Where We Are Today
On the Ice at the Edge of Baffin Bay
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Kate and I have gotten used to living on the ice now, and the routines have
become our norm. One important consideration is keeping our socks and gloves
dry to keep our feet and hands warm. We work hard not to track snow and ice
into our yurt. There is a mat just inside the door where we take off our boots
to leave their moisture right there. And we make sure to have our inside shoes
within grabbing distance, as you learn quickly that you don’t want to walk
barefoot on that floor; it’s not much different from walking directly on
the ice. Because of the demarcation between the wet area and the dry area and
the difficulty of taking off and putting on our boots once we’re layered
up for the day, we’ve learned to stow everything we might want during the
day within grabbing distance of the mat. If either of us knows she’s
going to have to cross the invisible barrier into the dry region, she asks the
other whether there’s anything she’d like fetched. Socks and gloves
are hung about the interior of the yurt to dry overnight. It’s an
especial pleasure to put on socks and gloves that have been warming on the table
in front of the heater, which we usually have on for half an hour when we get up
in the morning.
I’ve worked out just what I need to wear to stay warm but not overheat. The layers I’m typically wearing are three sets of silk long underwear, one set of woolen long underwear, a sweatshirt, and a cross-country ski suit under the rented pants and parka. In addition, I need one pair of silk sock liners, one pair of woolen sock liners, and one or two pairs of heavy wool socks under the Arctic rubber boots. To keep my head warm, I use a woolen cap, the hood of the ski outfit, and the hood of the heavy parka. For my hands, three pairs of silk glove liners and one pair of medium-weight gloves leave me able to use my binocular and camera without getting cold. The other thing we all try to avoid is unzipping our parkas. Getting the zipper started to zip the parkas up again is such a pain, especially as I can’t usually see it over my binocular. Emma and I have become “zipper buddies” and do one another up several times a day. |
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Kate and I had intended to go out very early this morning to stand Narwhal
watch, but she woke up at 6, saw I was still sleeping, turned on the heater,
and let me sleep til 6:30, which was very kind of her. Even so, we were the
first out onto the ice.
It’s hard to describe how beautiful the scene was, the sea, the ice, and the sky all shades of blue and grey. The pack ice that came in late yesterday had all flowed away overnight. |
 (Click on images to enlarge) |
| In the little cove in the ice near our usual position at the floe edge, Long-tailed Ducks sat on the water. We could see “ice blink” on the clouds; the underside of the clouds glowed white where they were above ice, but remained grey where they were over open water. (This can be useful when navigating through the icy sea.) |
 Long-tailed Ducks |
 Ice blink |
| The water was smooth, so the seeing was good. We spent the day standing watch and got many seals and birds (including a single male Northern Pintail), but no Narwhals at all. Emma was almost always on duty as our hydrophone monitor. She continued to report hearing Bearded Seals and Bowhead Whales, as well as the occasional clacking sound of Walruses, but never a Narwhal. |
 Curious Ringed Seal (Photo courtesy of Ryan and Elaine) |
 Emma on hydrophone duty |
| Meanwhile, back in camp, Katie, Philip, and Sam Omik (one of the Inuit guides) were readying a special treat for us: |
 Katie, Philip, and Sam preparing to bring us lunch (Photo courtesy of John Chapman) |
| Driving very carefully, Sam used one of the snowmobiles to drag a qamutiq loaded with Philip’s and Katie’s beautiful lunch over the rough ice out to the floe edge for us: caribou in a delicious sauce, a cucumber-feta salad, and a very attractive cheese platter. I particularly liked the cheddar made of goats milk, which Philip served with bakeapple jam (bakeapples are an Arctic berry and I, of course, never met a berry I didn’t like — they’re known as cloudberries in Scandinavia). |
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| Mark had given us all the opportunity to listen to the hydrophone while others were walking around on the ice, so we knew just how loud our footsteps sound to any creature under the water. We weren’t surprised then when he decreed that we’d spend two hours of the afternoon seated further back from the edge and not speaking and not walking about, in the hope that the Narwhals might come if we didn’t scare them off with our noise. I found this very peaceful. Unfortunately, it didn’t work at all. Not only did we have no Narwhals, there seemed even to be fewer birds. We did whisper to one another to call out the Black Guillemots and the Thayer’s Gull, and we still enjoyed and photographed the streams of King Eiders. |
 Black Guillemot (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) |
 Thayer’s Gull (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) |
 Emma, Elaine, and Mary kayaking (Photo courtesy of Ryan and Elaine) |
After our quiet time, Tom and his crew dragged out the kayaks so that some of the folks could paddle along the floe edge toward the CBC camp. I remained in my little blue chair but later shared Emma’s delight when she told me of having King Eiders fly very close by them right at eye level. |
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The lack of Narwhal sightings had us a bit disheartened when we adjourned to the
dining tent, where we were served a lovely dinner, braised endive, carrots, and
lamb chops in a tasty sesame sauce. Mark used the map of Nunavut on the tent
wall to illustrate what the guides have begun worrying may be happening, that
another channel may have opened through the ice and allowed the Narwhals to
bypass our channel. That would be very bad news, and we have no way of
verifying what’s happening with the ice. Though there are daily postings
of ice conditions as seen by satellites, we don’t have Internet access
here, so we can’t receive them.
Fortunately, we were mostly through eating when Sam Omik burst in and called out “Whale!” Everybody ran out, but I struggled with my jackets, despite Tom’s urging me not to bother, so I arrived at the floe edge right after the Narwhal had dived. Emma bubbled over as she told me about it. It had been a full adult (white and grey mottled skin) only about 8 meters away from the floe edge, and it had given them good views as it breathed and a splendid view of its tail fluke as it dove. Mark was bemoaning the fact that he’d had a perfect frame-filling fluke shot but his camera had jammed when he pressed the shutter. (The Narwhal has a curious and very photogenic fluke that seems upside down in comparison with the flukes of other whales and is shaped somewhat like a gingko leaf.) I think I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t wait to put my jacket on another time. |
 (Photo courtesy of Ryan and Elaine) |
| Four of us stayed out at the floe edge until midnight ever hopeful, but we saw no more Narwhals. When Sam came out to guard us against Polar Bears, he snapped a photo of us. He explained that the reason we have so many Glaucous Gulls always in one area of the ice floe off in the distance is that his father, who manages the CBC camp, asked him to kill a couple of Ringed Seals to feed his dog team and that’s where Sam butchered them. (Ringed Seals seem to be the convenience stores of the High Arctic.) |
 Sam Omik and Peter Oolateeta (Photo courtesy of Ryan and Elaine) |
 (Photo courtesy of Samuel Omik, Jr.) |
