Emily Lakdawalla '96 assumes an expert’s ease on her all-terrain vehicle. |
Mars in Her Eyes
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July 17 [On Devon Island]
It may be true that there’s no place on Earth that’s quite like
Mars, but this is awfully close. It’s a sere landscape of exposed rolling
ridges of brown rocks, ice and gullies, with occasional scarps of fractured rock.
There are no animals, except a single seagull wandering hopefully around the
camp and the three dogs kept around to warn of polar bear intrusions.
We flew from Ottawa to Iqualuit, the capital of Nunavut Territory, where most
of the southern Canadians and visitors from the United States got off, and the
plane was refilled with Inuit families. (Inuits compose more than 80 percent
of the population of Nunavut, which is bigger than California and has a total
population of 27,000). I am fairly certain that this is the first time I’ve
ever landed on a dirt airstrip. None of the streets seem to be paved—there
would be no reason to pave them, as they’re covered by snow for much of
the year, and nobody would drive anything but a four-wheeler up here, anyway.
As our Twin Otter came in for a landing on Devon Island, I could see the lighter-colored
rock marking the Haughton Impact Crater [created by a meteorite]. We circled
around and landed on the rocky airstrip—a vibrating but otherwise smooth
landing—the hatch opened, and I stepped out on Mars!
After handshakes and greetings all around, we were taken on a tour by the manager
of the base camp. The facilities are really quite impressive—not as rough
as I’d feared. There are several permanent tents—tool shed, kitchen
and general mess tent, food storage and two general-purpose tents for the visiting
scientists to work in. Attached to the kitchen tent is a wooden shed supplying—wonder
of wonders—hot and cold running water to a sink and even a shower. The
last two tents—the so-called “poop tents"—are unfortunately
rather more primitive. (All waste on the island must be carried out in order
to prevent contamination of the nutrient-poor soil with nitrogen and microbes.)
I won’t go into any more detail about that because I’m not ready
to face it yet.
Researchers created a quiet nylon suburb outside of the Devon Island research
center. |
Finally, we could set up our tents in the “tent city,"
which is located 100 yards or so from the main camp in order to establish a quiet
zone. I chose a spot for my tent that faced east, to help me get oriented—the
sun coming in the front of my tent means it’s “morning." The tent
opening looks out onto the crater, and I can poke my head out the tent and see
the main camp to the right. I’m ready for my first “night" spent
under an Arctic summer sky, with my sleeping mask to blot out the light and my
ear plugs to blot out the wind.
July 18
It’s not easy to sleep in the arctic sun. Even my sleeping mask couldn’t
block out the light. And somewhere a draft was snaking through my tent from the
25-mph winds outside. But I hit upon pulling my stocking cap down over my eyes
and ears, and that helped immensely. I slept, but I woke up every hour or so,
checking my watch to see if it was 6 a.m. yet. The best thing about last night
was that my tent was just as tautly staked in the morning as it was when I went
to sleep, despite the wind. But surface runoff—which
can’t soak into the ground because of permafrost—was sheeting across
the ground beneath my tent and had turned the ground in the tent’s vestibule
into a sticky mud slurry.
I eventually exited my sleeping bag (which was tough to do), donned several layers
and ventured outside. After breakfast, we newcomers were taken through our training.
I learned how to operate the radios we carry along on traverses, then I learned
how to avoid polar bears and how to fire a shotgun (in case applying the former
training fails to achieve its object). I’ve never fired a shotgun before;
the recoil knocked me back a step or two. Next came the fun part: ATV (all-terrain
vehicle) training. I now understand why people want to disturb the peace and
quiet in public lands with the things—they are awfully fun to drive. But
they are very noisy.
By noon the wind had died down to a steady 5 mph, and we thought we might try
flying the planes from the camp landing strip that afternoon to test them out.
After lunch Paul worked on assembling one of the planes. I was astonished to
see him attach the wings to the body with rubber bands. The plane’s controls
all checked out OK, including the global positioning system (GPS) receiver, which
worked perfectly. This was great news, because we originally thought GPS wouldn’t
work well in these latitudes.
Aircraft specialist Paul Chambers prepares a plane for takeoff. The video camera
is visible atop the nose of the craft. The wings will be attached with rubber
bands. |
Next, Paul tested the video camera. It is a tiny device, the
lens about a centimeter across. The camera transmits a wireless signal to a receiver
on the ground, which in turn sends the signal to a small digital video recorder.
Unfortunately, by the time we had finished checking out the electronics, the
wind had picked up again to more than 13 mph. This is too strong for flying,
but we still needed to test the motor. So we brought the plane outside, fueled
it up and found that the starter’s battery wasn’t supplying enough
juice to start the plane. Paul tried starting it manually. No response. The difficulty
is almost certainly the cold temperature, which is affecting both the starter
battery and the engine. We’ll try again tomorrow, experimenting with an
alternative engine and trying to warm things up a bit before we start.
We put the plane away and set out on ATVs with Joe Amarualik, the deputy base-camp
manager, to scout out good locations for a flight. We had to traverse many different
types of terrain: near camp the soil is a mixture of limestone mud and small
stones, which is easy to drive over. At times the terrain turned to slippery
mud; at other times it was sharp, angled rocks as big as my head, shifting and
slipping under the wheels as we drove. The sun was coming out, and resistant
snow was melting quickly, generating fast-moving runoff. In the middle of the
drive, Joe stopped at a point that overlooked Haughton Crater. Its interior gray
rock of melted “impactite" contrasted sharply with the neighboring
brown carbonate rocks. We drove on and found what Paul considered a safe site
for takeoff and landing, and then explored up a gully; Paul drove with his GPS
in one hand, recording waypoints [latitude and longitude readings that give the
plane a frame of reference for self-navigation] along the valley floor. The floor
was a flat channel filled with fast-flowing braided streams; the walls were shattered
limestone. I can’t wait to see what it will look like from the plane.
We returned for dinner; I don’t know about Benton and Paul, but my hands,
arms and shoulders are very tired from the ATV driving, particularly my “trigger
thumb" (which controls the throttle). We had a fine dinner of pork chops
and an after-dinner lecture by a visiting geologist on Haughton geology. I’m
ready for bed. Of course, now that it’s bedtime, it’s brightly sunny
outside.
Continued >>
Photo: Paul Chambers
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