Dr. Bailey's Dire Experiments

One of our more startling faculty members was the distinguished professor of chemistry Doctor Hieronymous Bailey. The University of Tuktoyaktuk cherishes him as an adventurer (of course) and an innovative thinker. On the other hand, the General Accounting Office nearly threw him out of the Department of Science following the climax of his ground-breaking (ahem!) research program.

Dr. Bailey made an early mark as an unusual, not to say eccentric, food scientist. We have a valuable archival photo here showing him testing a new composition of thousand-year ptarmigan egg. His native caution is evident in the very minute portion of pickled egg he has placed on the spoon, and in the 3/8" steel-plate lector's mask he appears to have borrowed from the hockey hooligans over in Phys. Ed.

When he regained consciousness, Bailey resolved to move toward less-pungent but more-rewarding pursuits. In short, he began a quest to find a crucial formula. Not the formula for turning lead into gold (we have lots of gold already in the Northwest Territories!) -- but the much more important one for changing ice into beer (we have to bring beer up from the south on huge wagons).

Let us not be coy - he succeeded immediately. In fact, many southern breweries still sell watery variations on his first ice beer. What marked Bailey as a genius, though, was his quest for ever-stronger beer. During the long winter night (about four months long in Tuktoyaktuk), students need a good beer to stay warm. By the time of his unfortunate run-in with the GAO, Bailey had perfected ice beer of over 200 proof.

Sure - the scientific community said it couldn't be done. "Two hundred proof is the absolute physical maximum!" Well, that's the conventional thinking. At the University of Tuktoyaktuk, Dr. Bailey found that if you concentrate beer enough, you can pack more alcohol molecules than there is space in the bottle. This is the secret of 212-proof beer.

It's also (as you know from Time Cop and other science-fiction classics) a bit of a problem - the old "two objects can't occupy the same location" issue that's led to many a spectacular obliteration.

Here's another historical photo, this time showing Bailey's experimental attempt to cram 343 proof into a twelve-ounce stubbie. Those aren't ants in the foreground - they're students. That cloud of smoke? That's the Cambridge Bay Chemical Laboratory. And if you're wondering about the big featureless plain - well, we're pretty far north of the tree line, so no trees were harmed in the experiment. But he blew the pingoes flat for fifty kilometers.

By the greatest of good fortunes, royalty payments for ice beer began to roll in around this time. The accountants backed off and Doctor Bailey was able to found the Kaglulik Chemistry Research Facility (yes, "Kaglulik" -- look it up for Bailey's last laugh).

And think of him when you crack a stubby of ice brew: Dr. Hieronymous Bailey, who blasted beer high into orbit so students could make it through the Tuktoyaktuk winter night.