-56F Windchill and Goodbye to the mortgage

Brutal day up here as the windchill is in the -50 region, locally blowing snow horizontally, and the blizzard forecast overnight had the Churchill scouts' overnighter called off as no one knew if the roads would be open. Just another day in sub-arctic paradise.

We had geared up all day for the scouts with Laura the cook on her feet literally all day and we got the cancel call only 30 minutes before we expected them to arrive. The worm and dirt cake is now in the freezer as an experiment to see if when it thaws out next week it will be edible and whether we'll be able to insert the worms.

On the positive side my cribbage buddy Roger "starman" arrived bearing a box of Tim Horton donuts and new decks of cards plus a new game Crib Wars, a cribbage game with penalties, shortcuts, etc. Looks interesting.

Aurora forecast for tonight is good but we need the clouds to cooperate by going elsewhere. The week-long photography group arrived today and are quite anxious to photo the auroras and get out to the landscapes. Maybe fortunately their bus did not start after lunch and the hood would not open - going out in -50 windchill is not conducive to anything, it's hard to get your mind to focus when you are thinking frostbite and "how long will it take for me to die if the bus won't start again?"

It must be "bring your daughter to work" week as both Nick the Polar Bear expert and "starman" have their daughters coming up. Nick's will probably get to fly in the helicopter out to the mama and cub bears, lucky girl!

Linda got to spend the night in town Monday so was able to get some kitty love. We do miss our cat Bailey.

Let's see....what do I have for new pictures?

Aurora along southern tree line, unusual location for us

 The auroras are usually overhead or to the north of us. First time I had seen them this far south. And it turned into quite a lively display later in the night. The Earthwatchers were almost delirious! I'll try to post a timelapse and a few more pics in the next post.

Next two pics are of day or two old tracks (at the time a week or so ago) of a mom and two cubs crossing the road on their way to the Bay. Note the two sets of tracks on the right.

Mother polar bear and two cubs trekking towards Hudson Bay recently

Why did the polar bears cross the road? To get to Hudson Bay

So, the thing to remember is that there are always bears around. This time of year it is the mother with the newborn cubs. And she is hungry not having eaten since December or so. And you would look quite tasty. Mike, the CNSC director, told me a story of following such tracks into a wooded area which is unusual for mother bear and cubs and he kept just getting closer on the skimobile when he decided to get the heck out of there. Circumnavigating the tree island he determined that the bears were still in it so he made the right decision!

Valentine's night full moon rise through low clouds

 With a Valentine moon setting the stage like this, you know the night was right for ....

Just another ho-hum aurora pic over the old launch facility blockhouses

 Taken the same night on the southern side.

The Earthwatch group was hot to build and sleep in an igloo and did. Construction took longer than expected. Note the mailbox and the barely visible Shell logo on top of the igloo. Many of the Earthwatchers that come up in the winter are sponsored by Shell.

 

The igloo built by the Earthwatch group

Inside of igloo with 8mm lens

Donna our other volunteer with near full moon and aurora

Oh, and what was that about the mortgage? Yup, we paid the final installment today. Long haul what with college, cabin foundation and other repairs, a wedding, and more. But all well worth it.

Mortgage going up in flames

Bonus post - 4 second moonrise with aurora video

Playing with the camera doing a time lapse of the full moon + 1 day (full moon was Feb 14) which from the outdoor observation deck overlooks a frozen pond usually swept to bare ice by the winds. So I shot 122 pics at 10 second intervals - 1220 seconds = 20 minutes approx. Then using Timelapse Assembler, a free Mac program, the 122 pics were made into a 4 second video.

What was neat was that there was an aurora on the right hand side going on which I couldn't see but the camera did!

So here are the videos, one a MOV which is of better quality than the MP4. If you don't have a Mac and your Windows machine doesn't place MOV videos, I suggest you get VLC which is a gold standard for viewing all formats of videos and audios plus it is free. Here is the link - just make sure you are downloading for Windows or Mac as the case may be.

Also check out a still photo at Spaceweather using this link. I think it will work.

And here are the timelapses:

A post a day....just a pipe dream

Well, all my good intentions of posting on a regular or daily basis are as ethereal as the auroras. But, with renewed resolve and a tipple of Southern Comfort, I will try again. I'll also try to include a feature of Past Events of Note and Not So Noteworthy.

Let's start off in the wee hour of 0200 (that's 2 AM, learn your 24 hour time everyone) when 14 hours ago the knock came at the door from the Earthwatch aurora watcher that the lights were on. Now this was supposed to be a possible big Valentine's aurora so up we got, Linda to the dome and me to my camera to go outside. Linda, being the saner of us two, quickly surmised it wasn't worth loosing sleep over and went back to bed. I, however, ventured outdoors only to discover the same thing but was jolted wide awake by the cold which wasn't really too bad as there was no wind. There was also no aurora. Minutes and seconds can count in aurora hunting. But, others were up, had actually seen some weak green streaks, so I with hope decided to stay up for awhile (0200 to 0400 can be a good time usually), help people with their cameras, and did get a few shots  although nothing to write home about although apparently I am doing just that. I'll update this later with a pic or two.


Tonight, VD +1, there is an expectation that there will be a nice show and it is still clear so I took a good nap in preparation and to make sure I didn't fall asleep doing dishes at dinner from last night's deprivation. See tomorrow's report on how that went. Update: rats, just read this on Spaceweather.com: STORM WARNING: As expected a "cannibal CME" hit Earth's magnetic field on Feb. 15th at 1300 UT. However, the impact did not spark a geomagnetic storm. Storming could still happen, though, as another CME is en route, due to arrive on Feb. 15-16. High-latitude sky watchers should remain alert for auroras.  We'll have to see tonight!

Igloos - today the Earthwatch team set out to build their igloo with gusto and a lot of hand warmers. They plan to sleep in it in teams of three over the course of the next week. Linda and I, having done it last year, plan to provide our lessons learned: take a large 1 gallon wide mouth mayo jar and don't be bashful as you don't want to get dressed just to go outside to pee.

Note Miss Delicica in foreground who I found in RustyBear geocache nearby

mining the blocks with handsaw

Muqpauraq dogs for lunch. Muqpauraq, better known to us as bannock, being a staple of early explorer's basic food is an unleavened baked bread. Wrapped around a hot dog with mustard it is quite good.

Past Events of Note and Not So Noteworthy: Valentine's Day (oh, no, you won't hear the best part of that day) was a nice day for a walk so I took my two women in Inuit fashion and we headed out to take pics and go to the RustyBear geocache. Finding the cache is easy as I've been there before but no one had been to it since Oct 30 2013 while under armed guard during bear season, Picked up another woman while I was there name of Miss Delicica but see above igloo pic so you don't think I had the best Valentine Day ever. It was Donna's first time....finding a geocache. And we bumped into mischievous snow people.

Linda and Donna

Donna's first time at a geocache

Snow creature, one of many

unknown track

Linda get's her brows frosted

Well, that's it for today, promise made good (this one's for you, Fred), and we'll see how it goes.