Jimmy Gets Here in ONE HOUR!

I wanted to send off a quick up date before I head out to pick dad up at the airport, because I know I am going to be distracted for the next week (though I may have to make arrangements for a special Jimmy of the North entry). So he arrives this afternoon and will be here for a week. I have lots of fun things planned, including (just got official word today) a full-day boat tour of the bay! I am VERY excited about this as there is a, albeit remote, chance that we will see a polar bear and/or whales, seals, walrus... very exciting. Let's just hope the weather forecast holds.

Speaking of weather, the situation in Iqaluit has improved dramatically (it didn't have to change much for dramatic improvement! It was pretty bad). Saturday was pretty foggy again, but Sunday was BEAUTIFUL! Just gorgeous... I was out berry picking for hours in the sun, just the right temperature. It was lovely... the entire town of Iqaluit took off out onto the tundra, there were people grazing the fields like cattle by the dozens.

This was Saturday... it was kind of errie...

This scene reminded me of the swamps from Lord of the Rings... I kept expecting to see dead Kings of days gone past in the water (for all you LOTR geeks like me).

Very distressing! There are colour changes happening already! Are you kidding me!

And this was Sunday, ahhh... the bay was glossy and serene, there were even sea kayakers out!

And this is the river where I was berry picking... I was tempted to have a nap in the sun.

More big, fat, juicy berries!

I have been spending A LOT of time at the Humane Society lately, maybe even too much time, but there are so many furry friends in need. They are so desperate for love and attention, it just breaks my heart, and we're so busy that we don't have very much time to spend with each of them.

This is Whitey, she's a sweety. She knows just how to pull at my heart strings.

And this is Sandy... can you guess where the name comes from. She is lovely, and so well trained, but not adjusting well to kennel life. All she did was shake and cry for the first few days and she wouldn't eat or drink :( but she is coming around. She LOVES her walks, she's very lady like.

And these are the puppies... SO sweet and SOOO happy all the time...

This is bear... can you guess why? He looks even more like a bear in person, and you would not believe how much he sounds like a baby bears!

And this is Oliver... I just love Oliver, he is so sweet. He would not last a heart beat at a shelter at home (as in someone would have snatched him up already!), such a beautiful face!

I think I hear dad's plane landing! Got to run! (only takes me about ten minutes to walk to the airport, if that!)

Arctic Tundra

This is the scene that I went to bed to last night... the setting sun over the tundra...

...and the full moon rising...

This is the scene that I saw as I closed my eyes last night... I have been picking a lot of blueberries lately...

And THIS is the scene that I woke up to (and every other day this week)... yuck!

For a desert-like ecosystem, the tundra has been awfully wet! Fog... rain... more fog... oh a little glimpse of the sun! ... and here comes the rain and fog... This is pretty much how the last week or two has progressed, AND it is supposed to rain until Monday. But that’s okay, as long as it doesn’t rain on Tuesday when my dad arrives! He’ll be here for a week :) I have lots of fun things planned for us to do (like berry picking and fishing... are you starting to get the distinct impression that that’s all there is to do up here?).

So who wants to learn about the Tundra?!

Tundra refers to areas where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons and usually refers only to the areas where the subsoil is permafrost, or permanently frozen soil. The vegetation is composed mostly of dwarf shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses, and lichens, though scattered trees grow in some tundra (not anywhere near where I am though). The ecotone (that means the area between two ecological zones) between the tundra and the forest is known as the tree line!

The Arctic tundra is a vast area of stark landscape and is frozen for much of the year. The soil there is frozen from 25–90 cm down, and it is impossible for trees to grow. Instead, bare and sometimes rocky land can only support low growing plants such as moss, heath, and lichen. There are two main seasons, winter and summer. During the winter it is very cold and dark, with the average temperature around −28 °C, sometimes dipping as low as −50 °C. However, extreme cold temperatures on the tundra do not drop as low as those experienced in taiga areas further south (for example, Canada's lowest temperatures were recorded in locations south of the tree line – I thought that was an interesting tidbit!). During the summer, temperatures rise somewhat, and the top layer of the permafrost melts leaving the ground very soggy and covered in marshes, lakes, bogs and streams during the warm months. The permafrost thaws just enough to let plants grow and reproduce, but because the ground below this is frozen, the water cannot sink any lower. Generally daytime temperatures during the summer rise to about 12 °C but can often drop to 3 °C or even below freezing – it doesn’t even feel like summer anymore, feels closer to late October!

The tundra is a very windy area, with winds often blowing upwards of 48–97 km/h. However, in terms of precipitation, it is desert-like, with only about 15–25 cm falling per year (the summer is typically the season of maximum precipitation). Now this is one area I would like to point out! It does not feel very desert like right now... I figure we have gotten that total amount of precipitation in the last month alone!

Notable animals in the Arctic tundra include caribou (reindeer), musk ox, arctic hare, arctic fox, snowy owl, lemmings, and polar bears (only the extreme north). A severe threat to the tundras, specifically to the permafrost, is global warming. The melting of the permafrost in a given area on human time scales (decades or centuries) could radically change which species can survive there. Another concern is that about one third of the world's soil-bound carbon is in taiga and tundra areas. When the permafrost melts, it releases carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and methane, both of which are greenhouse gases. In the 1970s the tundra was a carbon sink (that means it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere, such as a forest), but today, it is a carbon source (releases carbon into the atmosphere as global warming reduces permafrost).

And before I sign off, I finally got the pictures of my first fish! It looks awfully small wrapped up in those big O’Donnell/Corning hands! Haha. And unfortunately the picture doesn’t do the beautiful colors of the spots and stripes justice... it was the prettiest fish I have seen yet, and I’m not just saying that because I caught it!

Four wonderful years...

My wonderful husband and I celebrated our fourth anniversary this week. Happy anniversary Marky! We may not be together to celebrate, but we'll make up for it when we see eachother in Calgary in only four short weeks! (I can't wait!!!) I got a beautiful message from Mark's parents on my answering machine when I got home on Thursday night. Thank you Bill and Linda, that was very sweet, brought a tear... okay, several tears, to my eyes.

I thought I would bring back some of my favorite pictures from the wedding to remind everyone of that wonderful day...

In Search of the Elusive Bowhead...

Well, I’m just coming off a fabulous weekend into my eighth week in Iqaluit, and less than five weeks until my trip to Calgary where I get to spend a week with my lovely husband… life is good.

I’ve been fishing quite a bit lately, with little success, but it is so beautiful down by the river that I don’t begrudge the fish. The consequences of losing the battle are far worse for them than they are for me! The other night I was in a t-shirt at 9:00 pm, the water was calm, and the scene tranquil. Fishing unsuccessfully though is well worth it if it inspires me to spend a couple of hours in such conditions. The water is so clean and clear that all I want to do is dive in! But if I did that would be one move that I would likely be lucky to survive and regret! It probably isn’t much above freezing.

Late in the week we got word at the office that there was a bowhead whale dragging a fishing net near the town of Pangnirtung, a community about 45 minutes away by plane nestled on the banks of a deep fiord off Cumberland Sound. The bowhead whale is a northern baleen whale closely related to the right whale. It is rooted deeply within Inuit culture and is the only baleen whale to reside year round in the Canadian waters of the High Arctic. The Inuit have a long history have hunting bowhead whales, but due to a few centuries of commercial hunts beginning in the 1500s, their populations were low and as a result they have been listed as Special Concern by COSEWIC (the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada). Their populations have been steadily increasing though, and so there are hunts allowed for three communities for a single whale each year.

So back to the whale in the net. Reports were that it was a small whale entangled in a char net. The community spotted the whale at the mouth to Pangnirtung Fiord and again within a nearby Fiord. We had a meeting with the local DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) office to discuss the situation. They decided to charter a small plane to survey the area around the last sighting and I was invited to join them!

On Saturday morning I got up bright and early and headed down to the airport and boarded an eight-seater prop plane. The flight to Cumberland Sound over the tundra spotted with lakes was nice enough, but when we reached the Sound 45 minutes later, that was when my breath was really taken away. It was an absolutely beautiful, clear morning and the water of the Sound (which is a huge area) was like glass, not a white cap in sight. There was a light haze in the air which gave the scenery a dream-like quality and the colors of the sky that were reflecting off the water were so warm and pleasant, it was truly lovely. It would have been the perfect scene for my first sighting of orcas in the north. There was a pod of 20 killer whales spotted in the Sound within days of our flight, and I had my fingers crossed to get a glimpse of them, but alas, they were nowhere to be seen.

First we had to pass over the Sound and touch down in Pangnirtung to pick up a few people. The town of Pangnirtung is located on the east side of a deep fiord that cuts into the mountains ending at Auyuittuq National Park, which is famous for the ten day Pangnirtung Pass trek, which I have aspirations of doing next summer. You fly straight into the fiord, pass the town and then make a sharp 180 turn to come back to and land in the town on a dirt runway. This landing was even dicier than the one in Qikiqtarjuaq, probably because of the smaller plane. I held my breath for most of it, but as always, it was fine. The people sitting next to me who have flown the north for some time didn't even bat an eye.

Once back in the air we circled over the surrounding fiords in search of the whale for two hours. In some areas the water was so green that it almost had a tropical feel. Despite the fact that we never did find the whale, the flight itself of spectacular. All I can do is hope that the whale was able to shake off the net and return to the sea. To be truthful, if we had spotted the whale it was likely that the town would have been granted an emergency licence to harvest it, rather than DFO coming in and trying to free it. It is really dangerous to attempt a rescue and for a population that is harvested it wouldn’t be worth the risk.

Iqaluit from the air...

It's hard to tell where the sky ends and the water begins... or where the Earth ends and heaven begins... what movie is that from? I'm thinking Forrest Gump.

Pangnirtung Pass at the head of the fiord.

Small planes make for bumpy landings on dirt runways...

No whales, but icebergs are a nice substitute...