Things you don't expect in the middle of the Tundra

Yesterday I was lucky to get a tour of the Meadowbank Mine 76 km more or less north of Baker Lake. It was the first time that I got to see much of the land. Whitehills Lake is particularly beautiful and we saw some incredible Caribou en route. We also saw some things that you might not expect to see.

In particular this crazy metal dome rising shining from the tundra - gleaming like some giant place of worship maybe a cathedral or even a mosque... (Giant Mosque on the Tundra). Its actually going to be an ore storage facility and the choice of a dome had a great deal to do with tundra winter windspeeds as opposed of aestetics, but it does leave me feeling a bit awed especially gleaming in the sun under such an amazing blue sky.....

The second amusing thing for me to see, having recently returned from the more mountainous part of Canada was the "Tundra Switchback" complete with gear down advice..... :D I wish I had a picture of that sign.

The tour started with a delicious lunch and took us a lab, a site tour, an engineering presentation and their geology lab. I learned a lot that will hopefully in the Geology/Mining parts of my teaching. The bus ride took us through beautiful territory, but it was definately a bit jarring - so my hats off to the employees that make the trip regularly. I was able to get a good chunk of sock knit en route, and the weather was sunny and beautiful.