17 August 2007

The Adventure of A Lifetime

Posted by Dan Satterfield

I did something this Summer I have wanted to do all my life. I went to the High Arctic. The first two weeks of August found me in the High Arctic of Canada and Greenland. Not just near the Arctic Circle but 1000km North of it!

Climate change is showing up better in the Arctic than anywhere else and I wanted to see it for myself. So, for two weeks I was on an expedition aboard the Russian vessel Akademic Ioffe. I will write more about it and post some of my more than 5000 pictures in coming weeks.

The Arctic can be a dangerous place…. I was over 1000km from the nearest medical facility. (We did have a Doctor aboard.) It was without doubt the most beautiful place I have seen. The one thing I will remember about the Arctic more than anything else, however, is the quiet.

The quiet is hard to explain but trust me when I say that I have never experienced anything quite like it. Another strange thing is getting used to 24 hour daylight. This seriously confuses your body clock, and you find yourself trying to fool your brain into thinking it is night!

So, that is where I have been, and I will tell the story in words and pictures on this blog and in September we will do a 2 or 3 part series on air showing the places I visited, and talking about the issues of climate change in the High Arctic.

Later,
Dan