Travel: Pond Inlet (not Winnipeg)
Well, just a very short post today… Yesterday, the wife left for another conference in Winnipeg and, tomorrow, I will be heading back to my old home and stomping grounds of Pond Inlet for the quarterly Court sessions.
It struck me, as I was looking at my photo albums, that I have very few pictures of Pond Inlet taken in summer (which, I suppose, is not that all that surprising given that there is very little summer up there to photograph). The view you see above was taken from the living room window of our house in the last few weeks of February after the sun made its first appearance. If you look very closely, you might be able to just faintly make out a dog team tethered on the sea-ice in the middle ground of the picture…
This picture is one of the very few summer shots I have from Pond Inlet and was taken from just outside our house one August. Each summer, the community would get 6 or 7 cruise ships visiting (almost all of them from Europe) and the passengers would get taken ashore in rubber boats to walk around town for an hour or two. There is not a lot for visitors to do or buy in Pond Inlet but they would certainly have some terrific photograph opportunities.
The plaque you see above is the crest of HMCS Protecteur, one of the refuel and supply ships for the Canadian Navy. On my last visit to Pond Inlet, my colleague and I were given space in the local hamlet administration offices to interview clients and I was very excited to come across this plaque on the wall there as I was aboard the ship when it visited the high Arctic back in 1975 and 1977. Back then, of course, I had no idea I would be living in the community some three decades later.
Anyway, I checked the weather for Pond Inlet and it is a balmy 9 degrees there this morning (which is actually three degrees warmer than here, surprisingly). It is supposed to be a bit cloudy there tomorrow, but nothing to keep me from landing, I don’t think, and the rest of the week’s weather looks good. With luck, and a bit of spare time, I should be able to get some decent summer pictures of the place and, when I return I will share a few in a slightly more interesting post…
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Beautiful! Could you send some of that ice down here….we’re still recovering from last week’s major heat wave!
I’ve been watching the temperatures in Southern Canada and the US and I think they might kill me
Actually, I will be in Ottawa the week after next and although I am looking forward to it, I am dreading the heat and humidity. I am rather praying for drizzly overcast weather…
The Arctic is certainly in your soul. It shines through all your posts. The photographs are stunning. Virginia
Thank you very much… I must say, the Arctic certainly gets in my toes and fingertips sometimes
A little frost bite really lets you know you’re alive. V.
I think all your posts are interesting. I’m fascinated by your descriptions of the Arctic, and the environment where you live. Here in the Northeastern U.S. where I live we’re having a heat wave!
The temperature has gone up to 7 degrees since I got up this morning. Don’t think I’ll be frolicking naked outside though….
It just occurred to me that I don’t even know—where in Canada are you, sybaritica?
In Iqaluit … at the south end of Baffin Island in the eastern Arctic region…. look just to the left of Greenland
The temperatures in Alaska were in the 60s and 70s, according to the local news. What a difference in temperatures in a relatively short distance. What’s the warmest it gets there?
Not sure .. in Pond Inlet the highest we ever had was 16 degrees … quite a bit higher here in Iqaluit. Somewhere in the mid-twenties I would guess….
From “the Wife”: I’m down in Winnipeg right now and its HOT for Canada, 35-40 degrees celcius (that would be 102-112 F for those of you south of the border). I WISH I was back in Iqaluit! I’m running from one air conditioned environment to another!
Brrrr….
Currently, 35 degrees Celsius with 100 percent humidity here in HK. Please send ice!
I seriously think you and wifey were tough enough to live in Pond Inlet. Here in Calgary, we do get winters plunging down to -25 to -35 degrees C!
No wonder why some Calgarians head up to northern Alberta for the money of course and probably because it’s not totally strange to them to have that type of freeZin’ temperatures.
we think we’ll just look at the pictures and imagine we’re cool. its 84F at 8AM….