Oh, my dear fans, how I have neglected you! I’m sorry, my internet connection over the past week has been troublesome and I have been busy moving into my new place :) and flying around Baffin Island!

Today is a gorgeous day! The sun is shining and the bay was like glass this morning, which isn’t common. This is a relief after a week or so of overcast skies and rain. It really cooled down as well, enough so that some days I still got a chill with a hooded sweatshirt on in the middle of the day. One person even suggested that summer night be over – egad! (a little flashback to the days of Archie comics for you). I'm really enjoying my new place, which I moved into on Monday. I am sleeping much better at my new place; that hotel room was god-awfully hot every hour of the day! And I have two balck feline companions, in addition to Eva, my roommate. I'll send you some pictures at a later date.

I have so much to tell you about! Monday evening was very busy… all of my boxes arrived at my new place and I had to get them out of the way as I was meant to be away Tuesday to Wednesday and I didn’t want Eva (my new roommate) to be tripping over them. Tuesday morning I had to be up at 5:00 am, but thankfully the sun was shining brightly! That is one of the perks of a 24 sun, it makes getting up at a god awful hour much easier.

So, I walked down to the airport and after a wait boarded a small prop plane with maybe 20 seats. I quickly came to learn that flying in the North requires patience – cancellations are common – and a strong stomach –turbulence is even more common! It is not difficult to pick out the fresh blood from the seasoned veterans. I ended up sitting next to a man on the way to the same meeting as me, and he was cool as a cucumber. The Inuit, on the other hand, are screamers! They scream and yell at the first hint of turbulence. It actually helped to break the ice with the guy sitting next to me, as we both chuckled at them together.

The turbulence didn’t keep me from enjoying the fantastic scenery though. Oh my god, it was beautiful! It is much more mountainous in that region (also on Baffin Island, not too far at all). It reminded me of flying over the Rockies, but with bays and fiords, not to mention the ice caps and glaciers. Pictures out of a plane window don’t quite do it justice, but nonetheless, here are some of my favourites.

As we approached Pangnirtung however, the clouds and fog closed in. I was feeling a little nervous as the landing gear came down and we descended, mostly because I couldn’t see a thing and I had no idea how far away the ground was. The plane began shaking, and the Inuit began screaming… then the engines shifted gear suddenly and started to surge and my stomach jumped up into my throat as I anxiously anticipated a rough touchdown. I’m not going to lie, it was a frightening experience, but the next thing I knew we were going back up! The pilot aborted the landing.

We carried on to Qikiqtarjuaq northeast of Pang, enjoying more fantastic scenery along the way. As we were preparing to land the flight attendant explained that we would be there for about an hour and to please not go into town, just “stroll around the airport”. For a brief moment I had flashes of strolling around, shopping duty-free in brightly lit spaces, a vision that was swiftly shattered as we touched down on a dirt runway and I caught sight of the smallest airport I have ever seen. The ground crew looked like high school kids dressed in jeans and t-shirts and the “Welcome to Qikiqtarjuaq” sign was drawn with markers on bristle board… ahhh, the north!

Qiki, as they call it, was really beautiful. The water was really calm and reflected the mountains across the bay with beautiful clarity. In the north however, calm comes hand-in-hand with something that very much keeps me from feeling calm... mosquitoes! There were so many mosquitoes that I even managed to get a picture of one! See below...

On the way back to Iqaluit the pilot attempted another, possibly more terrifying yet equally unsuccessful attempt at landing in Pang, and after five hours we landed back in Iqaluit... amid more screams followed promptly by nervous laughter. Over the course of the morning I did manage to develop a good working relationship with my seat mate though, who is also working with fisheries in Nunavut. And here’s the best part… we did the whole thing again the morning! After more than ten hours trying to get to Pang, which is actually only an hour away, I never did make it! And that, apparently, is travelling in the North!

I have so much more to go on about, but I will save it for another day. Have a good weekend!