blacksmithden's arctic adventure - picture intensive

My latest venture into the north landed me a few degrees above the arctic circle. Goose Lake, Nunavut to be exact. It's an exploratory drilling camp. There's nothing else there. Just the camp. First I flew to Yellowknife. I'll start the pictures there. Yes, they PAY me to go to these places !

The first commercial plane to fly into Yellowknife



If you ever saw the TV show Ice Pilots.....that's the place. We stopped in their tourist trap gift shop on the way back, and old Buffalo Joe himself walked out and chatted with us for a few minutes. It was tempting, but I just couldn't bring myself to ask for a groupie picture with him. LOL.



I had to hop a ride up to the camp on a cargo flight. No passenger flights avalable.


At least I had the waiting room to myself.



More pics in the next post.....

 

The inflight movie was kind of boring. It was something about a couple of pallets of explosives and some pipes. LOL



I got the whole passenger area to myself...BOTH SEATS !!!


My sexy flight attendant could use a little work.



Remember in grade school when your teacher told you there's a line that runs all the way around the world called the arctic circle ? THEY LIED. I checked. There's no line ! LOL. This was taken just as we went over 66 1/2 degrees north.



More to come......

 

My luxurious castle



See the table my bags are on ? Yeah...that's not a table...that's a bed.



At least they gave me a 4" chunk of foam to sleep on.



They must have thought I was an art thief. They took down all the pictures before I got there !


More on the way.......

 

The reason I was up there. Tracked drill died. You break.....Me fix.



A few random pictures from around camp







Still more to come.....

 

Nice of 'em to include a night stand right next to the "bed".

 

My ride to and from work




These are called sigsigs. AKA the arctic ground squirrel. They're all over the place up there.


Note the emergency shelter in the foreground that's located about 200 ft from camp. They're all over the exploration site. When a storm whips up, it's -60C outside, in total whiteout conditions that often last for days, and up to a week...that's home. There's a generator, a small heater, and provisions inside. If you decided to try and walk the 2km from where the quarry is, back to camp in weather like that...you-are-going-to-die. Simple as that. I've talked to a few guys who have been stuck in them for days. Apparently 6 guys holed up in one for a week a couple of years ago. No choice.



More stuff on the way

 

Awesome trip, thanks for sharing the journey!

 

You want to know was pure bald, untouched Canadian tundra above the arctic circle looks like just as the first snows are falling....well there it is.











MORE ?!?!?! Sure......

 

HEY !!!! Who's the idiot standing out in the middle of a loaded blast pattern ?!!?! Oh wait....


And this is where I was standing....the next day.


They are three animals up there that are big enough to have bones this big. A musk0x (saw about 20 of them while I was there), a caribou...only saw one, or a barren land grizzly (the boys chased one out of the quarry while I was over at the camp). They're too small to be a grizzly, so it's muskox or caribou. Sorry...I'm no bone expert. Polar bears are hanging out about 60km north of there at the marine laydown area. Fortunately, we're far enough from the ocean at this camp that we don't have to worry about them wandering around....not that a grizzly is much better, but an 8 ft bear is better than an 11 ft bear in my books.


Oh yeah !!! I almost forgot...my heat source in my little paradise castle. Nothing but the best at this camp ! LOL





You guys want MORE !!!! Ok...here's a few videos.

 

What are they drilling for?

 

Me picking around in the bones



Wait for it !!! Wait for it !!!!


Just a little camera panning around.


One last look around by the lake in front of the camp


There's a couple more.....

 

Going back to camp for the night


Turn up your volume. A flock of ptarmigan walked through camp at 5am and woke me up. They'd moved out the shack area by the time I got my pants on, but I got a few good shots. They're noisy little things when there's 20 of them squacking away right beside your head.


Ptarmigan - part 2



And one final one. This little guy had been making this same run, non stop, for days, when I shot this video. He's stealing insulation from one of the buildings for his nest. All of the other arctic critters are going to be jealous of his R22 den this winter. LOL.



Well.....I hope you guys enjoyed your little touch of the Canadian arctic (last week anyway).
Cheers !

 

H3ll yeah!

 

Those birds are as bad as Guinee fowl...noisy lil buggers! (any good to eat? )

Thanks for the ride along Den...

 

Ok..one more video to show what all the fuss is about. This is a down hole drill boring holes in the Canadian shield. What do we do after we've got a bunch of holes drill down 15 -20 meters ? We fill them suckers with explosives and blow the livin h... out of it !!! LOL. All they're doing in this quarry is blowing rock into gravel for road building because they don't have a crusher. Making gravel with explosives is expensive, but it's still cheaper than buying a crusher, and flying it up piece by piece. To give you an idea of what things cost by the time they get it to camp. Diesel fuel goes from about $1.20 per liter to $18.00 per liter. That chopper....yeah...it costs $2800 per hour to run it. The camp itself...well....let's put it this way. If you were throwing $100 bills into a fire one at a time, they wouldn't burn fast enough to keep up with the spending that goes on in an arctic exploration camp looking for gold.

ANNNNYWAY.....here's the drill I was working on slamming in it's first hole. Not too exciting, but at least you'll get an idea of what it looks like.

 

Thanks for sharing this, very interesting.

 

I have never seen a cyclone on a drill before.

 

A part of the world that few of us will ever get to see. Thanks for sharing the pictures and commentary with us.