Mars on Earth Journal by Sam Burbank 27 June 2001

Resolute, 06 27 01:

It’s funny how plans go, never go quite as you plan or expect.

We’re stuck in Resolute. We arrived without too much difficulty
Saturday, midday, a cold and invigorating blast of wind reminding all
that while the sun was out, it was working harder to get to our bodies,
more atmosphere to penetrate. And that wind. In the past year after
watching the film I did about the NASA/ Haughton Mars Project (HMP) and
Mars Society many people have commented that it didn’t look very cold,
and after hearing this again and again, I started to believe it myself.
Maybe it wasn’t as cold as I’d remembered. No. It gets cold here,
especially with the wind blowing hard, leaving you no time to think
about it, just to feel it; different than home, a different kind of
cold. And of course, this leads to an immediate inventory of one’s gear.
Did Linda throw that full face polar fleece hat in, the one I said I
wouldn’t need? I hope.

We we’re driven to our hotel, a couple of miles from the airport. It’s a
simple place, mostly small double rooms, a very homey feeling with
different curtains and bedspreads from room to room, and no locks on
anything. Resolute is different than the city, that was probably the
first real recallibration. You’re sure it’s okay to leave all the gear in
here? Yes?

The cafeteria is a couple of buildings away. The two women who run the
place are welcoming and serve hearty, good food. People are served and
then fall into a seat somewhere, never the same arrangement; this is one
of the strengths of the Haughton Mars Project (HMP), this camaraderie,
this lack of us and them,
or so I have been lucky enough to observe and enjoy. I’m media, for
better or worse, and yet feel invited into the conversations and
activities of the scientists or camp managers.

Sunday was spent organizing gear that arrived in a separate cargo
container, and sending a recon plane to Devon Island to see how the
runway was looking. We had heard that someone flew over last week and
reported that there was still a lot of snow on the ground. Everyone had
their fingers crossed for good news, maybe even a put-in to the crater
today, but it had been cold, even snowing recently, and no one felt sure
we would have good news.

I spent the day going over my gear, checking every thing; finding
everything! While this packing job was much less hectic than many in the
past, still some things were tossed in at the last moment, and going
through the two huge duffle bags and the two smaller gear bags was a
little like playing the game ‘Memory’, where you turn one card over each
turn, then attempt to match things up as you find them on later turns.
God forbid I empty all the stuff out at once. There was no place to
spread it all out without taking over a room

The recon plane returned after lunch and we all met in the hotel common
area to see the photos camp manager, John, took over the camp. It was
bad. In fact, unbelievable. We sure these weren’t the photos from
Pascal’s trip up here in April? The large tent in the center of camp
showed large snowdrifts piled around it, and the runway was covered. It
was fascinating to see these shots, as they pushed in for detail on areas
of interest. It gave a sense of espionage. Hard to rationalize these
images with so little snow here in Resolute, not so far from Haughton.

Soon the guestimates began coming. Four days? No, more like ten. Maybe
one week. When the optimists are saying a week, you’re in trouble. I
spent the next couple of hours letting the news soak in, finally gearing
up for a walk to the water front. It was good to get out and see this
place. The weather forecast had called for 80 mph gusts today in
Resolute, and I felt like that, getting in through any opening in my
clothes; fast enough to carry away a pair of gloves or neck warmer if
you dropped them while adjusting a hat, and, most importantly, least you
drop anything, blowing out to the sea, or this frozen bay, rather.

Resolute sits on a crescent shaped bay, about the size of Half Moon Bay
in California, for those who know that place. It is notoriously windy.
The wind blew my backside as I walked down to the water, giving the
impression of a wind tunnel, not just the wind, but the objects, pieces
of cardboard or foam, flying by, over the broken up red rock, to the
shoreline, onto the sea ice, and away. When I reached the water I heard
a sound from behind, and turned to see a piece of sheet metal, a couple
of feet square, flying end over end toward me, maybe one hundred years
away. I watched it as it blew in, sometimes slightly touching the
ground, but essentially flying. It was beautiful. I was able to catch
the thing when it arrived and stick it under a large wood crate nearby,
leftover from something that got unloaded sometime. Now I was at the
waterfront, or ice, I should say.

That piece of wreckage, gracefully flying end over end, illustrates
Resolute well. The place isn’t very clean, and little effort has been
made to decorate much of the outside of this, no doubt, utilitarian
community, and yet, from the water, or, the next day, from the hill
behind the place, it has it’s own grace and beauty, sitting so isolated
so high on Earth. An outpost. Commitment.

I walked a few hundred yards and found a Beluga whale carcass, head
still on, ribs intact, about 15 feet long. The wind was really blowing
hard. Planet Earth, but not. Nothing familiar. Ice and Rock and wind,
your clothes all of the sudden becoming very important. I then continued
on toward what looked like oil containers, the wind still really blowing
me there. Too bad about Devon. What were we going to do with this week?

The walk was considerably further than I had imagined, the oil drums
bigger, the bay bigger. A problem of scale with such a lack of
vegetation. This happened at Devon last time too. Is that a lemming or a
polar bear?

It took a while to get there. I started noticing some saxifrage plants
under foot, and then they were everywhere. A matter of seeing them. My
cold day is their warm season, these hearty three inch giants.

A couple of dogs noticed me at the refinery (or storage area, not sure),
big huskies. They started to come closer. Shoot. Were to go? They didn’t
look unfriendly, but I was really isolated at this point, and pretty
tired from standing in that wind. There were a couple of very unusual
vehicles a few hundred feet up the hill. Sort of a cross between an old
50’s station wagon hotrod and a tank, metal treads and all. So I went for
those, could climb them if need be, maybe. And I did barely get there
before the dogs reached me. The one I went to was unlocked. Then there
we were, the dogs and I and the tank-wagon with the door open. These
dogs were ratty and young. They wouldn’t fetch a rock. Just sat in
front of me, looking vigilant. Stand off.

But they seemed okay. Not friendly, but bored. I had to go back, and so
left the safety of the tank and began battling the wind, the dogs
keeping pace, always within a couple of hundred feet, blending into the
rocks. Sometimes I would turn to look for them and see nothing, then, a
minute later, they were right there, ten feet away. Friends of sorts
now, with time to kill in Resolute too.

The walk back felt good, arctic wind blowing steadily, the town growing
slowly, metal and wood, holding people who live there lives here, so far
north.