Saturday started out as any other day here in camp, with everybody going about their business getting more and more camp infrastructure up and running. Snow blowing trenches, constructing drill tent, grooming more and more of camp and sorting through and organizing several tons of cargo, as well as preparing a scaffold for the solar panel project. After lunch, however, a group of 8 camp members went a little out of camp, to test our rifles and do some shooting practice. All organized by Grant and Kevin (our rifle responsible camp members) as well as Thomas, who is an instructor in the Swiss army. Hence, we are now even better prepared in the unlikely event of a polar bear encounter. In the dome Bo managed to tune in the motion detection radar system, setting up a perimeter some 1.2km and further outwards from camp, where all unusual motion now should set off an alarm, alerting camp to any unexpected visitors, however unlikely they may be.
After all of this we enjoyed our first true weekend this field season, uninterrupted by weather or flight operations. Hence, we stopped work Saturday afternoon, so we all had time to take a shower before our Saturday dinner party. And what a dinner it was! Chantal and Thomas had prepared a 3-course meal, with Swiss chocolate as a delicious aperitif, followed by Frittaten Suppe as a starter, Käsespätzle for the main course, and the dessert: Apfelstrudel. A true alpine tour de force, exquisitely made! After this magnificent dinner, we all relaxed and chatted the evening away, and suddenly it was midnight and time to tuck our selves in, for a well-deserved long nights sleep. Sunday, we had brunch at 11 a.m., Anders making sure we were all spoiled with yogurt as a starter, followed by bacon, scrambled eggs, sausages, baked beans, freshly made buns, pancakes and all kinds of accessories – what a treat!
At noon Sunday it was back to work, with Sepp continuing snow blowing a trench for our cook’s freezer, Chantal, Grant and James, continuing constructing the drillers tent, Carlos, Charlotte, Jonathan, Kevin and Rahul organizing power cables for the Weatherports and the drill tent, Thomas successfully repairing our 3rd Pistenbully and Bo crawling around between skiway flags pretending to be a polar bear, thus verifying the sensitivity of the motion detection radar system. For the solar panel project, Charlotte and Rahul made further preparations, including testing one of the panels and Julien, being on the mend after a bad cold, has once again been documenting the camp activities with his camara. The day was expertly rounded of by Anders opening the GRIP pizzeria, baking pizzas that make us believe our dome suddenly has moved to Italy! And in the evening, we even managed a cosy movie night accompanied by pop-corn and candy – it is a hard life up here in the Arctic!

What we did this Weekend:
1. Continued organizing cargo and food.
2. Groomed area behind berm for drill tent.
3. Moved drillers workshop next to berm for drill tent.
4. Started building drill tent.
5. Continued preparations for solar panel project and tested first solar panel.
6. Excavated trench for cook’s freezer.
7. Repaired and tested 3rd Pistenbully.
8. Organized and prepared power cables for drill tent and weatherports.
9. Initiated radar monitoring of motion around camp.
10. Tested riffles in camp, and held shooting exercise.
11. Had wonderful Saturday night dinner and party.
12. We were all treated to both delicious brunch and perfect Pizzas on Sunday.
13. First movie night of the season Sunday evening.

Weather: Sunny conditions all weekend until Sunday evening when low clouds moved in. Temp from -28C to -14C. Wind 4-8 kts generally from SW, increasing to 10 kts and turning W Sunday evening.

FL, Bo Vinther