(or we went fishing and all we brought back was these lousy pictures)
We decided yesterday to take a trip to Kahula Lake to try and catch some char from the newly formed ice. Leah’s mom & dad and several others had gone up by ATV earlier in the day, and we drove up in the afternoon.
Kahula Lake is a beautiful lake a little beyond Nanivisk, above Strathcona Sound. There is a nice waterfall on it’s exit stream you can hike to in the summer. And there are char in the lake, one of the few road accessible lakes here with char in it. The road past the mine (which links up to the mines far exit) carries on to Kahula Lake.
Or rather it did.
We packed up some hot coffee and snacks all four of us, along with Leah’s sister and cousin piled in to the truck, looking forward to the first ice fishing trip of the year. The road, which is growing into disrepair, was covered with snow as we climbed the mountain over the mine. The trip down the other side was better which lulled me into a false sense of security, as I sped up some and hit a bumb which launched everyone in the back to the roof of the truck. Travis was sleeping in cargo area and experienced a brief moment of weightlessness before gravity rudely took over and ended his nap.
The views of Strathcona Sound from the hills are spectacular, and it was a cold cold site we beheld. Winter is very much upon us, the ground is completely white, the sky overcast, and the ocean has that cold steel gun metal blue/grey colour to it that it takes on in the winter before freezeup.
Freeze up seems to be a little behind this year, Arctic Bay should be freezing over about now and doesn’t really show any sign yet. There was a little ice behind the breakwater yesterday but even that is gone now. The water lake has just started to freeze, and normally we’d be fishing on it by now. Kahula Lake however, is at a higher altitude and has ice on it.
As we dropped down from the hills where the mine exit is, our expedition came to a halt. As part of the reclamation process a large culvert had been removed from the road, leaving a huge ditch in its place. We could go no further. I took a walk around the ditch off the road, and probably could have four wheeled it with out any problem but didn’t want to risk it with the kids in the truck. We were along way from help.
So we turned around and headed home, pausing in Nanisivik to drink our coffee and watch the destruction of the community centre. Much of it is completely gutted now, and you can easily see through it. It is mostly frame, floor and some walls now. Here are a couple of pictures, all we brought home from our expedition. Leah’s mom on the other hand, brought back a bag of small char.
The part on the far right used to be the Nursing Station (ground floor) and Nurse’s residence (2nd floor), and the two circular windows in the red section above the rubble pile were the windows in my office at the Detachment.