Day tripper

I absolutely love this time of year, by far my favourite time of the year in the Arctic.

It's warm in the sun that never sets, travel on the ice is easy, and the birds are here busy trying to cram another breeding season into a short season. Everyone here is trying to cram as much time on the land and doing things into that short season as well.

Yesterday we had a day trip planned with Leah's family. It was Hilary's first real trip out on the sea ice, and it was a gorgeous day, if a little cloudy at times. The plan was to leave Victor Bay around 10:00 am for Kangulik, across Strathcona Sound from Nanisik.  We'd hunt seal on the way, and the family would gather eggs there (I can't). But, as is often the case, the best laid plans… oft go aglay.

For various reasons we didn't get going until noon.  And we hadn't gotten very far before I ran into snowmobile problems, or annoyances really. We were traveling with two snowmobiles and komatiks, and a four wheeler.  But after stopping just off shore to make some adjustments my machine wouldn't start. We went and retrieved booster cables from the truck, and eventually got it going again.  It was a problem with the ground and it would continue to dog us through out the trip. The machine would start sometimes, but not others.

Victor Bay had a lot of water on it, but it was still in shallow pools. Still we headed over to near shore where there was less water. We did not have to cross any cracks until we were out of Victor Bay, turning towards Strathcona Sound.  We followed it along until a suitable bridge was found and then crossed over. It was a little after this point that our plans changed.

Leah's Dad is very experienced traveling on the sea ice. As I followed him he began moving in large turns, as if he was searching for something. Then we turned back and started heading towards Admiralty Inlet. It turns out he didn't like the look of the ice, feeling it was weak or thin ice. Rather than trying to find away around we abandoned our plans to go to Kangulik.

I'll admit to being a little disappointed, as I've often wanted to go there.  I had plans on trying to get a small bird survey done there, and hoped to see some Sandhill Cranes that often nest over there.  It will have to be another time.

So we headed out to hunt seal, but only stopped at one set of aglu, where five seal, including a Bearded Seal had been sunning themselves.  Although there were a couple of attempts, no one seemed to be trying really hard, and we stayed there and had lunch while watching the aglu. No seals were taken, and after a long leisurely lunch, we packed up and made our way home.  There was one more crack to cross.

A short, but glorious, trip.