Alert

The following morning we flew to Alert and held for the day. After lunch I went and watched the Ranger parade, it was a whole bunch of snowmobiles pulling komatiks (trailer thingies on skis for those who don't know) full of their supplies. It was fun to watch, some have their names and where they're from written on the side, others had giant furry gloves made from various types of fur (someone once called them Chewbacca mitts!) One guy wasn't watching what he was doing and ran into the guy in front of him that had stopped, so of course his komatik bashed into the back of him, and then it's rope was all tangled around his snowmobile track when he had to get going again, right in front of all the VIPs! They had some Search and Rescue technicians jump out of the Herc as well. All very patriotic, brought a tear to my newly Canadian eye! After that the people went up the hill to see the Rangers and Search and Rescue people set up their little camps and sat phone bases etc etc. We had to wait around for them to "inspect the troops" and have photo ops with the General guy and the other VIPs. After that we flew back to Resolute Bay for the night and then back home to Yellowknife.

Conveniently the Yellowknife and South Africa signs were close to each other on the same pole. The map is showing us it's a good thing we stopped when we did, otherwise we would've fallen of the edge of the earth. I'm sitting on the foot of one of the beds in the Danish tent, with their little kitchen in the middle (it didn't smell very good in there!) The very last picture is of Greenland under the wing.