Look who dropped by to visit

The coast guard appeared suddenly in the bay this afternoon for their first visit of the season.  I don't know much about ships, is this an icebreaker?  The ice around here is gone but I think there's still lots out at sea.  Looks like the supply ships might be coming soon!  After that the cruise ships will start too.  It's always fun in such an isolated place to look out and see a ship coming in.

Victor Bay

On Saturday I went on a hike over the hill to Victor Bay.  In this photo you can see some tents of people camping out on the spit.  Some families spend a lot of time there in the summer months.  It's only around a 10 minute drive from town, on a road, so a very convenient way to get at least partially away from it all.

Here's a closeup:

The water was very still, look at the reflection:

A couple of photos of the ice lying around the shore there:

Ice at Uluksan Point

Last Friday evening, I went for a walk to Uluksan point.  There was some sea ice that had blown in during high tide.

More arctic cotton

I took some more photos of arctic cotton waving in the wind.  These are from Friday July 23.

More rainy weather photos

Last week was quite rainy, so it made for some dramatic conditions on the landscape.  The first photo is from Wednesday, July 21, the next from Thursday, July 22.

Rainbow! And other rainy day photos

Last Tuesday, when I was heading out for a hike, the weather was very changeable and it started raining.  This full rainbow was amazing, the way it framed King George mountain.  I couldn't get it in one photo so here's a composite of two photos:

I like this photo of the town as the cloud shadows move across it:

I was up on the hills west of town for the hike:

Look, another rainbow, just a little one this time...

Just more cool shadows, again on King George mountain:

White flowers

I wonder if these are some variety of chammomile?  I know there's one that grows up here.

There are patches of these purple somethings everywhere right now, or they were last weekend when I took this photo:

Komatik parking

Road to Victor Bay

I went for a walk this afternoon on part of the road to Victor Bay.  Here are a couple of photos.  The first one is two photos stitched together.  No matter how many times I see the hills there, I oooh and ahhh at the colours every time.  The photo never does it justice.

Pond on the top of the hill

On top of one of the hills behind town, there is a little pond at the top.  Here it is.  The perspective is a little weird with the lack of trees or buildings to show distance- the water in the background is the ocean, the foreground pond is on top of a hill.  I took these photos on Thursday evening, July 8.

Here's some views of that construction site from the top of the hill:

Arctic Cotton

The arctic cotton is out.  Seems to be early this year, although things bloom at different times in different places and I'm rarely in the same place at the same time.  These are from yesterday.

Cumulus clouds

Just thought I'd share my million dollar view with you on this picturesque evening.

July Panorama

You'll have to click on that to get a proper look.  I took this yesterday evening, July 7.  It's sure a changed landscape from the one I took on June 12, just 25 days ago.

July flowers

The tundra is in full bloom with flowers now.  Here are some of the latest ones to come out, mostly from the past weekend:

These are so pretty they get two photos:

So are these:

Hey, I don't need the guidebook to identify this one!  A little touch of home...

Then these two are from July 7, Wednesday evening.  The first is a bladder campion, I guess they come in more than one variety as we have a different kind back in Ontario:

Then this is a flower that usually comes out later in July- I saw just this one alone, on top of a mountain:

Breakup begins

The ice has been gradually receding from the shoreline of Arctic Bay.  Two nights ago I noticed the bay was breaking up.  Yesterday evening I went for a walk and there was a lot more open water than floating ice.

The reflections were just beautiful:

Sunday (two days before) this was iced over, and I was stepping onto the ice to scrape snow to eat from the crusts on top of the ice when I was out on my hike.  I guess I can't do that any more:

Hike to the St. George Society cliffs

I'd heard differing accounts from other hikers on whether or not I could hike to the base of the St. George Society cliffs, so I decided Sunday to give it a try.

The route there takes me past Uluksan point.  These dogs were lounging in one of the ancient house foundations:

Some of the sights on the way along the beach:

I thought this piece of fallen shale (correct rock?) was pretty cool, the way it separated into paper-like sheets when it fell.  The beach along here is black sand.

I liked this gap in these cliffs as I walked along:

Getting there- had to squeeze past these black cliffs that went right to the water.  Luckily, it was low-ish tide, on a day with low tides anyway, and I could also step onto the ice in places to get around:

I thought the view the other way was pretty cool too:

In the end, I couldn't get all the way to the St. George Society cliffs (or didn't want to try, as I was hiking alone), but I got close enough to get a great view of them:

What a gorgeous day it was, the weather has just been so perfect for weeks now.