Final Days of Frosty Wonder

Our time in Churchill is coming to an end. I am a bit frantic to get in one last chance to take in all the wonder that Churchill offers. Sometimes it is a small wonder as in these icicle pics, sometimes it is the vast beauty of the frozen landscape, and we even had a picturesque morning with frosty trees thanks to the stillness in the air.

You don’t see many icicles in Churchill during the winter months, but this year brought a few days of warmer temperatures. Of course these days were followed by howling winds. Check out the icicles on the side of this older building. During our last days, Brian noticed (and photographed) this crazy icicle dangling from the edge of the roof. for three days we watched it sparkle as the wind blew it around.

With clear skies on our last days, I took several walks around the CNSC grounds to photograph the snow covered trees and the snow drifts sculpted by the wind. In one of landscape shots below, you can see the soft pink light of sunset on the tundra. The sun was on the other side of the sky, but all around is the gentle blanket of pinkish light.

This photo truly reflects how awesome this snow drift looked. It was very large!

On Tuesday morning as our last group was preparing to depart, I went outside to check some tracks left by a visiting animal- probably coyote. I noticed that the landscape was sparkling in the morning sun. The night before, the flags lay almost limp on their poles. This is such a rarity that I took a photo. Overnight, the vapor in the still air clung to every tree branch as frost. Such a pretty world!

It was our final day, and we headed to town to catch the train. I made one last trip to the beach on the frozen shore of Hudson Bay, and it was definitely getting closer to beach season. I could see the sand! I collected a few rocks for my rock baskets on our porch at Georges Pond in Franklin, Maine. I find rocks much easier to care for than plants

Karin takes her last look at Hudson Bay

This large crack was very close to the shoreline and several feet deep.

My beach buddy Karin and I made one last stop to admire the beluga whale sculpture in front of the town complex. On our walk to Gypsy's to meet the others, we found these cuddly little puppies who were very curious about us.

 We were all meeting at Gyspy’s for a final dinner, and then it was off to the train station to say goodbye to our northern family. It is always bittersweet to leave the north, but I do have the promise of little Charlotte and her new talent for winning smiles.

Auroral Awe- The Lights are Dancing

Brian has been kept busy taking aurora photos during the last week. Right after our amazing light show on Friday the 13th, we had 4 days of blizzard conditions with ridiculous winds. On March 17th, the aurora returned. At suppertime, it had looked pretty dismal for seeing any aurora, but the skies overhead cleared. The winds were still so severe that we dared not go more than a few feet outside the door.

As it turned out, we had a St Patrick's Day with plenty of green in the sky. Even better, there were pinks and purples too! What started out as a mild storm intensified to be the strongest storm of this solar cycle with a Kp factor of 8. That number tells how far south the storm will extend toward the equator. In Sturbridge, I believe we need a Kp of 6-7, but in Churchill you can often see an aurora with a Kp of 1. On this evening,  it seemed we were actually getting less aurora than was expected, but our camera told a different story. Never had we seen this much pink/purple in our aurora photos!

This photo has it all- aurora, rocket launcher, and birdfish CNSC logo!

According to Spaceweather.com, our wonderful skies on March 17th were the result of two solar events happening on March 15th. First a magnetic filament erupted, followed by a solar flare. A magnetic filament is an arc of gas on the surface of the sun that can last for months. It usually erupts and spews enormous amounts of solar matter into space. That is what happened this time.

On all of the following nights we were fortunate to have skies that cleared after dark, and also fortunate to have more auroras delivered to us by the solar wind. This was all from the aftermath of the St Patrick's Day excitement.

On March 22nd, a high speed solar wind stream brought us a spectacular evening of aurora viewing! In the afternoon, Andrew (one of our volunteers) built an igloo with some of our guests. After sunset, the Arctic Skies group had gone outside to view the crescent Moon and Venus setting over the igloo.

It was quite a site to see the Moon and Venus over the igloo, but suddenly an aurora appeared all around the sky. The next several hours were filled with majestic curtains of light. Just before I turned in, there were curtains of light in in every direction. From the corona (looking straight up into the curtain), there was a starburst of dancing light rays. One of the people outside with me commented that it felt like we were underneath a skirt of light.

Brian took this photo at 5 AM, and you can see a promise of dawn on the horizon.

Beach Day at Hudson Bay

One of my favorite places in Churchill is the shore of Hudson Bay. Each year, we have walked down to the frozen bay at the location I believe to be the town beach. Beneath the ice and snow, I can occasionally see the sand on the beach. The shoreline is strewn with large polished pieces of ice. I am not sure if there may be a stone in the center or not. On the day we visited, there was enough sunlight to reflect light on the shiny white surfaces.

This year, we were visiting after three days of incredible northwest winds. Brian and I were sure that the bay must be wiped out of snow by now. There was still some, but not as much as last year. The sustained high winds had created sculpted patterns in the snow, much like what you might expect to see in sand.

You can visit the blog post from last year to see how different the bay looked. Both years, even though quite different, I felt the same awe at the vast sea of ice before me.

At the head of the bay stands a giant Inuksuk. An Inuksuk is a stone landmark built by peoples of the Arctic regions, and they have ancient roots in Inuit culture. This one is a monument of sorts, or so it seems to me. I believe that ones found on the tundra would not be of this size, but I am not sure about that. It is fascinating to read about the history of Inuksuit (the plural of Inuksuk). That could be a whole blog post all by itself.
On the way back to CNSC, we stopped along the shore to take these photos. I think you can see what a beautiful place this is.

Blizzard Worthy of a Blog Post

You can see the trees growing in the direction of the prevailing winds, but today they bent a bit more!

This is our third aurora season at CNSC, and each year we have experienced a couple of blizzards.They have been different from our blizzards at home in that there is often very little snowfall- perhaps as little as only a few centimeters. I honestly don't know how it is even possible to measure the snowfall since all the snow seems to be in constant horizontal motion. Back in Massachusetts, a blizzard usually means a substantial amount of snow to shovel. A typical blizzard would leave 1-2 feet of snow. Our blizzard in January left 3 feet of snow in some areas.

This was the view shortly after sunrise. The top of the halo was not that visible, but the sundogs were spectacularly colorful! Some guests reported seeing rainbows.

This blizzard has been unique to my experience of a blizzard in Churchill. First of all, the wind has been blowing incessantly for the past 60+ hours. The sound is much like the wind in a hurricane. We are fortunate to be safe and warm, so I have been just taking in the whole experience in comfort. The other unique thing about this blizzard is that the sun is shining brightly today. There was a beautiful sun halo with very colorful sundogs this morning. I know that this is considered a ground blizzard, but my brain didn't really process that idea until I could see the sun rising this morning as the winds continued to rage and snow continued to blow into large drifts.

This is one of my favorite views on any given day.

Today I stepped outside of the building (just a tiny bit outside) and found myself almost toppled over by the force of the wind. For the first shot, I actually needed to brace myself with one hand and widen my stance in order to stay upright to snap the photo using my other hand. Now, the wind has swept all snow from some of the open area, and of course there is ice everywhere. I have to say that the reflection of the sun off the ice was so beautiful that I ventured out one more time to take these photos. There was an extra gust of wind in the last photo.

I made a short video which I hope to insert. I took this in the lobby of the Churchill Northern Studies Centre. The video recorded a very realistic copy of the roaring wind and you can see the horizontally blowing snow.

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Tonight we are hoping to see some aurora from the powerful CME (coronal mass ejection) which arrived in the middle of the night. I will have to enjoy that aurora through photos taken in other locations. Perhaps tonight we will see one, but it will have to be indoor viewing if this wind continues. How lucky we are to have the dome at CNSC to observe the heavens in comfort!

Churchill Northern Studies Centre- Check out the dome!

Boreal Beauty- A Visit to the Forest

One of my favorite daytime excursions is a walk into the boreal forest. First, let me just review that boreal means "of or relating to the north". So the boreal forest is a northern coniferous forest. In our area, this means mostly spruce trees with a few larch trees here and there. Also, the aurora borealis is an aurora which occurs in the northern skies. (Aurora Australis occurs in the southern skies)

The boreal forest is also known as the Taiga, and even more appropriately, the snow forest. I found that in Wikipedia, but I have not heard it called that up here. Still, I love the name. It is certainly a perfect name because the trees trap all of this blowing snow, causing it to be quite deep as soon as you exit any open area. I was reminded of this at the very start of my journey!

I had been offered a ride out to the forest with Roger, known around here as Starman. The other guests traveled in komatiks, which are sleds pulled behind the snow machines. Below you should see a photo of a komatik. Roger and I left ahead of the others, but the trail was obscured by all the blowing snow. As it turned out, we were off by just a little, so I volunteered to exit the vehicle and walk back to the ice so Roger could back up the machine. Even though I was walking over our snow machine trail, I sank in at every step. Finally Roger signaled me to come back. I turned and crawled on all fours which worked very well! I guess a polar bear does the same thing on ice that is just forming.

Here is a komatik for pulling about 6 people.

Roger dropped me off with the group who had all entered on the prepared trail. First stop was at the quinzhee which had been built last week. A quinzhee is a big mound of snow that has been hollowed out for an emergency shelter. Two years ago, Brian and I slept out in one of them- a memorable night. As I mentioned in a previous post, there were many twigs poking out of it, and Daniel explained to us that the branches would be inserted 15 inches. That way when you hollowed it out, you would know when to stop hollowing. To demonstrate just how strong it is, one of our volunteers climbed atop it and jumped up and down. I was impressed!

I decided to skip the snow sampling demo which I had seen in other years, and I took the scenic walk back through the forest. Right away, I saw some ptarmigans crossing the snowmobile tracks. These white birds are almost impossible for me to spot unless they are moving. I was not fast enough with the camera, so I am including our photo from another forest excursion.

Walking through the forest is so beautiful and peaceful. First, there is much less wind in the protected area of trees. The trees are coated with snow, and rather than snow blowing off, usually snow gets added to the trees. The word for snow that builds up on branches of trees is called "qali". It may be an Inuit word- not sure. I found this one particular tree with the most beautiful patterns!

Eventually, Roger and Brian caught up to me, and we had some fun with snow angels. Brian was our angel. We made a little video, but that will probably not make the blog.

It was time to walk back over the rocket range and back to CNSC, but not without first enjoying a last look at the landscape.

Aurora Brought by Solar Wind on Friday the 13th

Look for the cloud bank above the horizon.

This will be a Friday the 13th that will live in my memory. It could not have been a more perfect day. If you saw the last post about Bluesky Dogsledding, that was how we spent the afternoon.

At the start of the evening, the weather forecast was not promising at all, and it seemed unlikely there would be any clear skies. There was solar activity expected to be affecting us soon, but if the sky is cloudy, it does not matter how much auroral magic is happening up there You won't see it.

After dinner, I made a quick trip to the dome and was able to see a fuzzy Jupiter, but not a single star. Off I went to a wonderful photography lecture by David Marx. Jim Halfpenny and David Marx are leading a fabulous photography workshop focusing on the art of photographing the aurora. Suddenly we heard footsteps running in the hallway- usually a good sign that there is something worth seeing outside. Well the heavens had cleared, and the stars were magnificent. It wasn't long before a band of aurora was coloring the sky.

Within half an hour the show was on. During the next 3 hours we were treated to almost constant auroral delights. Not only was it a beautiful night sky, but it was a beautiful night down at ground level too. There was almost no wind, and this is a pretty rare thing up here. The temperature was a little above zero, which is also the warmest we have experienced in our time in Churchill.

Throughout the night, we changed lenses, sometimes using the fisheye lens. This lens allows you to take in more of the sky than you could otherwise see. For me,  I love to see the larger picture of the movement of the aurora.

Several Volunteers Viewing from atop the Giant Snowpile

At some point during the night, I walked out to the pond for the first time ever. Members of the photography group were heading out there, and I very gratefully went along with them. I was surprised by the quiet! It really never seems noisy near CNSC, but somehow being surrounded by only the pond and the forest accentuated the stillness of the night. Aurora danced all around us, and at times created a cathedral of light up above. So thankful to be in this very spot on the best Friday the 13th ever!

Look for the Big Dipper in the top center of this photo.

+ChurchillNorthernStudiesCenter