radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)
radiantfracture ([personal profile] radiantfracture) wrote2017-02-02 07:07 pm

The Wolves of LORAN

I had a dream last night that L. was feeding baby wolves and I thought it was a bad idea. Very early this morning I skimmed an illustrated post about lycanthropy.

A little bit later, though still far too early, my creative co-worker gave me a ride to my 8:30 am class (heated seats!) (in the car, not the classroom). She told me about the resort where her son works in the summer, which resort shares its remote island with a family of wolves.

She said the island was once a station for something I had never heard of called LORAN. LORAN was a hyperbolic radio navigation system (so the Internet tells me) implemented during WWII and continued in a confusing series of forms (well, A, B and C) [Edit: I had the date wrong here] Loran-A went off the air in North America in 1980, but apparently Loran-C was in use until 2010.

This island station was paired with one in southern Alaska. It was stood down1 in 1977 “after a fire in a generator room,” according to the labour-of-love website on which I found this information.

But what if it was really the wolves?

I sense a rabbit hole gently caving in under my feet.

Talk of mysteriously defunct signal stations reminds me a little of the CBC holiday tradition of playing Fireside Al's gripping rendering of "The Shepherd" on Christmas Eve, in the Dickensian tradition of eerie Christmas stories.


{rf}

1. That usage seems awkward, but that's how the site puts it.
heliopausa: (Default)

[personal profile] heliopausa 2017-02-03 07:54 am (UTC)(link)
That's very interesting, about LORAN - thanks.