Arctic Summer

The Arctic summer is a short but intense burst of life. For just a few months, the harsh climate of the Arctic relents. The sun shines day and night. And in come the birds Snowy owls live on the tundra and hunt during the day, unlike their cousins, the great horned owls.The arctic summer is a time of brightness and life.

Snow and ice clear to reveal a landscape of colourful tundra and bright alpine flowers on the shores of clear blue, iceberg-strewn fjords.

The wondrous Arctic Summer nights

Probably one of the best spectacles on earth, a "midnight sun" summer night in an arctic environment can take you all night dreaming awake.

This one is a photo from one of my favorite arctic blogs, Kuummiut, taken recently by Carl Skou, which work I strongly recommend. As I recommend a visit to his present day living area, Tasiilaq and Kuummiut, on Greenland's East Coast, where he can rent you a cabin too. Those two settlements situated in the most incredible landscape, like a small many-coloured cascade of houses down the snowy slope to the sea bay, can be like a surrealistic heaven on earth in the right weather - but under strong winter winds life is really hard, and an arctic night can last months.

Now is probably the best season, some flowers blossom through the ice, the nights are more magic than the Arabian nights, and those settlements are after all equiped with the necessary basic goods. Even icecream if you like.

More Links:

For Kuummiut:
http://www.kuummiut.com/
And in Ultima Thule:
http://ultima0thule.blogspot.com/search?q=arctic+summer

The legendary latitude 80º N :six locations on land.

This time Utima Thule will be travelling on a parallel to the equator, 80º to the North. From East to West, from Arctic Canada to Arctic Siberia.

Land at 80ºN. Few places on Earth reach that latitude:
Axel Heiberg Island and Ellesmere Island, in Arctic Canada; northernmost Greenland, east and west; the Norwegian Svalbard Islands; Franz Josef and Severnaya Zemlya archipelagos, on the Siberian Arctic waters.

Flower plants can grow at 80º N, during the precious but short spring-summer months, like these poppies in Svalbard.


Let's start in Axel Heiberg, one of the northernmost islands of the Arctic Archipelago of Canada. The arctic desert terrain was chosen as a good approach to Mars surface and adequate for tests and training in similar conditions. So, NASA installed a base there - the MARS station ("McGill Arctic Research Station"), near the 80º N latitude.

One of he driest regions on Earth - rain is short and occasional.

'Lost Hammer' spring is a case study - methan-eating bacteria can survive there at -60º in extreme hypersaline water and without oxygen !

McGill station, 79º 26' N.

More:
http://ultima0thule.blogspot.com/2014/07/axel-heiberg-arctic-as-arctic-can-be.html

Next, in Ellesmere Island, the largest and northernmost island of the same Canadian Archipelago.

Eureka Sound and the West coast of Ellesmere.

Tanquary Fjord is one of the largest fjords in Ellesmere.

At 80º N, the most remarkable place is probably the station Eureka, a permanent base for military and weather studies founded in 1947.

Eureka station in the distance, on the ice plain.

There have been several generations of buildings. The latest operations centre was completed in 2005.

Let's move eastwards, through Nares Strait. Next stop at Greenland, to meet the Humboldt Glacier (or Sermersuaq, in inuit), the widest tidewater glacier in the Northern Hemisphere:

Its front is 110 km wide, bordering the Kane Basin in North West Greenland.

Reflections in Kane Basin.

Station Nord, 81º N

Aarhus University Villum, Station Nord

Just 1 degree north of 80º, the danish Station Nord is one of the coldest research stations on earth, on the remote northeast Greenlandic coast:

- 40º C is a 'normal' temperature there.

Now we cross the North Atlantic to the European (Norwegian) Svalbard Archipelago. The 80th parallel hardly touches the northern tip of the islands.

Magdalenefjorden is a short but wide fjord around 79º 30' N, on the west coast of Spitsbergen, the largest island. Arctic cruises frequently visit the spectacular fjord and its glaciers.

The nearest settlement is Ny Ålesund, to the south at 79º N, a station several times highlighted here at U.T.:
http://ultima0thule.blogspot.com/2009/05/ny-alesund-and-adventure-of-norge-part.html

But also in Svalbard there is another reddish ground where NASA is testing for the Mars expedition: the Bockfjorden and the surrounding red sandstone mountains.

Bockfjorden, at 80ºN, is an intriguing place where hot meets cold. The ice sheet is gone, dry and cold environment coexist, hot springs still simmer, exhaling gases from Earth's mantle. Shaped by volcanism, ice, and liquid water, the place reminds of how Mars might have once been.

The Sverrefjell volcano created this unique Arctic evironment.

One of several hot thermal sources created by the Sverrefjel.

AMASE expedition testing a robot.

Franz Josef Land

These very very remote islands are mostly north of the 80th parallel, far from the Siberian Arctic coast. Bell island is on the spot, exactly at 80º.

Bell Island has also fascinated arctic explorers and scientists.

Nagurskoye, Alexandra Land island.

This Russian base, at 81º N, was longtime uncared-for, but is presently a beauty among its peers.

More:
http://ultima0thule.blogspot.pt/2012/06/franz-joseph-land-strange-islands-lost.html

Cape Tegettoff, Hall Island, 80º N

There are few spots on the planet more suited to a science fiction movie.

Spectacular.


Severnaya Zemlya is still more isolated, south of nowhere. Perfect for some misanthrope to build a hut far from any civilization, up in the Russian high Arctic. Surely there is a station, a meteorological station, at Golomyanniy, 79º 33' N, on Sredniy Island, where Russia is building a larger military base.

The station at Golomyanniy works since 1954.

The chief meteorologist

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Surprisingly, animals - some of them quite large ! - live at this latitude:

The pretty arctic fox, Novaya Zemlya.

The edgy and skittish muskox, Ellesmere Island.

The charming but fearsome Polar Bear, Franz Josef Land.


Why not end as I began, with an 80º N arctic flower?

The arctic Tern - the ultimate Thulean bird

"An animal to represent the planet", an excellent candidate as symbolic animal of the world, the arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) really travels and lives a lot.

Arctic terns migrate from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back every year, in a 19 000 Km journey each way! This is the longest regular migration by any known animal.

As they enjoy two summers per year, they are believed to spend more time in the sunshine than any other animal. Their feeding and nesting grounds as well as their migratory paths keep them far enough away from people. Arctic Terns usually migrate far offshore. Consequently, they are rarely seen from land outside the breeding season.

It wouldn’t be difficult to create a global myth around such a rarely seen animal.

Arctic terns are long-lived birds, with many reaching twenty years of age; some may reach thirty !

Arctic Terns are medium-sized birds. They are mainly grey and white plumaged, with a dark red beak, legs and feet, white forehead, a black nape and crown (streaked white), and white cheeks.

The arctic stern has a bad temper: it is one of the most aggressive birds, fiercely defensive of its nest and young. It will attack even humans and large predators, usually striking the top or back of the head.

One example of this bird's remarkable long-distance flying abilities involves an arctic tern ringed on the Farne Islands, Northumberland, UK in summer 1982, which reached Melbourne, Australia in October 1982, a sea journey of over 22 000 km in just three months from fledging.

Migration route of the arctic stern