View of the CCGS Amundsen from a helicopter
This has been a long day. I'm joining the CCGS Amundsen during one of the crew changeovers that happens every six weeks. The Amundsen is a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker that doubles as a scientific research vessel. Yesterday, I flew into Quebec City from Toronto, and today at the airport, I met up with the new Coast Guard crew, a new team of scientists, and a couple of other journalists (a TV crew from the Quebec Weather Network, of all things). The rendezvous was at 4 a.m. at the Quebec City airport, where we boarded a charter flight north to Kugluktuk, (formerly Coppermine) on the north coast of the Nunavut mainland – 1590 kms north of Edmonton. The front end of the plane was filled with supplies – largely fresh food to bring aboard the ship. Given the hour, and the fact that the airport coffee shop wasn't open until the last moment before our departure, the broccoli and lettuce weren't the only things wilting on that plane. The flight was a little late, and there were two stops for fuel in Churchill, Manitoba and in Yellowknife, so it was close to 2 p.m. before we arrived at the tiny airport outside the tiny village of Kugluktuk, Nunavut. I don't know exactly how short the runway is here, but I can say I've never felt a 737 jet brake so hard on landing, and I come from St. John's, where landings in even mildly bad weather are considered an extreme sport.
Helicopter at Kugluktuk
The Kugluktuk airport terminal is roughly the size of a largish suburban living room, and it was packed when we arrived. This must be the busiest day of the year here. Every six weeks, the crew of the Amundsen turns over almost completely. Captain, officers, cooks and hands all trade off with a fresh group, as do the scientists. Much of the old crew had already been ferried off the Amundsen by helicopter (there's no dock here, so it's not possible to board directly or debark directly). As a result, the terminal hosts the hand-off between the old and new teams, and it's a noisy and chaotic affair as critical information is passed back and forth in the brief time between one team boarding the jet back south, and the other team being ferried out to the ship in parties of four on the chopper. Since there are roughly sixty scientists and crew, the chopper makes a lot of trips back and forth over the couple of kilometers between the airstrip and the ship, just offshore.
I took the opportunity to chat with some of the scientists who'd left the Amundsen, as they were getting ready to board the jet back to Quebec.
They looked pleased to see their colleagues, but rather drained by the six weeks of long days and intense work aboard ship. At the airport in Quebec, I'd met Dr. Gary Stern from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He was taking over as the chief scientist on the Amundsen from Dr. David Barber of the University of Manitoba. The job of chief scientist seems particularly challenging. They're responsible for their own research, but it also falls to them to coordinate all the work of the dozen or so other science teams on the ship, with the Captain. This includes planning schedules for instrument releases and recoveries, access to the ship's boats and helicopter, and all the details that would allow the researchers to collect the data they're interested in. Dr. Barber had been working eighteen- hour days for a month-and-a-half, and looked like he was interested in a well-earned rest, but seemed clearly pleased with how things had been going. His team had taken the ship up from Quebec City, across Hudson's Bay and down the Northwest Passage to Kugluktuk. They'd collected water samples, driven through old and new pack ice, and generally had a very successful cruise. Dr Stern was no doubt hoping to do as well.
My turn came for the short helicopter ride out to the ship (my first ever, in fact). It turns out helicopters are very small and they rattle a lot more than you think they should. We arrived safely, though, and were ushered below, as the chopper promptly took off for another run. As I was on one of the last passenger runs, a brigade of crew and researchers started to form, waiting for the helicopter's next return. It soon became obvious why: the food was coming aboard. I'd heard several times before I left that the crew of the Amundsen ate well, and as we passed cases of fresh fruit, vegetables, and dairy along a line of people from the heli-pad to the walk-in refrigerators below, it was evident that they ate a lot as well. And they must have good eyesight, too – I hefted an unreasonable number of forty-pound bags of carrots down that ladder.
Much of the Amundsen's activities over the next several weeks will be revisiting many sites it's visited in the last couple of years. These repeat visits are critical to monitoring the changes in the ocean and terrestrial ecosystems. The scientists will take samples using the many collection systems they have aboard, to get information on the chemicals and salts in the water, and what's going on with ocean microbes, plankton, fish and fish larvae and whatever else they can collect. They'll be retrieving instruments that have been moored on the sea floor for the past year, collecting data. They'll also be mapping the coastline and the sea floor with eyeballs, cameras and sophisticated sonars. A lot of things are changing in the Arctic, and they seem to be changing quickly. Trying to get a baseline measure of the current state of the Arctic ocean, atmosphere and ecosystem will be the chief mission for the next few weeks for these scientists. That will allow them to monitor how things are changing in the future, on further cruises aboard the Amundsen or other research vessels. Unfortunately I'll only have a few days to try to get a measure on how they're working and what they're finding. I'll also have to make sure I don't get in the way too much.
The ship is wired for all sorts of computer use, but communication with the rest of the world is limited to satellite phone. Email goes out by modem over the sat-phone only once a day. I'll have lots of pictures of the trip, but I can't send them over the email connection we have – it's text-only -- so that will have to wait until I get back to Toronto.
P.S. My first dinner on board: potage de crème de légume, boeuf haché avec sauce au l'oignon, chou-fleur, purée de pomme de terre, salade du chef, and tarte au sucre. I may not fit into the helicopter on the trip home.
- Jim Lebans, just off Kugluktuk, aboard the CCGS Amundsen.
