Andre retracted his gaze, then pointed at the camp and continued, "This camp was later developed into the Alert Settlement. Now there is a weather station set up by Environment Canada and a monitoring point set up by the Global Atmospheric Observatory. These are all civilian facilities. As for the Alert Airport in the north, it is also part of this camp."
Yang Jing shook his head slightly and said, "Why do we need to set up such a settlement so far north? It's too hard here."
Andre smiled and said, "This is beyond our control. Many places are actually caused by those guys who play politics. For example, the Thule Air Force Base that Brian mentioned that day, and here."
Yang Jing and Gege both shook their heads slightly and said nothing. Some things could not be changed by expressing their opinions.
"In fact, Alert used to be much more lively than it is now. It is said that during the Cold War in the last century, the population living here once reached 200. They were called 'The Frozen Chosen' (the chosen frozen people). These people worked for the military signal intelligence radio receiving station and the two weather monitoring stations. During the hot stage of the Cold War in the last century, the military intelligence station in Alert was ordered to eavesdrop on the Soviet Union. In fact, compared with Ottawa, Canada, the distance from remote Alert to Moscow is shorter, which has more strategic advantages."
"It's a pity that after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Cold War pattern completely disappeared, and the number of people stationed here has decreased. Twelve years ago, there were five long-term residents here, but now there are no real long-term residents here. The people here, including Old Kyle, can only be considered short-term residents."
Yang Jing and Gege shook their heads slightly again.
Yang Jing looked around the small square and found that it was full of colorful signs. The largest sign was made of an iron frame. The sign was white on top and blue on the bottom. In the middle was written the five English letters "ALERT" in black font. This was the name of Alert. In the upper right corner of the sign, there was also a direction indication. Below the sign, there was a smaller line of black English words - ORLDS-MOST-NORTHERN-STATION, which translated into Chinese means "World's Northernmost Station".
Next to this sign, there are densely packed wooden signs. If the largest sign of Alert is a mother, these wooden signs are like children nestling beside the mother. Most of these wooden signs are handmade signs, and most of them have words like "how many miles to XXX" written on them.
Seeing Yang Jing paying attention to these signs, Andre said, "These signs were made by those who came to Alert for adventure. This is the northernmost human settlement in the world, and many people come here for adventure every year. After they come here, they often make signs with the names of their hometown cities and nail them here to show that they have been here before."
Yang Jing took a quick look and found that there were at least ten big wooden poles standing here, and each of them had at least ten handmade wooden signs nailed on it. For example, one sign clearly read, Oslo, 1983. This meant that the Norwegian capital Oslo was 1983 miles away from here, which was about 3192 kilometers when converted into kilometers.
In addition, there are names of cities such as Reykjavik, Seattle, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, etc. Yang Jing even saw a sign for Melbourne, which is a full kilometer away from here...
Gege also saw these wooden signs and said with a smile: "These foreigners really know how to play."
At this time, the people who had gone to the beach to greet the two speedboats had also returned. There were vehicles in the camp, and these people had gone there by vehicle. Although the shore was still about ten kilometers away from the camp, they still rushed back quickly.
Every time a ship drops anchor and the people on board come to the camp, it is as much of a Christmas celebration for the residents of Alert. It is so boring here that they take it very seriously every time someone comes to visit.
The same is true this time.
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