it, along with runners, and trundled along merrily. As I watched this school Spiderman pack flop around on his back I thought we had better get him a decent kid's pack if we are going to keep doing this.
After pausing at the top of the pass in order to let my heartbeat drop back somewhere below 200 we got on with the hike in. First order of business was fending off the mosquitoes that accompanied us. This is the first summer that I've been up here that the mosquitoes have been bothersome. I'm not going to say they were bad, almost every place else I've lived has had it far worse in terms of biting insects, but the annoyance levels are definitely up this year.
Travis has a keen eye, and a sharp memory. Through out the walk in he constantly pointed out things he was seeing, every spider on his path, hordes of butterflies, and flowers. If he hasn't seen a flower before he'll comment on it, and if he hasn't seen a flower many times he'll mention when and where he saw it before.
This flower that caught our eye, is not new to either of us, but it is an interesting flower. They are like little patio lanterns. It is the Nodding Bladder-campion (Melandrium apetalum). They seem to relish the moister areas and the company of Sudetan Louseworts.
We saw many butterflies, and here are a but a couple who paused long enough for me to get a photo. The first is Polaris Fritillary (Boloria polaris), the second is the Dingy Fritillary (Boloria improba).
I was relieved to reach our canyon and get the pack off my back. First order of business was for the two of us to drink deep from the cold, cold stream. After that it was a matter of making supper for the two of us, setting up the tent (field review to follow), and then brewing a pot of freshly ground Kenyan Estate coffee.
After coffee I glassed the canyon and briefly caught a glimpse of the Peregrine flying next to the canyon wall. I had no idea it would be my only glimpse of the trip. Soon we were embroiled in all manner of activities, throwing rocks into the river, stick races in the stream, watching birds sing, and going for a bit of a hike up the hill.
Travis was not in the mood to climb it would seem, and we only made it part way up towards the Peregrine aerie. But one of the things we did see, was the largest wolf spider I've seen up here. This first photo is the best cropping of the best photo of her.
This second one, though is cropped to show Arctic Hare poop to illustrate her size. That pellet of poop is about the size of a marble (as an aside I'm now using Arctic Hare poop as a frame of reference for size: "He caught a char that must have been 67 poops in length." I expect it to challenge the metric system soon).
Although we didn't get as high up the hills as planned, there are still some spectacular views from up there. And a profusion of wildflowers, including the beautiful and fragrant Lapland Rosebay.
Once we headed back down to camp we explored a little more down the river, snapping photos and throwing rocks. But Travis announced that he was ready to sleep, even though it was only 9:30pm.
So we turned in, although I knew full well that sleep would not come for me for a few hours, wishing I had brought a book. I laid there, watching my son disappear farther and farther into his sleeping bag, grateful for the opportunity to get out, and spend time out of doors with him.
I soon found it that it wouldn't be much time. About an hour after he climbed into his sleeping bag, a little voice came from inside. "Dad, I want to go home", he hadn't really slept much, was hungry and I think more than anything was missing playing with his friends. So we talked about it a little, I made us something to eat, and we climbed up to near the aerie.
We sat there for a short while, together, and when no sign of either of the falcons came, turned back to camp. I quickly had the tent down , and the pack filled. As he was tired I strapped Travis' pack to mine and with a quick call to Leah on the satellite phone to let her know we were on our way (12:30am) we marched off hand in hand for home.
You'll have to indulge me a moment as I post some photos of Hilary and Travis. The Hilary photos are from Uluksan Point, Travis' are from Victor Bay.
Picking flowers.
Nothing says "Arctic" like a child in an amautiq, picking Arctic Poppies, with an iceberg in the background. Inuksuit be damned.
She had, moments before, just found out that flies can occasionally be found in poppy blossoms. Loud scream, followed by poppies scattered everywhere, followed by tears, followed by dad carefully picking up the flowers and ensuring no more flies resided therein. A smile from that point on was impossible.
What father's heart wouldn't be warmed by the sight of his son running out to greet him with a huge smile.
Outdoors and on a bike, if it wasn't for being forced to have his picture taken by his father there would be a huge smile on his face.
Some tents at Victor Bay.
Poppies overlooking an old qarmaq and Adam's Sound.
That awesome photo was taken by the talented Kennie of Tales from the Arctic, and if you knew how briefly the rocket would be in that frame, once the motor ignites, you would be even more impressed. The rest of the photos illustrating this post are hers, Leah Leah and her brother Terry shot the video.
Shortly after noon, Leah, Travis, Hilary and I, along with two of Leah's sisters, her brother, and two nephews, headed out onto frozen Arctic Bay to launch the rocket. Shortly after we got set up Kendra arrived, camera in hand to record the event for posterity.
The first launch went staggeringly well (and I'm not sure but this may well be the most northernly launch of a model rocket) which made me feel a whole lot better. I had visions of a sputter and then nothing else. Travis didn't want to press the button to launch the rocket, (no I swear, its on tape) and although Hilary volunteered I did the honours.
The rocket is startlingly loud, when it takes off. In fact it did just that, frightened the video person so footage ends right after the launch. It is hard to convey just how quickly the rocket gains altitude, and just how high it climbs, roughly to the height of that mountain pictured behind the rocket a couple of posts ago.
My other big fear, that the parachute wouldn't eject and we'd watch helplessly as the rocket sped into the ground, also didn't materialize, and the rocket spun lazily back to earth. The recovery team ran out to get it before the parachute settled to the ground. It didn't take too much convincing to get a second motor ready and launch it again.
While the second launch appeared to go well it didn't quite. I noticed that it launched at more of an angle than the first rocket. I didn't discover until later, at home, the reason why. During the launch one of the two tabs that secure the rocket to the launch rod came off. This effectively kills tomorrows planned launch, delaying it until we can get another part for it. The other thing that happened is that apparently decals do not perform well at sub zero temperatures. While watching for the parachute to deploy I noticed something orange drifting down. It turned out to be one of the decals from a fin.
All in all it was a very fun afternoon. More photos and the video below the fold.
Continue reading "And the stars look very different today" »
Yesterday my our rocket motors from Sigma Rockets arrived (after traveling several times back and forth across the country before we gave up on Purolater). This weekend, provided the weather co-operates, will be our first launch of the rocket that Travis and I made back in January. Even with one of the two lower power rocket motors we should be able to send the rocket almost to the height of King George, a little shy of 1800' (550 metres). I Travis can hardly contain myself himself.
If all goes well, Travis and I will soon be able to launch a rocket into the cold skies above Arctic Bay. Last week the rocket kit, and launch pad kit arrived and we put it together yesterday. We are awaiting some engines (traveling separately as Dangerous Goods), and a nice day without much wind.
While Travis is excited I think I am more. Is that wrong?
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