an eye for detail

It's kind of necessary in this line of work, especially when what you're looking for is very small (and fortunately colourful!) Aaju and I are picking tiny rubies out of this sediment sample I took from one of the sites. It was actually a pretty good sample considering that most of what was present at that site was thought to be not very good, so somewhere in there is some better-quality material, which is good to know. Most of what we were finding in this stuff was anywhere from 1-5 mm.

(yes, it was cold enough for the down vest... I also have on my wool sweater and a wool undershirt, and leggings under the pants. It's *cold* when it's rainy here!)

wildlife count: Mike and Brian saw a caribou yesterday (jealous!). Also a baby hare. The fox has been spotted around camp a few more times as well.

more landscapes

A couple more landscape pictures. The sunset pic is another photo, a little later at night (sometime around midnight I think), from the night I saw the fox. He's been spotted a few more times hanging around the camp.

The shoreline pic is from Ruby Island, where my boss and I have been doing some mapping. It's going well and I got to pan some sediments for any rough stones, which was fun. Found some little ones, but we still have to clean and sift the fine stuff to get them out.


The white rock is pegmatite (a rock type consisting of very coarse-grained crystals that have intruded (while molten) in to the existing country rock. The thing that's neat about these chunks of country rock is that they have very clean edges and near-90 degree corners, which is very cool. Usually stuff melts and you end up with oblong blobs, so the breakage likely happened later in the history of the intrusion.

fox take 2

Here is the promised fox pic. :) He (or she I suppose) is small but near the centre of the photo. It's really, really rainy today and therefore slow, so I thought I would update.

The second photo is the sunset that same night. It was quite pretty.

fox!

I saw a fox last night! It was really neat. I stepped out to take a picture of the sunset and caught a little flick of motion out of the corner of my eye. I moved a bit so I was facing the right direction, and there, about a hundred metres away, was a little dark-brown fox with a white tail. :D He froze when he saw me move, and we stared at each other for a moment, and then he decided that I wasn't really a threat and moved on across the stream towards the tents on the other side. I took some pictures but will have to post them later, as I left my camera back in my tent. There is also some (probably crappy) video, also still on the camera. It's raining today so I'm not especially motivated to run out and get it. ;)

wildflowers

There are some pretty fantastic tiny wildflowers up here. A lot of them seem to be pink, as you will see. I wonder if the pink attracts pollinators better. There are bees here, although I'm not sure what kind they are. Large ones anyway.

The little white ones in the first picture were on a cliff face next to the harbour in Fiskaenesset.


The second picture is from Fiskaenesset as well, from a field next to the helicopter landing area. I think they are crowberry blossoms. So far this is probably my favourite picture that I've taken here. I really like the out-of-focus rocks in the background.


The third one was out in the field the other day. I asked Aaju what they were called and she told me, but I can't remember, so I'll check again sometime. They looked very much like fuchsias, just skinnier.


The second-to-last ones are good to make tea with. You just steep the whole plant (flowers, leaves and all) in some boiling water. I didn't try this one but there is a variety of labrador tea that grows here. Mike made some of that the other night and it was quite nice.


These last ones are called pincushion flowers.



I heart the macro setting on my camera. ^_^

home sweet tent

This is my home for the summer - a very cozy, mostly bug-free, 'tent'. I think 'cabin' is more the thing but the walls are flexible, so it's not really your average cabin either. It's not yet battened down in this picture.

The inside is quite comfy, with a small cot and foam mattress, night table, and a little closet for each person. I'm on my own in mine for another 10 days or so, and while I wouldn't mind company I kind of enjoy the privacy and the peace and quiet (of which there is an ample amount here!).


This is the inside. I have since switched my sleeping bag's direction so my head isn't right next to the window, plus I have a mattress now. It's still too cold in the night to have the windows open - it doesn't get dark, but it gets chilly. So I turn the heater on until it's borderline uncomfortably hot, turn it way down, and hope it's not freezing when I get up. Yesterday morning it was cold enough that I sort of shuffled over to the heater while still in my sleeping bag to turn it on - it was probably somewhere near 6C or so.

I don't see my breath here, which I think might be connected to how dry it is. It hasn't rained for about 3 weeks, which may be a little unusual, but it looks like rain later in the week. Walking on the moss and grasses that make up the ground cover sometimes sounds like walking on crunchy snow.

All things considered this is a very posh camp - the girls (all three of us - eventually it will be 4 and maybe 5) have our own shower and sink in a little cubicle in the wash tent, which is about twice as big as the cabin tents. There's lots of hot water and a place to wash our clothes when we need to. It will get a little more stretched when the drilling starts as the drillers will be coming in and out and also need to do laundry and things, but so far it's pretty good. And the cook makes really good food. So, things are going well so far. I got out in the field again yesterday and came back windburned, today I have been in the office, therefore, update. :)

wildlife count: arctic hare; grouse; eagle (all yesterday). Jose Luis saw a fox this morning.

the landscape

This is a picture of the lake on the south side of our camp. There's no fish in this one, as far as I know, but a couple of my coworkers caught some fish at the next lake down. We'll be having them for supper as soon as there's enough. I'm sure Gary's crushed about having to go fish some more. :)

And, the picture below is what we're here for. We all got the talking-to before we got out there about what we could and couldn't bring back... so no samples, sorry guys. ;) However I did get some nice pieces of some other minerals, and I'll post some pics once I have a suitable setup for my camera.

wildlife count: duck and duckling family; 6 (!!!) eagles of some kind.