Wandering Arkie goes to the Arctic. Day 3 in the high Arctic.

Day 3.

Birds... again.

Guess what we did today? We went to the floe edge. We find a very good spot this morning. A large part of the floe has broken off and floated away. No wind, the water is calm. More tiny specks on the horizon representing whales (?).

And birds.

Since we can't see whales, we listen for them. A hydrophone is set up. Goodness, it is noisy under the water. Understanding that whale song can travel very long distances, Clive thinks he hears a blue whale from Sri Lanka. Really, it just sounds like a loop recording of eerie noises from a scary movie.

The wind comes up out of the north. It is cold and is blowing that several mile wide sheet of ice that had broken off yesterday back into the floe at an alarming rate. The rise of water ahead of the ice sheet bearing down on us causes the ice we are standing on to ripple. We are assured that sea ice is more flexible that fresh water ice. So, no worries. Still, we take notice of the fact that the guides have us packed up and on to sturdier ice in a handful of minutes. If they were concerned, we were scared.

The Cliffs of Insanity

So, for our afternoon frivolities, we scooted over the ice to the Fulmar nesting grounds, which are high up on cliffsides to the east of the ice floe. Fulmars are birds that look like gulls, but aren't. They have funny tube shaped nostrils on top of their bills that help them manage salt excretion and locate food by smell. Thank you, Vickie, for your informative bird lecture. Stunning lanscape. The cliffs are beautiful and the birds are noisy. But they are safe. No hungry bears, foxes, or sane humans are going to climb up to check out those nests. I'm sure some less than sane humans have done so. Cindy's favorite part of the trip, so far. She loved the cliffscapes, the colors. Other than the white of the snow/ice and the blue of the sky, this is the only color around.

Dinner of short ribs and creme brule. Chef, right? Not fry cook.
Short narwhal legend. A lot of Inuit legends are downers and have a lot to do with karma. Then, its off to bed with dreams of dancing narwhals in our heads. It's still really hard to get excited about going to sleep when it is still daylight. Cindy is still losing stuff. Gets ear phones wrapped up in sleeping mask. She’s at least entertaining.

Wandering Arkie goes to the Arctic. Day 2 in the high Arctic.

Day 2

Our second morning on the ice!

So, all of our cold weather gear is black. I get the parkas mixed up. I have lots of room in mine. Cindy? Not so much. She is miserable, can’t sit comfortably in the uncomfortable qamutik seats as we bound carelessly over the ice. I am seeing divorce proceedings in my future. We stop for a potty break. The expedition leaders have learned quickly that, with several postmenopausal women in our troop, the bathroom tent needs to be set up before the last qamutik even stops sliding. Cindy and I switch jackets, and the imagined lawyers have to pack up their stuff and move on.

Proverbial ‘floe edge'

It is colder than the first day, twice as cloudy to start, but the sun finally comes out and it warms up.
We are closer to floe edge. Right on it, in fact.

More birds.

Birds, lots of birds.

Ice can be beautiful!

See those tiny dots on the horizon? Narwhals.

We see narwhals (?). Who knew that narwhals looked like tiny black dots on the horizon? I thought they had tails and tusks. Note to self: bring binoculars next time.

Cayden builds an igloo.

Dinner was Spaghetti Bolognese. 

Vickie gave a talk on birdlife of the area. Poor Vickie. Little did she know that we had David, the bird expert with us. However, I can now tell the difference between a Thickbilled Murre and a Gallamont. Both birds are black and white, but the Gallamonts have little red feet. So, there.

Cindy spent most of night losing stuff in her bed.

Wandering Arkie goes to the Arctic. Day 1 in the high Arctic.

The real day 1 begins with Hal and Cindy doing exactly as we are told and showing up for breakfast at 8:30. Everyone else ate earlier because there is absolutely nothing else to do in Arctic Bay and we are team players. And losers, apparently.

So, get this… there is no city wide plumbing. Afterall, we are in permafrost. The hotel runs out of water while we are getting ready for the day and they have to call for the water truck so they can make coffee. The toilet stopped midflush. We have a full week ahead of us without a real shower and we want to start the trip smelling rosey, so, NOT GOOD.

Water truck... I hope.

Not only does water have to be pumped to each home or building, the sewage has to be pumped out. No city sewage system. No septic tanks. Anyway, the water truck topped off the water tank, and we were back in business.

Something else about life in Arctic Bay. The landscape is littered with shipping containers. A container ship arrives in Arctic Bay once a year carrying all of the supplies FOR THE WHOLE YEAR! All of the toilet paper, canned goods, fuel, snowmobile parts, toys for the tots, cigarettes (and everyone smokes up here). For a huge amount of money, things can be flown in, but there are no regular supply flights to Arctic Bay, not even FedEx. When the supplies run low, the prices skyrocket. Cigarettes go for $25 a pack right now. Did I mention that everyone smokes? The next container ship arrives in August. Arctic Kingdoms (our expedition outfitter) has supplies on that ship for the 2019 (not 2018) season. Talk about future planning. Anyway, the shipping containers that are brimming with consumables will be unloaded, and the hollow shells of empty containers will be loaded back on the ship for their trip south for reprovisioning.

The qamutik train

At 10 AM, with clean bodies, clean teeth, and coffee in our bloodstreams, we set out onto the ice pack from Victor Bay on qamutiks (sleds pulled by snowmobile, though a few years ago, it would have been sled dogs). Qamutik is an ancient Inuit term for “bone jarring ride”. It is raining, the temp hovers near freezing, we are traveling at about 20 MPH. There is no difference between the gray ice and the gray sky, so no horizon is visible. The lead guide is following a path that only he can see over the vast expanse of ice. We are traveling to a point near the confluence of Admiralty Inlet (the largest inlet in the world) and Lancaster Sound.

So, through some uncanny trick of navigation, we arrive at base after several hours. We are glamping in some nice yurts on (they swear) 6 feet of ice over a sound that is up to a couple thousand feet deep. There are seals, narwhals, belugas, and bowhead whales (not to mention the fish they feed upon) swimming below my feet.

Our township on the ice

We get our stuff settled. Come to find out that Cindy's bag has been left behind. Daryl (his 'English' name) heads back by snowmobile to retrieve it from the hotel. They show us the ropes, complete with 'how not to burn down your yurt with the propane heater' and 'what to do in case of polar bear'. Really, the bears are lambs. Unless they haven't eaten in a few days. Which happens a lot. They say not to worry. We have Boy with us. Boy is a retired sled team lead dog and is very good at warning of approaching polar bears, but not warning us of marauding glaucus and herring gulls (which were a constant companion at Boy's mealtime). In other words, Boy only barks if there's something worth barking at.

Boy, the polar bear dog

They serve up a wonderful caribou tenderloin. It was very good. We actually have a chef here from a restaurant that has some stars, though I don't know how many, and I don't know who issued them.

See that dark line? Floe edge. Way out there.

Polar bear tracks

It is 7PM. We have had a long day. We are all feeling tired and full of warm food. So we get back into qamutiks and head out into the freezing cold, 'cause we came here to live on the edge. We are off to see wildlife. An hour of freezing later, we arrive at the floe edge… sort of. It's about 100 yards off. The site we picked only had ice about 6 inches thick. Too thin for our guides’ comfort, so we had to observe from a safe distance. We saw birds, and more birds, and some birds. We saw some white smudges on the sea surface that we are told are belugas. Back in the qamutiks for another bone-jarring journey back to base. We see

Arctic summer night.
It’s 10PM!!

polar bears tracks, so we know they are here, and they know we are here because snowmobiles make a lot of noise which is drowned out by the banging noises of qamutiks bouncing over cracks in the ice.

Back at base, it is 12 midnight, the sun is not down. It might as well be 12 noon. The sun basically travels a lazy circle in the sky at about the 9 or 10 AM position. I thought we would, at least, have dusk. I will grow to love my sleeping mask.

Wandering Arkie goes to the Arctic. Leaving civilization.

Arctic Bay pre-day #1

The Arctic travelers converge on the Shell Aero FBO terminal in Ottawa, Canada. We be flying charter! It’s an older Beechcraft twin engine prop plane. The information sheet in the seat back
says it is powered by turboprop engines, but I swear the “fuel” truck says “Purina” on the side and there are rodent droppings under the cowlings. Flight crew very concerned about weight, even though plane is only half full. Single seats on either side of the aisle. No facilities, so we were very careful with hydration. Specifically, we didn't drink anything for 7 hours. And I was dreaming of the coffee, cooling in a carafe not 10 feet in front of me. I don't think the cabin heater was working. Or, maybe they were just trying to get us acclimated to the Arctic conditions.

Our transportation

The first fuel stop was in a larger airport near St. James Bay. I can't even begin to pronounce the names of the destinations served. Completely empty. 2 commercial jets (Inuit Air) silent on the tarmac.

Second fuel stop (starts with a ‘P’ followed by a long string of unpronounceable vowels and consonants) was teeming with Inuit of all ages. Our 7 of European descent and 2 Chinese stood out like beacons. I thought African American children were cute, but Inuit children are the cutest. No toilet paper or paper towels in the bathrooms. Dirt runway, which created all sorts of unnerving sounds on touchdown. In fact, dirt everything. Ice, rocks, dirt and a few tufts of scrub grass are all that cover the ground. Kinda reminds me of Albuquerque. Commercial jet was leaving just before us, kicking up clouds of dust.

Did I mention dirt?

Airport ‘terminal'

Terminal (?) in Arctic Bay. There's a small building with lots of antennas and electrical looking stuff sticking out of the top, but there wasn't anybody there and we couldn't get to the bathrooms. We discovered later that the man in charge of the airport headed out on a hunting trip a couple of days before we arrived and wasn't expected to return for several days. No worries. Apparently, the landing lights can be turned on remotely from the approaching aircraft. And there is never more than one plane arriving or departing in any week. Midair collisions are unheard of in this part of the world. I guess I feel comforted, but I really needed to use the restroom.

Anyway, we were greeted plane-side by the van, one of only about 10 functioning internal combustion vehicles that have wheels instead of treads in the area.

Maybe I should introduce the cast of characters:
Francoise- expedition leader. She is an Arctic Bad Ass!
Vickie- ass't expedition leader. She is learning to be an Arctic Bad Ass, but is well on her way.
Hal & Cindy
Michael and Alberta from Hong Kong. Michael is retired from his profession as chief sales agent for China for Carrier (air conditioners) and Moen (of kitchen/bath fixtures fame). Alberta is a retired nurse.
Dale, a pharmacist from Toronto.
Clive, a surveyor from London. Dale and Clive met on a trip to Antarctica 16 years ago and have met up on an adventure at least once a year since. To say that Clive is colorful is an understatement. Dale plays the straight man to Clive's schtick.
Denise, a retired school teacher from a town in Ontario I cannot pronounce (the name is French). Sault Ste. Marie.
Lise, a PCP from Sudbury, Ontario. Denise and Lise are cousins and travel together a lot.
David, a radiologist from Minnesota. Also, very well traveled. Has a passion for birds and has travelled around the world bird watching.
And Steve, Justin, Daryl, Apak, who were our Inuit guides.
And Matt, Andrew, Cayden, Norman, who were the kitchen staff.
And Emory, the camp leader.

There we go.

Inuit throat singer

Off to the “hotel” in Arctic Bay. It’s about what you would expect in a ‘hamlet’ of 400 people in the farthest northern reaches of the planet.

View out of the hotel window

We are fed. Then serenaded by Molly, an Inuit throat singer. You have got to hear Inuit throat singing. It sounds like
Shirley Temple being eaten by hungry polar bear while singing “The Good Ship Lollipop”. All sarcasm aside, it is truly amazing that the human throat can issue forth the combination of sounds produced by throat singers. Check it out on YouTube.