Flight from Resolute to Grise Fiord

There was fantastic weather the day I flew over from Resolute to Grise Fiord.  I got lots of photos the whole way over, so I thought I'd share them with you.

Some friends have mentioned to me in the past that it's a shame I don't post maps so they can get an idea of where  these places are.  Well, here you go, here are a couple to show you where Grise Fiord and Resolute are.  These are Canada's most northerly communities, apart from the scientific station at Eureka, and the military base at Alert, which are both further north on Ellesmere Island.

Here's a closer-up view.  You cross Devon Island to get from Cornwallis Island to Ellesmere.  Baffin Island is to the southeast, off the map.

That's the twin otter that is making the flight.  We're waiting for the fuel truck to show up.

Some buildings on the apron at the Resolute airport.

View of the Resolute airport terminal on takeoff.

My facebook friends among you will recognize this photo of the interior of the plane.

The photo below is my seat.  You can see my carry-on stowed safely under the seat in front of me.  They are pretty casual with carry-on on these flights.  On my first flight to Grise Fiord, I sat beside a man who had a bunch of projectile-worthy vegetables in an open plastic crate sitting on his lap.  On this most recent flight I was the only one on the plane, so I could switch sides to take photos.

Photo quality is variable- dirt on the windows and the glare of the sun messes with the colours.  On most photos I increased the contrast so you could see the shape of the landscape more easily.

A river on Cornwallis Island, heading to the sea.  Looking southeast.

The same river draining out on the coast of Cornwallis Island.  Heading out over the frozen water now.

Here's the edge of Devon Island, looking out the northern side of the plane this time.

Some frozen rivers draining to the west.

The Devon Island river below is interesting- it has cliffs on most of it's oxbow bends:

Much of the surface of Devon Island looks like this:

Looking south, coming to the eastern edge of the northern portion of Devon Island (check the map up top, it's a big island), although first there is a fiord that we're passing over:

A river draining out into the mouth of the fiord:

Looking north at the coast of Devon Island (again, eastern edge of the northern lobe of the island):

We've crossed the fiord now, this is looking south again at the last lobe of land before we head out over Jones Sound.  I like that massive snow drift at the bottom of the land.  There must be a spit of land underneath it.

Frozen surface of Jones Sound:

Iceberg!  This one is huge.  It's frozen in the ice.  It's so far north that bergs don't have time to melt in one season, they get re-frozen into the ice every year.

First view of the southern edge of Ellesmere Island:

It's worth clicking on some of these to see them bigger, the landscape is really beautiful:

Coming up to the south cape of Ellesmere Island:

I don't know what the fiord at the south cape is called, but that's it to the right, around the corner of the cape:

Another massive iceberg:

A view into the last fiord before we come to Grise Fiord:

Coming up to Grise Fiord (the actual fiord, the community is to the east of it):

View up into Grise Fiord:

Same thing but a wider view:

This is the western edge of the fiord.  The first settlement of Grise Fiord was at the base of this mountain.  They were here for several years before they moved to the present town site.

Mountains to the east as we turn into our final approach:

I like these patterns in the ice at the shore:

Here's the eastern side of the hamlet of Grise Fiord:

Beautiful bustling downtown Grise Fiord, if I am quoting the Oprah show correctly.  I'll tell what all these buildings are in a future post:

Western part of town:

... and the airport terminal as we land.

Hope you enjoyed your flight!  I sure did.

Hall Beach from the air

I'm pretty sure we used to be able to fly all the way to Resolute without a scheduled stop for fuel in Hall Beach.  It was back in the days (not that long ago) when we'd miss the stop in Arctic Bay as the weather was often bad at the Nanisivik airport.  However, I did get a photo this time of the community as we took off again.

I worked a few weeks in Hall Beach about 15 years ago.  It was the flattest place I had ever been.

Mural at Qikiqtani General Hospital

I hadn't seen this mural before, I think it's fairly new.  It's in front of the Qikiqtani General Hospital in Iqaluit, I saw it when I went for a walk between flights:

Flying into Iqaluit

I don't often have a window seat flying into Iqaluit, probably because I always I request an aisle seat.   The plane last Wednesday, for once, was not stuffed to the gills, and the flight attendant offered me a row to myself after takeoff.  It was overcast for much of the trip but cleared over Frobisher Bay.  I took these photos as we came into Iqaluit for landing.

This cluster of buildings is Apex, a small community southeast of the rest of Iqaluit:

The road snaking from Apex to Iqaluit.  There are some white buildings there by the shore if you look closely, I don't know if they're historical buildings, but they look like it:

Then Iqaluit appears in lobes:

Coming into downtown:

Then the airport:

Canada's most vibrant air terminal:

Taking flight

Well, the migratory birds might not be heading for the arctic quite yet, but this migratory nurse is on her way.  I leave this morning for Grise Fiord.

I'll be in Resolute overnight, as the twice-weekly flight to Grise doesn't connect with the flights from the south.  Hopefully it's only for one night- Grise Fiord has had some bad luck lately with their flights being delayed for weather reasons... sometimes for many days in a row.  So, we'll see.

The L.A. Zoo

I still have some photos from L.A. to show you.  These are from January, when I visited the Los Angeles Zoo.  I'll just show you a few of them.

This is Reggie the alligator.  His claim to fame (and he really is famous!) is that he was a fugitive in the south bay area of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2007.  He had been released by people illegally raising exotic animals.  He's enjoying retirement now at the zoo:

The elephants at the L.A. zoo are somewhat controversial, they were brought from the San Diego zoo and many thought they should have gone to an animal sanctuary instead.  I'm not sure if this is one of the two new elephants below, or their existing elephant.  They do have a large and beautiful enclosure, it's at the centre of the zoo.

Bedtime for flamingos came before the zoo closed.  Did you know they sleep standing on one leg?  I didn't!  One theory is that they do it to conserve heat and energy... yeah, when I want a good night's sleep I stand around on one leg too!  But then, I am not a flamingo.

Does anyone else think that maybe they should have domesticated zebras instead of horses?  They are just so cool!

I couldn't look at the sign below without thinking of decommissioned zoo animals.  Maybe they just serve veggie burgers!

It's definitely not for gorillas though, they have their own!

It's safe to pee on the 401 again

As anyone living in or visiting southern Ontario knows, for the past couple of years they shut down all the rest stops along the 401 at once to rebuild them.

They painted the signs advising travellers of the closure a brilliant yellow, to remind them that their bladders were exploding:

This is what the old ones looked like.  I think they kept this one just west of Kingston open just to tease people:

I liked the round space, the dome ceilings and stone interior walls of the old ones.  The new ones aren't too bad, here is the new one at that same site under construction:

Here's a completed new one, this one is the Mallorytown westbound station:

I think most of them are open now.  I like Ontario's rest stops, I find them faster than leaving the highway and looking for a gas station or restaurant off the road.  They're a little pricier for food and gas, but so easy to pull off and on the highway.  In the States I would exit at a sign for services, and sometimes they were quite a convoluted drive off the highway, and sometimes pretty far too, so I appreciate the convenience of the Ontario version.

I guess we're safe now for another few decades before they close all these at once to serve us better yet again.

My neighbor, the diplomat

My house in Ottawa shares a driveway with the house next door.  This is pretty standard in the older neighborhoods in Ottawa.

The driveway is a deeded right-of-way.  Three feet of the right-of-way is on my property, and five feet is on my neighbor's.  It leads to our respective parking spaces at the backs of our houses.  It's to remain clear to allow passage of people, vehicles, and animals (it's over 100 years old, so animals actually get a mention in the deed.)

My neighbor has never been happy about this right-of-way, and he's convinced that since he owns the wider 5 foot share, that he calls the shots on use of the driveway.  I should note that the neighbor doesn't actually live in his house, it's always rented out.

Well, my house was also rented out for a few years.  My neighbor moved back into his for a couple of months in 2007 (he does this periodically, followed by a rent increase for his new tenants), and took a disliking to my tenants.

Now, for all I know, my tenants could have been annoying (I never met them, an agency rented the house for me.).  However, he was very upset at the fact that my tenant's kids would play in the driveway.  The kids once left a toy wagon in the driveway (I know, because he sent me a photo of it), and I guess that was the final straw.  Previous offenses had included toys left in the kid's own back yard (he didn't like the sight of them), and one of the kids asking his adult daughter once if he could borrow their hose to wash his bike.

To try to keep my tenants off "his" turf, he painted this:

It's faded somewhat in the intervening years, but yep, it is what it looks like.  It's a "do not cross" line.  Right down the property line.  Even though the driveway is a right-of-way, and residents of both houses (as well as the utility companies) have the right to use it to access parking and the back yards of their houses.

Want to know what my absentee neighbor does for a living?  He's a diplomat with Foreign Affairs.

Running the urban trapline

My house in Ottawa had been rented out for the past 7 years, and when I took it back this past month, I found it some of the previous residents were still living there, and had no intention of leaving.

These occupants were very cute, but very tenacious... this house has always attracted the occasional mouse, but I had more than one this time.

I actually like rodents.  If it wasn't for their incontinence, I'm sure we could work something out to their benefit.  Heck, if they'd agree to poop outside, I'd probably even agree to feed them out there.

Rodents, however, are very stubborn, and unreceptive to logic.  They had to go.  Luckily, someone has invented, or at least improved the availability of, some better mousetraps since I was last in the market for them.

I had some luck with these:

I caught five mice with the plastic snap trap shown above.  (I also caught myself several times... the neighbors to my semi-detached house probably wonder why the otherwise quiet lady next door lets out intermittent blood-curdling screams.)  If the mouse chucks himself in head first, it looks like it's an instant kill as well, which is important- I want to exterminate them, but not hurt them.

Unfortunately for both him and me, mouse #5 did not position himself correctly and was not yet deceased when I found him the next morning.  I decided I couldn't do this any more, but was still unwilling to share the house with a still undetermined number of rodent poop factories.  I needed a more certain and just as instant kill.  I found this at the hardware store:

It's electronic.  There is a little maze that they follow to get at the bait (peanut butter... organic even!), and then when they get there they get instantly electrocuted.  I haven't caught any yet.  I haven't seen any trace of new mice, so it's possible that mouse #5 was the last of the current infestation, or that the mice are too smart for this expensive and humane trap I have laid for them.  We'll see.

A friend might lend me a live trap too- I am a bit skeptical about these, as the research I've done indicates that a released mouse will probably just die in the wild, as house mice are treated harshly by wood mice when they try to live outdoors.  So my mice would either be moving into someone else's house, or dying a more natural death at the hands of rodent relatives.  Not a great solution, although I haven't ruled it out.

I also bought four of these:

These are ultrasonic mouse repellant devices- they supposedly emit a loud high-decibel noise that rodents (but not other animals) can hear but can't stand, so once you have them under control, these can be used to repel new occupants, as well as herd existing mice towards traps.

So, we'll see how it goes with these new devices.  I hope it keeps the local mice away, and that they all live long and prosperous lives, with gentle, natural deaths, surrounded by their closest friends and family.