Thule Tracking Station (TTS), known as "POGO".

TTS is located at Thule AFB, Thule, Greenland.

21June

First day in Thule, Greenland

Did I mention the flight is 6 hours from BWI to Thule! And it leaves at 2 am. But you have to check in at 8 pm, and show up at 12 midnight. Did I mention the flight was 6 hours! (three movies) I slept!		Cargo/Passenger "Combi" Services. ATI has the largest DC-8 Combi fleet in the world. These aircraft are capable of transporting both passengers and cargo on the main deck. They are ideally designed to provide a full range of worldwide services to major corporations, exploration and drilling companies, government agencies and special interest organizations such as cinema and musical productions. Our aircraft are uniquely configured to simultaneously transport 27-33 passengers (mostly business class), 10 pallet positions of freight (88" x 108") plus belly capacity for baggage and cargo. Each aircraft is equipped with a well-stocked galley capable of serving hot and cold meals along with beverages. Our friendly flight attendants are fully trained and FAA certified. With our intercontinental range, we can operate over 4,000 miles nonstop with a full complement of passengers, baggage and equipment. For mobility, convenience, and service, ATI's Combi is the way to fly! http://www.airtransport.cc/about_ati.htm
A general came up with us on Friday we think that's the reason we had our flight delayed, because it was inconvenient for him. Other rumor was this old DC-8 needed some repairs. Who knows? There's a welcoming committee to great us as we get off the plane. I thought it was just for the general and didn't know what I was supposed to do!? But apparently they do this for every flight. Well, it is only once a week.

Thule Accommodations

More about each latter…

We are staying at the "North Star Inn". The accommodations are pretty nice, like dorm rooms with Scandinavian design elements.
		A bay full of Icebergs is to the west and the Ice cap is to the east, it's huge. We can see both very clearly. Planning on site seeing on Sunday.
	Al lost his luggage! Or rather the luggage didn't show up in Thule. At first we thought the General ended up with it. But poor Al, it never showed up! How can they lose luggage on the flight to Thule! There were only 15 folks on the flight! It probably ended up in Kuwait. That's where the other group at Baltimore was going. Worst thing is that he had some of our back up software which we needed because the first set was corrupt. So we are spending great gobs of time trying to transfer the files up here.

Another typical  L...O...N...G   OSR install day. Put in 26 hours counting the 6 hour flight but at least we have plenty of sunlight. 5500 configured, DCC (laptop) set up, WANIU #2 configured, End to end comm configured.		THIS IS IT… POGO! Det-3 Site on Thule AFB
	The phone service is very bad. Best internet connection I can get is 19.2k, very slow. I have a big file from work clogging up my e-mail. I tried for about 30 minutes at the airport to download it. It was actually worse at the airport with ATT than it is here. Went out and experienced the midnight sun! It is as bright as noon! Leaving work at 1am and we're putting our sunglasses on!

22 June

Finished up our checkouts

23 June

Celebrated Greenland Independence Day on our "off day".

R&R Activities on our "off day" One of the LM guys in our group, Jack, had been stationed here, He and the current site integrator, Dave, gave us a tour of Thule and surrounds. Not quite as nice a day as the gorgeous day when we arrived, but clearer than yesterday. Clear enough that the flight that was delayed 3 days finally got off.	Our Tour Guides; Jack and Dave.
Thule Tourists Dave, Oscar, Vernon, Jack, Lori, Ai-Hsin, Al and me. (Brian took the picture)

J-Site, BMEWS RADAR Site and the Fjords

Spotted one of the Arctic Foxes (Archies) on the road up to the site. Also saw our fiber just laying on the rocks on its way up the hill to J-Site. I guess they don’t have too much of a problem with vandalism up here
The old BMEWS antennas and facilities are mostly abandoned the current support is to the phased array radar operated by Thule AFB. BEMEWS supports both early warning mission and the1st Space Control Squadron satellite surveillance and tracking mission.
			Al (our "coastie") was surprised but pleased to see a large anchor marking the entrance to the facility. Jack told some story about some ship and the donation of the anchor. We’ll have to see if we can corroborate his story.

Wolstenholme Fjord

Fjord: a narrow inlet of the sea between cliffs or steep slopes The view of the bay, or I guess it's a fjord, was spectacular. No bothersome trees, or shrubs to block the view, or to block the wind. It’s pretty cold here from the wind.
Not warm enough to experience the calving of the glaciers, but it was quite a site to see. 3 separate glaciers empty into Wolstenholme Fjord.		Several icebergs in Wolstenholme Fjord and lots of sheet ice with some open water. We took lots of pictures.

Phase Shacks

Al Chandler photo Long lonely roads across this pretty barren landscape.  In the winter storm conditions, winds blow off the Greenland Ice cap at up to 240Mph.  That would be a phase condition 3. About every mile along the roads are "phase shacks" to provide some protection against being caught in a vehicle in a white out condition.

Greenland Ice cap in the distance.

Phase shack 4

Al and Vern imagine having to wait out a phase condition.

The Docks

It's just about summer shipping season so we were lucky to get down here before the place is too busy. From here there are nice views of Dundas Mt., North Star Bay and Dundas village across the water.

On the pier with the base in the background, Lori, Al, Brian, Jack, Ai-Hsin, Oscar, and Vernon.

		Coast Guard Ice breakers open up the bay to allow access. This is the northern most deep water port in the world.
Again took loads of pictures. Jack told some story about the trail up Dundas mountain. It looks more like a climbing route that a trail. Must be a 60 degree slope!

D-Site (SouthMountain)

This old Army Nike missile site is completely abandoned, of course, but it provides a nice view of North Star bay.
		Some of the old structures made of plywood and 55 gallon drums are quite well preserved. The watchtower is still present and rusty barbed-wire still "protects" the site. We were able to enter the silos but too dark and very icy to get very far.

USAF tug boat

Al Chandler photo Possibly the only USAF tug boat in existence?	Ai-Hsin posing on the stern ladder
Skipper Al up on deck

DundasVillage

Arctic Hare Stopped to see one of the arctic hares on the road to Dundas Village.

These guys are pretty darn big. They’re bigger than the Archies. Maybe 2 foot when sitting, ground to tip of ears, but those long hind legs make ‘em look like small goats when they get up and about.

Dundas Village
	There are to very separate parts of the Dundas Village area, the native sod huts and the more modern Danish influenced colonization.

The Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen tried to promote Danish colonization of the area, with little success, in the early 1900s. The first "modern" buildings were established in 1909, and the Cape York trading post was established in 1910. Knud is famous for his cross Ice cap expedition, his mapping of the northern most coasts of Greenland and his "great sled journey" across Canada and Alaska to Siberia.	Knud Rasmussen Polar explorer, born in Ilulissat/ Jakobshavn in Greenland. His mother was greenlandic. He grew up in Greenland, where he learned the arts kayaking and riding dogsledge. In 1902-1904 he participated with on an expedition with experienced people like Jørgen Brønlund, Harald Moltke and Mylius-Erichssen. In 1910 he and Peter Freuchen established a tradestation in Thule. He had several expeditions during the years between 1912 - 1919 From 1921 - 1924 he went on his famous "Great Sledge Journey" to collect and describe Inuit songs and legends. For that effort he was appointed doctor of honour at the University of Copenhagen. He wrote several books about Greenland, Inuit and Arctis in the years between 1915 and 1935. http://www.qimusseq.gl/english/kr.htm
Al Chandler photo		This area was home for the native Greenland personnel until 1953 when they were moved north to Qaanaaq (I have no idea how to pronounce that). This move was to support build up of the Thule Air Base. We think it's probably the "flipper" of a seal.

Native Dundas Village

The second part of this area is the native sod huts and drying racks of the more native Inuit culture. Several huts are still present showing the stacked peat construction. The peat moss bogs are still very much present, which we noticed as we sank into them.	Drying Rack.
Native huts insulated with layered peat sod.
Al Chandler Photo

Greenland Celebration

We were very fortunate to be visiting on Greenland Independence Day. We had the opportunity to sample seal blubber, dried Cod, and seal meat. I mean you can’t get this stuff at the local 7-Eleven back home!

Eat your blubber, It's good for you! New studies in Greenland have shown that atherosclerosis is far less widespread among the Inuit than elsewhere in the world. However; Inuit who have lived on the diet of the western world have developed atherosclerosis just as in Europe and the USA. But a seventy-year-old who has lived on the traditional Inuit diet of seal and whale has coronary arteries that are just as elastic as those of a twenty-year- old Dane. This is thought to be because certain poly- unsaturated fatty acids, the so-called OMEGA-3 fatty acids, are richly represented in the diet, which consists mainly of seal and small whales. These polyunsaturated OMEGA-3 fatty acids may explain the low incidence of cardiovascular diseases. Advertisements for fish oil claim that Inuit have a low incidence of cardiovascular disease because they eat a lot of fish. This is not the case. Inuit do not eat very much fish, and have never done so. On average, they only eat fish once or twice a week, while they eat seal or whale twice a day! Many nations eat much more fish than Greenland, and interestingly enough these nations have a far higher incidence of atherosclerosis. The Inuit have always known that you need to eat seal and whale to stay in good health. Science is now also arriving at the conclusion that the diet of the Inuit has qualities that have gone unrecognized hitherto. http://www.highnorth.no/Library/Culture/or-ea-me.htm

Blubber Seal blubber is not to be missed! (once). I wouldn’t want to make a diet of it. Its name does its consistency justice! Almost gelatinous but next to impossible to bite through, and very oily. Smells like salmon eggs. Dried fish, well its dried fish. The seal meat looked and tasted like good ol’ barbecued ribs. In fact they had bottles of barbeque sauce and catsup to go along with it.

Ai-Hsin admires a coat

Lt Cheng admired an Inuit woman’s seal coat .
Lt Cheng models the sealskin coat. No, you can't take it home!

Very nice views of the bay and across the bay to Thule AFB. Lots of pictures taken by the team and we even saw a seal way out on the ice.

Also nice views of Mt Dundas and the nearly vertical "trail" up the mountain. A couple of folks were making the ascent. Looked like handholds were as important as the trail. The custom is to carry a rock (no mere pebble mind you) up the top to add to the Knud Rasmussen cairn at the top. Maybe next week (after I leave). Of course I'll be missing the 4^th of July golf tournament on the top of Mt Dundas. No, really you climb up the trail (with your rock), but they helicopter your clubs up to ya. Pretty cool.

Ai-Hsin and Al Steve: "Hey, be careful out there we still have IST and the primary path cutover!"

Ai-Hsin and "GQ" Brian looking like a photo shoot for an "Old Navy" and "J.Crew" catalog. Hmmm, must be working on their post AF careers.

The Bonfire
Canceled! Too windy, apparently. Too bad. This is a Greenland traditional burning in effigy of a witch. Presumably it would have brought us good luck.
Well, we had a few drinks instead with the DET 3 commander, Maj John Pratt. He offered to light the bonfire for us but we decided against that. Ya know a couple of drinks with the commander might have brought us good luck anyway, if Jack and Lt O’Connell hadn’t beat him and Ai-Chen in darts. He did have some good career advice for our lieutenants though.	Photos censored in the interest of good taste

24 June

Dining in Thule
Fortunately not all blubber and dried fish! Our meals are $3.25 all you can eat ("second helping authorized" is posted in the dining facility) which isn't helping my weight much! And the food is great. Because our tracking site is about 7 miles from the main base they bring us out our food. I thought it would be like box meals but they have steam tables, a grill and a full dinning facility right at the tracking station. A cook from the main base comes out three times a day and sets up the dining facility just like at the main base and we have the same choices. Clockwise from Oscar: Oscar, Vern, Jack, Frank, Keith (SI), Brian, Al, Lori
Paul, the cook, was very much appreciated.
Although, some preferred Sven! (Actually I never did get his name?)
		We had dinner one night at the Top Of the World Club. A two for one steak special, not that we need to be frugal at these military rates. This is a fancy restaurant! The Greenland natives had their Independence day celebration dinner here the night before.

Facilities
		It's pretty weird to see these buildings from the outside. All aluminum clad flat top boxes, built 3 feet off the perma-frost to keep from melting it, cables are laid on the surface of the ground and pipes in 9 inch galvanized conduit. Looks pretty shabby in the summer. Frank says it's much nicer looking in the winter when the snow covers the barren ground and hides the cables and pipes. But then it's also DARK for 24 hours a day!
But inside very nice even fancy. I took a couple of pictures of my dorm room. Looks like it was outfitted at Ikea.

off to work
We head off to work about, 10am, very civilized hours.  Aside from the install days (where we flail for hours on end) we typically work about 10 to 8.
Al Chandler Photo			Hard to judge scale but that "pipe" is about 8 foot diameter and is a tunnel used to get out to the antennas, if required, in winter phase conditions. Al the control equipment and offices are in the main building.
Then if the weather holds (we know the sunlight will) were going to go to the Ice Cap. I thought it was the Polar Ice Cap, but of course its not. It's the Greenland Ice Cap.

Heading home (I think)

	Due to leave on Friday but they say there is a reason they call the flight the "DC-late".
So now we are officially Greenland Travelers. Ajnngilak!