Northern Life

• Sealift 2005 – part two

  The second sealift ship of the season arrived in Arctic Bay on Monday night, bringing with it our frozen food order. The Anna Desgagnais would have made a spectacular picture, had we taken the camera, when we came back late from a quick trip to Nanisivik.  Anchored in front of town with all of its

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• Sealift 2005

  The sealift ship arrived Tuesday last.  The Umiavut, owned by Nunavut Eastern Arctic Shipping, arrived around 2:00 pm and the first of the sealift hit the shore around 4:00 pm.  I had wanted to get some photos of the hustle and bustle of the unloading, and the crates piled up at the shore, however I

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• Another Reason to Live Where I Live

  I just glanced out the window after putting Travis to sleep. This is what I saw.

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• Night falls

  It’s getting dark at night now.  The street lights are coming on around 1:00 am and it was dark last night at 2:00 am.  The change happens so quickly.  It is one of the most incredible things about living up here.  I’ve mentioned this before, but the daily change in the amount of sun during

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• Don’t know much about Mycology (Even if I am a fun guy).

  We went looking for blueberries this evening, up to Second Bridge, and it appears as though it is going to be another poor year for blueberries this year.  I suspect that all of the rain we have is coming at a critical time of the blossoming and messing with the pollination.  Last year there were

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• Gary – Crew Stories 7

  Today marks a year that Gary arrived in Nunavut, a year since he went to Kugluktuk to join us at the Fort Hearne for the Northwest Passage. I’m sure there have been many days that he regrets the day he answered the phone and heard me ask if he was interested in coming to the

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• My Head in the Clouds, Eyes on the Ground

  It turned out to be a very nice evening out. Calm, and I love the light these days as we start to lose the sun. We took the opportunity  to go for a drive, to go get some aira and, as my grandpa would say, get the smell blown off of us. We went out

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• You Can Get Here From There.

  The new RCMP member, Adam, arrived last night and came over for a visit. We of course spent time looking for connections, members that we would both know.  It was a bit of a struggle, after all I’ve been retired longer than he’s been a member, but we managed to find a couple of tenuous

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• aira

  When Leah and I were first "courting" we were out walking near First Bridge.  We hiked up to the top of the hill and built a small inuksuk.  We were sitting back enjoying the view and Leah reached down and pulled up an Oxytrope (Oxytropis sp.), aira in inuktitut by the root.  It has a

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• Fledglings

  The Snow Buntings (Plectrophenax nivalis) have fledged, and there are young birds everywhere. The Snow Buntings are the earliest birds at everything up here.  They are the first migrants to arrive, well before you could really say it is spring, the first to raise their young (at least amongst the migrants), and the earliest to

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