Charging polar bear would gauge your nerve

ALONGSIDE CCGS AMUNDSEN—Until today I had fired two kinds of firearms in my life — a .22 caliber rifle (groundhog control) and a 9mm Parabellum Kommando (the Rhodesian copy of the Israeli Uzi).

Eve Guilbault Photo

Claude Lafrance, Amundsen first officer, instructs the Star's Peter Calamai in the use of a polar bear deterrent.

Against a charging polar bear, however, you need heavier artillery. Much heavier. Like the 12-gauge shotgun that I got to fire this afternoon.

The story starts four years ago when I was on the Amundsen icebreaker in the Beaufort Sea west of here. A misbehaving helicopter engine forced Andy Derocher, a top Canadian polar bear expert, to spend a night with us.

At the request of the researchers on board, Derocher gave an impromptu talk about polar bears. I’m sure there was all sorts of biological content but the part I remember vividly is how difficult it is to stop a 500-kilogram charging male polar bear with even the heaviest artillery.

According to Derocher you’d be lucky to get off more than one round at killing range and you shouldn’t even think of a warning shot. It was kill or be killed in the rare instance that a polar bear had you in his sights.

All I had in the sights of the 12 gauge was a plywood rectangle about 20 metres away over the ice at the stern of the Amundsen. Four targets of concentric circles had been hastily drawn by hand because the store-bought targets had been shredded in previous practice.

Every group that goes out on the ice any distance away from the ship is supposed to be accompanied by a “gun,” meaning a crew member or scientist who holds a Firearms Acquisition Certificate and has firearms experience. On past Amundsen expeditions, there’s often been a paucity of people qualified to be a “gun.”

It’s our good fortune on Leg 7A of this expedition to be favoured with at least two young women researchers from families where daughters learned how to use guns, One of these, Halagonian Lisa Delaney, was in a group headed out for target practice today and she tipped me off so I could take photographs.

Yet again on this trip, however, I morphed from detached journalistic observer to active participant when Claude Lafrance, the Amundsen’s first officer, offered a chance to fire the 12 gauge. At first I declined but then machismo triumphed. After all, if some mere slip of a young woman could manage, surely 240 pounds of well-aged manhood could.

I am relieved to report that I didn’t point a loaded weapon at anyone, remembered how and when to engage the safety and ensured the shotgun was handed over empty to the next user. Nor did I fall over backwards with the recoil, which wasn’t as powerful as suggested by the muzzle blast.

I probably also didn’t hit the targets with any of my three blasts. It’s difficult to know for sure since we were firing shot-filled shells instead of the slug-filled ones you’d use for really deterring polar bears. So every inch of the plywood was sprayed with tiny holes. Maybe a few were mine.

It should go without saying (but in today’s accusatory climate, who knows) that none of the researchers want the death of a polar bear on their conscience. Yet I think I could pull the trigger if the necessity arose to protect me or my companions.

But maybe the trigger of a .308-calibre rifle, the other firearm carried by the Amundsen’s  “guns.” The shotgun is best for close-in defence and I’m not keen on being that close to  anything whose claws can gouge furrows five centimeters deep into a skull.

 

Hockey day in the Arctic

ON THE ICE BESIDE THE CCGS AMUNDSEN – On the world’s largest outdoor ice surface – the entire Arctic Ocean - the scientists and crew of the Amundsen icebreaker put on the world’s cleanest hockey game this afternoon.

It must have been clean because there were no penalties during the two-and-half hours of spirited play. No referee nor linesmen either. Or blue lines or a centre line.

Yet there was a good-sized playing surface after the Amundsen’s plows had shoved snow off smooth ice that’s at least a metre and a half thick. As well there were creases and nets (wood frames with poly plastic) and a frozen orange ball that stung like blazes if you were hit.

And plenty of goals (no official scorer, though.) Plus lots and lots of fun, which was the whole idea.

Right beside the marathon hockey tournament, a smaller but equally energetic group mounted a virtuoso soccer display. An utterly unscientific survey suggested that the Europeans aboard the ship gravitated to the soccer while the Canadians preferred hockey.

But there was no curling, Canada’s national winter sport (pace lacrosse). This omission was especially unfortunate since in far-off Vernon, B.C. Canada’s Jennifer Jones was at the same time clinching the women’s world curling championship. Of course everyone knows that the Canadian rink is also favoured in the men’s world championships next month.

Well, maybe not everyone. There were quite a few quizzical expressions among the scientists when a former Ontario schoolboy curling champion (long since retired from competitive curling) proposed adding a sheet of curling ice to the snow-clearing chores.

The rocks? Fill some large discarded tin cans with water and insert a wooden handle as they freeze. Coloured circles for the house? There’s red hydraulic fluid and something called alcian blue that stains the lab glassware. Brooms? Plenty of those aboard, and not those new-fangled push ones either.

Adding pebbles to the ice surface would be a cinch. Even in today’s relatively balmy minus 22 C water drops would have frozen in minutes.

About the only serious problem is the lack of a sponsor. Hurry hard, Tim Hortons.

Getting onboard with Earth Hour

ABOARD CCGS AMUNDSEN—At 8 o’clock last night the view from the Amundsen’s bridge was dazzlingly bright, even though the sun was only 10 degrees above the horizon.

There were no outside lights to switch off to mark Earth Hour because the usual night time lights hadn’t yet been turned on.

PETER CALAMAI PHOTO

A snowmobile headlight is illuminated but outside lights on the icebreaker haven't yet been switched on at 9:15 last night, as the Amundsen' contribution to Earth Hour.

“I told you,” said a smiling Captain Lise Marchand.

As the onboard representative of the newspaper championing Earth Hour, I had raised the question of the Amundsen observing Earth Hour with numerous people right after coming on board two weeks ago.

Few had even heard of the event. Those who had were skeptical — of the purpose and of the value. The captain noted that it would still be quite light here at 8 o’clock on March 29 because of our northern position.

As well, more than one scientist pointed out that they were here in the frigid Arctic actually working hard to understand climate change and living on a vessel were every watt of electricity, every ounce of fuel was carefully husbanded.

“Those people down in Toronto will turn off some lights for an hour and then go back to driving their SUVs to pick up milk from the convenience store and wasting electricity with old beer fridges in their basements,” one said.

But Star reporters don’t give up easily.

I continued to talk up Earth Hour with kindred souls. I downloaded material from the web and left it at the captain’s doorway. I began raising the topic with Tim Papakyriakou, the very busy but also exceptionally patient chief scientist.

It all came to a head yesterday when Tim and the captain agreed that the Amundsen should do its part, even though the gesture would be mostly symbolic because the twilight now lasts almost until 9 o’clock.

So the plan wasn’t to turn off some the ship’s external lights. Instead, they won’t be turned on until after 9.

And that’s what happened. As it turns out, I joined an excursion last night out on the ice to an instrument-crammed sled which is the pride (and sometimes the heartache) of  Environment Canada researchers.

The  Amundsen was a bone-jarring snowmobile ride away across more than a kilometre of snow drifts and occasional ice ridges. It looked very small.

It also looked dark. Not until a quarter after 9 did the customary spotlights flick to life, like fireflies around the decks.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit feeling some relief when a light illuminated the red maple leaf emblem on the ship’s funnel. That’s my home, I thought, and it’s warm there and the bar is open tonight.

But I’d be dissembling if I didn’t also confess that I returned home to find that I’d left all the lights ablaze in our cabin.

 

 

No steam in sight

INSIDE THE CCGS AMUNDSEN–This venerable icebreaker is just as impressive below deck as it is above. More, if you are the one misfit from a family of engineers.

First, a confession. As an ancient mariner pointed out in an email, I have been guilty of anachronism when writing about the Amundsen “steaming” away.

As a descent into this ship’s bowels demonstrated today, there’s no steam involved in propelling her. In fact, the Amundsen was “green” decades before the current vogue, with the twin 14-tonne propellers driven by two DC electric motors.

Because the two shafts are turned by induction, there’s no gear box and nothing to damage if the 5-metre-wide propellers whack a piece of ice, although substantial nicks have been discovered when the ship was in dry dock.

That electricity is generated from two, four or as many as six V-16 main engines which run on marine diesel fuel. And before that old salt starts typing again, yes the diesel-electrics put out AC power which is then converted to DC.

That’s merely the icing from a fascinating 90 minutes spent with chief engineer Stéphane Dufour, who is responsible for everything mechanical on the ship, from the morning shower water to the power needed to advance at a steady three knots through metre-thick ice.

Growing up, Stéphane thought about becoming a doctor. But a friend mentioned the Coast Guard and by the first “sea phase” experience at the Coast Guard College, the 17-year-old had found his calling.

“It’s what I thought I was going to be doing as a kid but with bolts and not people,” he says.

Doctoring a 98-metre vessel takes four other engineers, six “oilers” and an electrician to together provide 24-hour monitoring of the ship’s vital signs.

Even when the Amundsen is immobile in the ice, like now, it burns between 5,000 and 6,000 litres of diesel a day in a smaller V-8 ship’s service engine for the electricity, heat, fresh water, and sewage system needed for this combined floating hotel and peripatetic research centre.

When the Amundsen is struggling in tough ice – as a week ago – daily fuel consumption can soar above 30,000 litres with all six V-16 main engines throbbing and a second V-8 service engine also running. On one day in early January the ship gulped 40,000 litres, a rate that even tanks holding 2.7 million litres can’t sustain when the next fill-up isn’t until mid-June.   

There’s also a third V-8 for redundancy plus a smaller diesel engine above the water line, so if the ship is holed and taking on water below there will still be emergency power.

As the photograph from the engine room shows, the scale of this hidden machinery is Brobdingnagian compared to the miniaturized instruments in the laboratories above deck.

That scale is one reason that it takes a half-hour to get the engines purring if the ship is in open water. When the ship has been chilled in an icy vise, however, the engineers like 90 minutes to bring the lubricating oil temperature gradually up to the optimal 70 C. In practice, the ship will run at Dead Slow for some time while that load helps warm up the engines.

A shame I can’t call it “getting up steam.”

PETER CALAMAI/TORONTO STAR

Amundsen's chief engineer Stéphane Dufor walks between a V-16 main engine and a V-8 service engine below deck in the icebreaker.

Shipmates for life

ABOARD THE CCGS AMUNDSEN – After two weeks I’ve finally figured out what I’m doing here on the icebreaker: I’m “embedded” much like a war correspondent with troops in Afghanistan.

My troops are the 40 Coast Guard crew and 41 scientific personnel on board. Like a war correspondent, I depend on them for my safety, shelter, food and – most importantly – my stories.

The parallels are eerie. I’m not supposed to leave the ship (equivalent of a military base) without clearance. Out on the ice, I’m always accompanied by someone with a gun (for polar bears.) Travel is on their snowmobiles or heavy duty snow cat (in Afghanistan it’s light-armoured vehicles).

Peter Calamai

Researchers Ralf Staebler and Klaus Hochheim launch a weather balloon from the helicopter platform at the stern of the icebreaker Amundsen. The balloon ascended to 20 kilometres, radioing back readings on wind direction and speed, temperature and humidity.

They look out for me in other ways too. When I was stumbling around on the deck with frosted-over spectacles the other day, Myriam Paquet-Gauthier, a “matelot” or seaman, gently guided me to the entryway. I try to do my bit by checking other faces for hints of frostbite and lending a hand with simple tasks (although just staying out of the way is my biggest contribution.)

Inevitably, the normal cautious separation between disinterested reporter and subject disappears, much like it does in war zones.

We’ve chorused Happy Birthday to our shipmates and together scoured corners for the miniature chocolate eggs secreted by some unknown Easter Bunny.   

It would be impossible – no, downright inhuman – to remain disinterested when someone with whom you’ve shared a life-altering exposure to the Arctic is obviously feeling joy or pain.

So I’m rooting – and not that quietly -- that Maike Kramer from the University of Kiel manages to incubate the thousand-plus rotifers she needs from that chest of sea ice. Or that a balky laser doesn’t create any more woes for Jeff Seabrook from York University. And I’m crossing my fingers in the hope that a crucial missing instrument component turns up for someone who will remain anonymous.

I realized my embedded position just a couple of evenings ago when, after several hours of minor tribulations, two researchers finally managed to release the first weather balloon on this leg of the Amundsen’s expedition.

As the white sphere rose rapidly from the helicopter deck, someone was imploring “Go, go, go.”

It was me.

 

Throwing a wrench in the works

ABOARD THE CCGS AMUNDSEN—Put a wrench or a screwdriver down within reach of anybody aboard this icebreaker and they’ll pick it up and fix a piece of equipment or machinery with it.

PETER CALAMAI PHOTO

Research technician Sylvain Blondeau carries out repairs under a water sampling apparatus assisted by Pascal Massot, both with the University of Laval.

(With the exception of the two reporters/writers, that is, one of whom sometimes has problems merely connecting his laptop.)

You’d expect such mechanical dexterity from the Coast Guard crew on the Amundsen. After all they’re often all on their own thousands of miles from the nearest hardware store, much less the closest repair shop. So if they can’t fix something, it stays broken.

Yet too many people think of research scientists as nerds wearing white lab coats and peering at computer monitors or grasping foaming test tubes.

That outdated stereotype is really warped here on a ship out in the midst of the frozen Arctic Ocean. A walk around the labs shoehorned into crannies and deck containers reveals example upon example of inventiveness with rubber hoses, bungee cords, clamps (plastic and metal), foam board, alligator clips and that reliable stand-by, tin foil.

Sure there are fragile custom-made glass components for air sampling that cost $800 a pop. But there are also passive air samplers cobbled together out of two stainless steel salad bowls, a threaded rod and a few washers and spacers (total cost: about $25).

When the researchers can’t fix something themselves, they turn to the ship’s experts, like the busy electrician Rémi Bisaillon who performs  miracles by the hour such as hooking up a 240-volt European air pump that’s 50 metres away from the ship (with distance, voltage drops and amperage rises).

Or the scientists turn to research technicians such as Sylvain Blondeau from Laval University, who works with colleagues Luc Michaud and Pascal Massot. It’s not exaggerating to say that without these three a lot less science would be accomplished on and off the Amundsen.

For example, Sylvain used heaters to unblock a frozen fuel line in the Bombardier BR ski cab, which had died five kilometers away from the ship. He taught himself hydraulics to commission a 10-tonne A-frame winch when the ship sailed before the manufacturers could finish the job. And over the past several days he brought the winch back to life from its winter hibernation on the port foredeck

Perforating the ice to free the ship took its toll on the Amundsen’s population of gas-powered augers and chain saws and it was Sylvain and colleagues who patched up the mechanical causalities and sent them back into the front lines.

Just this morning Sylvain was squirming under the water-sampling apparatus called a rosette to repair a flange, with Pascal assisting. They had to remove the recalcitrant part and clamp it in a vise in the ship’s machine shop.

When a bolt sheared off, they didn’t even swear. That part is now back in working order on the rosette.

 

Sundogs smile on icebreaker

ABOARD CCGS AMUNDSEN—After a run of bad luck, the Amundsen experienced an omen last night, and it’s turning out to have been a good one.

For almost an hour, everyone could see three suns setting off the ship’s port side. The phenomenon is called “the sun’s dogs” — or sundogs — and is visible in southern Canada under rare atmospheric conditions.

In the supercold Arctic air, conditions are much more favourable, since what’s needed is a sun low on the horizon (check), an atmosphere heavy with ice crystals (check) and an absence of smog (double check).

Acting like miniature prisms, the ice crystals bend the sun’s rays at least 22 degrees so your eye sees two mock suns, one on each side of the real thing. As the photograph here shows, the dogs are squished vertically and also have a tail stretching away from the sun.

PETER CALAMAI PHOTO

Ice crystals in the frigid Arctic air combine with a sun low in the sky to create an atmospheric phenomenon known as sun dogs.

 

An everyday rainbow is a reminder that sunlight is composed of a spectrum of colours, from red to blue. The colours have different wavelengths so they are bent or refracted different amounts by water droplets, spreading the sunlight out into a spectrum.

Something similar happens with sundogs, for which the scientific name is parhelia. If you look closely at the photograph, you’ll see the sundogs are reddish on the inner side, shading to blue on the outer.

There’s all sorts of neat physics involved in how the hexagonal ice prisms so often become aligned  horizontally as they fall through the air, the position that produces the most spectacular sundogs.

Perhaps more interesting to us, however, is that yesterday the ship was finally settled in a secure berth and today a controlled frenzy of measurements, observations and experiments is underway. Maybe the sundogs smiled on us.

 

 

This ain't no namby-pamby passenger ship

ABOARD CCGS AMUNDSEN – The icebreaker Amundsen is just like any other steamship you’ve been on – except that is crashes through metre-thick ice and all its inner workings are exposed.

Walk the 98-metre length of the ship inside on the main deck and four times you’ll have to step up six inches to pass through emergency bulkheads. Maybe passengers on cruise ships realize such doors exist but they aren’t drilled in how to operate them manually should the power fail.

Peter Calamai

Swedish researchers Agneta Fransson and Melissa Chierici of University of Gothenburg pass supplies down one the Amundsen's many stairways.

Going outside also provides a reminder that you are on a workaday vessel which, when it isn’t ferrying scientists around the Arctic, earns its pay keeping shipping lanes free of ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There are genteel wood doors with glass windows – as on cruise ships – but on the main deck they open into forbidding metal vestibules from which escape is through a water-tight door.

It’s opened by spinning a wheel that engages steel rods at four corners plus the top and bottom, with a satisfying kerchunk. Exiting requires stepping up well over a foot.

There are loads more examples – the long fire axes on the corridor walls, brilliant red pipes with mystifying markings, corridor handholds draped with drying mittens.

For me, however, the most satisfying reminder that this isn’t some namby-pamby passenger ship are the dozen or more yellowing plans that have been lovingly preserved behind glass in frames and mounted on the walls of the two most heavily trafficked decks – Upper and Main.

The drawings were done in the late 1970s when this ship was built at the Burrard Dry Dock Co. Ltd. in  B.C. Hand-drawn and hand-lettered, they quietly proclaim the skill of those draftsmen and also the pride which that company took in building well.

The engine room plan is mesmerizing, with neat notations of additions and subtractions from the original design. Even more remarkable are the drawings of the ship’s intestines – the bilge and ballast pumps – and its dual circulation systems  -- for fuel oil and fresh water.

The drawings also reveal some of what was lost when the Franklin, the name by which this ship was commissioned, was saved from the scrapyard and converted into a floating centre for Arctic research.

The Franklin boasted a substantial gymnasium and also a “hobby room,” both sacrificed to housing 40 researchers and their equipment. As well the ship originally had cabins reserved for “hydrographers” and “ice observers.” These have vanished too with the loss of some maritime romance in the bargain.

There’s one aspect of the Franklin/Amundsen’s design that doesn’t come across that well in the drawings, both historical and modern.

That’s the stairs. From the bridge to the main deck embraces five flights of stairs, with narrow treads and steep risers. In all, there are 55 steps. Then there are all the stairs outside and a further 15 steps down into the engine room, off limits without special permission.

On the Amundsen many people probably go up and down a thousand steps in a day. I’m sure that I’m managing at least 500. Finally I’m doing the step exercises which the physiotherapists ordered after my hip replacement operation last June.

 

Fantastic feasts on-board

ABOARD THE CCGS AMUNDSEN–The secret is bound to get out so I might as well come clean: We eat very well on this icebreaker. Very, very well.

Easter dinner today, for instance, started with a choice of superb spinach soup or, for those so inclined, escargots with puff pastry. Then a main course of ham off the bone in port sauce with rice and two green vegetables. Followed by a selection of cheeses. And finally far too many dessert choices (I opted for the chocolate cake with strawberries).

All that accompanied by your selection from one of four wines ranging in price from $10 to $20 a bottle. The wine is available for sale only on Sundays and limited to a bottle per cabin, meaning a half-bottle per person in most cases.

I don't want to leave the wrong impression. In the crew cafeteria where I usually eat along with most of the scientists on board, you line up at a hatch opening into the kitchen. When finished everyone is expected to rinse off their dishes, glasses and utensils in the wash-up area.

The officers dining area, one deck further up, gets its food from the same kitchen but has table service. A few senior scientists regularly eat there, often joined by other media people on-board.

It’s a marvel that anyone had any appetite left for the sumptuous dinner this evening.

Usually breakfast on-board is from 7:30 to 8:30 to straddle the times when officers come on and off watch. But today we had a brunch beginning at 10:30 and extending past noon.

It resembled one of those all-you-can eat buffets on cruise ships, except that the dishes were of much higher quality.

Instead of lining up at the hatch, we filed through the kitchen itself where every breakfast offering from individual weekdays was on offer – fresh croissants, bacon, sausage, ham, scrambled eggs, porridge, French toast, crepes, beans, several kinds of cold salad, assorted fresh fruit and maybe a half-dozen desert choices. (Honest, I didn’t have desert at both brunch and dinner.)

Star reporter Peter Calamai (right, in red) joins crew and scientists for Easter Sunday brunch on the icebreaker Amundsen.

Lunch and dinner throughout the week are equally impressive culinary feats, especially when you remember that the Amundsen normally receives fresh fruit and vegetables only every six weeks when there is a crew change. Ingredients for the meals come mostly from stores and huge walk-in freezers originally stocked when the ship left Quebec last July 23.

So the variety and quality of the cuisine is truly a tribute to the inventiveness and skill of chef Jacques Beaudet and the two cooks, Joelle Dube and Fabien Castonguay.

Here's just a sample of main dishes from the past week – blanquette de veau, sole meuniere, linguini Alfredo,  turkey tetrazini, pork filet a la Dijonnaise, asparagus quiche and – believe it or not – pizza (either meat or vegetarian) with French fries. Plus a choice of two desserts every day, including tarte au citron, tarte au sucre, tapioca and a decadent treat called gateau crunchi.

Those on-board who have also been on the scientific ships of other nations never cease to proclaim that Canada is the best, by far.

It's even said that the regular fare on the U.S. Coast Guard’s polar research icebeaker, the Healey, is wieners and beans.

Wait for me!

Peter Calamai

Environment Canada research scientist Alexandra ("Sandy") Steffen and University of Manitoba research technician Debbie Armstrong collect samples of surface snow to analyze for mercury deposited from the atmosphere.

ON THE ICE – Black exhaust smoke suddenly began billowing out of the Amundsen’s funnel, a sign that the six powerful engines were being revved up.

The Coast Guard icebreaker was only a few hundred metres away. Nonetheless it’s an alarming thought that your cozy floating home is about to steam off when the temperature is minus 32 C out on an Arctic ice floe.

Of course, that wouldn’t have happened. Our trio was in radio contact with the bridge officers. As well, the captain had said she was merely trying to shuffle the stuck ship back and forth to clear floating ice from beneath the doors of the moonpool. That’s the hole cut though the hull in the stern where sampling and recording devices can be lowered into the water, as far as the ocean floor if necessary.

Nonetheless I’ll confess to some relief when shortly afterwards Debbie Armstrong announced that she and Environment Canada research scientist Sandy Steffen had finished gathering samples of surface snow from a pristine patch they’d marked with reflectors as off-limits to snowmobiles.

The two women are part of a group on board that’s researching how mercury moves through the air, snow, ice and Arctic food chain (.pdf)(And it does some very peculiar things. More about that in the Star later).

Debbie, an ebullient and impressively accomplished research technician from the University of Manitoba,  has a firearms certificate so she was toting the polar bear rifle. A close-up glance revealed something blue was stretched over the end of the barrel.

“It’s the finger of a latex glove,” Debbie explained. “There’s so much salt out on the ice that it was getting into the guns and they were rusting.”

That was the second surprise of the morning. The first came when we arrived to be lowered by a crane down to the ice in a metal cage, like miners going to work underground.

Amundsen crew members were busily scraping ice from the deck with choppers and shovels, just as Canadians do to driveways and sidewalks. But while spring has officially arrived across the entire country, conditions are going to remain wintry up here for weeks.