Back To Civilization

I'm back! The people of Rankin Inlet are certainly a tough breed, I would never be able to stand the conditions under which they live. Perhaps I'm just soft from living South of the treeline but wow! Thirty below most of the time I was there and winds to boot. On Friday awoke to blowing snow which had the locals abuzz, they cherish their winter months the way we cherish summer. Had a warm reception at the airport when I arrived, met by two folks representing our client, and the lodge keeper. If you ever find yourself in Rankin, stay at Nanuq Lodge... trust me, it's an experience you'll not forget. Sorry for not posting but the internet connection was slow at best, dare I say less than dialup.

Thanks goes out to Page, Annamarie, Brad, Cindy, Jim, and the folks in the office for making the trip comfortable and productive.

NASA Satellites Demystify Northern Lights

"We discovered what makes the Northern Lights dance," Dr. Vassilis Angelopoulos of the University of California, Los Angeles is quoted as having said in this NASA press release. David Sibeck, THEMIS project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. explains "As they capture and store energy from the solar wind, the Earth's magnetic field lines stretch far out into space. Magnetic reconnection releases the energy stored within these stretched magnetic field lines, flinging charged particles back toward the Earth's atmosphere," and that "They create halos of shimmering aurora circling the northern and southern poles." Using five THEMIS satellites and 20 ground observatories located throughout Canada and Alaska, scientists directly observed the beginning of substorms . Regardless of how they are formed, I've witnessed them many times and they are spectacular, definitely something that everyone should experience at least once!