A hike through geology: Arctic 5

Heart of the Arctic 5: Thursday July 28, 2022

My idea of gorgeous

Yesterday we got a chance to go out on the land. Most people signed up for the medium hike. The advanced and the difficult hikes were not billed as photographer friendly and I always want the chance to take a few photos without feeling that I’m holding the group up. In addition, as I get older, I find that I need to take more time to find my footing rather than just barrelling ahead.

It was a gorgeous day, another one warmer than I have ever experienced in the Eastern Arctic. When we landed the tide was out and we had a reasonable walk to where the life jacket bags were beyond the high tide line of the beach.

Each group had a leader and a bear guard. There was a polar bear sighted in the next drainage to where we were to be hiking. Our guide was the expedition’s geologist and he is more passionate about rocks than anyone I have ever met. He is a lovely fellow and capable of waxing poetic for ten minutes at a time about the geological features of whatever landscape we find ourselves in.

John Houston one of our bear guards

I hiked with his group the day before and we made frequent stops to look at the ground and the hills around us. He tends to start out his mini lectures with a question. Nothing wrong with that if you’re addressing a group of undergraduate geology students. As most of you know, I’m more interested in birds than rocks and the nuances of different types of granite and how they are formed are largely lost on me while I scan the skies for feathered things or try to find interesting compositions through my camera lens. We walked for a few minutes and then stopped as he pointed out yet another fascinating feature of the landscape.

The organizers of the groups had timed it so that there would be space between the various groups as we had landed at different times. After a while of sauntering and looking at rocks we noticed that the group behind us was catching up. One of the guides with that group tactfully pointed out that we were proceeding at the pace of the beachcombers, the ones who just wanted to hang out and putter around on shore. It was suggested that perhaps we should pick up the pace just a little.

Some of us were pretty keen on that and started to inch ahead of Marc to try to give him the hint that perhaps we should be moving on. That didn’t really work and the bear guard reminded us that we were supposed to be behind the guide. Sigh. Marc loves his rocks so much and he kept noticing features and stopping to tell us how excited we would all be by his latest discovery. Finally we got to the top of the saddle where Laura, our bear guard, had earlier seen caribou. We were pretty interested in looking for animals as we had noticed plenty of tracks on the way up in the soft mud of the tundra.

As we stood for a few moments on the saddle, the next group caught up with us. When Laura moved off some of us, a larger number of rebels this time, began to follow her. Martine, who was the bear guard for the other group called us back and reminded us again to stay behind the guide. I muttered to a friend, “Can we poke him with our hiking poles to get him to move a bit faster then?” Martine probably had consulted others on the radio and she certainly had noticed what was happening and the potential mutiny in our group. She offered us three options: if we had had enough hiking for the day we could return with her to the landing site and take time wandering the shore. If we wanted to do a bit more hiking we could go with a second group, and if we still felt energetic we could go with Marc’s group, the speedy ones. I bit my tongue wondering how long Marc would be able to go without stopping to point out something.


Since I was feeling good and partly because I was curious about how this would work in practice, I opted for the speedy group. Marc did manage to walk for longer periods without stopping to explain something and we proceeded over the saddle and down to a lake. Then Marc and Laura consulted the map and suggested we go back via the next drainage over. I was all for that as the views were spectacular and the temperature was warm. We won’t talk about the mosquitos.

With pretty much everyone in agreement, we started the climb up the side of the hill. The rock at that point was smooth and exposed and it was like walking on a highway. I was huffing and puffing as usual when I went uphill but was able to keep up quite well. I passed a couple of people who were clearly struggling. One woman who was retired from the military hailed from Florida and I guess there aren’t very many significant hills in Florida. She was cheerful and stopped frequently to take photos of flowers and bugs. I saw two bees on the hike but they didn’t stay in one spot for long enough for me to get a photo, so you’ll just have to trust me on that one.

Like a paved highway

A second woman was having an even more difficult time. She was moving ahead doggedly not speaking to anyone. Richard, who has hiked with many groups of people, has a great sense of when people are having a tough time of it and, like his dad, he wants to do his best to encourage them. I realized that I could no longer see him around the curve of the hill and figured he had stayed back to do what he could to help. When I got up to the group I mentioned to Marc what I thought was happening. At first he seemed relieved that someone was watching out for the slower folks.

Then he got a radio call that the tide was rising and we were to hurry to the zodiacs because it was getting tricky to load them in the deepening water. Someone called out to the group that it was time to put the pedal to the metal. I thought this was distinctly unhelpful because, from what I could see, the folks at the end were doing the best they could and to try to move faster would only make them more anxious and possibly lead to a fall.

When Richard reached us I told him I had spoken to Marc and he confided that, indeed, the woman at the end had fallen once while trying to negotiate a steeper, rockier part of the hill. Marc asked Trevor, the young, fit photographer, if he would take over as sweep. Richard and I rejoined the middle of the pack.

When we stopped next Trevor reported that the folks at the back didn't seem that interested in speeding up. Oh the confidence of youth! I well remember wondering why those older folks didn’t just speed up. I didn’t realize at the time that they were going as fast as they could. Now I see it could have been because they were having trouble catching their breath, or they were unused to the uneven terrain and were worrying about their footing, or perhaps a knee replacement or hip replacement made it more difficult to negotiate uneven terrain. I’m sure there are many other reasons I haven’t considered and that didn’t even cross my younger mind.

As we descended I got going a little faster than I should have and rolled my ankle, not once but twice. I wiggled it a bit and kept walking but it was a reminder not to let pace outstrip caution.

We all arrived at the shore in one piece and made it into the zodiacs albeit quite a bit later than when the last zodiac was supposed to leave. As we rode back I had mixed feelings. I was a bit frustrated that we had been so slow at the beginning and then had tried to make up the time by rushing. I also felt a connection to the two at the back of the pack. I’ve been in that position and I know what a horrible feeling it is to be holding up the group and to simultaneously be doing the very best you can to the point of exhaustion. I was lucky in the situation where I got in over my head on a hike to Western Brook Pond in Newfoundland. I had the opportunity to turn back which I did. It was a humbling experience.

In the zodiac heading home

It’s easy to say that the folks at the back should have joined a different group but the pace at the beginning was perfectly suitable to them and they didn’t know that the terrain would get more difficult. To be fair, the guides probably hadn't been on that particular hike either and were going from maps and what they were able to scout before the hikers arrived. 

I imagine there was an interesting debriefing among the staff at the end of the day. It’s so difficult to organize hikes for people of different abilities. All the passengers are adults and have paid a good chunk of change to be on this trip. It's all very well to tell people to consider their abilities carefully before selecting a group, but how can you accurately describe a hike so people will be able to make informed decisions? You can’t very well say to people, ‘You can’t go on this hike,’ because you don’t know what people’s capabilities are and so you have to trust them.

Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but I can’t help looking at the human interactions around me and wondering how things could be made better, even as I look through my lens or pick my way around the boulders. The day was wonderful, the temperature unseasonably warm, the skies blue, and the hills of the tundra spectacular. Getting back to the ship I felt satisfyingly tired and when I look at my photos during the dark winter days it is the feeling of accomplishment and privilege that will come back to me. I am so fortunate to be travelling in this land. It also does me good to remember that the hike leaders, as well as the hikers, are doing the best they can.

A pretty big hunk of quartz

A curmudgeonly yarn

    Okay, we have cell phones with processors more powerful than the computers that put the Apollo astronauts on the moon. We can call and text each other from almost anywhere on the planet. A cell phone means that we are never without a camera. So many innovations to make our lives more convenient. Why then is it that no one seems to have figured out a good way to package yarn so that you can retrieve the correct end easily?

    I have wondered this for many years and now I’m just old and crusty enough to complain about it. I’ve recently gone back to crocheting. I did a lot of it in my early 20’s when I spent hours upon hours in the relative darkness backstage listening to string quartets. There are worse ways to spend time but I found the time passed more enjoyably if my hands were busy. I crocheted afghans and scarves mostly. Then I lost interest and gave away all the crochet hooks.

    In retirement a friend took up crocheting and I was reminded of how I really did like it so, I bought a bunch of new crochet hooks and yarn. This time I crocheted slippers, messenger bags and toques using various weights of yarn and different patterns. It was fun and I gave away a lot of what I made. Then I put the yarn and hooks in a box and stuffed them away in the cupboard until a few months ago.

    There was a call from our church for prayer shawls. I’ve made them before, both knitted and crocheted. I had the hooks and the yarn so why not. I dug the stuff out again. Much of the yarn I had I rerolled into balls instead of working it from the skeins. My method of working is pretty simple: toss the ball or skein I’m working from into a shoe box. Put the shoebox on the floor beside my chair and have at it. When the skein gets down close to the end I often roll it into a ball because it is easier to keep together that way.

    Makers of the skeins chirpily tell you that to start a project you reach inside the skein and pull on the interior end. That way your yarn will come out smoothly and it won’t flip the skein around as you’re working with it. It’s a great theory. The problem is when I reach in, all I feel is a jumble of yarn. So I try it from the opposite opening in the skein. Still nothing. I stick fingers from both sides into the skein and root around some more.

    Eventually I get frustrated, grasp what I hope will be a clump near the end and pull. The yarn comes out politely for about a foot and then gets caught. Too late to back out now so I give it a good yank. Nothing. I yank it again and out comes what I can only describe as the yarn equivalent of a hairball. Now I have two blobs of muddled up yarn: the shell of the original skein and the guts that came from the inside. Not an end in sight.

 
    I start gently picking away at the guts, tossing them lightly and trying to get my fingers into the spaces to untangle the mess. No perceptible progress and if I start passing the blob over and under strands of yarn I’ll never get it untangled. I put it down and look at the husk of the skein. As I turn it over I see an end! This is where I’ll have to start. I grab the end and start to wind it into a ball. Eventually that part of the skein has become a ball and as I change from the husk to the guts. the yarn seems to be unravelling smoothly. Keep winding!
  

 Too good to be true. There’s a clump. I tuck the ball into my armpit so it won’t go rolling across the floor as I try to deal with the clump. It’s not a very big one and after a bit of teasing apart with my fingers it droops into a single strand. I keep rolling. There are a few more clumps but nothing that tempts me to just cut it out and knot the pieces back together. That really is a last resort.

    Now after all that fuss I can finally start to crochet the project. I’d like to report that this tussle with the yarn is an anomaly, but it happens more often than not. Sometimes I think any sane person would just rewind the yarn into a ball starting from the outside but somehow, that would be giving up and as I approach each new skein of yarn I hope this will be the one that will present the magical end to my probing fingers.

    In the meantime, I put the ball into the shoe box so it won’t run all over the floor, make a loop, take up my hook and begin to crochet. Surely the actual project will be easier than trying to find the end of the yarn.

Marian vs. PL 400

Ok so let’s talk about Goof Off. Not goofing off because we all know about that. Goof Off is a nasty chemical used to remove goo and I’ve been using it liberally lately. We’ve been noticing for a couple of years that the non-stick treads were coming off the running boards on the camper van. This year I got fed up and pulled them the rest of the way off, thinking it would be a simple matter to replace the worn ones with new ones.

I found, what I thought was, the perfect rubber mat material. I very carefully cleaned off the old adhesive using WD40 and judiciously scraping at it with a putty knife. The process turned out very nicely and I was left with fairly clean and shiny fiberglass running boards. Having just been introduced to the wonders of construction adhesive on the recent baseboard project, I thought that would be the perfect way to stick down the new rubber mats.

I squirted a liberal amount onto the running boards and pressed the mats down. I duct-taped the mats so they would hold until the glue cured. I stood back and admired my work. The new mats looked fabulous and I was sure we were set for our upcoming camping trip.

When I went out the next morning the mats weren’t nice and flat the way I had left them the night before. They were kind of buckled where they wrapped over the edge. On closer inspection they weren’t really stuck down at all. The adhesive had stuck to the fiberglass but not to the rubber. Notice, in the photo, that the duct tape is the only thing holding the mat on.

You know how English teachers were always telling you to read the directions? Well I should have read all of the directions. In the fine print near the bottom was a little sentence explaining that the adhesive didn’t stick to some types of rubber.  Ok, I’ve now confirmed the truth of that statement. No problem, I thought. Although I was a little bit annoyed at my lack of foresight I figured I would just go at the adhesive with more WD40 and elbow grease and the running boards would be back in condition in no time. Then I could experiment with other means of sticking down the mats. I went at the dry, crusty adhesive with the WD40 and a putty knife. Let’s just say it wasn’t as co-operative as the last adhesive had been even though the mess looked similar. Right, so we went camping with crusty running boards and I took the putty knife and the WD40 with me.

One afternoon when we were sitting around camp, I tried again to get rid of the dried goop. I worked away at it until supper time and didn’t make much headway. I decided to leave it until we got back into internet land where I could do further research.

Who knew that I would be down a rabbit hole where fiberglass boats and corvettes lurked? The short answer to what I learned about the best way to remove construction adhesive is not to put it on something from which you’ll eventually want to remove it. I was reminded of canoeing days when some wiseguy said the best way to dry out a sleeping bag was not to get it wet. However, some of the suggestions were truly entertaining as I moved from construction adhesive specifically to how to remove decals. I never thought I could watch so many hours of people scrubbing, blotting and scraping. Some folks swore by petroleum jelly. Nope. Someone else said Crisco shortening. Didn’t try that one. Coconut oil was another one. Already tried mineral oil and I didn’t want to waste good peanut butter. One oil probably behaved much like another in this application. Magic Eraser was another suggestion. Nada. 

Another method that ranked highly for sticker removal was a wheel eraser. It’s some kind of synthetic disk that you chuck into a power drill and, like an eraser, it erodes and takes the gum and guck with it. I ordered one. Another very popular method was to use a heat gun. I have a heat gun. The only issue, for me, was that some of the sources I read said that fiberglass can soften at 212 degrees F and in order to strip paint, and I assume soften adhesive, you need a temperature of 300F. I’m a chicken when it comes to the possibility of igniting anything and I couldn’t bring myself to crank up the temperature on the heat gun to any more than 200F even though I told myself that I would keep the gun moving and that if the air coming out of the tip was 200F the fiberglass wouldn’t likely reach that temperature very readily. The heat may have softened the goop a little bit but there was still a lot of scraping and some gouging of the gel coat on the running boards that happened. 

Then there were the stronger chemical solutions. De-Solv-It seemed popular. I couldn’t find it locally and I didn’t want to wait for it. Goo Gone got mixed reviews. Goof Off got good reviews in all the YouTube videos I watched. When I came in cursing under my breath, Richard went on a mission to get Goof Off, heavy vinyl gloves, and scrub pads. I started in as instructed by soaking a rag in Goof Off and then rubbing at the adhesive. That did almost nothing. I remembered seeing one video where the guy just poured the stuff onto the surface and then scraped up the goop. I poured and discovered that the adhesive did soften and it was easier to scrape off as long as the adhesive was wet. There was still a problem with the really thick bits of goop.

Today I got fed up and took the palm sander to it. I’d already gouged the gel coat in several places and, although the Goof Off worked, my patience for sitting and scraping for hours on end had just about run out. I started with 150 grit sandpaper which took some of it off. Then I thought I’d try 80 grit paper. That worked more quickly but also chewed through the gel coat more easily.

Once I knocked down the highest peaks of goo I switched back to the 150, then to 220. I was able to get the running board pretty much levelled with the 220 so I went back to the Goof Off. I’m officially calling the removal part of the process done. The running boards aren’t pretty anymore and I’m probably going to have to do a little creative painting to cover up the gouges. In the meantime, Richard found and bought some anti-slip tape which is supposed to be permanent and which he thinks is what was on the running boards when we bought the van. We know from experience it’s not permanent but if it sticks I’m really hoping that by the time it starts to peel it will be a problem for the van’s next owner! Perhaps by the end of the week we’ll have the tape on the running boards and the scratches and gouges covered in a new coat of paint. One can always hope.