Week One

The start of summer in the north. The weather has reached a balmy 3 degrees with a mix of sun, fog, rain and wet snow. a lot of the snow has melted- there is still a lot where it was deep, in crevaces and valleys. Not much green to be had- no trees or bushes..grass..flowers..

The area is quite flat- other than close to the water you can look all around and see everything for miles. The hamlet and from here to the airport are sand and gravel over rock- very messy when it is wet or rainey- the sand is very light and goes everywhere- think it will be very dusty when it all dries out as well. The 24 hour of light thing is wierd- but doesnt reall affect dayshift. In fact the night person also works dayshift- just no staff and less patients. First picture was around 9:30 p.m. and the second at 4:30 a.m. (it was a little foggy that morning, but you get the effect.

Once again the staff at the Center are very nice and the community people friendly and pleasant to deal with. Although all of the residents speak Inuktitut to each other, all except a few elders speak english from fair to excellent when speaking with non-Inuit. The flight accross from Iqaluit was mostly cloudy, but I took a few pictures- interesting kind of- except at open water it is hard to tell if you ar over land or water much of the time as the ice seems to form its own geography and the land is so flat and barre.

And what do YOU think? Space ship? Giant mushroom? I doesn't look very Inuit traditional to me, but... As I have looked up it was a research station built in the 60's- maybe designed by same people as one of the Expo 67 designers? Anyways now it is a polar bear research facility- in season.