Monthly Archives: February 2010

For a month or so in the spring and fall the sun’s trajectory became very shallow – barely rising above the horizon and before setting again. The cool thing about this process is that it took a long time, so moments like this lasted for hours.

I didn’t notice all of the antennas when I lived there. Wonder what they were all for. We had no Internet (Times were tough in the mid-eighties!) and just one TV station — the always thrilling AFRTS.

The distinctive Mt. Dundas was a popular destination during the brief summer in Thule. Carved from the landscape by ancient glaciers, the thousand foot high pile of rocks offers a spectacular view of the confluence of three huge glaciers. I’d love to see the place now, although it might be depressing to see how far the ice has receded.

In Thule, everything was built above ground. Buildings rested directly on the ground — held in place by heavy concrete slabs. Utilities which would be buried underground or carried on telephone poles in warmer climates were exposed to the elements. I can’t remember if this is due to the hardness of the permafrost or to prevent it from melting. I suspect the latter.

In the distance, Mount Dundas is clearly visible.

Every few months one of us discovers a cache of negatives in some far corner of our storage space. This always propels me into a scanning frenzy. However, the scanning and retouching process is so time-consuming that I’m pretty picky about what I scan. This image didn’t make the first cut or the second. The negative didn’t look like much, and I had no recollection of even taking the shot. I had some time to waste last night, so I did a quick preview scan of the image and I was blown away.

As soon as I saw the image appear on my 30″ display, I was transported back to the moment I shot it back in 1985. Now I can’t stop looking at it.

I took this picture thinking my friends and family might be interested in seeing Thule, Greenland at high noon on a typical winter’s day. I can still taste the cold calm.

Current weather conditions in Thule, Greenland.

It turns out that Facebook is actually good for something — finding old friends. Normally, I don’t even want to connect with any more old friends, but when I found Pete, it motivated me to fire up the old scanner and send this shot to him.

Pete was my next-door neighbor during my stay in Thule, Greenland. We took a bunch of once-in-a-lifetime shots, including this fisheye view of him lounging with a cool beer on the Greenland ice cap. Right after this shot was taken, Pete returned the favor.