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……
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……
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