Blue Sky on Baffin

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Pre-Dorset Endblade in situ

We spotted this little endblade poking out of the ground on Baffin Island, as if someone had stuck it there.  Thing is, we were probably the first people to see it in at least 3,000 years.

Maybe it was frost action that stood the small tool up, or maybe its been sticking up like that ever since it was lost.  The cobbles right beside it are part of a tent ring and the endblade is just inside the front entrance.

 

I like how high those side notches are to create a big box base.  When the point was in tact, a blade like this could have tipped a harpoon or a lance.

The tip was broken and had some retouch done on it. Perhaps it was a little scraper or they were setting it up to start removing burin spalls.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Old Barn near Ensign, Alberta

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

Iceberg, Baffin Island, July 2011

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

L'Anse Amour Harpoon Head Reproduction

Ivory Harpoon Head Reproduction

I have a few photos from the archives to share while I'm away.  The L'Anse Amour burial is at least 7,500 years old and contained one of the oldest, perhaps even the oldest toggling harpoon head ever found in the New World.  The tip was cracked off of the original ivory artifact, but when I made this reproduction the client requested that the tip be restored.  The same is true of the other artifacts in the set, the bone point, for example was also missing its tip.

L'Anse Amour Ivory Toggle, Harpoon Head, Quartzite Biface (knife?), Antler Pendant, Bone Point (Elfshot Reproductions)

The Harpoon head didn't have a line hole, but it had a slight waist presumably to secure the toggling line.  The hole in the base for the foreshaft was round.

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Open Street Maps for Garmin GPS

In a few hours, I'll be on a plane heading to Bilbao, Spain.  We spend a bit of time in Spain's Basque Country before starting a cave and wine driving tour of southern France.  We booked the car a couple weeks ago and I promised to provide the maps so we wouldn't have to pay extra for an on-board GPS.  I said that I'd bring my Garmin GPSmap 62s loaded with all the maps we'd need.  Then I forgot about it.

I started looking for the maps a few days ago and quickly ruled out buying them - the official Garmin Topo maps of Spain and France are over $600 US.  I didn't really want to pirate them, but while searching some of the back alleys of the internet I found out about OpenStreetMap, which is a kind of cartographic wikipedia.  There are a few ways to play with and download the maps on OpenStreetMap itself, but to get them onto your Garmin GPS you need to checkout another site called: Free routable maps for Garmin brand GPS devices (garmin.openstreetmap.nl). Which is free and awesome.

Selecting an area around Bordeaux

The interface on garmin.openstreetmap.nl is simple and the instructions are easy to follow.  To select the maps you want all you have to do is highlight them on the big blue map of the world.  You can pick one tile or several.  When you have the maps selected all you need to do is enter your e-mail address and click "Build my Map".  Your map request is added to the queue and you are sent an e-mail with a link to check on its progress.  I've used it twice and the first map set was supposed to take an hour or so to build and it was actually done in about nine minutes.  My second map took closer to the promised hour.  When your map is ready to download you are sent a link with several download options.  I picked the "Installer for Garmin Mapsource" option and it took 5-10 minutes to download my map and another 5 minutes to install it.  When it was installed I could add it to my GPS from Mapsource or Mapinstaller.

Free OpenStreetMap from garmin.openstreet.nl of Bordeaux, France.

The same area from Garmin's TOPO France v.2. Not free, at all.

The resulting map looks great.  I haven't had a chance to ground truth it yet, but in Mapsource, it looks as good or better than the $600 Garmin product.  However, I did notice that when I downloaded and installed a second set of maps it overwrote the first set that I'd download, even when I changed the folder name. If someone figures out a way to fix or avoid that, I'd be grateful.  Even so, I'm definitely keeping  Free routable maps for Garmin brand GPS devices (garmin.openstreetmap.nl) in my bookmarks.

Photo Credits: 
1) Tim Rast
2) Screen grab from garmin.openstreetmap.nl
3,4) screen grab from Mapsource on my computer.

Splash for the Cure

An excellent turnout!

We had a great soggy Run for the Cure yesterday in St. John's. Despite running in the leading edge of an approaching tropical storm there were thousands of participants.  As many as I've ever seen.  Our little team shrunk a bit, with a couple of our anchor runners sidelined with injuries.  But I think Elaine and I made up for it with enthusiasm.

Tim and Elaine, happy.

It was a slow year for me; I ran the course in 31:11.  I was kind of expecting that.  However, I did achieve my goal for the year, which was to run the whole route.  This is the first time I've ran a full 5k since the spring, so I'm satisfied.  Maybe next year I'll be faster. I've set the bar nice and low.  But an event like this is really about the fundraising and I really want to thank everyone who donated to the cause and sponsored me!

Thumbs up to the RNC!

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary was great.  There were a lot of officers out marking the course and cheering on the runners and walkers.  The mounted unit was on hand, which is always nice to see, even on a rainy day.  They helped make the event better.

Really St. John's? This is your support?

The City of St. John's, on the other hand, had traffic enforcement officers out, but instead of cheering on the runners they were ticketing their cars.  I'm hoping to hear that the city will be donating the money raised from those tickets to breast cancer research.  People were parked in "no parking" zones, no doubt about it, but I'd rather see the Run for the Cure benefit from the tickets written at this event than know that I live in a city that preys on charity fun runs as cash grabs.

Edit: October 1, 2017: 26:11

Photo Credit: Tim Rast