So we flew out of Iqaluit on Friday evening after work. It was a beautiful evening for flying, just a light cloud cover, so I got a good look at the landscape. The terrain to the west of Iqaluit is very flat and, because there are no trees on Baffin Island and very little vegetation, the abundance of exposed rock on the landscape tells the story of the recent glacial past quite clearly. From the air the landscape is very linear and you can see where massive ice caps, kilometers thick (can you even comprehend that? kilometers thick!), grooved and gouged the rock and earth. And there are so many lakes! It just goes on and on and on.
Rankin Inlet is an Inuit hamlet on the northwestern shore of Hudson Bay. There is a string of communities in this area of Hudson Bay north of Churchill, Manitoba… Arviat, Whale Cove, Rankin Inlet, and Chesterfield Inlet. The population of Rankin is about 2500, making it the second most populated community in Nunavut!
It’s difficult to get a good look at the town from the ground because it is so flat. We pretty much went straight to our hotel and… it pretty much looked like a bowling alley from the outside. You wouldn’t believe what is considered perfectly acceptable for accommodations up here, and there is most often only one option in the communities. And expensive! I’m sure my hotel room in Rankin cost somewhere between $250 and $300, despite the fact that it looks like it was outfit in the early 80s. In Pangnirtung there is only one hotel, it costs $250 per person per night and apparently they will throw you in a room with a complete stranger if they need the space. Ahhh, but it is all part of the experience of northern Canada!
The workshop itself was really interesting. We had representatives from each of the communities in this region (the Kivalliq Region) discussion what their wildlife priorities are and coming up with a collective list. All workshops and meetings up here begin with a prayer in Inuktitut from one of the elders present. It is the one part that is never translated, and I would so like to hear what they are saying. Everyone takes it very seriously. Nunavummiut (the Inuit of Nunavut) are so genuine.
Depending on the translation equipment, it can be difficult to follow discussions, especially if the translator is not particularly good. At this workshop we had these funny headsets that hang down from your ears and you have to remember to put them on or take them off as the translations change… I often forget to take them off so that I am listening to the headphones in Inuktitut while someone is speaking in English and it takes me a moment to figure out why I can’t understand!
I went for a walk around the town on Sunday morning. It was kind of dismal, to be truthful. Rankin and the other surrounding communities have a lot of problems with polar bears, so most of the dog teams were fenced in. Polar bears come into town in search of food and will kill sled dogs. The dogs had a good howl while I was walking and past, and for those of you have been to the Corning’s house during a good howl (yes, I acknowledge that we’re all a little bit crazy), you should hear 50 huskies howling! It’s amazing, albeit somewhat mournful.
There is a giant Inukshuk in town and my picture just doesn’t do it justice! It is about twice as tall as I am… I regret not getting a picture with me in it, but I was by myself and without a tripod. It was nominated as one of the Seven Wonders of Canada (I saw that on the CBC website).
That evening my co-worker Adam and I went to get a bite to eat and on the way back there was a wall of dark, ominous clouds rolling into town. We were afraid that we were going to get weathered in (flights to and from Rankin are often cancelled because of wind and other weather), but our flight made it out on Monday.
P.S. It is winter now here! But I'll save that story for another day...
I went for a walk around the town on Sunday morning. It was kind of dismal, to be truthful. Rankin and the other surrounding communities have a lot of problems with polar bears, so most of the dog teams were fenced in. Polar bears come into town in search of food and will kill sled dogs. The dogs had a good howl while I was walking and past, and for those of you have been to the Corning’s house during a good howl (yes, I acknowledge that we’re all a little bit crazy), you should hear 50 huskies howling! It’s amazing, albeit somewhat mournful.
There is a giant Inukshuk in town and my picture just doesn’t do it justice! It is about twice as tall as I am… I regret not getting a picture with me in it, but I was by myself and without a tripod. It was nominated as one of the Seven Wonders of Canada (I saw that on the CBC website).
That evening my co-worker Adam and I went to get a bite to eat and on the way back there was a wall of dark, ominous clouds rolling into town. We were afraid that we were going to get weathered in (flights to and from Rankin are often cancelled because of wind and other weather), but our flight made it out on Monday.
P.S. It is winter now here! But I'll save that story for another day...
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