Back in Eureka

Here lies the laser, in its final resting place.


We made it to Eureka yesterday, but to catch up on things up to now...
Caribou is delicious! 50$ Gets you caribou, salad, homemade fries and a Heineken for supper for one person. Definitely something I was glad to do once while in Yellowknife. This is at Bullock's Bistro, and the atmosphere there is super cool. It's a small place, and the walls are covered with pictures, postcards, stickers, and writing from people who have visited.

From Yellowknife we flew with Bernard and Mike from EC up through Cambridge Bay and Resolute to Eureka, getting in just after suppertime. We started working early this morning up in the lab. We're here to take out the old laser and put in a new one. Here are Bernard and Mike.

Today we managed to dismantle and remove the old laser. The laser weighs around 3 or 400 pounds, so we had an A-frame crane brought up which we assembled and used. We (including Matt the Operator who helped us all day) are now pros at assembling and dissembling that frame and moving heavy things on it. It does not fit through doors assembled, but needs to be in the laser room to put the laser onto a dolly, and the needs to be in the garage to put the laser up in the truck, etc etc so long story short, we have the operation down to a science. This is good news, as tomorrow we will be installing a heavier new laser which comes with much more dire consequences if we drop it. Such as it is not already broken, and therefore we care whether it becomes so during installation!

After supper we went outside to play on the beach. The ice just broke up this week, but there are still plenty of chunks and mini-icebergs floating around. I have also confirmed that the Arctic Ocean is in fact very cold.
Wildlife seen to date:
- Muskox (with babies!!!!!)
- Arctic Hares (lots and lots and lots and I have a video I might try and post some other day)
- Plovers (I think. They were doing the broken-wing-distract-interfering-humans-away-from-my-nest thing.)
- Other birds. Will have to look these up but they were cool. Altogether we saw at least 3 to 4 different kinds of birds.