DAY 20 continued (Arctic Fashion: An aside about seriously cold weather gear.)

The colder it gets it seems, the more extreme and bizarre the clothing out here gets. Most of the guys wear huge rubber boots for starters with obligatory rubber and metal ice studs attached, massive company sallopets and jackets (if they’re riggers) or their own companies if they’re from one of the other 5 sub contracting companies out here. This array looks pretty bizarre in its own right, turning even the most skinny person into Michelin man, but it’s the face/head wear that really gets you. Helmets are adorned with hundreds of stickers (the riggers are like kids with sticker books, I kid you not. Collecting and incredibly proud of the stickers they get given from each job and company. We get well hassled for Discovery stickers, I tell you. They would do anything for them. Unbelievable how childish some of these great hulking macho men can be.)

Then there’s the masks – some of them have half neoprene masks that just fit over mouth, chin and neck – these look a bit disconcerting, kind of cyborg or dirt biker ish – with just multiple little holes instead of a mouth; others have full face with just eye and mouth holes. The mouth hole is usually a triangular downward flap open at the bottom - which looks a bit like a beak - but effectively stops the wind hitting your mouth. These are the ones that are seriously frightening. They look like a cross between the elephant man and Friday the thirteenth- they make any one look like they’ve stepped straight out of a horror film. On top of that they then put on goggles and multi coloured safety specs – very Mad Max and kinda cool.

Then there’s the icicle fashion craze, most people get frosty eyelashes pretty quick out here (you can feel them freezing together as your eyes water in the wind), some get frosty eyebrows if they’re particularly bushy, but the real genius look is the icicle moustache or beard. One guy who’s got a massive soup strainer was sporting a 2 inch icicle bogey off his ‘tache – no joke. (I just had to interview him, even if it’s a shit sound byte its worth it just for the record breaking ‘tash icicle.) Your mask inevitably ends up covered in a dusting of frost as the moisture from your breath freezes. Take off your sodden mask, wet from your panting, for a minute and try to put it back on and its gone from wet and warm to frozen solid. Similarly take a bottle of water outside and leave it in one of your outside pockets and with in 5 minutes its also frozen solid – no joke.

Obviously – we wear two pairs of gloves – one inner / one outer – all the time, quite often with hand warmers shoved down the ends to stop our fingers getting frostbite. Imagine operating a fiddly multitude of buttons on your camera in that. We’re also wearing inner long johns, fleece long johns and down sallopets, inner thermal top fleece top and massive down jacket. Silk sock liners, thick wool socks, - 100 degree inisulated boots. Full head neck and mouth covering face masks, goggles and I’m wearing my Russian rabbit fur hat with the jacket hood over the top. And guess what – it’s still fucking freezing !!!!!! (although I don’t have my snood – neck warmer – on.) Sorry I just had to get that word in.

Actually the gear is awesome – Sam and I – in our all black matching gear with gun leg holster style bags – look like Team Discovery. We’ve had lots of requests to leave stuff for people already.

Check out the photos and see for yourself.

It is also very time consuming. It takes about 15 solid minutes to get togged up anytime you want to get out – and if you forget something and have to do anything inside with your gear on – you start sweating in seconds. This is bad news because it means your heat transfer rate shoots up (water is a very good conductor) so you lose body heat way faster, when you do finally get outside.

DAY 20 continued : Feb 1 - (An aside about Spin Drift).

The computer’s still shaking as is the whole camp from the ferocious storm going on outside. It feels a bit as if we’re sheltering inside a discarded pilchards can from a full on hurricane ‘cept with shit loads of blinding snow thrown in for good measure. The door outside my room which leads to an anti chamber before opening on to the outside world is very draughty as are the windows even though the generator is pumping out serious heat. The anti chamber has almost entirely filled with snow already. The spindrift (or snow) here is so fine, light and moisture free, (remember this place is a desert) that the snow blows into everything. Door cracks are easy, spin drift gets through sealed cool boxes – a guy told me a story about putting a mini cool box inside a large cool box and leaving it in the back of his pick up – both boxes were packed full of snow within 24hours! This shit gets everywhere. Apparently the wind can blow for 4 days solid here, moving the snow from one place to another en mass, creating 10 ft snow drifts and, sometimes burying entire camps, before the wind stops and there’s a day of calm, and then it picks up again, blowing in the opposite direction for another 4 days and blows the snow right back where it started from!!!!!!! I tell you this place is nuts. Other times a little chink in a camps’ seals can lead to an entire room being filled with snow from floor to ceiling almost over night !!! Nothing you can do ‘cept dig it out.

One things that’s cool is when you stand infront of a light you can see the twinkle of millions of icy particles flashing between you and the light. Take a picture with flash and it looks amazing.

Well, its official we've got a Phase 3 shut down. No one's allowed out of the camp for non essential work. The whole camp is rattling with the wind now, and its sounds like someones got a sledge hammer and is battering away outside my wall (the shutters are a bit loose.) Snow is piling up at the windows and doors so much so that, we can barely see or get out. (this makes it a little bit claustrophobic - could we actually just blow away?) but also exhilarating. Its best not to think about how all our lives are relying on a couple of tiniy generators - and god knows how much fuel they have !!!! cos nothing's coming in or out until this blizzard (80 mph + winds) stops.

DAY 20

Woke up this morning to feel the wall next to my bed shaking violently. Guessed it was the wind which was blowing about 45mph yesterday and was supposed to pick up. Sure enough, filmed the night shifters for chatting during their break straight after my meagre breaky and the wind was up to 70 / 80 mph !!!!! Got some great actuality of them shooting the shit about the horrific conditions and our lead character Robbie saying he really doesn’t want to go up the derrick. (Don’t blame him – who would want to climb a 100ft steel tower in that! Plus he’s limping bad from a fall on metal.) Filmed them all getting garbed up in their mad max masks and goggles, and filmed a couple leaving the camp. Oh my god. There were eight feet snow drifts that had appeared over night. You couldn’t even see the rig with the exception of a couple of very dim lights, and its only 75m away. In fact you couldn’t see jack shit, except swirling spin drift everywhere. Trying to walk through it is an adventure all of its own, its such a white out that you keep stumbling and falling over snow drifts, your goggles iced over – take ‘em off and you have sideways ice flying into your eyes. Every bit of skin has to be covered – or you risk frost bite fast. At this wind speed (80mph) and temperature (-20 f) you get an ambient temp of around minus 70 odd – and that means frostbite. The worst thing is that although it feels cold to start, after a little while the pain goes and you may think it’s warmed up. Unless you’ve started actively warming it or getting circulation back to it, this actually means that the nerves have died. First it’ll go white, like a burn, and then if it’s really bad it’ll swell up huge, before going black and withering up and ultimately dropping off – although they tend to amputate. NASTY.

Very nearly lost my hat filming up on the rig, whizzed off and I had make a dash after it. Fortunately, it fell behind a building and out of the wind, otherwise it would have been gonner for good.

Although, it sounds harsh this is exactly what we needed to liven the program up. To get a proper character arc we need to see our central characters develop and this is usually represented by a down period of particular struggle and difficulty. They need to go through this so that they can rise to it and come out triumphant – so that they can develop on screen (even if they don’t in life!) I guess its kind of the middle – in the beginning-middle-and-end story line. Actually in film terms there must be a name for it and it probably comes later – like 2/3rds through. Think of Rocky being beaten, before intensive training montage and coming back against all the odds to win at the end.

Yes, our programs on this series are that cheesy. Quite tricky getting reality to dance to your tune, but if you film enough of anything and you’ve got a good editor you can make it look like whatever you like. (I don’t feel too bad doing this, because you know we’re gonna make em all look like heroes in the end.)

Today was great, our lead man started cussing and swearing at his bosses, threatening to quit and absolutely hating it – perfect for us.

Now all we need is the triumphant overcoming when he successfully climbs the derrick to fix the rig, and all his critics come round and congratulate him. We’ll see if we get it naturally otherwise we may have to induce it.

Well its official we've got a Phase 3 shut down. No one's allowed out of the camp for non essential work. The whole camp is rattling with the wind now, and its sounds like someones got a sledge hammer and is battering away outside my wall (the shutters are a bit loose.) Snow is piling up at the windows and doors so much so that, we can barely see or get out. (this makes it a little bit claustrophobic - could we actually just blow away?) but also exhilarating. Its best not to think about how all our lives are relying on a couple of tiniy generators - and god knows how much fuel they have !!!! cos nothing's coming in or out until this blizzard (80 mph + winds) stops.

day 18

Sorry Diary, it’s been a while. Been working really hard.

Had a bit of an accident today. The winds been steadily picking up, and hit about 45mph by evening time, so we got some great footage. At one point they were lifting a giant wind wall (corrugated iron surround) for the pipe chute – as part of their winterisation of the rig. They were using a lifter and the wind wall was blowing like a parachute, everyone was running around with lines trying to hold it down, and the tool pusher was barking orders – all very exciting. I was up on the second level of the rig getting aerial wides and decided I needed to mic up the tool pusher and started running downstairs. Next thing I know I’m on my arse slipping down the icy stairs and the cameras gone up about 3ft before falling another 13. Oooooops. Ivy RIP. She was in pieces, focus totally fucked, bits hanging off. Oh dear. My favourite camera, and also the most reliable and – embarrassingly – the last working camera left that we bought with us, out of 3. Not a brilliant record although the others were showing faults just from the cold not from our misuse, I don’t think.

Really sorry cameras fucked, but ultimately more grateful I didn’t break my arm or anything – one of the problems with this weather is that no planes can fly in or out, so we’re basically stranded out here with no medi vac, even if we desperately needed it. God forbid the generators went down. This place would turn into a freezer – and they’d find us all after the storm iced like popsicles in the chiller cabinet.

Spent the evening feeling a bit stressed, dismantling Ivy screw by screw trying to get the motherfucking tape that was stuck in it out – it had some great soundbytes on it. If Ivy wasn’t trashed before, she is now. Hope this doesn’t fuck the guarantee.

Filmed GVs in the steadily gathering storm for an hour or two before bed – nothing much going on outside in terms of work, but the rig site looks amazing in this weather.

DAY 17

Filmed a company called ‘Fairweather’ putting lights down on the emergency runway they’ve completed on the frozen lake. Good news is that it means twin otters can land for medi vac, supplies and ferrying of the workers (including us, I hope) to and from the site – instead of on the 16 hour rolligon ride from hell. (6mph for 12 plus hours lurching from side to side.)

The bad news is I don’t much fancy the idea of getting in a plane on a frozen lake.

Sam beat me at chess.

DAY 16

Woke up very late (11am) – having had more sleep than a rolligon driver gets in a week – spent the day logging ‘cos we need to get our heads round the material – that way we can stop shooting blind, decide on our storylines and film very specifically with those in mind which is time saving in the end even though we have to log over 40 hours (and growing)’s worth of footage.

Although Sam followed Justin to the landing of the first plane on the runway (a twin otter) – a possible moment of jeopardy in our B story – the ice runway, I spent the entire day at camp.

Although did film a sequence of the Emergency Spill Supervisor trying to get the satellite TV work for Superbowl Sunday (a little docu soap storyline we’re following). It looked great with him struggling with the satellite dish on the roof in 40 mph winds, a helmet on that had a massive stars and stripes design on. With his ear protectors folded back on to the helmet, he looked a bit like mickey mouse. Very surreal, but very American sequence.

DAY 15

The One And Only Illustrious Magneto and His Amazing Static Hands

All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy. All work and no play makes Ralph a dull boy.

Really miss Kel, it being a Friday an all.

Sam beat me at chess.

DAY 14

Got woken up at 6.12am this morning by one of the crew, letting us know that there was some major activity going on in the rig build. Shit – it’s come to being woken up by the crew and told to get up…… ooops. Managed to get out and film them lowering the rig floor into place, looked pretty good, too. Few major characters starting to develop on camera as well – particularly a couple of very young and cocky junior riggers, in their mid twenties, who are well keen to be on camera and are always acting up and pissing around – ideal characters in fact. (Tommy and Robby: see attached character sheet.)

Wasn’t lent the use of a car today (dunno know whether this coincides with us getting it stuck yesterday – supposedly not, although I have my doubts) which meant we wasted loads of time trying to blag our way out to the lake to film the surveyors or the hydrologist checking ice depth on the runway which is an important element of our B story. While waiting around for our lift, we watched an immense sunrise – the whole sky went from green and grey blue, to bright blue as half the vast incandescent orange sun rose ever so slowly over the horizon. At first it was just a thin line shimmering through a haze across an ocean of rippling ice. Within half an hour it was huge. We watched a flock of grounded ice chickens (as I call them) which appeared from nowhere, sit and watch the sunrise with us. (They’re actually called Turmagens and they’re kind of cute the way they fluff up their feathers to keep warm and wander round in sociable little groups.)

Had a successful afternoon, after blagging a lift out to the lake in the back of the surveyor’s pick up. Got whizzed around, skiing on the back of their skidoo trailer, (camera on for POV shots) and interviewing them as they laid out the runway and drilled the lake to take measurements. Then managed to cadge a lift in the hydrologist’s rolligon, before he palmed me off on Bobbie, the ice building supervisor. Felt a bit like a hot potato (something to do with the camera?), the surveyors probably the only ones who wanted me around, but got some good shots of the hydrologist, too as he stalked through the thick fog wielding a high pressure hot water hose, that constantly steamed like a wand of smoke. The rolligon it was attached to slowly rolling along behind him like some kind of tame dragon on a lead emerging out of the fog. Vapour from the half frozen slush rose from the freshly flooded, frozen lakes’ surface. Bluebird drillers loomed in and out of the fog in the back ground. Amazingly atmospheric.

Got some shots of Bobbie watching worried in the foreground – he’s very friendly but genuinely seems a bit distracted by this famous scientist turning up to check his floating ice runway – normally he enjoys being filmed, he said.

Had to cut the filming short because poor Ivy (my camera) got steamed up on the inside of her lens) and was forced to head back to camp.

Sam, my AP (assistant producer) joked he was worried I’m going nuts, because I’d started referring to Ivy as a person. (Although, actually, cabin fever, depression etc seem a million miles away. I’m loving it here and the program’s going well.)

Watched another Ep. of Vincent - OK.

Beat Sam at chess.

DAY 13

Stumbled out onto the slope around 9 this morning and bumped into the surveying team – which is handy because we were hoping to film with them. We even managed to catch them unloading their skidoos which is perfect for the program. Think we’re gonna cast them as a kind of cross between James Bond baddies and a scientific big brother, zipping around on Skidoos before passing judgement on the depth of the ice on the runway. They’ll provide a jeopardy point for the B story, in that Bobbie has to meet their requirements for the runway to be signed off so that it can land a Herc.
They looked the part too with their crazy masks and hoods on and uniform snow gear, back packs of mad GPS equipment with huge antennae strapped to their backs, roaring past on skidoos. Sometimes one skis on the back of the skidoo trailer while the other drives the skidoo. Very cool. Unfortunately, we followed them out to the ice lake and tried to follow them onto the uncleared runway, and within minutes had run aground on a huge, but almost invisible snow drift. Driving around on a frozen lake in a giant pick up by ourselves was frightening enough, but getting stuck and having to get the hydrologist (another boffin checking ice depths on the runway) in his personal juggernaut sized rolligon to pull us out of the deep snow was more than a bit embarrassing.

So the day proved a bit frustrating. We did manage to grab some shots of an arctic fox (not sure whether its rabid or not) which we could incorporate into a C or D Story about dangerous animals in this remote wilderness – if the idea of these super cute white little critters being at all savage (rabid or not) didn’t seem quite so fucking laughable. I think part of the extreme warnings we’ve got about the foxes is probably to do with the whole of the US living in thrall of the ubiquitious compensation culture.

Still, overall we seem to be cracking along program-wise, bound to have some down days. Really enjoying myself here either way.
Went running, before supper (although the treadmill is making horrendous noises.) Watched an episode of Vincent with Ray Winstone on DVD – not bad.

Sam beat me at chess.

DAY 12

Up at 6 – shows what a motivater guilt can be. Still managed to miss our main team’s safety meeting. I guess they get up at 5, which is just pure masochism. (I’m not getting up at that time however much they pay me). And despite getting up early all we did was send a few emails (mostly non work related) and wait for one of our contributors to finish his conference calls – which I found particularly hard having just had a cup of strong US coffee. (I never drink coffee normally but there ain’t no tea facilities here, so I don’t have much choice.)

The guy is the supervisor for the ice road and ice runway building, so he’s quite senior which meant despite my ancy-hyperactive-ness I couldn’t hurry him up. Anyway, he turned out to be a really nice guy. He spent the entire morning showing us around his operation and got pretty relaxed in front of the camera, which helps.

Basically he’s in charge of ice building. He built the ice pad upon which the entire rig site sits, camps and all. He also built the 5 mile ice road that connects the rig site to the lake where the water comes from. (They have to use ice to protect the tundra, otherwise none of this would be possible.) His final job is to make an ice runway for a Hercules airplane on the local lake. I kid you not!!!!!! They are going to land one of the largest and heaviest planes in the world on an iced over lake, and then to top that they are going to load it with really heavy shit (the dismantled rig). The sheer audacity and balls of these Americans beggars belief. But when you start to think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense.

When the operation here is finished they have to get the rig about 200 miles north for another exploratory drilling mission before the short drilling season ends, and summer comes. Since there are no roads, it’s too far to build ice roads, and the rolligons only go 6 miles an hour and would take 3 days for just one load, they have no choice but to fly it.

At the moment the lake is 3ft deep and they can only land the Herc on 6ft of ice – so they have these crazy looking mini moon buggies, (one of which we bought out on our rolligon journey) called Bluebirds, with giant drills on the back that are light enough to drive on the ice as it is. These drill through the ice and suck up water to flood the surface of the lake. Each time they do this the water at the bottom of the lake is converted to ice on the top. (Don’t worry they leave enough water for the little fishes). They also have mini dozers to work on top of the thin floating ice, flattening the thickening water.

On another part of the lake the ice is thick enough and the lake shallow enough for it to be grounded, so all the really heavy vehicles are allowed to ‘farm’ this ice. This means that they shred it with a weird lawn mower like thing pushed in front of a large bull dozer, which creates ice chips or cubes (‘kinda like a giant margarita’ as our guide put it). These chips are transferred to other grounded areas (like the loading pad for the Hercules or the twin otter runway). Another huge machine called a blade then uses its snow plough to flatten the chips into ice, adding further water to solidify the chips into a smooth surface as it goes.

The lakes are also the only large and relatively flat areas that exist in the tundra – so I guess they don’t have much choice. You gotta admit it’s a smart idea though – kinda like turning your arch enemy into your allie.

The runway building, like everything here, looks amazing. The space age Bluebirds melt in and out of the thick ice fog within feet. The water they flood the frozen lake with, trickles slowly across the snow melting each tiny crystal and creating clouds of vapour as it goes. The whole scene has a seriously surreal and dream-like quality, like standing in the middle of a cloud, watching space ships docking. The buzz of standing next to relatively heavy machinery on thin-ish ice over 23 ft of deadly cold water adds to the sensation. The lights on the mini dozer diffuse in the fog and create shafts of yellow, which cut through the white out.

On our way back to camp, the sun unexpectedly appeared out of a pink haze on the horizon. We all assumed it would just set fire to the clouds at the edge of the world, adding colour but never rising, like every other day. And then suddenly there it was, an eighth of the sun hovering on the horizon. We pulled the car over and bathed in the warming rays for the few minutes it is was up. It was quite an emotional moment, especially for our guide Bobbie who hadn’t seen the sun since November – almost three months ago – and that was only cos he flew to Idaho for a holiday !!!! Now summer is definitely on its way – but it’s not such good news for Bobbie - the sun only makes building an ice runway harder.

Caught this all on camera which is reassuring. Program-wise everything seems to be coming together well – we’ve come up with a workable storyline (with different strands we can cut between) which shouldn’t be too hard to dramatise and hopefully there’ll be a few unexpected twists and turns along the way.

A story – Rig building (with human interest added by the two youngest and liveliest of the crew. One of whom will be coaching the other through his first time on the slope.) The A story’ll also include the hardships of getting the rig out here on the rolligons.

B story – ice runway building with Bobbie racing the sun to get an ice runway built thick enough to land a Herc and take the rig to its next destination.

There’ll be other mini C and D stories in the mix too – short asides and sequences about the hardships of life out here, the dangers etc – depending on what comes up.



The other good news is that they’ve got some gym equipment in our camp, in the room next door to ours in fact, and we managed to put together and activate the treadmill. I want for a run straight away, which felt great. Still, riding high on it now, and its only just in the nick of time. The chef here cooks everything with so much butter and fries everything else – it tastes good, but has got to be seriously lard inducing - I can feel my arteries clog up after every bite and the cold outside only makes you eat more. Apparently, you burn loads just standing around outside, let alone working, so they may have designed a deliberately calorific diet for the workers, but for those of us just standing around with a a camera, the treadmill is god send.

This is Ice Station Zebra over and out.

DAY 11

Didn’t manage to get out of bed before 9 again which is a bit embarrassing when everyone else is up so early (and there have been a few wise cracks) but it’s tough when there’s no daylight and we’re still jet lagged – although technically that oughta help since UK is nine hours forward!!!

Spent the day logging our rushes (or checking out our footage) – the loading and the rolligon ride look absolutely amazing and should be OK to dramatise and edit – even the interviews with the knackered rolligon drivers came out OK, which was suprising.

Spent the rest of the day filming half of the 150 ft derrick being unloaded from a rolligon (JCB with tyres spinning on ice and two fork lifts lifting from the sides before the massive metal structure finally shot off the loading ramp on its pallet, like a giant out of control sledge nearly wiping out the JCB which was reversing down the ramp as fast as it could..)

Met the rest of the team who’ll be putting the rig together out here – and there’s a few good characters in there. We mic’d up the promising ones and filmed the whole crew piecing together the derrick, the two parts of which telescope together. They used a fork lift and two JCBs again – which looked great with a back ground of blue sky and gently falling snow flakes, massive tungsten lights making the whole dusky scene as bright and vivid as daylight. Took an hour of gentle manipulation with the massive machines, before it finally fell into place nearly taking one guys fingers clean off. (Metal expands in this temp so fitting the pieces is quite tricky and may continually prove problematic as the rig has never been assembled at this cold a temperature.)

Still can’t get over how sharp everything looks at these temperatures, its almost as if I’m used to watching a TV that’s been slightly detuned, and suddenly its all in perfect focus for the first time. Literally, crystal clear.

Had dinner in our own camp now the galley’s up and running, and spent the evening writing up my diary. And so to bed…..

DAY 10

Our first day at Noatak. (didn’t wake until 9 – even though every one here seems to get up before they’ve gone to bed – at like 4.30 or 5.)

We spent the night in a triple room in the second camp. The first camp - a series of purpose built portacabins fitted together - of about 30 people was already full of camp supervisors, ice road makers, geologists, etc….. Our camp – again made up of purpose built portacabins with adjoining doors will hold about another 45 people and will have similar facilities (a common room with working TV and phones, loads of triple rooms, kitchen and canteen, shower room with 6 showers, toilets around same number, smoking room and boot room, and laundry. ) However, being almost the first to arrive, our camp had no water, only one working toilet and looked like a building site.

The guy putting it together – nicknamed ‘big bird’ by the entire staff is - like a lot of the Alaska oil people - a retired old-school rigger tempted out of retirement by a fat pay packet as a part time, but hands on consultant. He’s also a complete anglophile and the nicest gentlest bloke you could ever meet, he’s also about 65 which is crazy when you think how rough and remote it is out here. (Apparently there’s a shortage of experienced staff, although there’s fresh, inexperienced people queueing up to get on the slope – as they call the remote oil field up here – because of the money!)

Big bird immediately warned us not to walk to the other camp which is literally only 100 metres away across the ice pad. The reason? RABID ARCTIC FOXES. I kid you not!!!

When we ignored his advice thinking he was probably a bit senile – the next person we talked to warned us about the rabid arctic foxes again. He told us about one of the workers finding his shovel covered in blood and fur – evidence of a rabid arctic foxes lunacy and savagery apparently. (although having seen these cute critters its hard to believe.) Statistically speaking, up 85% of all the foxes here are rabid or rabies carrying. Something which everyone here repeatedly reminds us, although each time the exact percentage varies by as much as 20%.

Anyway, everyone drives tiny distances in their pick up trucks and we’ve been offered one of the forever-on pick ups to take whenever we like.

Noatek so far consists of these two camps – squat, sprawling collections of purpose built portacabins – lots of heavy machinery – JCBs, fork lift trucks, pick up trucks, mini moon buggies, petrol tankers, normal juggernaut lorries, rolligons, water carriers, giant drills and cranes, massive tungsten light stands 30 ft tall (all of which are permanently on), a workshop they’ve just put together (made of – yes you’ve guessed it – slightly larger portacabins piled on top of each other) and one hole in the ground 80ft deep surrounded by bits of dismantled rig! All of it on an ice pad (made from water drawn from the nearest lake ) again to protect the tundra. This is connected to the lake by an ice road 5 miles long. And that’s it – nothing else but frozen wasteland from horizon to horizon with a few rabid arctic foxes thrown in for good measure and a hibernating bear or two. How cool is that?

Work-wise everything’s looking hunky dory. We met the camp supervisor who’s very friendly and lent us his very hands on intern to drive us around site and give us the low down. On top of that we filmed a great sequence at night of the drilling team making the first hole in the ground – about 80ft deep, lowering in conductor piping and then welding it together. Everything looks great in these conditions, even if it sounds mundane. Watching JCBs wielding massive pipes of steel and burly rough necks pulling on ropes and welding metal is what this program is all about. (The two guys drilling the whole had been working for 48 hours straight with no sleep. I chatted to themon camera at around 10 pm and they hadn’t slept since 5am the previous morning, and didn’t expect to finish until 4am. The first night they got here they slept in our unfinished camp and the heating wasn’t even working so I doubt that night they got much sleep either.) I’m starting to feel seriously guilty about the amount of sleep we get (I’ve had more in a night here -13 hours our first night – than some of the staff get in a week.)

Still everyone here is really friendly, and it seems like we know most people already – way more sociable and less redneck retarded than the average gulf rigger. But maybe that’s cos the moneys better and consequently so’s the level of intelligence.

Made it to bed around 10 for a spot of my book, ‘Atomised’, before la la land.

DAY 9

At another point the convoy stopped to check a flat tyre, and when it started moving again the rolligon we were behind failed to get going. After five minutes we pulled up to see what was holding it up. Of course the driver of the stationary rolligon had just passed out from sheer exhaustion right at his wheel. We just knocked on his window, he grunted and we were off again!

Our own driver said he’d worked 127 hours in the last week (and there are only 160 hours in total in a week). Another of our drivers told us that when he got really tired he thought he kept seeing mice running across the trail (which don’t exist in Alaska) before seeing faces in the snow and finally he came off the track by 50ft before he woke up.
Despite the constant rolling motion, I managed to get a fairly good kip in, bundled up in all my arctic gear lolling around in the front cab of the rolligon. I think we got lucky - some of the crew who were headed out with us, had to ride in the cabs of the vehicles loaded on the back of the rolligons, which was apparently even more sick inducing. They kept all these vehicles running for the entire journey though (as they do with all the vehicles 24hours a day here at this camp) not to keep the occupants warm, but so that the vehicle doesn’t freeze up permanently.

Driving the juggernaut-like buggies loaded with tonnes of cargo over frozen rivers and lakes made for more anxious moments, despite the driver’s assurances that the ice was over 6 feet thick. You could see the cracks in the ice, for fuck’s sake.

But for all the neck ache, sleep deprivation and general discomfort, the journey was an incredible experience. Just one minute watching this convoy of 5 massive space buggies snake its way across this bleak featureless desert of ice and you know its been more than worth it – and you’d do the whole thing again in a flash – and as for the footage……….

At one point we got the giant juggernauts to thunder past us at close range, churning up ice fog which floated in a haze across the permanently setting sun. Before long they were like tiny dots in the vastness of the frozen moonscape, which stretched from horizon to horizon and beyond.

After 16 hours of bouncing along at 6 miles an hour, we finally spotted two bright lights on the horizon – we were within an hour of our final destination. After filming the unloading and stuffing our faces with hot food in the galley (after a full day on half a sandwich and a few nuts), we hit the sack exhausted.

DAY 8

Day 8 (in the big bruuther house). ….continued

Got taken to 2P ice pad by Brett. I don’t know how they come up with such imaginative names for the ice pads, but 2P is a loading pad for the rolligons. This is where the next phase of our journey begins. Said our goodbyes to Brett and felt quite sad, although he was very quiet he looked after us well and you could tell when he did speak it was heartfelt and sincere. (He was kind of like an aged Charlie Bronson on ice.)

After waiting around for a couple of hours in the galley watching TV, our rolligon convoy rolled in looking like something straight out of Space 1999, all giant space buggy wheels and dazzling headlights lighting up the fog, bouncing around like they’re in zero G on the snow covered terrain. A mean ‘blow’ picked up (what they call a minor wind and what we would call a major blizzard) and we spent the next 3 hours filming the hands load everything from fork lift and pick up trucks to other weird space buggies and bits of the rig onto the back of the rolligons – all in an unrelenting gale of spin drift blown sideways. It looked unbelievable, like the entire ground for as far as the eye could see was a river of moving snow, all the machines steaming with vapour fork lifting massive space age and everyday construction vehicles on pallets onto the back of even larger and even more space age vehicles.

The whole scene looked like a very expensive and professionally lit and ‘dry iced’ set for a high budget sci-fi film - a real cinematographers dream. Unfortunately it also seemed to be a camera’s absolute nightmare – two of our Z1’s started showing error messages within minutes. Both Iona and Odette bit the dust (Mentorn like to name their cameras after Grannies it seems, which is slightly surreal), and only Ivy had the balls to see the blizzard through.

After scoffing down a quick, but very tasty meal – we filmed the rolligon drivers safety meeting as well as we could through a window (we were afraid the temperature differential between inside and out would screw our last working camera) and then it was time for the convoy to hit the road. Altho’ to be more accurate to hit the trail, because the entire point of this epic 14 hour journey was that there weren’t any roads to were we were going otherwise the rig, the camp, the workers and all the equipment and vehicles needed to set it up would have been driven out by trucks, even if it was only an ice road. (They build a lot of roads out of ice sucked out of wells, so they don’t damage the tundra and melt away in the summer.) But Noatek, our remote destination was too far to build an ice road to and only the rolligon’s could reach it cross country without damaging the tundra. Everything - and I mean everything - from the 150ft rig derrick and giant crane/drilling JCB down to the last toilet roll or half litre bottle of water, has to be strapped to the back of a rolligon and taken cross country at 6 miles an hour for 12 – 14 hours for 100 miles to the middle of fucking nowhere, where they are hoping that there’ll be enough oil to make an economically viable oil well.

The purpose of this entire operation (worth over $20 million) is to prove the geologists and seismic surveys right, by providing solid evidence (90ft samples of drilled strata) that there is enough oil here to make an economically viable rig in about 5 years time – which must also be able to cover the hefty extra costs of working in such a remote location. 2 out of every 3 exploratory missions like this prove unfruitful and waste that $20 million lay out. Just how much money are these oil companies making?)

However, because Alaska is so heavily protected, the oil companies are only allowed to carry out such operations in the winter when the ice protects the tundra. This means that there are only a few months of the year that such exploratory drilling work can be undertaken. As such, time really is money.

The knock on effect for the rolligon drivers who have to make about 120 round trips of around 24 hours to Noatek and back, is that they work 24 hour shifts with only 8 hours sleep, if that, at the end of it!

On the day we turned up, they got back in, had dinner and maybe 3 hours kip (while the rolligons were re loaded, refuelled and patched up) before setting off again for another 14 hour trip back to Noatek. At Noatek they unloaded, had another meal and then headed back to 2P – which took another 10 hours – before they could have another meal and if they were lucky another 8 hours kip before doing the whole round trip all over again. And they do this for 8 weeks at a time – no weekends!

No wonder most of our drivers were complete zombies, so interviews with them were a bit of a deadloss, but the machines themselves and the back drop more than made up for this.

Being from Discovery we got to ride up front with the rolligon drivers themselves in their cabins – which from the inside were all 70s military-esque, like riding in a world war 2 amphibious vehicle or early soviet space program moon buggy. Each of the enormous 24 tyres, can be monitored and inflated or deflated directly from the cabin - although they are kept at a pressure of about 24 psi which is incredibly low (kind of like a deflated giant football, in comparison to a car which is like 160 psi) – this is so that they don’t damage the tundra, however it does make for a slow and very rough rolling kind of motion.

The lead driver of the convoy of 5 rolligons was happy for us to request filming stops so we could get ‘up and bys’ etc…. Scarily enough one of them was meant to coincide with us switching from the lead vehicle’s cab – filming the entire convoy passing in between - to jumping on the final vehicle. When the final vehicle failed to spot us, even with Sam running along side waving his arms frantically, we both nearly shat ourselves. It didn’t take much imagination to see them trundling off into the night unawares, marooning us in minus 20 degrees - too far to walk back to the base, even if we knew where it was in the pitch black. Six miles an hour doesn’t sound like much, but in full arctic gear and on foot in deep snow, you might as well be swimming behind a cruise liner shouting for help. I was just about to pull out my whistle, which we sensibly bought for just such an occasion, although I doubted it’d be heard above the thundering noise of the massive vehicle, when – thank god – it ground to a halt 20 metres passed us.

To the drivers credit they were very careful of us, despite they’re blatant sleep deprivation.

DAY 8

Woke up feeling very hungover again. Despite not drinking a drop of booze. Still, not sleeping well. Keep having to pee because I’m drinking so much, but wake up dehydrated with a sore throat anyway. Spend the whole time playing catch up with my body! Usually by mid morning, I’m rehydrated

Spent hours sorting through our mountain of camera kit, and preparing for this afternoon and the start of our filming proper.

Although what we are filming would, in England, be fairly easy, in these conditions even the most mundane task becomes a chore. With mitts on you can’t get the tape out of it’s plastic wrap, let alone put a tape in the camera. Even unzipping the camera bag is hard. I tried taking my glove off yesterday while filming the ice roads and within seconds my hand was really painful and throbbing. Even keeping my gloves on and filming for a period made my thumbs ache badly. You have to keep moving and wiggling fingers around. The temperature yesterday was about – 20 fahrenheit with - 30 wind chill. Making an ambient temperature of about - 50 fahrenheit. (which I think is – 40 celsius!!!!!!!!!) Any way, it was bloody cold.

It’s a funny thing actually, you never get bored of saying how cold it is. Every time we’re outside Sam and I both repeatedly tell each other how cold it is, and how cold we are. Even with the best kit on. (Yesterday evening we got too hot in our kit.) But if it’s cold its impossible to resist saying it. Maybe that’ll pass after a few weeks.

The kit though, is getting a bit embarrassing. All the seasoned hands up here, wander around in work overalls, maybe a thickish jacket a pair of gloves, but definitely barefaced. Sam and I, however, look like we’re about to attempt Everest - full face masks, double gloves, massive duvet jackets and sallopets, - 100 degree rubber insulated boots – and to make matters worse everything we bought is black – so we look kind of like demented ice ninjas. Or worse inexperienced film crew with way too much money. Either way it’s not a good look – but it is a warm one.

One lesson we learnt yesterday was that you need to be totally prepared before you go out, if you get outside without full face mask, gloves, hat etc already on – you freeze in the brief time your trying to get them on and have retreat back inside. And doing anything with kitoutsde is very hard. So we spent this morning readying our kit. Batteries have too be kept close to your body otherwise they last minutes (AAs particularly) which means using long leads. You also need to be ready for the temperature differential, hot inside cold out. There’s no in between where you can change – so you have to be able to peel off / put on layers without too much trouble. And this differential is even worse for the cameras – take one inside after getting it freezing cold outside and it’ll be soaked in condensation in seconds, take it outside after keeping it warm inside and it’ll be covered in frozen condensation just as fast. Not good….

At 2.30pm we’re heading over to 2P to film our rolligon convoy being loaded up with the Kuukpik rig. 5 Rolligons’ll be heading out to the absolute wilderness of the interior 100 miles from the nearest town. The journey takes 12 hours at 6 miles an hour and is apparently extremely rough – being entirely cross country. The rolligons are a bit like the snow cats they use to piste the alps except much larger, about the size of a large articulated juggernaut with flat bed backs for transporting. They have about 24 double tyres with a PSI of about 25 per tyre (compared to car tyres at about 160!) kind of like a very flat football – this means that the weight is spread and they won’t leave tracks or damage the tundra. (its strange how environmental they are up here considering how the oil they’re preparing is fucking up the world – not that I’d dare mention that out loud up here, for fear of losing my job. Still, I can’t talk with my petrol guzzling merc. But it is ironic that the global warming - that oil use is causing - is making the winter season – the only time they can do exploratory drilling as far out as our destination - even shorter.)

Bit nervous about the journey, as well as about meeting the crew we’ll be on the remote rig with (some of whom are catching a lift too). The quality of the film very much depends on the quality of our relationship with these guys. Same with the rolligon drivers in miniature (if they won’t cooperate, chat with us and stop to let us film them driving from different angles and stop to pick us up again, it will be very hard to make a decent sequence out of this journey. In fact if they forget to pick us up again in the wilderness we’d probably die.)

Am also, however, very excited to be finally nearing our destination after almost 7 days of travelling and god knows how many hours of courses, planning and - worse – horrific corporate videos.

Fingers crossed.

DAY 7

Woke up at 6am feeling like a raisin – dried up and wrinkled – even though I drank about a litre of water overnight. Despite being surrounded by an ocean of snow, the arctic circle is technically a desert. It is so cold up here that all the moisture is frozen out of the air. Inside the facilities the already dry air from outside has to be heated which makes it even drier. You can literally feel your mouth and nose drying up with every breath you take. Apparently you need to drink an average of 5 lts a day to remain hydrated. I am constantly drinking and seldom need to pee, which is weird.

Still, finding it bizarre being at the Kuparuk facility. I’ve heard it described as everything from like being in a penal colony on mars, or a spaceship in deep space, a boat, or even a bad 70s office building. Or like that space colony in Aliens, where there are permanently howling gales and zero viz outside and everyone lives in weird single story portacabin-like industrialised structures, all pipes and tubes running along the ceiling, and steaming chimneys outside, connected by vast tunnel-like corridors… but to me it feels like we’ve stumbled into one of S.P.E.C.T.R.E’s secret bases. With everyone running around looking busy in bright red and blue overalls and hard hats, very bad 70s décor and an industrial moonscape back drop – it could easily be the Volcano base in You Only Live Twice or the satellite space base in Moonraker. I just hope it doesn’t get blown up.

Still, for baddies these guys treat their employees well. There’s a cinema, a gym, a racket ball court and a weights room – all full size – 1200 single rooms with on-suite facilities, a massive 24hr dining canteen and an incredibly well stocked snack bar. On top of that everything is FREE, which is nice.

One thing that isn’t very nice are the electric shocks. Being so near the North Pole the magnetism and static go crazy. We both keep getting massive electric shocks off door handles and any bit of metal we touch, strong enough to literally make you jump up and swear. I’m sure the cheap and nasty 70s carpets in combination with my tendency to shuffle doesn’t help.

You also find yourself at the centre of electrical storms when you move around in bed at night. As the blankets rub together the room lights up with mini flashes of what can only be described as minute lighting. You can hear the crackle really loudly and feel your hairs standing on end. Very bizarre indeed. Freaked me out the first night. Similarly when you try and take your fleece off, it feels like it has a life of its own and really doesn’t want to be taken off – as it clings to your body with a vengeance. Apparently compasses don’t really work up here for the same reasons.

We were flown through a complete white out to Kuparuk from Deadhorse last night on a twin otter (15 seat) dual prop engine plane. We were pretty much the only passengers. Once they know we’re from Discovery, we get treated like royalty. The air hostesses on the flight before, for example, had been told by the check in desk who we were working for and consequently kept running up to point out various mountains on the way and give us extra peanuts and drinks. Anything to do with TV in the US, it seems, and you’re almost a minor celebrity in your own right. On top of that they all watch Discovery here and they love it.

Finally, got to have a drive around outside this morning – our first extended drive in the arctic circle. Very exciting. Weren’t sure how much to wear of our vast horde of arctic gear, but fortunately we had to take all our luggage / kit with us anyway since we’ll be staying at another much smaller compound called 2L tonight. Brett, an ice road builder was our guide for the day and we were accompanied by Kirk a management consultant who’ll be coming out Noatak with us on the Rolligons.

Even leaving at 10.30am it was very dark outside, visibility otherwise was very good with a false dawn starting on the horizon – greeny gray through patches of cloud. At minus 20 fahrenheit, you could feel the inside of your nose freeze with every breath even in the 20 yards to the pick up truck.

Outside is a desert of wind swept snow, flat and rippled for as far the eye can see – horizon to horizon. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to see so far in my life, the cold for some reason makes everything absolutely crystal clear – no haze, no foggyness just sharp visibility.

You can see the ice crystals twinkling like stars in the headlights of the car when you drive around in the dark (which currently lasts for most of the day). It looks and feels a bit like driving through the phosphoressence you get in mediterranean seas. Beautiful. Spin drift – particles of very fine ice carried on the wind - whips in low ever-changing patterns across the surface of the gravel road.

We filmed various stages of ice road and ice bridge building today. Bizarrely enough they suck water out of local frozen lakes and transport it to areas where they need a road. They then lay layer upon layer of ice to create a hard surface to drive on so that the tundra doesn’t get damaged. While they’re making the roads the fresh water steams, as it freezes which makes for some seriously atmospheric visuals.

They also take chippings from the ice on top of the lakes and dump that on the soon-to-be road so that John Deere style tractor shovellors can push it around and squash it into an ice road. This protects the wilderness whilst its used, and melts away without trace in the summer.

And although the process sounds mundane, it looks amazing from close up. Giant articulated vehicles loom in and out of the ice fog they re kicking up, looking like prehistoric monsters bellowing fumes. Everything seems to be steaming. Headlamps blaze like hooded eyes through the fog and hulking forms encrusted in ice are silhouetted against the semi permanent sunrise.

Because the sun never actually makes it over the horizon, sunrise and sunset lasts from about 10;00am to 4.30am most of the day, without any break between them. Gradually and imperceptibly the colours shift between blue, green and grey, cloud formations stretch towards the horizon. You can almost see the curvature of the earth and it dawns on just how far you can see. In every direction there is nothing, but snow and ice – in most locations you can’t even see another compound or rig.

While checking out the ice bridge over the Coalville river, Brett - our guide – made a quick detour through the local native town (on of only two this far north) – called Nusquit. There was a church, a school, a hotel made of protacabin structures fastened together like most of the oil compound facilities, and about 200 tiny cabins with skiddos and pick ups parked outside, everything piled under mountains of snow. The town seemed largely deserted, despite the surreal neon cross on the front of the church, although we passed a few inhabitants as well as a traditional old style school bus. Amazing place, very remote, and very surreal in the half light which gave everything a pastel blue glow. It was kind of like an out post at the end of the world – melancholy and haunting – especially the cemetery on the edge of town, but beautiful, too.

Headed back to the large oil employee compound, Kuparick, for the facilities 25th year anniversary BBQ ( I kid you not). On the way, we stopped to watch the Northern Lights spread in a rippling curtain across a full third of the night sky, all studded with stars. No colour this time just rippling waves of star dust pouring from the heavens.

Watching it is like cloud busting. Forms and faces emerge and disappear, to reform as something else. The patterns shift and change imperceptibly, but fast enough that they’re different every time you look.

The BBQ consisted off a slab of T-bone steak as big as your face and as many prawns as you could stomach the size of your fist (seriously). Not surprisingly I felt a bit sick afterwards, I don’t think it sat well on top of my lunch (a montecristo sandwich – a fried French toast ham and cheese sandwich complete with cinnamon icing sugar on top. Not my idea, I promise.) Actually I feel sick thinking about it. I didn’t even attempt to move on to the desert aisle. Needless to say the mostly obese crew didn’t look too worried about my lack of appetite. In fact a few of them went round about 4 or 5 times each.

I just didn’t feel like celebrating with only root beer and kaliber to drink. Watching the northern lights for the first time, while our mad guide quoted arctic poems to us was more than enough for me.

Spent the night at 2L, a tiny 15 man camp, with twin rooms and shared facilities, a chef and a galley kitchen. (w/ net access). Its kinda like a giant portacabin on massive wheels (see pics). The ice road builders live here (2 weeks on 2 weeks off) and they ‘ve looked after us very well. – They all love Discovery – suprise suprise

And so to bed………….

Tommorrow, the ruby of kukundu beckons……

DAY 6

We woke up very hungover, packed our ridiculous amounts of kit – 12 bags between two of us – and somehow managed to drag our sorry arses to Anchorage airport – via a garage owned by a nutty couple – a guy who dressed like Evil Kanieval and his Vietnamese postal bride. For some unknown reason they had plastered their tiny walk-in kiosk with their married life history in photos. Of course once he found out what we were doing, he had to tell us his theory of how global warming was going to be solved by a super cooling volcanic eruption, before slipping Sam a mini God squad book using the not-very-successful analogy of Jesus as the time keeper of our dog sled race!!!!

Had a great a moment watching the sunset over the runway, baggage trains and small aircraft in the foreground and mountains in the back, Pink Floyd and Creedance Clearwater on the jukebox, everything tinted yellow by the darkened glass, an awesome fat old style cheeseburger with every kind of sauce and a coke. God, sometimes, although I hate to admit it, I love AMERICA. Still, at least half the music was English.

The plane ride wasn’t so cool, I was a bit concerned I was going to have to sit next to the obese guy who was wearing the t– shirt that was way too small for him and left his saggy belly hanging literally about a foot over his jeans and out from under his t shirt – kind of like what you’d expect a beached whale to like like after its given birth. Stretch marks and all.

And, to my horror, I was. Thank fuck he’d been given two seats (he couldn’t even pull the arm rest down anyway) and a seat belt extender. So we had half a seat between us, instead of me sharing half my seat with him.

We are now entering the arctic circle……………

Only one more flight to go after this.

DAY 5

Meeting the corporate monkeys. I always hate this bit. We turned up a little late at the huge boardroom of this massive glass skyscraper (the tallest, swankiest building in Anchorage) to find two geologists waiting for us. Despite trying hard to look the part, you could tell they were a more than a little surprised they’d had to prepare a briefing for us. Anyway, the PR lady was upset we hadn’t bought the kit, so Sam had to go back and get it (even though I knew we’d never use any footage of the boffins at base) but we had to keep them all happy and at least pretend to film (‘a strawberry filter’ is the technical term apparently.) Which was all very embarrassing, but as inevitable as it is unavoidable. The briefing was saved by this mad 3D geological survey map he used for the last hour showing every layer of rock formation and drilled well on the North Slope (we even had to put on huge Joe 90 style 3d glasses for it. And it was quite spectacular, if a bit hard to describe.)

And then, predictably, another compulsory safety course – our fifth - plus The Polar Bear Awareness video. (which was hilariously bad), the final recourse being ‘fight for you life’. Errmmmm, like, thanks for the advice.

Along with our three day Wilderness Medicine and Survival, 1 day Arctic Filming, half day HUET under water helicopter escape training, and full day of Unnaccompanied North Slope Orientation we have seen enough corporate video shite to last a lifetime. (Actually no regrets on the Wilderness medicine and Survival or the arctic filming, both of which were superb experiences, but there is a limit to the amount of corporate videos one man can endure……)

Went and got very drunk with 2 new friends, the course instructors from the Wilderness Survival Course, before getting very stoned and heading to the best local strip bar – which was weird as fuck after getting stoned. Especially since it was done up like the inside of a wild west saloon. Played pool and tried my best to ignore the naked women who were freaking me out in my altered state. At least it was free to get in.

DAY 4

Had to spend eight hours on the most boring course ever - The North Slope Unescorted Orientation – all about HAZWOPPERS and HAZ COM. Fucking acronym central, so boring that for the entire first hour I was convinced the clock was going backwards! Not only was it mind-numbingly dumbed down (like everything else in the US) but they kept quizzing us with paper tests too, so you couldn’t just fall asleep. (Although I did get 100% on the big test.)

DAY 3

Can’t remember much. Spent hours trying to get my skype working but cards all blocked after trying to use them to buy all that kit!!!!!!!!!

Watched a great movie at the cinema – Children of Man – very dark – didn’t make it snowboarding, unfortunately. (Good but not as good as Pan’s Labyrinth.)

DAY TWO

Back to the airport to pick up our hire car, after our disposable hotel breakfast. (Every hotel here has self service breakfast with disposable cups, plates and cutlery which you then throw away. Weird. The only good thing about them is the bagels and cream cheese, although, I have to say, the DIY waffle griller is always a temptation.) They also all have very large stuffed bears or musk ox in their reception areas, which is also weird.

Spent a beautifully clear day driving around Anchorage’s iced roads picking up kit here there and everywhere. Mountains floating pink and blue at the end of every street, close enough to touch. Golden light slanting from the horizon gives everything a shimmering silver lining.


Spent $3000 of my company’s bucks on cold weather gear and spare kit. Including –
gorilla face mask,
hat w/ ear flaps,
whistle,
2 pairs glove inners,
1 pair down outer gloves,
1 pair down mitts,
2 thermal tops,
one thermal bottoms,
1 fleece bottoms,
one fleece top,
one snood (neck wind break),
v cool ginormous down parka w/ coyote fur ruff, (Canada Goose – the best)
down sallopets, (Canada Goose)
-100 degree baffin boots,
1 x 60 x packs of hand warmers,
4 cases lipsyll,
2 x hunting leg pouch,
one large camel waterskin,
two head torches,
large cool box,
leatherman knife,
100 x aa batteries,
and 1 enormous duffel bag to put it all in.

High on retail heaven for the rest of the day.

Also had my first fresh halibut burger – YUM – and stared at pretty Alaskan waitresses.

Went to Platinum Jacks and met the head chef there who had keys to the pool table, played lots of pool.