Bare Poles Building design for high latitude

Bare Poles Building design for high latitude

Bare Poles Building design for high latitude

Well below freezing the air inside the plane turns breath
to fog and windows to ice. Heat from a hand pressed
against the glass makes a patch of window transparent
long enough for a glimpse of the snow-blown expanse of
rock three hundred metres below. Evidence of the bruising
contact
between
the
continental
ice
sheet
and
the
bedrock
persists
in
massive
striations
running
straight
to
the
horizon,
in
pillowed
rock
fissured by
freezing
water,
and
in
lakes
and
ponds
separated
by
glacial
till
deposited
during
the
last
ice
retreat
ten
thousand
years
ago.
Too
smooth
and
exposed
to
nurture
plant
life
taller
than
ten
centimetres,
the
rock
forces
the
black
spruce
to
take
root
in
sheltered
crevices
where
dust,
nutrients,
rain,
and
snow
drop
out
of
the
wind.
Even
the
low
stratus
just
above
the
aircraft
seems
to
have
taken
its
shape
from the
rock

Harold Strub