Special things
Working on the ice can be monotonous. Especially in the winter with seemingly endless night. Kinda like the movie Groundhog Day. It takes some creativity to get out of the rut and thankfully, we have some brilliantly talented people here this season. When I first arrived in February, there was an icebreaker ship called the Nathaniel B Palmer that came to town a couple of times. We had an ice pier, so access to the ship was fairly straight forward when they were anchored. However, the pier is released (cut free to float out into the ocean) every year or so and another built to maintain structural integrity, etc. This year, the ice pier was scheduled to be released in March. We had a medevac of one of the grantees on the ship so prepared to retrieve her. However, the pier was released the day before the NBP came in. So we had to get creative and ended up getting the patient off via a basket and a crane. It was fun to witness and ...