Pangnirtung Photos Part 1

The famous entrance to the fiord and park in Pangnirtung. There will be more coming over the next few days.

Pangnirtung

I've made it to Pangnirtung the last stop on this 20 day duty travel trip. I didn't take any photos while in Qikiqtarjuaq because I didn't have the time and I've posted photos from here before. I will have the opportunity to get out this weekend and explore around Pangnirtung and will have a guided tour Monday afternoon. That one will be part work and part play.

Depending on the weather there should be a good display of Northern lights this Saturday night because of an approaching solar wind stream from the sun. I am already trying to spot some good places to get scenic shots of them. Unfortunately I don't have a tripod with me so I have to chose spots that I can set the camera down on. Hand holding wouldn't produce good photos. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Stay tuned for more.

Northern Lights - Iqaluit Style

Last night, just as I was getting ready to hit the hay, the northern lights showed up over the city of Iqaluit. I snapped these photos from the 5th floor* of the Frobisher Hotel. I don't have a tripod with me so I braced the camera in the window and kept as steady as I could. Most of the photos turned out okay.

I think the large light circles you can see all over the image below was caused by light entering the rear viewer from the room behind me. All of the photos were taken looking towards Frobisher Bay. The bright white glow are apartments and the North Mart. The details will be a bit blurry because the camera was hand held.

You may notice in the photo below a dark line cutting across the northern lights. The line is a shadow caused by the exhaust of a passing airplane. When I noticed the line developing in earlier photos I thought something was wrong with the camera.

Note: My apologizes to anyone who may have looked up at the 5th floor of the Frobisher Hotel and seen a half naked, hairy, bit overweight fellow hanging out of the window. Okay maybe not that hairy.

Clyde River

Previously my only times in Clyde River were for brief stops on the way to either Pond Inlet or Iqaluit. It was nice to spend some time in the community this time. The hotel was nice and the food was excellent. The only problem we had was the waste pipes were frozen for the first day and night leading to a nasty looking toilet by the time they were unfrozen. I had a bit of time to look around before we flew out on Friday.

This shed was in front of the hotel and was almost completely buried in by a snow drift. Clyde River gets a lot of snow in the winter. Last year they were in a state of emergency after a blizzard that left entire buildings buried under the snow and it was over a week before all the roads were dug out.

I believe this is one of the streets that had entire buildings buried under snow.

I did get out to wander around the pressure ice. I've modified the photos below to show the colors in the ice. The first photo below has only been lightened.

Hue and saturation changed to about +18 to show the greenish blue color in the pressure ice.

Hue and saturation all the way to the right and gave an effect I really liked.

My favorite shot. A lot of modifying done to this one.

Our Daughter

She makes us so proud.

:o)

You can tell she takes after her mother.

We miss you and love you.

It's Travel Time

I have started travelling for work and will be hitting several communities. I am now in Iqaluit and will be travelling to Pond Inlet, Clyde River, Qikitarjuaq and Pangnirtung. Hope to get some free time to snap photos in each community and post them on the blog. I will be back in Iqaluit next weekend in between the Pond-Clyde and Pang-Qik portions of the trip. I am either hanging with a friend tonight or if that goes bust then I've heard there is a poker tourney in town I might try my luck at. Just for fun can anyone guess which hotel I'm staying at by the photo below?

Night Lights

After a week of fighting with stomach flue the northern night lights came out to put a nice ending to the week. I went from thinking I was going to die Tuesday morning to wishing I would die Tuesday afternoon but all is good now. Highly recommended if your looking to lose a couple of pounds fast. Enjoy a few of the photos from tonight below. None of them have been edited, just straight from the camera to you.

Michele standing before the show. Red glow is from the Hamlet.

Matthew standing before the lights.

The lights were bright enough to reflect in the snow after just a 10 second exposure.

Picked up some color. 3.5 second exposure.

Facebook & Shame

Well tonight I started the long process of deleting myself from the realm of Facebook. I have deleted all my messages, photo albums, status photo, friends and personal information. The account is deactivated but not deleted. I will have to jump through some more hoops to have that done.

Some folks are asking me why? How can you live without it?

I have never been comfortable with the information that Facebook gathers on its members and what it keeps trying to do with it. Eventually they will find a way to steal it and use the information put on its site and they will not stop trying. Their most recent attempt is still fresh in my mind.

Funny enough it was what has happened tonight while cleaning off my profile that truly shows why Facebook is so insidious. In order to have Facebook delete your profile you have to completed eliminate all information on your profile and then contact them to delete it. I put a message at the top to tell everyone on my friends list what I was doing and then started to do so. Part of this was deleting all my personal information and as part of this I shut off my relationship status. Facebook then posted on everyone site that my married status was now changed not shut off. In most cases this would have lead to some jokes from the friends and family that know Michele and I and I did receive some funny post and a couple of question to make sure. Ha ha. This leads to the part I'm talking about.

Facebook decided to post on everyone site that Michele and I were no longer had Marriage status. I then received a call from my daughter in hysterics asking what was going on. To Facebook for doing that SHAME ON YOU.....SHAME ON YOU*. That was a despicable thing to do.

Thank you for assuring my decision to delete my profile on Facebook was the correct one.

*I origionally had posted that someone had contacted my daughter with the information but I was wrong she had read it at work on Facebook.
** Rachele you should be focusing on your work and not playing online. :o)
*** Everyone got upset but we are all having a big laugh now.

The Glory is Mine

Thanks to the folks who voted for my entry into the caption contest over at House & other Arctic Musings. I don't get a prize just the glory. You just need to go vroom vroom over there and have a look at the photo.

Sunset & Ship

These are a couple of photos from our last vacation. This was the last sunset before we got back into port of Miami. Michele and I spent the entire sunset on the balcony sipping on pop.