Well not quite alone.
The May Long Weekend brings the annual Fish Derby to Arctic Bay and this afternoon Travis and Leah left with Leah’s family to Kugurajuk, about a 9 or 10 hour snowmobile ride south of here. They’ll be gone until Monday. And I’m quite sure that there’ll be three or four other people left in town, but it pretty much empties out this weekend. We have clients and that is preventing me from leaving so here Hilary and I sit, pining for half of our family.
Oh my bags are packed…
I’m ready to go…
I’m standing here…
My mom and aunt too..
Already Hilary’s so lonely as she waves bye bye…
And then the komatik pulls away from the shore…
And disappears from view…
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8 responses
Is a komatik a type of sled? That’s really interesting looking! People here make great use of wooden sleds pulled by snow machines, but I’ve never seen any sort of protective enclosure like that. Cool idea (or maybe it’s a “warm” idea). 🙂
Kimberlee, the komatik is the sled. The little shelter on top of the sled is called an iglutak. They are nice shelters from the wind and elements, double as a tent if you’d like, but they make one think that travelling by komatik might be more comfortable than it really is. Give me the snowmobile any day.
I don’t suppose you can compare the suspension of a komatik to that of a snowmobile… Rather bumpy ride, I guess!
I had always thought that riding in the iglutak would be the way to go. All of the foamies and sleeping bags etc are spread out in them. It looks very comfortable.
A few years back when we were heading out (I think on one of the fishing derbies) Leah said her brother was going to drive the snowmobile. I thought “Great. I’m tired I’ll sleep most of the way there in the iglutak. We hadn’t even gone a couple of kilometres when I had enough. I drove the snowmobile the rest of the way
I was just looking at how much the snow has already melted. We’re still living with mounds of snow, and the roads are only about 50% cleared. It’s amazing the difference. On a side note, I saw a couple of gaggles (?) of geese and listened to some song birds while out walking today.
We’ve probably lost about 90 percent of the snow here in town Adam, most of it in the last four or five days. Outside of the solar oven that is Arctic Bay there is still plenty of it about.
You should get quite a few more species of birds down there. I was amazed at what was in Kugluktuk, and it’s not too far away. Cambridge gets some great accidentals also. I believe there was a Kingfisher there last year.
Yes, I can imagine how rough it must be riding on a komatik. I don’t think I’d want to ride on one either. Is the iglutak hand-made or are they commercially manufactured?
The water in the photos is just melt water sitting on top of the ice, right? Wow, I’m just full of questions today! 🙂
Kimberlee, everyone makes there own iglutak. I think this water is tidal water from cracks at the shore. Soon enough the surface will be covered in melt water though.