31 July 1997

Greetings from Greenpeace's northern most office!

We've seen eleven days go by here on Egg Island, and we're starting to settle in . We've gotten used to eating sand in every meal, and waking up at 3am to a bright sun. We've watched glaucous gulls and common eiders hatch and raise their chicks. Two yellow-billed loons have become familiar neighbors, floating along the north shore of Egg Island in the late evening.

As much as this place starts to feel like home, we know that we are only visitors, and that we must not, out of respect for those that do call this place home, leave any lasting marks of our presence. I write this, looking out at the southern horizon where there are rows of buildings and huge flares of natural gas being burned off from oil wells. I am reminded that BP and Arco call this their home, and that they will continue to alter this landscape to suit their desires. I think they must not hear the midnight loon's call from behind their temperature controlled cubicles. What other explanation can there be?

In the last few days, we've watched a fleet of BP vessels head out through thick ice to fire huge underwater air-guns, and listen to their echoes, in an attempt to find promising new oil deposits in the Beaufort Sea. We have also watched as Arco readies their mobile ocean drilling rig for oil exploration off of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

There is much work to be done---here and everywhere the oil flows.

Go Solar!!

Doug
Greenpeace Arctic Base Camp