Posted by Paul Devlin:
After the BLAST telescope launched from Arctic Sweden, we knew only that it would land some where in Arctic Canada. But that’s a BIG place. NASA wasn’t sure when the cutdown would happen and reports were conflicting. I wanted to document the recovery, but where to fly to, on short notice somewhere far above the Arctic Circle? Eventually, I just went to JFK Airport and waited for news of my destination.
I wound up in Cambridge Bay, Victoria Island, Canada. BLAST had landed more than 200 kilometers north of the Inuit settlement. The logistics were difficult and I would not be able to join the recovery team in the helicopter to the landing site. So I gave one of my video cameras to Kevin, the Inuit Polar Bear Spotter so that the team could document the recovery themselves.
Meanwhile, I had time on my hands in Cambridge Bay. So I started exploring the hamlet and documenting what was happening, including practice for the upcoming Inuit Games. The idea was that it might become a colorful digression in BLAST!. In the end, most of this material did not make the final movie. But that’s why we love DVD extras! This is one of my favorites.
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