Saturday, August 23, 2008

A new blog

Instead of mixing up my greenland blog i have made a new one for my time to come in Iceland

here is a link.
http://bjarki-iceland.blogspot.com/
cheers

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

in the freezer again...

After arriving in Denmark i drove down to my aunt to deliver my luggage so theat it could be transported back home to Norwway with the rest of my stuff...
it awas raining most of the time i was in denmark, but also quite hot. there fore we decided to go to a bar to get a drink, A COLD DRINK. we went to copenhagen icebar. it was below freezing point and quite funny.

on wednesday i flew back home to norway to relax and get my life back together, before i go to iceland on the 25th...

see you in iceland

Friday, August 8, 2008

poem

«Fager er lien, aldri har den syntes meg så jevnfager, med bleke åkrer og nyslått tun. Jeg skal ri hjem igjen og ingensteds fare.»

"So lovely is the hillsidethat it has never before seemed to meas lovely as now, with its pale fields and mown meadows; and I will ride back homeand not go anywhere at all."

this is who I felt leaving Mestersvig, but I decided it was best to leave anyway...

the comment is taken from the icelandic sagas, "Gunnar a Hlidarenda"

Leaving Greenland after 3,5 years in Sirius and on Mestersvig...


On the 5th of August I left Greenland.
I spent 2,5 years in the Sirius dog sledge patrol where I drove 9000 km and spent 17 months of that in a tent or an old trappers cottage

I spent my last year in Mestersvig, where I also lived from 1975-78 as a child in Nyhavn.

I have enjoyed my stay in Greenland and will always remember the adventures and the beautifull scenery which is undescribable... I'm sure that one day I will come back... to sail with my boat or work again... time will show.

to all of you who read my blog and commented, it was great to hear from you and knowing someone was interested in my doings!

today i'm in copenhagen, Denmark where i will be for a few days, before heading back home to norway fore some vaccation.
on the 25th of August i will go to Iceland where I will spend the next 2 years taking a masters in Geology.

i will continue this blog, but this time from a new country...

there are some more pictures on my picture page!
CHEERS


Jytte

My boat Jytte was set in the water on the 3rd of August. i had tried earlier but due to the lack of water in the bay and busyness with the supply ship this was the last chance. with very good help from my tired friends we got the ship in the water. while waiting for high tide we had som cake and champagne in my od house in Nyhavn. around midnight the water wouldn't rise any more and we had to pull the boat off the waggon. while the guys where pulling the boat over to the new hauling place i drove the waggon over there. there where some problems to get it over there, but we succeeded. at hrs 0230 we had the boat on the waggon and had it pulled up on the shore. then we went bakc home fore a beer and some sleep.

the next morning we did some cleaning up after the supply ship so that things that couldn't stay out-doors where brought in-doors.
i went down to the boat and started lifting the waggon up on pieces of wood. then a plane from Daneborg arrived with the boss from the office in Denmark and others who were all flying home with me on the hercules on the 5th of august.
after spending some housr showing them around on the station and in Tunnelelv.
during the the night I put on the cover on the boat and moved around with 400 kg of ballast from the boat. at 0400 i went tired to bed.

my last day in Greenland i spent working on the boat. Hansi and Stefan helped me with the last cover on the boat and to take the wheels of the waggon. a couple of hours before the plane arrived i had finished all the work on the boat and was ready to go back home...NOT!!!

more pictures out there...

supply ship at last


Finally i have some more time to add some pictures and write a few words.
we have been quite busy due to the arrival of the only supply ship to Mestersvig. due to some technical problems and heavy ice it arrived more than one week late in Mestersvig.
on the 1st of August at hrs 1316 the ship arrived in Nyhavn. until hrs 1815 the ship used the time to find an anchor point and to get a stern rope on shore. this was a bit difficult due to the ice in the Nyhavn bay. we also got several hundreds of metres of fuel hoses out to the ship.
at hrs 1815 the ship started to pump fuel to our tank on land. at hrs 0030 we had gotten 130 000 litres of fuel and we could start to pull the hoses back on alnd again. this took some time and Mads got fuel sprayed allover him as he was disconecting one of the couplings on one of the hoses.. there is always some fuel left even though the ship is blowing air through them after fueling...
our work comensed at 0145 as we went back to the station fore some sleep.
up again at hrs 0830 and the ship started to off-load on the beach in Nyhavn at hrs 1000.
untill hrs 1700 we got all 20 containers on land and 3 new vehichles. we used some of the new vehichles to make a new beach head to unlad thecontaineres. this was reenforced all the time and kept driveable during the whole operation.
From hrs 1700 to hrs 2200 the ship and it's crew had a break, while we were unpacking the containers so that they could be ready for the ship to take back empty.
at hrs 22oo the ship loaded the empty containers andat hrs 0200 the last one and the trucks from the ship was onboard and Arina Arctica left us.
this year every thing went really good and we couldn't have done all the work that fast without the help from good friends from Nanok (Peter, Søren and Asger), the team from Ella Ø (Hansi, Jesper, Troels and Orm), Cookie (the cook), the engineer (morten) and off course Mads and myself.
we landed 130 000 litres of fuel
45 tons of new vehichles
45 tons of provisions, spare parts, oil etc...
i put out some more pictures on my picture page!

Friday, August 1, 2008

problems to solve...

the picture is a couple of days old, when there wasn't any ice around...

after a night in Mestersvig the 2 ella Ø teams left us. they came here with a lot of garbage and provisions for the sirius depot. Mads and me tried to get Jytte in the water, we almost succeeded but there wasn't enough water... and soon i have to leave my paradise and return to civilization...


the supply ship finished at Daneborg and started sailing towards us last night.

we got up early and woke up to sun shine and the whole fjord packed with ice. last night there was nothing...ARGGG as it looks now it's not possible to get the fuel from the ship or the barge "Nuuni" from the ship to the shore with all our goods... time will show what happens. the ship isn't even here.


i'm getting a bit stressed up due to my upcoming travel back home, but i guess that day had to come sometime, it's not possible to stay in paradise for ever ;0)


Tuesday, July 29, 2008

polar bear and no supply ship...


Today the supply ship was scheduled here, but due to the ice conditions the ship passed us and headed for Daneborg, where it's due at 2100 hours. they will probably be at Mestersvig on the 2. of august.
today we had 3 landings of a twin otter plane and one by a helicopter. the helicopter came from the supply ship and picked up 3 of the guys staying here and flew them to Daneborg.
on Malmbjerget they had several visits of a young polar bear. it has been really anoying and the people up there have been quite fed up with it. the will borrow one of our dogs, which is quite a good safety for them. the dog will be picked up in the near future by a helicopter...
a norwegian kayak party landed here and we brought them out to Nyhavn where the will start their journey...
to night we have to british geologist and two icelandic pilots staying for dinner.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

the ice is losing it's grip on Kong Oscars Fjord, but it's still not enough.
therefore the supply ship will be post poned to the 30th of July.
the satelite picture is from today.
today i have been teaching mads and the cook how to do service on the generators and then we took our 15 dogs for a sledge trip. it was too warm for them so the trip wasn't that long, but they did manage everything very well.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I'm a live...

the satelite picture is from sunday. in 3 days our supply ship is scheduled here, but i don't think it will make it through the ice. therefore it will probably go to Daneborg first.
this picture was taken from the washburn cabine (camp Tahoe). this is priceless!!!

last week we had visitors from home. my mother, father and my girlfriend Anna was here for a week. it was very nice to have them here. therefore i haven't updated my blog for a while, but now i will get down to business again...
...

Monday, July 7, 2008

an other air plane

Today our friends from CASP was picked up by an Twin Otter from Iceland and flown to Milne land, where they will be conducting geological surveys for the next 3 weeks.
Hansi made som new places for the nine new dogs arriving from Daneborg sometime this summer. I went to the water lake 3 times and got 9000 litres of water for the houses on the station. Then I preasurerized the water pipes so that water could flow into the pipes. Afterwards I continued working on the new place for the sledges.
during hte afternoon it started raining a bit, luckily it has stopped again. I need no more of this nonsense...

Sunday, July 6, 2008

maps of this and that

Hi Washburns and everyone else. I'm service minded so here you are.
color chart:
red are the roads
green is the runway
blue are the dams
pink is where the river has cut through the roads or the dams
i hope the map is big enough for everyone to see...

today the weather was sunny and marvelous again, after a long time with rain and fog.


we spent part of the day on the road, close to Nyhavn trying to fill the broken road. we where using the bulldozer but there was no gravel only fine sand and black mud. the road now consists of a wet pile of this mess. but in a day or two it will dry out and we will be able to work it into a normal road...

the rest of the day was spent by paper work on the containers with goods that we are sending home with the supply ship and Hansi went on a sledge trip wit one of the guys from CASP (Cambridge Arctic Shelf Programme)



This is todays satelite picture over our area.
MVG in green is my station, it's on top of the V.
the fjord is 30 km wide.
the melting of the ice is very slow in our area, so it will be some weeks before we can sail anywhere...
o the top of the picture is DNB, Daneborg, the station is in the bottom of the B

http://www.mbl.is/mm/mogginn/blad_dagsins/dagur-pdf/8299b7a66cda0120fac2315b60deea46/A2008-07-06.pdf
this is a link to a newspaper in iceland. today an article about me and my life in sirius and mestersvig was published. it's on page 22, but it's in icelandic. but there are some nice pictures if you haven't learned the viking language

Saturday, July 5, 2008

damage control

just when we thougt the good times were about to start all h... broka loose. last night the dam broke open due to heavy rain for the last many days. out of 10 days we had 8 with rain...
i started up the old bulldozer and headed up for the dam. the next 3-4 hours i spent making a new channel for the river and repairing and strengthening the dams. this time with huge amounts of rock and sand. then i drove the bulldozer back to the station to refuel. as i was fueling the fuel pump broke so i had quite a leak to work on... the damage on the bridge in Nyhavn and on the road was severe. i guess murphy was around!

today the weather changed, the sun was shining for some time on us and the mosquitos came by...
we repaired the bridge and the road, but missed a big hole nearer to nyhavn, which we will do tomorrow. the rest of the day we spent by packing old paint into containers. this is all going home with the supply ship.

i invited our 3 neighbours from CASP on dinner, it's always nice to meat other people and be nice to them.

i put out some more pics...

Thursday, July 3, 2008

visitors from heaven...

on the first of july a C-130 from the danish air force came by on a training mission.
after loading the plane with 3 pallets, mostly of empty crates and my personal goods the captain turned off the engines. we had a chit chat and a cup of tea and showed them the station.
it was quite cozy to have some visitors again...

the rest of the day we spent packing old scrap metal in containers. this is all going back to denmark with the supply ship in the end of july...

for the last 7 days it has been raining almost every day and it´s quite anoying, cause i kind of hate the wet element...

new pics out 

Sunday, June 29, 2008

finished the road work...

yeasterday and today we were working on the road and the river. one was in the bulldozer and the other one in the hydrema. during the last 4 days we have been changing vehicle every day.
yeasterday it was nice and sunny. we got most of the road fillings done, but got a minor problem.
the bulldozer ran out of fuel, and the tank is 507 litres! UMG. so we had to go to the station and get 2 barrels of fuel and some new batteries. then we had to figure out how to air the engine so that it would start. as if not one problem was enough the starter wasn't eager to start. after a few hours we solved the problem and got the CAT up and running.

today it was raining. we strengthened the dam and moved some more gravel up along the road and collected trash and old barrels in the delta. it had been flushed out in the open by the flooding river.
today we finished the reconstruction of the road. what we need to do in the near future is to rake the road and pack it, then we might have to use the grader on it so smoothen out the surface...

Friday, June 27, 2008

brum brum, my CAT and I


it was still raining this morning.

we started out after breakfast by giving the dogs a Rabisin shot against rabies and some pills against worms.

then we headed out to the river and the bulldozer. after pre-heating with a flame tourch I started moving sand, gravel and rocks into the hole in the road. hansi was in the hydrema putting the drainage pipes in the ground. at hrs 1700 we finished for the day. i was a bit wet after sitting in the dozer for a whole day. we got most of the job done. so now the road is connected to Nyhavn, though it lacks a bit of "cosmetics"...

that will be tomorrow...

Thursday, June 26, 2008

today was the day...


today was the day it started raining heavily...
today was the day we would try to start the bulldozer...
today was the day that we hoped to tame the river...
TODAY was the day everything went as planned!JIPPI
we were allowed to start one of the bulldozer to stop the river from destrouying even more of our road. it was such a relief when the huge engine roared. it's crazy to think that the bulldozer is from 1952 and still going strong...
i drove the dozer into the riverbed and showed Hansi how to use it then he went crazy in the river and carved out a huge ditch where the water could flow and dugg up some big walls to prevent the water from overflowing. this meant that there isn't that much water in the river anymore, thus making our life a lot easier...
after blocking the water we went down to the section of the road that was missing. i got stuck in the sand twice with the hydrema. then i just settled for smoothening the bottom of the road, so that we can lay down the drainage pipes tomorrow. Hansi dug out a huge section of ice and snow, so that the water can run alongside the road instead of cutting it into peaces...
tomorrow we will have to fill up the holes, but it will take some days...
it put out some more pictures on the picture page!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

chnage of office?

who would change office with me??? this is from Nyhavn, the ice has dissappeared for a couple of hundred metres.
the narrower the dam getts the faster the water flows and erodes more...this is why it's so difficult to tame nature...
the first tourists arrived this season, but the left for the other side of the fjord after an hour...
finally we closed it, but it didn't last...buhu
this is the minor damage of the road! it looks like this 4-5 places. the worst places 30-40 metres of the road has been completelly removed.
yeasterday i made it to Nyhavn, crossing 3 missing parts of the road and only got stuck twice...

trouble doesn't come alone...

yeasterday was such a crappy day. first the stock market had a huge drop, making me loose money...
then we tried to stop the river from destrouying even more of our road. this went on fine and we directed the river out towards Kongeborgen. we were very happy. 3 hours later the river had cut through our dams and a long days work was flushed out to sea. the hydremas aren't big enough for that type of work.

i saw my first Hummle /Bee, and two of them...

today the weather has been quite warm and sunny.
the first mosquito bit be today, i had hoped to avoid them this year, but i guess with all the snow, eveything is like a swamp which is ideal for the little buggers...grrr

tomorrow we will try to start one of the bulldozers and see if we can repaire the dams and the road...

Monday, June 23, 2008

it's so warm here...




Today we had the warmest day of the year, +15,1 degrees. well it was probably in the sun...anyway it's nice and warm.


this also meant that more snow was melting, thus increasing the amount of water in the river, thus more erosion of the road...arggg




we finished packing the runway and the apron, cleared the road from snow to Dumpen and washed one of the hydremas and did some service on it.




then we went for a spin with the wheeled sledge with the dogs.




Thursday, June 19, 2008

the drainage pipe, consists of 13 fuel drums welded together
the hydrema and the packer

desert storm...

this morning I started raking the runway and the roads. i was dragging a big iron net after the hydrema, thus to loosen up the gravel and to even out the bumps from this winter.
this created a lot of dust, which came in everywhere. after a few hours i felt like i had eaten severeal litres of sand and i had to use preassure air got clean my self up.

then it was time to use the packer, it's also dragged by the hydrema. it has it's own engine and vibrates the ground with a preassure of 5 tons. the speed limit is 5 km an hour, so it will be some more days untill everything has been packed...

we also broght the second pipe for the road out to the smashed road.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008



digging in the river...






today the water in the river, tried to destroy more of our road. thus we had to bring our 2 Hydrema into the river and try to put up a wall in the water. it wasn´t that easy as a bulldozer would have done the job much better.  the wall we put up will protect a small part of the road for now, but we just moved the problem further downstream... arg!!!
after lunch Hansi welded some more fuel drums together, so we can use it for the water to run in under the road.
I dragged a net after the Hydrema to even out the road. then I used a 5 ton packer to flatten out the road.
yeasterday we went to the water lake to get water for the tower. almost 80 cm of the floor is covered by water...but there is nothing we can do about it!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

it never rain in Greenland...

BBQ in the midnight sun
I might have wanted some guests to come, since I had way to much food for the two of us...
My "twin" towers. mirror mirro on the wall...
The road to Nyhavn, cut to peaces by the river. at this place it has been cut 3 placesand further out on 2 other places. work work....


today i will relax, work on my presentation and have a coke....
It's raining a bit, +3 and low clouds!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Stuck in the river with Pisten Bully


Today was a busy day, digging all day long.
we had to remove a lot of slush ice which was blocking the bridge.
then i decided to take pisten bully for a spin on the river. i was removing snow from the other bridge, the one with out water! i thought!
suddenly the nose of pisten got stuck in a mixture of slush and water. i had to get Hansi to help me with the hydrema. we gathered a lot of straps and parked the hydrema on land app. 100 metres from pisten. Hansi tried to pull while i was trying to back up. the only thing that happende was that the straps broke, twice. so now we had to get creative if we wanted the thing out of the river before the water came any closer.
we found some 4x4 wood and a woodden plate and put it behind the pisten. then we backed the belts thereby pulling the wood underneath the pisten. hansi then pulled with the hydrema as i backed up, suddenly we got it moving and got out of the river. we cheared alot and went for lunch.
after lunch we dugg some more untill, 1600 when we went for a run with the dogs...
enjoy the new pictures...and don't do this at home!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

river flooding nr.2 and some more

this picture was taken close to nyhavn. the water has flooded the road and cut parts of it away. then we know what to do when all the snow has melted away.
yeasterday i welded some fuel drums together. the will act as the new tunnel for the water under the broken road, hopefully there will not be any problems with that next year...
for some time now, i have been building a mini-sledge. it's 1 metre long and buil in the scale 1:4. this will be nice to have on my fire place when i get old (er) ;0)

two days ago i dug out parts of the road to Nyhavn. when i started water started to seeve into the channel and thus rising, until i got to a place where the water could run out. it was quite deep for a time, but luckily it didn't drown my machine. i tried to do that later myself as i drove it into the river by accident, but i got it out.

today the river flooded down towards the station and reached the first bridge just after breakfast. hansi and i watched for some time and then we had to dig a channel with showels so that the water wouldn't reach the road. this was not enough so we had to dig another one. this looked like it would take the preasure of the bridge.

on our scootertrip later on, we found out that a major flooding had occured behind the station. this had loosened sometime during the night and had poured huge amounts of water into Noret and splashing snow and ice high up on the river banks and clearing the snow covered surface all the way down to the gravel and sand. the river had broken through the dam at Tunnelelv. thus directing around 50% of the water into Noret instead of nothing! but no worries it looks like we will have no problems with that...

i put out some pictures

Friday, June 6, 2008

summer?



I don't think this is winter pictures. this tells me that I'm looking at the end of the winter and the soon to bee summer. this is very nice! i think I will be able to ski for some more weeks.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Video of Tunnelelv floding

here is the video from the floding in Tunnelelv. I´m not sure if anyone have seen it before???
enjoy the power of nature...

Monday, June 2, 2008

water and snow tsunami or 30 sek from disaster...



this the second part of the disasterous spring flood of the river.just 30 sek earlier I was standing where the brown water is, with my snow scooter. i got a bad feeling and drove up on the hill and then this huge wall of water, snow and ice came tumbling down the canyon like a tsunami. i could never have escaped this...

i put some more pictures of my tsunami on the picture page. i will try to put some video on u-tube one of the days.

this was pretty crazy and exiting!

sleep thight

Sunday, June 1, 2008

global warming and more




on the 29th our neighbours, Hans, Per and Phillipe left us. the were going back to mainstream life in the city... it has been a good time with a lot of fun together with them.


the 29th was also the day when the runway started to melt. the twin otter landed with a splash in the 5-10 cm of snow and slush, but no problems. since then we have seen differences on the snow covere every day. today the runway is 95% clear of snow, but there is still more than 1 meter of snow in the terrain.




the river has started to move slowly, so it is just a matter of time before we see it down at the station. i guess that in 2-3 weeks most of the snow will be gone!




on the 30th of may i had my 34th birthday. it was also my 4th birthday in greenland. next year will be in an other country!


hansi made us some good food and a delicious desert.


on the 31th of may hansi had his 31th birthday and it was my turn to be the chef:0)




the dogs has gotten so much seal meat and fat that they are completely soaked in it and very very dirty. i dare not show them if someone would come by. hehe




have a nice and warm summer. we had +9,2 degrees today.




i put out some more pictures




Wednesday, May 28, 2008

a new warm record

we finished the new floor in the hall way. then we took down everything in the room and painted it.
after some more snow we had to clear all the roads and the runway again. while doing so, the temperature rose to +9.2 degrees, which was the warmest so far this year. from the 20th the weather has been warm and spring has definately come to us. the snow has started to collapse and getting rotten. every day we see changes in the amount of snow. i think we want have any snow here in 3 weeks! the skiing and sledging conditions are now really bad, especially when you use wooden skis like me ;0)

yeasterday we invited our neighbours on "Pinnekjøtt" a traditional norwegian christmas dis. it´s smoked and salted lamb meat which I steamed in a pot. I love it!!!

today a plane was supposed to come here and pick up our neighbours, but the weather gods wanted it different and covered the coast in fog and low clouds. we will have to see what tomorrow brings...

I put out some more pictures on the net!



Monday, May 19, 2008

Ja vi elsker dette landet...


HURRA HURRA HURRA

GRATULERE MED DAGEN NORGE

on the 17th of May we were invited to Nyhavn to celebrate 17.Mai with our Norwegian neighbours. it's the national day of Norway.

the weather was rather bad, almost like in Norway. snow, clouds and low visibility. it didn't matter that much, as we were indoors most of the time. the got some very delicious food, with starter main course and desert. some wine and drinks to complete everything.

at 3.30 we went back home and i got a long and needed rest...


on the 18th we didn't do anything except watching movies and relaxing. in the evening while i was making dinner a jet plane from the danish airforce called us on the radio and he made 2 low-pass over the station. ut had been doing fishery inspection in our area. the ice free area. hehe


for the last couple of days it has been snowing a bit so we had to clear the roads and the runway today. there is still a bit more left on the runway.

our neighbours came visiting us and helping us to lay the tail floor in the hall.

hansi took Per on a dog sledge trip. it was around 15 km and Per looked a bit tired afterwards...


i put out some more pictures

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

more seal hunting


this morning we did a 14 days maintenance on one of the generators. it involves changing oil and looking after leaks etc.
after lunch we took the dog sledge out for a spin. i shot my first seal while being in Mestersvig.
hansi also shot one. then we have dog food for at least a week.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

new floor...


after getting a glue gun, I could finally glue the heating cables to the old concrete floor. thereafter I covered the cables with concrete. this has to dry for a couple of days before we can put an other layer of concrete on. this will hopefully be good during the winter with tails and heating in the floor.
i put some pictures out from our seal hunting the other day. this is really good food for the dogs, so they enjoy it...
2 days ago we had an Twin Otter from Iceland, it brought us new spare parts to the central heater. finally we have heating in the tower and warm water!!!
the midnight sun has begun and the temperature is between 0 and -5 degrees

Thursday, May 8, 2008

GOING HOME AUGUST 6TH...

today I was notified from the office in Denmark that the date of my departure from Greenland is August 6th.
therebye ending 3 1/2 years in Greenland. then it's back to civilization and the modern world...

I will be seeing some of you out there....

cheers

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

arggg


we kind of hoped we fixed the central heating! we got it running for almost 2 days, so we could get a shower again and some warmth in the tower. but now it's broken down again. there is an air plane ready to bring some spare parts to us but it has been stranded on iceland due to bad weather since yeasterday. today it's snowing a bit and completely closed down. untill good weather comes our way we can wash in the snow...haha NOT!!!

i'm beginning to think that Italian quality isn't that good. the central heater is italian and now the internet has started to behave poorly, which is also italian...
last evening i took the snow scooter up in the mountains to take som pictures. it was very beautiful. the fog was in the fjord and the soft glowing midnight sun was pøaying in between the clouds... i feel lucky to see this!

those of you who asked to use my pictures! feel free to use them.


Saturday, May 3, 2008

Shit Shit...

while preparing the floor in the entrance for tail laying the oil heater in the tower stopped working. it has been a bit on and off the last week. today it completely stopped working.
we had it taken apart and changed some parts, but it's still not working.
since we doesn't have the parts for the oil heater this means we will have no heating or warm water in the tower. GRRR
we have 2 small electrical fans on the first floor, but the are not able to heat the whole tower.
after some weeks we probably smell a bit...hehe
at noon we had 0 degrees in the sun, but during night it's around -10 to -15 degrees.
stay warm, spring is on its way...

Monday, April 28, 2008

fire in the hole... or how to blow up the river bed...


today we went up to the tunnelelv river to blow a path through the snow and ice. it had to be done now, before there will be too much melt water. by doing so we hope to make a kanal towards the fjord, so that the water want run towards the station and the runway.
we made around 35 holes and put charges in the. i put some pictures out on my page.
it was nice and warm, only -3 in the sun!

Sunday, April 27, 2008

the deer hunter...

today I went out hunting. not for deer but it was the best title I could come up with ;0)
after walking up and down some small hills I found loads of ptarmigans. I managed to shot 10 of them and left a whole lot more for another day. on my way home I met two hare, but I left them too. no need to shot more than you can eat!
some of the birds fell down from the hills i was walking around on, so i had to walk up and down several places. that should make it the exercise of the day for me! when our neighbours come back from their trip we will have a ptarmigans dinner!

Saturday, April 26, 2008

more snow clearing

today I cleared the runway of snow, while Hansi was exercising the dogs. it took around 4 hours to do so. then everything is ready if a plane suddenly appears out of no where...hehe
I visisted Lapstun and Co in nyhavn. it's quite cozy at their place. nice and warm, though some snow has melted and is now dripping in the hall way and in the kitchen. if the weather is good tomorrow they will start on their ski expedition to Malmbjerget...

it has been a beautifull day with lots of sunshine!

Friday, April 25, 2008

visitors from denmark

yeasterday morning we got a scheduled jet plane from the danish air force. it came from denmark with 8 people. 2 of them from our office in denmark. the others where from the special forces. they were here to see if they could use the facilities for winter and summer training in the future. everything went quite well.

we have some lack of sleep, due to giving weather reports at 02, 03, 04 and 0630 bothe yeasterday and this morning. ahh

the weather was cloudy when the plane arrived and it started snowing a bit. the visibility started to be a bit bad, with white out. after a presentation and lunch the plane flew to iceland and stayed there over night.
we had a good evening with lots of good food and some red wine!
after breakfast at 07 we waited for the plane. the weather was bad,with poor visibility and white out conditions. the pilots managed the job very well and gt the plane down on the runway.
there after they took off for denmark with refueling on iceland.
we got 3 cm of snow this night, so tomorrow we will have to clear the runway again...
i got a nap in my bed most of the day...

Monday, April 21, 2008

skiing around...


today we finished digging snow aeay from the bridges. Hansi went on a short sledge trip and I went skiing with Devil to Nyhavn. this picture is from there. it's my old house from 1975-78 and a whole lot of snow...
the weather is great
Hansi shot 4 ptarmigans, so we will have fresh meat for dinner...mmmm
Lapstun and Co are moving from Washburns to Nyhavn, due to rising water in Tunnelelv. they will be heading out for a ski trip for the next 14 days, so it would be easier to move their stuff now.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

sunshine

today it feels like the midnight sun is here. it's 22.28 and still day light. the sun is behind the mountains and it's all so quiet. the midnight sun will be here on the 9th of May. to day the sun set at 2225 and will rise at 0430. most of that time I will be asleep...

we tried to get the bulldozer to run, but noo. after fixing and mending for some hours we gave up. the little starter engine is quite sick, so now we have 15 tons of iron and steel in our garage instead of a formiddable snow plow!

we took out the tractor and the pisten bully and continued our work of removing snow from the bridges, so that the water can run freely below the bridge when it all starts melting. a few more hours and we will have cleared the first out of two bridges.

have a nice night

Thursday, April 17, 2008

another day in the park

today we drove for a 110 km trip on snow scooters.
it was a bit cloudy but during the day it cleared up and the sun was shining.
we drove to the old trappers cabine at kap petersens then to the sirius cabine at kirschdalen, before crossing the fjord. from kongeborgen to holms Bugt the trip was a bit bumpy and enoying due to the hard surface. at sporvognen cabine we got some hot chocolate, before heading back home. the trip didn't take more than little over 4 hours. it wasn't like in the "old" days when I was sleding. then it would have taken 3-4 days...

Wednesday, April 16, 2008


another day with beautifull weather...

this morning we went out to the water lake and got 4000 litres of water for the tower. we had to make two runs out there to get it all.
then I did some finish on one of the inner doors in the tower. it needed some new mouldings.
since the weather was so good we decided to take 6 of the dogs fore a sledge trip. we drove via Nyhavn to Hamna and back to the station via Noret. upon arrival at the station Pablo, one of the dogs collapsed, probably due to too much work in the warm weather. after 5 min he was up and running again.

To the Washburn family. it was so nice to hear from you all. it's such a small world :0)
our neighbours in your house says hi!

Monday, April 14, 2008

spring is not coming...

today spring just stopped on coming... it was -27 and cold. we choose the wrong day to start the bulldozer. it has been frozen down since the summer. 15 tons of iron is quite cold!!!
we tried heating it up with stoves, electrical heaters and our air plane heater. the air plane heater wasn't working as it should be and the rest of our heating systems didn't give much.

while the heaters where on, we drove out to Hamna to see if the expedition had their papers in order. we stayed there for 4 hours talking to the people and enjoying the sun. the have 5 sledges and were 10 people.
when we came back home our neighbours from washburns had arrieved. they helped us look at the dozer and together we got the starting engine going, but for some reasone we havn't found out yet... it stopped working. probably something with the flow of fuel???
after dinner together they went up to washburns, and I'm off to sleep...

Sunday, April 13, 2008

foggy day

yeasterday we were invited up to our neighbours in Washburnshus. the had created a 3 course dinner. foiegras as a starter, then a delicious duck, finally cheese and a cake. everything was enjoeyd with red wine and cognaq.... mmm a perfect evening with good freinds. after discussing the future, dream plans for Mestersvig as a tourist place with the 5 of us as park rangers , we headed back home around 2 in the morning...
this morning we drove by the trapper station "Hamna" to see if the tourists had passed it during the night. but no one was around.
the fog was heavy and I had to use the GPS on parts of the route.
Hansi was running up and down the runway after lunch, while I went up to Washburns with some papers. on my way back home I went by Nyhavn, where I met the tourists. they are 5 sledges and 10 people. tomorrow they are resting in a cabine 7 km away from us. we will pay them a visit, it's not every day we meet someone...
ps don't open the comment on my last entry, it might be some crap someone put on my blog...

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Knag attacked by killer rabbit...


this evening my dog "Knag" was almost attacked by a giant killer rabbit. it walked around him for a long time, even when Hansi stood nearby. it sat down and ate his dog food and he didn't even care...

this morning we had light snow and cloudy weather. during the day the weather cleared up and we got nice and sunny weather with -4 degrees and no clouds.

we got our pisten bully, snow track up and running and we went on a short scooter trip to Vælddal to look for a tourist expedition. no one there!