Bergy Bits

So last week involved some much needed down time, not because I acknowledged the fact that I must rest or burn out, mostly because it was foggy, windy, rainy and COLD! Camp was good, it was lovely to have four instructors so we tagged in and out of activities. This week though I think that I will make up for that as there are only two instructors...

Onto my adventures, which I seem to be experiencing in endless supply here. This was an outdoor fun weekend of adventures, which was great, as I needed to get some exercise and just let my mind wander free. Last weekend was great, we spent some time wandering around town, got to watch an Inuit carver at work for about an hour and see a chunk of rock turned into a beautiful bear, it was awe inspiring, and when we asked how he did that in such a short period of time and how he knew what the carving would be, all he said was it's in the rock. Alright back to the story. Last weekend Kris and I desprately wanted to go kayaking, however many things conspired against us. One: there were no life jackets- two: the tide was going out, Iqaluit has one of the biggest tides in Canada, which will be relevant later in my story- three: it was really windy. So we tried, but the lifeguard in me kicked in when in my canvas and wood kayak from the 1970's that had no spray skirt, I started feeling the canvas bend from the waves, I decided this was a bad judgement call. Not that it was a hardship for us to go back into the cememtary (where we launched from, it's right down on the beach) sit on the rocks in the warm sunshine and watch the tide go out for an hour, but we wanted to kayak. Fast forward to yesterday... Kris sadly has left us, so it's just me, Marc, Lori and Suzie joined us today.... Lori and I headed out in the kayak. It was sunny, windless, we found lifejackets and the tide had already gone out, so we wouldn't have been paddling over rocks that were in the process of coming to the surface, they were already uncover. As nice as it was not padding over the rocks, we had to walk with bulky kayaks and me with very sub par footwear (my slip on suede shoes, because my boots were still soaked from the Saturday adventure I'll get to later). This wasn't fun, but it was also a very surreal experience because the sea ice has floated into the bay, which meant at low tide, it was all washed up around us, so chunks of ice the size of houses were all around us as we were taking the kayaks down to the shore.

Once we got the kayaks down to the shore (a very nice man managed to balance one of the back of his ATV and take it down the last few hundred feet) I ended up getting soaked launching mine, so my feet were pretty cold to start with. Back to the surreal aspect, we were paddling around in Frosbisher Bay, which an abnormal amount of sea ice ranging from little tiny pieces to bergy bits to full blown icebergs the size of a house. This apparently only happens with the bay full in the summer once every ten years, so we are so lucky to be here right now. Lori and I paddled around checking out the ice both in the water and marooned on shore. We came across two ringed seals, one white one black, they were so peaceful looking. We padded around the ice island right outside the bay, and it was practically a glassy calm, which was fabulous for looking at the kelp forests waving below us. I even paddled over top of some bergy bits (I know, silly thing to do, but it was such an amazing feeling!). We were out there for about two or three hours, so I was getting pretty cold, the lack of spray skirt meant that the icy Arctic Ocean was ending up on my lap. Lori said that back in the day there would be two people laying in the front of the kayak and another two laying behind, I can't imagine how cold it must of have been for them to travel this way, because you really feel the chilliness coming up from the ocean into the kayak. We took the truck down the beach a ways to take the kayak's back to Rick's- who is our contact up here with the Nunavut Research Institute (NRI) and is a lovely human being, people here have been so friendly! I promptly went home after and curled up in a warm shower for 20 mins to let my feet thaw out.

Early in the week on Wednesday when all the fog was around was went the ice rolled into the bay, and I had to walk down to the NRI for a job interview in the middle of the day. I took a short cut down the hillside and walked along the beach to get to the other end of town, and I happened to be doing this during low tide, so I got to wander in amongst all these icebergs and bergy bits with the fog rolling around in the background, it was such a creepy and beautiful feeling all at the same time. On Saturday, it was sunny and gorgeous, so at low tide Kris and I went on quite the hike around the bay to check out all the ice. My stories won't do this experience justice, and I fear my pictures won't either, so I will simply recommend to everyone to spend a sunshiny day climbing up and around icebergs on a beach. I spent almost the whole afternoon repeating in my head that it was SO good to be alive.

After our beach walk, we headed over to the jewelry studio which was run by one of our campers parents. It was fabulous, we showed up just as one of the artists was coming in to work. He showed up the studio, explained how it was ingeniously outfitted with recycled goods, such as old doors for work desks, an airplane nose as a fume hood, government building supports for a saw, and so on. He also brought out a narwhale tusk, a piece of whale baleen, opened the fridge and took out two walrus tusks (one with the nerve still in it), it was so amazing to touch all these pieces- the narwhale tusk was really light, but the walrus tusks were a lot heavier and much more blunt than I expected. He also showed us an amazing piece that was being worked on with polar bear claws. We headed over to a gallery selling the work the next day and grabbed a few pieces. Speaking of art, I have gotten some amazing pieces, complete with a dancing polar bear from the artist we saw doing the demo last weekend, so many beautiful pieces, so little space in my luggage :-(

Next week I'll be doing the Sprouts Camp, which I am so very excited for, it should be great, I think that I'll have lots of camp stories to write everyone with. After that, it's onto the land in Kimmiruit and then back to Ottawa. Time has flown, it really doesn't feel like a whole month that I've been up here.