None shall sleep

True or False.

There are mirages in the Arctic.

If you're thinking true - you're right. I've seen this effect 3 times since I've been here . I'll let John MacDonald explain:

A spectacular mirage-like phenomenon known as 'looming' is common in Arctic regions during the late spring and early summer. Caused by the refraction of light through layers of differing temperature, 'looming' is generally seen over open water or sea ice. Typically the phenomenon appears as an inverted, distorted image reflected in the sky a few degrees above the horizon. Such images are usually distant land or floating ice, often situated below the observer's horizon.

Inuit call this phenomenon puikkaqtuq, meaning roughly, to 'pop-up' above the level of the sea. The effect has been used by Inuit boating in the Foxe Basin to make accurate land falls at destinations not otherwise observable from their departure point. And during the open-water season, particularly in relatively ice-free areas of the sea, puikkaqtuq mirages are used to locate drifting pans of ice likely to be associated with walrus. In well-defined mirages even the herds of basking walrus can, to the experienced observer, be made out in the 'looming' ice. (The Arctic Sky, page 185).

Basically when the weather changes from cold to warm, objects that are far away may appear closer or larger than they are. It's pretty neat though I have to admit that I wouldn't have noticed this on my own. Now you know - and knowing is half the battle ( G.I Joe never explained what the other half was comprised of).

There is not wind enough to twirl
That one red leaf, nearest of its clan,
Which dances as often as dance it can

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge (20 points x2)

(I took this at the completion ceremony held at the end of May.)