Work to Travel? Travel to Work?

Greenland??

Well who would have thunk it. Not I, not this year. With finally getting back to work later than expected, I was anticipating an entire summer out in wild places around the Yukon. But the company I work for had more than just that in mind.

But before getting into that let me elaborate slightly on the highlights of my first month of work in central Yukon. I was working up between Carmacks and Dawson on a helicopter fly-drill looking for gold in some very steep hillsides. I was in a great camp which, on one occasion deemed it a good evening to boost “camp moral”. We talked the helicopter pilot to fly an hour each way to Dawson to do a booze run. At a landed cost of $65/beer, that cool, tasty beverage never tasted so delicious! And I can safely say that I probably will never have an opportunity like that to blatantly waste someone else’s money in that way again (albeit a rich investor’s) hehe. The other interesting story up there was the bear plague we seemed to have around camp. I woke up four separate occasions to have a black bear staring at me through the screen door while I was sleeping! Not a nice picture to wake up to! But luckily they were all fairly timid and with a holler they would take off running. The day before I left, a bear ransacked a tent while someone left the screen open while he was taking a shower. The camp cook found the bear laying on the trail to the helipad knawing on a boot just like a dog. Too bad for that bear, he will definitely be a casualty by the time you read this.

So off to Greenland it is and is where I find myself now. It is interesting working up here. It is a mix of Canada’s arctic, European culture and a high alpine environment all rolled into one. We are exploring for precious gemstones, primarily rubies and apparently there are only a few mines in the world, with most of them coming from Myanmar and Afghanistan, which have that ‘conflict’ air about them. The hope here is that the exploration company can get a mine going up here and market them conflict free so to command a better price on the market. Greenland has very little raw resource extraction at the moment (one gold mine) but with the current economic outlook, an interest has been spiked in mineral exploration, much like northern Canada.

Work here is similar to Canada with a few differences. Food here is a whole new experience, as our cook is Danish and all the food is imported from Europe, so its all new to me (and quite good). Reindeer, cod and arctic char, all caught locally are dinner staples, which are all delicious and suit me just fine. And tonight? Well I never believed this to happen, but I just gorged myself on thick, juicy Pilot whale steaks! And after all that work I did trying to save them in the Galapagos, here I am eating them on the other side of the world...ironic.

Air Greenland, the exclusive flying operator in Greenland is not very reliable and as of recent has been plagued with helicopter reliability problems, making it interesting getting to work and back everyday. Our commute to work consists of a 45 minute walk 2000’ uphill alongside a waterfall to get to a glacial lake, followed by a zodiac ride across the lake to the exploration site. Talk about a unique commute to work! We are drilling on a little peninsula jutting out into the middle of a beautiful green lake. The rock in Greenland is purportedly some of the oldest rock in the world, at 2.5 - 3 billion years old and is quite interesting to look at the cross sections as you drill into it.

So take a look at my pics, as you can see there is a beauty about my office that some people may appreciate. For now, I wouldn’t want it any other way... More to come on Greenland soon.

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