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| View of the bridge on one of my walks back to town |
I wouldn't have believed it if someone had told me I'd be experiencing less sunshine in Cambridge Bay than in Vancouver. But sadly enough, for me, that is so true. I wont be exaggerating if I had said we had no more than 10 sunny days for the last 75 days that I have been here in Cambridge Bay. I was so counting on sunshine that I made sure to go and get two extra pairs of sunglasses on my last day before leaving Vancouver. Soon I wouldn't be cmplaining about cloudy skies any more as there wont be daylight starting the end of November. In fact today's sunrise was 8:56 and sunset 2:51pm. In about three weeks time sun will set, and wont rise again for a very very long time.
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| One of my catches during ice fishing; a lake trout |
So shortage of daylight has seriously dented my chances of getting out after work these days. I have been spending way more time at work than I really should be. I do however make sure to get out on the weekends to enjoy the beautiful, crisp, and cold tundra and the frozen river and lakes. In early to mid October I used the ATV that had bought, sadly a bit too late in the season than I would have wanted to, to get out to surrounding lakes to try ice fishing. There are lakes all over the place, but only some are accessible by trails that are still drivable using an ATV. So I pack a shovel, an ice chisel, hot coffe and some snacks to go out on the tundra. Surprisingly I haven't found it cold enough to use my "A" winter gear yet. I still haven't used my heavy parka nor have I tried the beaver mitts. My newly bought -100 degrees Celsius winter boots are still in its original box.
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| Coffee and cookies to keep warm |
That doesn't mean that I am learning to become more cold tolerant though, as I see elders driving snowmobiles and ATV's with just a pair of simple work gloves. I couldn't get by with those even in Vancouver. But it does feel better knowing that I can head out without wearing too many layers. I get to feel more mobile and agile! As for fishing itself, I still don't have much to show for other than an odd lake trout once in a while. The ice is only about a foot thick now, so it is not too difficult to chip a hole wide enough to pull a decent sized fish out of the lake. It takes me about 20 minutes to half an hour to punch one hole. But I often make three to four holes to try my luck at different spots. Sometime I just do it to stay warm, hence more comfortable.
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| A giant lake trout one of my local friends caught with his net |
The ice and the lake water is so clear that you can actually see the fish circling the lure or just curiously swiming by it. Just to see them under the ice makes it that much more satisfying and rewarding being out there. In shallower sections you get to see red chars, chars during spawning season, and lake trouts. Unfortunately chars still don't bite, but luckily trouts do. Some trouts can get huge, although the large ones tend to stay in deeper water. I have seen trouts that were about 20 pounds, but couldn't manage to ctach them. I am still resisting using bait to make the lures more enticing. But pretty soon may have to, as my fish stock is declining fast.
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| Learning how to make fish net. I am proud of my latest acquired skill! |
The calrity of the ice also makes it quite sacry to drive or even walk on. I remember on my first weekend driving out looking for a spot to fish, I noticed a few people out on the other side of the lake about five kilometres away. I decided to drive down to the lake and see if I could join them. As soon as I hit the ice I was freightened by the clarity and thickness of the ice. It literary felt like I was on the water. I tried my best to drive back to the safety of the shore, but it wasn't easy, as I kept sliding all over the place without any control over the ATV. I finally made it back to the shore. Luckily one of those out on the ice was making his way back to town. He stopped and gave me a few pointers on how to get there, mainly by driving just off the shore following the lake's perimeter to get where the others were. I did somehow made it there, but there were times that I would just close my eyes and hope for the best. I could not believe that I was actually driving on glass like ice where you could see rocks and everything else beneath the ice so vividly. The ice was about 4 inches thick. For the return trip I made sure to follow one of the ATVs back to the trail.
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A walk on the frozen tundra and the river
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I see arctic hares quite regularly, especially with all the fresh snow we are getting these days. It is easy to follow their tracks and sure enough see them doing their best to stand still. Once they think you are not close enough they start to run, but stop a few seconds later to see your reaction. If they decide you are not an immediate threat, they'll sit still and watch your moves. Once you walk away, they go about doing their thing, usually grazing on whatever they can find. I also see ptarmigans more, again thanks to the snow on the ground. They are amazing birds. Impossible to spot, even with their tracks betraying them. But once you spot them, and they don't find you a threat, they pretend you don't exist and continue feeding as if you are not even there. I once had them just a few meters from where I was standing.
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| A pair of rock ptarmigans |
But other than hares and ptarmigans, I havn't had much luck seeing any other forms of wildlife. I hear wolves are around all the time, even in the town, but haven't had an encounter yet. I really hope to see some, but know how difficult it can be to see them close enough in order to snap a photo. Also with the dwindling number of available daylight hours, my chances of seeing them are shrinking rapidly. Last Sunday I left home around 11am and was back by 3pm.
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| Maud, frozen in Cambridge Bay for one last winter |
This weekend it will be even shorter. Today we are experiencing a blizzard, so school was closed. It was physically impossible to get out of the apartment. I opened the first door, from the inside, and saw about 2 inches of snow in the porch somehow forcing its way through the main exterior door. It is still going on, but hopefully it will lose its punch by tomorrow, so I can head out and see the landscape after a major storm.
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| View of the town from across the bay |
It is always refreshing to see how the wind reshapes the entire tundra in just a few hours time. It'll create dunes, valleys, hills, and little mountians where you could never have imagined. But it also makes it a bit harder to walk, as you can not be sure which snow is hard enough to walk on and where you might sink, sometime to above the waist. But it will be fun nonetheless. The main problem is that taking the ATV is out of the question. So that means less distance I can cover this weekend. But knowing there are only three more weekends before the darkness, I hope to get out as much as possible before packing it in for the next few months.
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| Sled dogs across the bay from the town |
School work is going good as usual. In October we took 8 kids for the territorial table tennis championship in Iqaluit. It was a fun few days. Kids had lots of fun playnig table tennis, and making new friends from all over this vast territory. On our way back we had to saty in Yellowknife, due to blizzard, so I got to see Yellowknife as well. Surprisingly it is a nicely designed and structured town. I am much more impressed with Yelloknife than I am with Iqaluit. Where Iqaluit looks like a wasteland of metals and concrete, Yellowknife has a soul, which hopefully I get to explore more on my future stops.
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Some of the sights I come across during my weekend walks
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Other than that we also invited a few elders to come and teach one of our classes how to make a fish net, and use it out on a lake. We have got the net making and camp setting part pretty well, but unfortunately no luck with trying them out on a lake. Both of our scheduled days were cancelled because of blizzard. We have scheduled it for later this month. Perhaps we get lucky third time around. I can easily see how fun it would be sitting in a cabin, drinking hot tea or coffee while making nets for those long dark winter nights.
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Inuskuk our class built during a school outing
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On a couple of my fishing outings I was invited to local friends cabins. I got to hear amazing stories of traveling hundreds, sometimes thousands of kilometres with dog teams for months at a time. I started wondering what it might be like going on one of those journies with these guys. I was told there might be a chance that I could find some locals doing a weeklong hunting trip with snowmobiles next spring. I just have to keep my ears open in case that happens around our spring break in early April. But then again, everything really depends on the weather in the arctic, and you can't really plan anything that far ahead.
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| Iqaluit's most famous monument |
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| Yellowknife airport |
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| Our school's hallway |
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Old Hudson Bay storage in Iqaluit
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Flowing river, this was in Iqaluit
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