October 1, 2005
Thule Radar Screens
This image was shot about 12 miles from Thule at J-Site - home to a part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System, or BMEWS. These antennas were about the size of a football field and emitted enough EMF to cause my Walkman Pro to slow dramatically as we drove by on the bus. Scary stuff.
If you look VERY closely, (and squint a bit) you might just make out Radio Mast Thule - one of the world's tallest structures.
Posted by thedude at 5:44 PM | Comments (1)
September 22, 2005
Hiking Greenland
Shot on the same hike as seen a few entries ago, the picture on the left shows thedude holding a piece of ice. Why? I guess because ice was so hard to come by in Greenland. :-)
On the right, thedude and friends walked out onto the Greenlandic ice cap and decided to walk "just out to there". The funny thing was that the ice rose up so slowly that the horizon never changed. No matter how far we walked, we could never actually get "there". The Greenland icecap eventually reaches a thickness of more than two miles.
After seeing this shot, I always fantasized about shooting a bikini-clad girl on a beach chair with an umbrella out here on the ice cap, but I could never find a beach chair. :-(
Posted by thedude at 8:17 PM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005
Back to Greenland
Both of these were taken on the day of the big Thule Open Golf Tournament atop Mount Dundas. Along the way on the hike to the mountain, we encountered this cemetery. I wish I knew a little of the history of it. The helicopter was shot from the top of the 900 foot "mountain" as a friend scrambled to set up his view camera. I had one of the most exciting rides on my life in that helicopter - flying full speed 100 feet above canyons of blue ice on the way to the northernmost place I've ever visited. I'm hoping to find those slides for a later post.
Posted by thedude at 8:05 AM | Comments (0)
September 18, 2005
Summer in Greenland
Thanks to recently re-connecting with a couple friends from my Greenland adventure, I'm once again motivated to hunt through my archives for cool arctic images. (Pun intended.)
That's thedude on the left in the summer of 1986 at J-Site - about 13 miles north of Thule. You can't tell from the image, but the cliff he's standing on drops off straight down for a good 500 feet. On the right is a friend cooling off after a long hike - proof that the human body can easily adjust to extremely cold climates. It was no more than 45 degrees in either of these shots.
I sure am glad that I have these pictures. I'm not likely to have an opportunity to see sites quite like these again!
UPDATE: I just located Thule on the incredibly cool Google Earth. (Sorry - Windows only.) If you have Google Earth installed, (it's free!) you can fly there now by clicking here.
Posted by thedude at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
Long Ago in a Frozen Land Far, Far Away...
This week I received e-mails from two people I have not seen in nearly twenty years. The first came from my ex-girlfriend Cheryl. That's her on the left with a somewhat younger and slightly thinner dude. Evidently, she stumbled onto my site while Googling Thule Air Base in Greenland. She sent a link to my blog to another Greenland buddy - Jed (aka Greg Hopkins). That's him on the right. In 1986, we hosted the "Jim and Jed Show" on the "World's Most Northerly Stereo FM Station" - Radio 5-OZ-20 in Thule, Greenland. (There actually was an FM station farther north, in Canada I think, but it was not broadcast in stereo.)
Hearing from Cheryl and Jed in the same week has inspired me to drag out my old Greenland photo album and crank up the scanner. Looking though these grainy old black and white images is so incredibly nostalgic! It's totally cool to have friends from way back then with whom I can share these priceless memories.
Posted by thedude at 5:41 PM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2004
Mount Dundas
One the most distinctive features of the Thule area is Mount Dundas. Once a year all of the residents of Thule climb the 900 foot mountain to participate in a golf game. The object of the game - to get a ball somewhere near the "holes" - marked with a red flag. Lucky golfers were able to get one of their quota of 3 ball within ten feet of the flag - the area marked off in yellow paint. Most players watched as their balls bounced off the top of the mountain never to be seen again.
Posted by thedude at 6:17 PM | Comments (1)
September 15, 2004
Thule Guestbook
Each visitor to Eric's cabin was offered the privilege of signing his one-of-a-kind guestbook. As you can probably gather from what you see here, I was one of the few Americans ever to visit this place. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of the page that I wrote in his guestbook, so I can't share (or remember) what I wrote. :-(
Posted by thedude at 10:22 AM | Comments (3)
September 11, 2004
Partying with Eskimos
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get any cooler, two of Eric's Eskimo friends dropped by for a visit. Eric expected them to show up at around noon, but instead arrived by dogsled somewhere around midnight. Evidently, Eskimos have little need for clocks - especially in the long night of winter.
I don't know the spelling of the names of these two people, but his name was pronounced Cah-go, and hers was Ta-beet-ah. I think they were about 28 years old. He had been educated in Copenhagen but had decided to move back to Greenland after completing school. He spoke Danish and Inuit, she spoke only Inuit, Eric spoke English and Danish, and I speak only English. This meant that anything we shared was translated repeatedly from English to Danish to Inuit and back again. It was really cool to hear my words spoken in Inuit.
The two of them were quiet, introspective, and in no hurry to do much of anything. I asked them what they were going to do tomorrow. They looked at each other for a few seconds and then back at me and shrugged. They had no plans whatsoever. They seemed not even to make much of the concept of today and tomorrow. I asked them where they came from. They pointed into the blackness on the other side of the frozen Baffin Bay. I could not see a thing in that direction, so, I asked them how many people lived in their village. They talked among themselves for several seconds and held up seven fingers.
Eric eventually broke out his Walkman and we took turns listening to Billy Idol's Rebel Yell CD. As if this wasn't fabulous - and hilarious - enough, the hash under glass helped make things even more surreal. (Disclaimer: I never inhaled - and even if I had I'm sure I would not have enjoyed it.) ;-)
Posted by thedude at 2:03 PM | Comments (2)
September 9, 2004
Inside Eric's Cabin
Finally we're inside Eric's cabin! The fisheye lens makes the place look much larger than it really is - a mere 8 feet by 16 feet. The cabin was just tall enough in the middle for me to stand up.
I shot this shortly after we arrived and fired up the stove - the top of which was by now red hot. We drank strong coffee and bourbon while waited for two of Eric's Eskimo friends to arrive from some unknown place. There wasn't a lot to do, and we spent a lot of time in complete silence, but it never felt awkward. (Those who know me well might be amazed to know that at one point we sat accross the table from each other without speaking for 20 minutes!) This place was at once the quietest, darkest, coldest and most remote place I'd ever visited. I feel incredibly lucky to have been here. It was amazing.
Posted by thedude at 9:39 PM | Comments (3)
September 7, 2004
Thule Star Trails
Here's another shot I'm quite proud of. Again I attached the camera to my tripod, pointed it back towards Thule and opened the shutter. I ran back inside the cabin to stay warm during the 45 minute exposure. In the distance you can just make out the unique profile of Mt. Dundas.
Posted by thedude at 10:21 AM | Comments (1)
September 6, 2004
Hotel Thule
You know, it's a good thing that the site is really intended primarily for me. I'm probably the only one who can make any sense of it. I was looking at it again tonight and I realize that my recent entries are all all over the map - no pun intended.
The main reason for this inconsistency is this fabulous scanner sitting on my desk. That in the fact that my old slides are a mess - definitely not well organized. So I thought that I would give you some background and try to make some sense of the pictures I've been posting lately.
Many of you already know that I spent 17 months as a government contractor in Thule, Greenland from 1985 to 1987. Without a doubt the high point of the trip was my visit to Eric's cabin. My friend Eric - a genuine mountain man - built a cabin approximately 8 miles away from Thule airbase. Eric ran the crafts shop on base, had access tools and lumber. Over the years he constructed a cabin in one of the world's most remote locations. I was lucky enough to spend a few days with him in his cabin.
We snuck out during the winter under the cover of 24 hour a day darkness. Eric drove the Honda 3-wheeler and I rode on the dogsled behind him - headphones blasting Jean Michael Jarre all the way . Soon after we got started, I fell off the dogsled and broke a rib, but there was no turning back. If it became known that we had left the base, we would surely have been sent back to the states. (We were confined to the base for nine months of the year.)
The two shots shown here were taken shortly after we arrived. You can see that the temperature is -26 degrees centigrade. Now I know how to calculate Fahrenheit from centigrade temperatures up when they're above zero but to find out what minus 25 degrees centigrade equals in Fahrenheit, I had to consult the Web. The answer? 25 below zero centigrade equals approximately 14 degrees below zero Fahrenheit - far from the coldest temperature I experienced in Greenland but fairly chilly.
More on my trip to Eric's cabin soon.
Posted by thedude at 7:49 PM | Comments (2)
September 4, 2004
Thule Inuit
I rarely saw the native population during my 17 months in Greenland. Fortunately, the air base sponsored a (70 mile!) dog sled race with a grand prize of a rifle. This was enough to attract Inuit families from many miles around.
There was one other much more personal interaction with the natives of Thule - but that's the subject of a later post. Stay tuned!
Posted by thedude at 10:08 AM | Comments (1)
September 1, 2004
Picnic in Thule
By popular demand, (thanks FriskoDude) another image from frozen Thule, Greenland.
This image was made during a winter in Thule. If I recall, it was shot around noon - in almost complete darkness. I set up my trusty Pentax 35 mm camera on a tripod, and painted light onto the picnic table with a flashlight during the time exposure, which - judging from the star trails - was about 10 minutes long.
Posted by thedude at 5:38 PM | Comments (1)
August 22, 2004
Are We Having Fun Yet?
Thule, Greenland is visted by some strong winds. Some say the World's highest measured windspeed occurred here. (See: Burt, Christopher. Extreme Weather. NY: Norton, 2004, p. 249.) During the worst of these storms - known as "Phase Three" storms, sustained hurricane speed winds make Thule a very dangerous place. (See at least the last three paragraphs of this page.)
This shot was taken during a Phase Two storm. Winds were strong enough that we had been ordered confined to quarters, but visibility was greater than zero, so I decided to risk a reprimand by having a friend take this shot from the safety of the barracks.
The storm lasted almost three days, during which we stayed in our barracks, ate "delicious" MRE's and suffered through the dismal programming on A-FARTS.
By the way, if you are interested, there are some beautiful images of the Thule area on this page. They were taken by Jack Stevens, who was the "official" Thule photographer when I was there in 1985-1987, and evidently, might still be!
Posted by thedude at 8:48 AM | Comments (2)
April 4, 2004
The Inuit Mind
I have never understood how it is that a culture who live in a largely desolate environment often completely devoid of color would create such colorful, complex geometric patterns in their art.
I bought these beaded items from an Inuit woman in Greenland in 1986. My recollecton is that I paid five dollars a piece for them. I wish I had been able to ask her how long it took her to make them.
The first piece (on the left) has a single bead which appears to be out of place. This is most certainly not a mistake - more likely the artist's unique "signature". Can you find it? (Hint: The bead can only be seen on the full-size view.)
Posted by thedude at 10:58 PM | Comments (8)
