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Summer Resupply Activities Were Going 24/7

Summer officially started for us on July 4th. (That is our national holiday celebrating independance.) The U.S. Coast Guard ice breaker had sailed up the coast to break up the sea ice still frozen in North Star Bay where our docks were located. They worked a few days before the 4th breaking up all the harbor ice except for the last area around the docks.

Then on the 4th of July the ice breaker ceremoniously completed opening the harbor with a good size audience watching from the docks.

As the base Telecommunications Officer, it was my job to provide telephone service to the ships at the dock so the crews could call home. It was no accident that I was one of the first to be invited aboard for a little celebration.

The resupply ships were not far behind and the activity on base really exploded getting ready to unload the supply ships from the U.S. and Denmark. The harbor is only open and free of ice for two months of the year.

On July 5th things really got underway for the resupply of Thule Air Base. Once the harbor ice was broken up, the supply ships came in and unloaded 24 hours a day in the continuous sunshine. The temperature was usually in the high 40 and low 50 F. degree range. All of the needed supplies, except for fresh food, for the next 12 months had to be unloaded and stored.

The U.S. Coast Guard LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) Station at Cape Athol was re-supplied out of Thule. A couple friends and I rode along down the coast to the station on the ship "Redbud" to take them fuel oil.

There was no dock at Cape Athol so everything had to be transported to shore on a landing craft.

The fuel oil was pumped ashore through this large hose with floats attached.

While the ship was pumping the fuel oil, I sat on the beach in the balmy 19 F. degree (-7 C.) weather. Hey, I take what I can get after a winter at -30 F. degrees!

The Canadians also resupplied their most northern site out of Thule. The station was named Alert. Two of us went up on one of the around-the-clock supply C130 flights riding on a load of lumber. Not a first class seat but it was all that was available, and it was free.

There were many interesting research projects usually going on at Thule AB in the summer. Here is a rocket about to be shot up to study the upper atmosphere.

Below is a snapshot of me and a nearly 20 ton iron meteorite that fell nearly 10,000 years ago. It was found in 1963 by V.F. Buchwald near Agpalilik. This is a piece of the larger Cape York meteorite found in the same region by Robert Perry in 1894. The larger Cape York piece is in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

While the harbor was open, the Danish ship Edith Nielsen came to take this piece back to Denmark. This year we helped retrieve it from the icecap in the Cape York area. The meteorite is named Agpalilik and it is the sixth largest in the world. It now is on display in the Geological Museum at University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Agpalilik meteorite

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