Jigging for Sculpin

After looking at the Seagull colony, we started heading back to town, with plans to find a spot to go jigging for "Ugly fish" along the way.

Here are a couple of views of the cliffs above us on the way back:

We found some cracks and started jigging.  Before too long one (and only one) was caught, but not by me.  They are a pretty interesting looking fish:

Here's me, jigging in futility:

Here's me faking a seal hunt:

... and that was it, back to work!  It was a great outing, we packed as much fun into 2 1/2 hours as we could.

Seagull breeding colony

Next stop on our June 3 outing was to see the cliffs where seagulls nest.

First, a couple of mountain pics as we cross the fiord to get to the cliffs:

Here it is.  The cliffs are orange from a lichen that grows in abundance here, fertilized I guess by the seagull poop.  Those are our skidoos parked at the base.

Here's a close-up, but not that close- there are 4 gulls in this photo but you can hardly see them!

Another cliff photo.  You can see a lichen-covered cliff in the foreground, but it's in shadow now, the clouds are coming back.

Next stop... on our return to town, we stop to go jigging for Ugly fish!

The polar bear trap

Here is some of the landscape on our way to see the bear trap.  This is June 3, heading towards the mountain where the trap is:

The trap was still quite buried in snow, but we could see the entrance.  They think it's between 400-800 years old.  They would bait it with meat, and the bear would squeeze in and couldn't get out again, and the hunters would spear it.  That's the entrance below the little snow drift on top of it.

More beautiful views from the site:

... next stop, a seagull nesting area on some cliffs... stay tuned!

A hard day at the office

Well, we might have actually snuck out of the office for a few hours.  Once or twice a year the staff of the Health Centre heads out on the land for a little outing with our buddies the RCMP.

Last week the weather was actually abysmal, but we planned an outing for last Friday anyway.  I think the two hours we went out for turned out to be the only two good hours of the week- it cleared just as we headed out and closed back in as we returned to town.

Here are some of the photos... don't go away. as I'll have more in upcoming blog posts.

We didn't get very far before we came to a lead (a crack in the ice with open water, for any southern friends not familiar with the term).  Had to go out and look for a good place to cross it:

Another photo showing the lead in the ice.

I was a passenger in the komatik, and it was bouncing so much I took a trillion photos hoping just a few would turn out.  Thanks to the weather though, almost all of them turned out.  I'll try not to inflict too many though.  But here are some of the Greenlander mountain, from a different angle than I usually see it at from town:

Here are two pasted together as a panorama- I was lazy with the colour correction, the left hand photo wanted to stay blue and I didn't want to fight it:

Here's looking into Grise Fiord:

Close up of the end of the Fiord:

Some of the lower hills that form part of the southwestern side of the Fiord:

These are low islands in front of one of the mountains.

Clouds were just so dramatic and beautiful too during the short window when the weather cleared:

Looking back at where town is.  The low islands are at the right, we've passed them now.

So stay tuned... next stop is an ancient (or thereabouts) polar bear trap that dates back probably to the time of the Thule.

Flare cans at the old airstrip

Until the early 1970's, planes coming to Grise Fiord used to land about a mile and a half east of town, at least during the seasons when they couldn't land on the ice, which is also something they used to do (and did as recently as last Thursday when high winds at the current airport prevented a landing there).

They used to mark the airstrip with flares in cans.  The cans are mostly still sitting there at the site.  I took these photos on May 23.

This is just a photo of the gravel around there.

Dogs on ice

Bear skin

This would be from one of the sports hunter trips, I think.

Ice heaves

I hope I'm not boring you with my ice heave photos.  I just think it's so cool the effect the tides have on the ice close to shore.  These formations are constantly changing.  I took these pictures on May 19.