Chapter 8-The Oddities of the Place

When you stop and think about it, Thule is not a tourist destination (at least when I first wrote this). It was worth a visit for a week or so. A year seemed a bit too long. There are several oddities about Thule that were interesting. I have already mentioned the glacier and the icebergs. What about the ice cap?

The island of Greenland is mostly covered with a deep ice cap leaving narrow stretches of coastline being inhabitable. I never went out very far on the icecap. Only to its edge. I was told that for some unknown reason it had receded from the valley where Thule Air Base is located. I don't know why it left the valley or why it continues to produce icebergs from the glacier on the other side of our mountain. Our mountain was said to be a “trash pile” produced by the glacier that created the valley. As part of that trash pile, there was a large pyramid shaped piece of white marble out near the radar shack. There was no more white marble around (at least as far as we knew at the time).

There are a number of planes scattered out on the icecap. The nearest to the base was an old F-89 Scorpion that crash landed after a flame out. Things have a tendency to last along time out there. It is very cold and very dry and there is not much of an opportunity to rust or corrode. Several more planes have been discovered since I was there.

When I grew up along the Texas gulf coast, the North Star appeared about 30 to 35 degrees above the northern horizon. It was during the period of total darkness that I discovered the North Star in Thule. I was walking down the road to the radar shack. There was no moon and the stars looked like you could almost reach out and touch them. I stopped, remembered my Boy Scout training, and turned to look toward true north. I was looking for the Bid Dipper to point toward the North Star. It wasn't where I thought it should be, just above the horizon. As I turned around and around, my gaze turned ever upward until I found the Big Dipper. Following the pointer stars, the North Star appeared to be directly over head. Columbus was right. The world is really round.

There was abundant wildlife in Thule. The arctic foxes and the snowshoe rabbits being the most common. As the seasons would change, so would their coloring. To white in the winter, to brown or black in the summer and back to white again. I didn't see any polar bears but I heard about one out on one of the ice floes. Thule was the support base for Ice Island T-3, a large ice floe that wanders around the north pole in the Arctic Ocean. At that time, there were a few scientists and a several service men living on T-3 and conducting some sort of scientific mission (I was told). Anyway, a polar bear invaded their camp and tore up a supply hut looking for food. I saw pictures of the bear laid across the rear end of a tracked vehicle after it was shot. Huge, destructive and deadly.

Another oddity was Mount Dundas, which is so recognizable, it is almost a trade mark for Thule. It was a slightly tilted mesa. Had a pile of rocks at the highest point that was said to be the grave of the Eskimo chief named Dundas. At the base of Mount Dundas was the original Eskimo village of Thule. It was generally “off limits” except during gunnery practice and qualifying the gun batteries. It provided access to the artillery range. I had the opportunity to explore the old village some. There were an incredible number of Eskimo artifacts remaining but I left them undisturbed. The Eskimo village had been moved about fifty miles up the coast before construction of the air base began. It seems that the Eskimos had no immunities to the common diseases we carry around. They could have been wiped out when exposed to Americans.

The there were the wild flowers. As spring gave way to summer and the sun rose above the horizon into perpetual daylight, the flowers came out with the thaw. Along the road to the radar shack, acres of pink flowers bloomed. As the summer progressed, the pink flowers gave way to yellow ones and then to white ones. Among them grew a plant that was shaped like a bowl of cotton. The called it “Arctic Cotton”. No surprise there, huh? With all of the flowers, there were no trees. I was told that before I left the States that there was a woman behind every tree. Well the growing season was too short for one thing. And the permafrost would not allow root growth. Even in the hottest part of the summer, you only need to dig down a couple of feet to hit the permafrost.

Speaking of permafrost, the winter freeze would turn the bay into solid ice. With the natural expansion of ice, great chunks would be pushed fifty feet up the shore from what would later be the waters edge. By the end of summer these chunks would mostly be melted away but they lasted long enough to remind us how cold the winter could be. And as cold as it was there really wasn't much snow fall during the winter. For one thing, it was too cold. For another it was too dry. Very low relative humidity. I mentioned that there were snow drifts. They were huge but only because the wind blew the snow around. Also the road clearing crews would pile up great mounds of it. The actual snow fall was only about thirty six inches the winter I was there. At one time, I was in charge of keeping one doorway cleared. One night the wind came up and a five foot snow drift covered the doorway. I cleared it when I came on duty. That night the wind came up and deposited another five foot drift. I cleared it again and again the wind came up at night. I cleared the five foot drift a third time and this time it stayed clear for several weeks.

I said in the beginning of this chapter that a visit of a week or so was about enough to see the sites, the oddities. I changed my mind. You will really need the entire year to witness the beauty and the danger of Thule. Are you ready to sign up for a one-year tour?