Old Weather Forum

December done and uploaded. They went from Seattle to Portland, that was the only noteworthy thing.
And now this year is complete!

I'll get to it when I finish transcribing July 1955 for Burton Island.

08 September, 1954
Position: 73°31'00"N, 130°14'00"W
0800:

Rendezvous with Life photographer cancelled due to poor weather.

Dir: SSE
Force: 5
Baro: 29.89
Dry: 41
Wet: 40
Water: 38
Weather: Ovc
Clouds: ST SC
Amount: 10
Vis: 7

Considering that they're in the Beaufort Sea about 100 miles west of Banks Island, steering various courses along the ice edge boundary, the weather doesn't seem all that bad. It's interesting that Life Magazine would send a photographer on this mission.

https://books.google.com/books?id=TFIEA ... &q&f=false
https://media.defense.gov/2017/Jun/26/2 ... _STORY.PDF

That first reference, from the Life Magazine, is a great find, Randi!!! Even more interesting was the next article about the fishing boat from Boston that sailed into the same area to fix the position of the Magnetic North Pole!

From the second book, which is worth a quick scan through. Some great photos taken by the author, Phil Jaffe, who was a member of the crew.

On the 5th of September we were joined again with the Burton Island and the Labrador. The three ships tied up side by side and the crews of all three ships celebrated their triumph aboard the Labrador. The Labrador shared some of the their rum rations as Canadian ships carry rum aboard and the crew gets a taste now and then. That day, Life Magazine sent a plane with a photographer and a journalist to take aerial and ground photos for a story on our historic adventure.

The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Labrador was the first ship to cross the Northwest Passage from east to west and continued on to be the first ship to circle the North American Continent.

The voyage for 1954 has been completed. It was a challenge, what with the locations by bearings being up to eight miles off their reported Lat/Longs. It happens when the maps aren't all the best, if they exist at all. Many, many thanks to Hanibal whose very complete and thorough transcription made a difficult job much easier.

You can see the voyage plot here, and you can download the KML file to see much more details from here. You can view the file with Google Earth.

I wish I had time to read both of those although I took a quick look at them.

I am trying to make sense of this sentence in the second book.

Since 2008, 118 percent of Arctic ice has melted.

I saw the same thing. Obviously it means that even if more ice tries to form it won't be able to until the 18% deficit is overcome.

I must say that the proofreading in Across the Arctic leaves something to be desired

They are collecting information about navigation routs
(Of course, if it proved to be a rout, it might be better to try a different route...)

The presents of U.S. and Russian 6,000 military forces in the Arctic

I wonder if maybe he was a log keeper! He has requirements...