CANADA'S FIRST SUN OF THE MILLENNIUM

Diary notes of March 2, 2000

We leave the station at 7:00 AM. There are six of us: three researchers conducting projects connected to the Department of the Environment, Cpl. Daley [who bicycles around the base in good weather], Sgt. Mercure and myself. There is merriment and much talk by the three researchers as we drive from the base, little of it about the possible coming event of a full disc of the sunrise. Some attempts are made to sing together. All this eventually fades into a quiet drive.

Through the windshield I see overhead clouds that fill the sky to the south, moving across from an easterly to a westerly direction. They look fairly low and heavy. Sometimes it appears as if there is fog at ground level, off in the distance. I wonder if we will see the sun at all today. The first part of our trip is the same as Monday. We pass buildings of the station and weather facilities. But once beyond them, about three-quarters of an hour later, I begin to notice that the sky to the southwest is clearing. The clearing appears to be moving from west to east, along the southerly mountains in front of us. As the clouds disappear, there is considerably more light. Off to the southeast, where the sun will hopefully appear, there are a few breaks in the clouds. The breaks are high up in the sky, not at the horizon. We are now down in a large valley area and I await our view when we begin to ascend to higher ground.

As our trip progresses in the BV, light increases to the south. Finally, we ascend to higher ground and it is at this time that we begin to see even more breaks in the clouds. Sgt. Mercure says hopefully that the sky is clearing. I am more cautious. I have to see how things look past the gorge ahead of us and beyond the pass between the mountains. As we draw closer to those points I find that much the terrain has changed from Monday.

Our BV tracks are completely gone. The land is now swept free of most of the snow. Except for a powdery surface here and there and lumpy drifts that haven't blown away because they are dense and rigid, the landscape is no longer a smooth continuous white fabric. What we are left with is a landscape of stones showing the erosion of earth around them. The stones "salt and pepper" the landscape with their dark surfaces and the snow particles that cling to them. How strange the land now looks. It is as if we are in a totally different area from Monday. Now everywhere is rough texture, whereas three days ago there was only the smooth silky surface of snow. We rumble on at a very slow speed since the BV tracks do not do well over stone. They are made for snow.

As we approach the pass between the mountains, Sgt. Mercure comments to me that there is a lot of wind ahead, because the two mountains funnel an air current between them. The wind makes not only rivulets of dancing snow a few inches above the land, but also whips up what little mounds of snow that remain. Now I realize how the land turns from a white surface to a "salt and pepper" appearance. We'll be a little late today Sgt. Mercure tells me, as he motions to the condition of the land. I respond saying that we will be fine for I realize the horizon has begun to again cloud over. Cloud or mist or fog, I'm not sure what extends above the mountains to the south of us. Whatever the substance, it is a blurred gray, Crystal mountain is even more windswept than the land below. Our ascent to its top is much slower today because of it. Finally we are there. Sgt. Mercure turns the vehicle so that we face south. We are there no more than a few minutes when the sun appears sandwiched between layers of the clouds. About 9:20 I rush from the BV to photograph. I've not seen anything like this.

The sun is a deep medium red, surrounded by gray. All is blurred and soft. Then slowly the light strengthens. The sun becomes brighter, stronger. Finally the full sun emerges and you can see its entire circumference. As I photograph with my camera on a tripod, the sun quickly exposes its sphere out of the hazy clouds. It's colour changes. It begins to take on a yellow aura, mixing the red into orange. At its visible high point the light goes beyond my light meter's parameters. With the sun changing so fast, I can't take the time to measure the exposure so I begin bracketing the full length of my shutter speeds-first with a roll of film loaded in one camera, then in the other. My gloves whip away in the wind. Sgt. Mercure secures them. The wind is fierce and today, about 45 km from the north. When I am returning to the BV with my equipment my hat is taken by the wind and it flies into the deep valley below. I am unaware that this has happened until I am inside the vehicle. Returning to base, I realize that a mark of my material presence is left behind, somewhere on the landscape of Ellesmere.