A little more from North of the 75th.

The views here are breathtaking.  If you look closely at this picture you can see some amazing cliffs when I first saw this I thought for sure that this was a quarry or something man made. These cliffs are enormous and out in the middle of nowhere.

This is what perma-frost looks like when you dig it up and let it thaw.  This is the first time this bit of ground has thawed in several thousand years and probably hundreds of thousands of years. 

This is what a man made feature looks like. Not quite as attractive as the natural features.  This is where we are blasting and crushing rock for our project.  We use the gravel to build roads, make concrete, make stable pads to build buildings, tanks, culverts, wharfs and pipelines on.

This my office which now has a real blind over the window not a towel as you see here.  The sun believe it or not, is very hot through glass even in the north. I had to make do with what I had.  That is one key to getting things done here in the North. Never discard anything because with limited resources everything can be used. 

This is the jetty behind the camp and that is the wildlife lookout and yes he is armed.  When the ice leaves the bears come ashore because they can no longer hunt from the ice.

Where there is water and a wharf you will find a man fishing. The object of this expedition was Arctic Char but all my fishing buddy here caught was a two horn sculpin known here as the ugly fish.

Here again is our man made feature from a long distance away.  Because there is little or no vegetation it is easy to see the features. The feature behind the machinery is what is known as a Diabase Dyke that was formed when lava flowed between two existing hills and cooled.  This stuff makes great gravel.

A word about Polar Bears

I would like to tell you a little bit about Polar bears that I was unaware of never having seen one in real life.  Some of you may know this already but they are very big. Very big and very vicious.

We have a young man who works at the site here in Nanisivik who is from the community down the road called Arctic Bay.  He is Inuit and like the rest of the people who live there they all live the part of the life style that they have lived for a long time.  That is the hunting and fishing lifestyle that they love and allows them to exist in such a harsh environment.

As part of this aspect of their life they have to go out into a harsh environment to hunt and in this case be hunted. I am not sure of this gentleman's name but he works with one of the environmental engineers here who I have come to know quite well, Stuart.  We were talking the other day about Polar Bears and Stuart pipes up and says I've got something to show you related to Polar Bears.

He showed us a couple of pictures taken of his helper the Inuit gentleman. They were taken 3 months after he and his hunting partner had a night time encounter with a Polar Bear.  The story goes that they were travelling along when all of a sudden they were being chased by a Polar bear who caught up with them very quickly and took a couple of swipes at the helper and quickly started attacking his hunting buddy which allowed the first guy to gain control of his gun and was able to kill the Polar Bear before it killed them. Here is what the scars look like 3 months and 172 stitches (mostly sub dermal) later. Each one of those long scars were the result of the claws of the bear through some pretty heavy clothing. OUCH. Very big claws attached to a very big bear. That is why we have resident wildlife outlooks here around the clock.

The 15 mile trip back home must have a lot of fun too. Again enlarge the picture to get the full effect.

Road Trip to Arctic Bay

 

Explosives containers along the country side.

 

Mount Fuji in the distance.

 

Arctic Bay in the distance

 

Closer to Arctic Bay

 

 

Sled dogs are kept outside the community and feed three times a week. I felt bad when I saw them.

So I went up and talked to them and wished I could have fed them something.

In Arctic Bay looking out.

 

Another shot looking out of Arctic bay.

 

Headed back to camp.

 

You need to click on the pictures to enlarge to get the full effect.

 

Actually pictures don't do it justice you have to be there to get the full effect.

 

Some places actually leave you speechless.

 

The immenseness of it is really something.

 

Wikipedia calles it a Polar desert.

Nanisivik, Nunavut 2015

Well here we go again.  I am in Nanisivik, Nunavut.  700 km above the Artic Circle and a very interesting place.  We walk around with Bear spray and Bear Bangers with wildlife lookouts working around the clock which is easy because it never gets dark this time of the year.  I am here for a 3 week turn around and I am 60% through the first week.  This is what it looks like.



Click on the picture for a better look.

 

I am glad I brought these along.

 

 

 

 

 

The long corridor.  I don't think even Martha Stewart could do anything with this.

Outside the meal hall.