Last week I was in Isachsen, a remote settlement high in the Arctic. It's so far north that anyone who lives there would be well within their rights to call the Inuit of Greenland a bunch of southern poofs. Except no one lives there. It was created in 1948 as a US cold war "weather station", a place where "meteorologists" could keep their eye on any unpleasantness coming over the pole from the Soviet bloc. But then, one day 29 years ago, the scientists just upped sticks and left. Today it is easily the most godforsaken place on earth. Already listed as having the worst weather in Canada, the motley collection of buildings stands alone and deserted. Doors bang forlornly in the wind. Vast tundra buggies -- caravans on wheels taken from monster trucks -- stand in snow up to the midriff. And scattered around are the vehicles we saw in Ice Station Zebra, a movie that was made here. Inside, newspapers from the Seventies are left open, indicating precisely what day the men left. Manuals and charts remain pinned to the walls. The larder is stacked with food, all of which was "best before Gorbachev". Spooky is the word for it. But bleak would do as well, because it's all coated in a foot-thick veneer of snow. You walk into the dining room and everything, the tables, the chairs, the cutlery and cookers, is discernible only from its outline in the untouched smooth white blanket.Sadly, however, the station's runway was not as the scientists had left it. Wind and time had taken their ...
Brand New Apple Phone Ipod
| Price : $199.00 | Post Date : Jan 27, 2012 17:42:17
