My Sundial Over the Oldest Continuously Inhabited Place on Earth
I carry this collapsible sundial on any voyage or journey I take... It is far more accurate and reliable than my pilots watch... only it does not work at night or when it is too cloudy.
I don't really use it to tell time... when I take a reading from it it actually gives me a real sense of place... where I am on the earth, how I relate to the sun. The tilt of our planet. It puts all of the angles into perspective.
For some reason it anchors me more firmly to the ground on which I stand when I take a celestial bearing.
When we explored the Vesvidoff volcanic ashfields near where the Black Creek empties into the Bering Sea, the locals Vinny and "Uncle" Lestenkoff were amazed that the sundial even worked at this northern latitude. They looked at each other and laughed as I pulled it out and opened it up... Vinny said it had been tried before but it'd never worked.
The secret is in the manner of adjustment for the latitude... this is one of the few sundials I've seen that can be set for a latitude this close to the pole.
I took a reading here above the village site at Ugludax. This place has had people living on it for almost ten thousand years without interuption.
At best, 30 people still live on the entire island. With Okmok shaking and spitting up ash, followed by two more volcanoes going off, there may have been only a dozen people still living on the island.
A 5.0 earthquake right before we got off the Polaris broke the villages water pipe in four places.
Scott said you could see waves rolling across the grass covered hills of Umnak as the world shook.
While we were on the island new earth was actually created... almost two square miles of brand new surface formed in the ocean. That's kinda cool... new earth being born. I smile when I think of it still.
This photograph was taken from the hill above the Ugludax Site near the village of Nikolski Alaska on the Island of Umak in the Bering Sea.
Umnak is an island far out on the Aleutian chain.
It's a magic place.
Comments and faves
BayAreaGreatThing (55 months ago)
Great photo and wonderful story!
Viewminder (54 months ago)
Thanks for the kind comment.
Umnak is a magical island my friend. Far from anywhere... known by few... with water that courses down streams clean and pure... populated by volcano's and beaches... wild horses and hot springs... it in my memories will always be the land of purple flowers.
Loving Earth (54 months ago)
beautiful photo and interesting, intriguing read... thanks for sharing!
Viewminder (54 months ago)
It all seemed to come together there in that place at that moment at that time at that click of the shutter.
Those are the moments. I pray for ten more of them before I kick it.
Ten more moments like that. I'm glad you could be a part of it.
PhotoMasterGreg (54 months ago)
I love it! Where did you get the collapsible sundial? I would love to get myself one! It is beautiful!
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Viewminder (53 months ago)
You know I found it on Ebay. It was actually from Hungary or Romania and I got it for about twenty dollars. I was told by the maker that it is an exact replica of the one George Washington used during the revolutionary war.
I can attest to its accuracy... it's always right on and it has a unique adjustability for latitude along with the latitudes of major cities engraved on it.
It was this adjustability that made it possible to get good readings this far north.
The locals were impressed as they had not believed that it would work there... they laughed when it appeared to be exactly one hour off until they remembered that their time zone is intentionally skewed one hour so that the aleutian islands could all be in the same time zone even though they are not supposed to be.
The device is really just a three dimensional model of the earth and it expresses the planets relationship to the sun in a scale of time.
When I use it to take a bearing or a reading it really illustrates my position and the earths at that exact moment in relation to the sun. It sort of lines everything up.
You can see it in its collapsed form on my photograph "self portrait in the Dutch Harbor bathroom" here...
flickr.com/photos/light_seeker/2834565672/
You'll see it on me just underneath the camera. It's there on every journey along with my eyeball ring... that lost it's eyeball on Umnak Island.
Do a search on Ebay for 'Sundial" and you better pick up two because someone close to you is gonna fall in love with it too.
H. Kosin (53 months ago)
Nice shot. great tone.
This is indeed
Viewminder (53 months ago)
It was the Aleutian sky... the light there... it was really different... it reminded me a lot of the light in Ireland... maybe because they are at about the same latitude.
This was one of the last shots I took on Umnak... as I was leaving I was getting ready to put the sundial in my pocket... instead I took it out... unfolded and tried to take one last bearing... one last opportunity to line everything up and connect the dots between the sun, the earth and Umnak.
That I stood over the oldest continuously inhabited place on the planet... having explored and fished with several of it's inhabitants descended directly of those peoples... it was a solitary goodbye to a place and a time.
I promised myself I would return.
Bruna La Serra (52 months ago)
Magical!
Viewminder (52 months ago)
Umnak Island is a magical place... I was so fortunate to experience it... there's no place like it on earth.
Catch.E. (50 months ago)
Amazing. I love your sundial, it is beautiful.
Viewminder (50 months ago)
Thank you. I treasure this sundial. I've carried it to so many places. It is a piece of art... yet more so it seems like a key... a key to the spatial relationships, to the Sun and the Earth... to one's position between them... it's not about the time for me... it's about the moment.
Sundials by Carmichael (44 months ago)
Great shot!
Thanks for adding this to our group Gnomons, Styles and Nodi
philippe.bellin added this photo to his favorites. (29 months ago)
philippe.bellin (29 months ago)
love it
apres-midi, j_9d9, AJL in Chicago, Joshua Mellin, and N0T0RiOUS added this photo to their favorites.
ddsnet (18 months ago)
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This photo was invited and added to the DDSNET(♥Group for My Friends♥) Post1 Award 2 [8000+] group.
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