More hunt pix

Some more pix from the hunt. Brandon, Traci, Norman in front of the school in the AM with the Arctic Cat. Norman all bundled up for the trip out. Another pic of the Elder camp too.

Some shots of a student musk ox hunt in spring 2008. We headed up over a small hummock towards what we thought was alone musk ox but it turned out to be a grizzly that had come over from the mainland. We also stopped at an elder camp to do some fishing on Kitiga lake

Life goes on...

Haven’t signed in for a while but lots of changes since March. Not in Ikaluktutiak at the moment but one never knows when one will be back there. Updates to follow.

Landmark Berg

Some pix of the big overhanging berg. This one is about a km out from shore and about halfway along from the direct path that I take that leads south from Cam Bay to the Gulf and the cut off that takes you to the Gulf from the edge of the west arm of the Bay. It makes a great landmark for navigating. The pic of me with my skis shows how flat everywhere else is. The bergs and anything else more than a metre high are plainly obvious from well distant.

This is the one that developed the huge split after climbing on it – right next to the big roof . On this trip I was wearing by neoprene over-boots over top of my climbing boots as my crampons, of course, only fit stiff shanked boots.

In these shots I’m also wearing my wolf mitts that came from Bay Chimo. They were made by the mother of the culture and languages teacher at Kulllik School – the elementary school ( Kullik means “school” so the elementary school is called “school school”). My Cariboo mitts have started to shed quite a bit so I got these as a replacement.

Table top ice

More pix of the NW passage due south of the town. For this trip I headed over the peninsula but followed a lake /stream system that led to the Gulf just west of where the overland route goes. There actually is some small topography along this route and for a good portion of it you can’t see any of the usual landmarks such as the tower or North Warning site – makes it feel somewhat more remote. Some interesting table top bergs here. 40 below as usual – the same temp it has been since November. Nice to have the sun back though.

Arctic Wanderer in 2008

Here’s a couple of images of the Arctic Wander – frozen in at the North Warning aka Dew Line dock –otherwise known as a grounded barge. This is at least the third season the boat has been here in Cam Bay. This pix are from about a month ago and I noticed yesterday that the boat has an even greater list to it as it has been heaved by the ice

Out in the passage

Just some more shots in and around the bergs. These trips are usually a 4 to 7 hour day. This day was hovering around 42 or 43 and not too much wind, the forecast was for wind-chill in the low fifties but I don’t think that the wind picked up enough for that. Facemask frosts up pretty good – cold or not. I skied up the back side and let my tips hang over the edge - nice to get some vertical relief for a change.

I ended up going back to this berg with the big overhang as it was good to climb on – except for the aforementioned splitting