Arctic Mark in Stanley Park

You Want to Land in THAT???

On Sunday, Feb. 5, I flew out on a charter flight with Aklak Air to Inuvik. My principal Harold was on the same flight, along with the principal from Sachs Harbour, a tiny town to the northwest of Holman on an adjacent island. The pilot & co-pilot told us there was rough weather in Paulatuk, but they were going to try to land if possible to pick up a few more passengers there. The sky was clear and blue and sunny, except that down near the ground was this incredibly fierce blizzard; I've since been told that the correct term for this is a "ground blizzard," but I dubbed this phenomenon a "sun blizzard." That landing and the subsequent take-off were the worst flights I've ever experienced. The pilot actually admitted once we landed that he shouldn't have attempted it in these conditions, which was hardly reassuring. I took this shot from the Paulatuk Airport, a building the size of a toolshed, where the bunch of us were stranded for two hours waiting for conditions to improve enough to risk a take-off. You can imagine how much fun it was trying to land in that whiteout. It's hard to believe that above 50 feet or so from ground level it was clear and sunny!