Alert-120

The weekends at Alert are quiet, and almost ominous. 8am is a great time to walk around, explore a bit and reinforce your sense of direction however half the lights are turned off and you get creepy hallways that seem to stretch on forever.

Just kidding that’s the only hallway like that. This is the main hallway that connects the back sector (the Polaris wing where the ECCC stuff is), all the dorm wings, and pretty much everything else like the dining hall, bars, recreational rooms, etc. It’s pretty long and I get my steps in every time I walk from point A to B back to A. 

But really though, the station is super quiet until breakfast which on the weekends is brunch – available from 10:30am until 12:30pm unlike the regular weekday breakfast 7am until 8am. It seems like everyone crawls out from whatever hole they were hiding in exactly at 10:30. As I rounded the corner from the desolate main hallway into the dining hall, I was surprised at how long the line was for the eggs. I am eventually going to have to limit myself during breakfast because you can wait in line for one of the cooks to make fresh omelettes or eggs however which way you want, plus all the sides such as bacon, ham, sausages, hashbrowns, and oatmeal if you feel so inclined. There is also a fresh produce bar which at lunch and dinner turns into a salad bar, but in the AM, it holds fresh fruit/yogurt. Maybe weekends will be my scrambled egg, bacon and hashbrown days and the weekdays will be my oatmeal and fruit days. There is also a toaster oven with bagels and a few varieties of bread.

I know this isn’t really important but as a person who does not drink or like milk, one thing that has surprised me the most of this whole adventure is how much milk these people drink. There are two separate milk dispensers with 2%, skim, and chocolate (with a second 2% spout just in case it gets busy). I’ve seen people get two cups and fill one with 2% and one with chocolate and also have cheese on their plate, it’s nuts. In fact, I’d say half the dining hall at any given moment has a cup of milk on their trays. Maybe since milk dispensers are not that common in the average everyday you don’t notice how much milk other people drink, but to me, the milk intake of this station is astronomical and honestly uncomfortable.

Monday (Jan 1^st) is a holiday and there is a special pancake brunch so my oatmeal and fruit plan will have to wait until Tuesday.

***

I honestly don’t have much to say about the job itself yet. Since I arrived on the Friday evening before the long weekend, everything has been put on pause more or less. I am hoping by next weekend, I will feel much more informed and secure in what I am supposed to be doing.

The GAW Office or the GAWffice is where the cool GAW people aka me and Hannah get to hang out whenever we want (and also work). Next to us is another Environment Canada rented office with staff that perform the weather balloon launches and ice sampling. Both offices are incredibly cozy with comfy couches, a large TV, snacks, a few plants under grow lights and in our office specifically, a fish tank in the corner with four of the most northern goldfish in the world.

The four goldfish of the GAW Office. Magic Mike (front orange fish), Clarice (the smaller orange fish behind Magic Mike), Brutus (large white fish), and Sushi (small white fish to the right).

Tomorrow (Tuesday Jan. 2^nd) I get to go to the GAW Lab which I am super excited for. There is a very useful website called the GAWiki which contains every single detail of information pertaining to everything Alert, the job responsibilities and how to perform each task, down to a full list of every operator and operator assistant since it was first established. I have been slowly chugging through it, though it is difficult to take in and understand what the duties of my role entail when I haven’t had the chance to see the equipment or try my hand at it. I am told the job, once you get used to it, is pretty easy. I think it’s only daunting at first because as a second year, I haven’t taken any classes yet that are tailored to meteorology where I would at least learn some of the vocab.

Either way, I haven’t felt this inspired to consume information in a long, long time.

***

I am forever grateful the universe got me to Alert in time for New Years. That was literally the whole plan from the start. The plan was to get to the station for New Years, assimilate myself socially, and win. And spoilers, by the end of the night I had completed all three steps.

1. Get to the station for New Years – Check, albeit by a total streak of luck.
2. Make friends and get to know people – Check. Freaked out a bit, but we got there in the end.
3. Win – Check. Turns out I am semi-ok at Craps.

You see, New Years Eve was also casino night – a special morale event where you get $500 of fake money to play a variety of casino games like Craps, Blackjack, and Roulette. Whatever money you win, or don’t lose, you can put towards entries into the prize raffle for $250 per. Raffle prizes were only announced at the end and you’ll be happy to know I won a game of Craps and then lost almost all my money immediately.

The night officially started at 19:30 and I was absolutely stressing beforehand. At that moment my plan was so stupid and obviously it didn’t mean anything if I didn’t have the balls to actually go to the Arctic Club and socialize. Staying in my room seemed pretty enticing but I knew it wouldn’t be enjoyable with a bitter taste in my mouth of failing my past-self’s plan. And it didn’t help that my tarot card I pulled in a moment of panic and wishing for reassurance was none other than The Tower. You know, like the worst card. Most cards that are ‘bad’ usually are deeper than what they appear to be such as ‘Death’ doesn’t always mean dying in a literal sense, but the start of new beginnings and the end of old ones.

No, The Tower just sucks. First of all, it’s apart of the major Arcana which are cards that symbolize major events and or signs. In tarot readings, if a major Arcana is chosen, basically the rest of your cards will be interpreted through the lens of whatever the major Arcana represents. The art of The Tower card is a large stone tower surrounded by storm, slowly flooding from below and oh yeah, it’s also on fire. Inevitable destruction, disaster, the breakdown of something we hold foundational. And yeah, you could theoretically read it as with destruction allows for new growth but then why make the art so intense? And it’s certainly a sick joke to pull it when trying to gain the courage to go hang out with a bunch of strangers. And the worst part? It was completely accurate. Leaving the artificial safety of the comfort zone, purposely going into something uncomfortable to build anew? Fuck, maybe the universe has a point. 

So down I went to the Arctic Club.

***

The Arctic Club was decorated with gold, black and silver balloons, party hats, and the classic Christmas twinkle lights with a sign against the window reading “AH APPY NEW YEA R” (yes just like that). The disco ball spun slowly, casting orange and red colours dots along the walls.

Even thought it was only 7:15pm the room was full of some familiar faces, mostly new faces that I am sure I met on my first day but could not recollect who they were, or what their callsign was. I immediately beelined towards one of the women I met playing badminton and we both found solace in mutual social anxiety and wondering when they would take the plastic wrap off the apps.

An afterhours shot of the Arctic Club at approximately 1:30am. Behind where I took this photo are two pool tables and another larger table where the roulette game was being played earlier.

After some finger foods and liquid courage in the form of Somersby Pear cider, I played the worst pool game of my life. In fact, it was the first time I ever played pool. Thankfully my teammate was the guy who increases the average height by at least 4 inches. He is super tall, maybe 6’5 easily (edit: he is 6’9) and had to assume a near split in order to accurately hit the cue ball. I suggested the team name High Low which also accurately represented our differing skill levels. I think we lost by one, but it was a victory in my book.

Turns out lots of people didn’t not how to gamble or play any of the casino games, or maybe that was how I persuaded myself to enter the casino night event after it was announced that only one hour was left. Me and my social anxiety partner in crime each got our entry $500 of FAKE money, emphasis on FAKE, and hit the Craps table. I liked the sound of the dice hitting the backboard, and there were no cards to accidentally drop or reveal to a competitor. All there was were the chips on the playing table, dice, and lady luck. I wish I could explain how Craps work to my friends who are just as clueless as me but to be honest, I don’t really know how it works even after playing.

Basically, you roll two d6 and hope it lands on a 7 or 11 if you thought you were going to win, or two other numbers if you thought you were going to lose. Whether you were correct in your prediction or not depends on if you actually rolled any of those numbers, and you’d get chips added to your total or taken away appropriately. If none of those numbers are rolled, you proceed to the next stage where you bet chips on what you think the next number will be and things can get pretty crazy afterwards. In this second stage, the only number you don’t want to roll is a 7. Or something like that.

I started off pretty conservative, only trading in $50 for a stack of white chips valued at $5 each. Ironically, I rolled really well in the practice round and had a 90% success rate in predicting if me or my fellow gamblers would win or not. That’s pretty much where my luck dropped off.

I actually got really into it. The music was loud, the speaker right above our table, and we were bathed in the light of the disco ball. I had gotten my second drink and was feeling the groove, plus someone who had maxed all four of their drinks was cheering me on even when I lost. I honestly just liked rolling the dice. I made sure to keep $250 of my initial given money to enter into the raffle, and by the time the last 20 minutes of the casino night (just before 10pm) was called, I went all in. My teammate from pool had joined after winning close to 3 grand in roulette and proceeded to sweep the board at Craps as well, though I don’t think he really knew what was going on and was just as amused to roll the dice and have it land on a number he had put chips on.

At this point, people were starting to get desperate. There was a rule that if you wanted to get another $500 back if you had lost everything, you could go sing a karaoke song for the crowd. The trading post lady passed me by and handed me a few $5 chips to get rid of all her money so she could take advantage of the buy back.

The five-minute warning was called and another guy who had been playing Craps for about the same time as me passed four blue chips my way. $200. He had lost everything else and didn’t have enough for an entry into the raffle. At that point in the game, I had about $330 so enough for one entry. Add the gift, that was two entries. Sweet. So, all in all, minus the gifts and the $250 I had set aside, I only really made $80 in profit after losing the other half of my starting money. But hey, at least I didn’t have to sing karaoke.

Participating in casino night gave you an automatic entry so in total, I had 3 entries which paled in comparison to the 10 entries my pool teammate added to the bucket.

How the raffle worked was once your name was picked, you couldn’t be win again, however, you obviously had first dibs on whatever was left. The prizes ranged from $25-$50 vouchers for the Trading Post, Amazon gift cards, Alert beer steins, and Alert coffee mugs. Some of the steins and mugs were comboed with $25 Amazon cards.

Believe it or not, Mr. 3 Grand in Roulette got picked pretty fast, though not first and couldn’t snag any of the larger gift cards. He returned to the table with a nice glass beer stein and $25 gift card.

From where we were sitting, near the pool tables, we could barely hear anything being called from the front and just clapped with the crowd. I barely heard my callsign, “GAW 2!” being called.

Can you guess what I chose? I don’t have to like beer to enjoy a sick beer stein >:)

Later that night I would trade my $25 Amazon gift card for $25 Canadian cash so I could pay my mess dues on Tuesday. Since I hadn’t had my orientation yet, I didn’t know you had to pay a monthly fee to take part of events like that and it almost cost me my hard-earned prize, though they took pity on me as the newbie.

There was just under an hour remaining before midnight, and everyone seemed buzzed enough to take turns singing only the best of pop songs the early 2000s had to offer. I appreciated that no one could sing, and it almost made me feel secure enough in my own vocal talent, however, I didn’t want to take my chances as the chaos of The Tower card echoed through my mind.

Things were going really well, and I could not WAIT to take my mask off to finally let people know I was smiling without having to tell them less my eyes made it look like I was dead inside. Funnily enough, according to some of the firefighters, I’m “too positive”. I laughed and said, “let’s give it a few weeks”.

With champagne glasses full of sour apple bubbly, New Years-themed party blowers, and party hats distributed amongst the crowd, we put on the New York Ball Drop livestream and pretended it wasn’t a minute behind in its grainy glory.

10…9…8…7…*awkward pause as we counted too fast*…7…6…5…4…

3…2…1…HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

The mask? Off. Bublé? Clinked against dozens of identical glass flutes as we cheered and celebrated finally being able to sleep, with the added bonus of several party blowers ringing in our ears.

You’d think everyone was only there for the four-drink exception and raffle prizes because not even 5 minutes after the celebration took a breath, ¾ of the bar cleared out.

I stayed up for about an hour, chatting and helping myself to the scraps on the apps table before excusing myself to retreat to my room, a swell of pride in my chest. For the outsiders, socializing may seem easy for me but there’s always an hour of excruciating anxiety and inevitable self-therapy session as I try to hype myself up.  This was an utter success, and I hopped onto my laptop and began to write the next entry wondering how I would explain Craps.

Happy 2024 Everyone 😊