The Flowers are Starting

We've finally started to see the flowers poking through around the rocks. The beauties below are only the size of nickles. If you look close you will see water trapped between the leaves. I didn't notice the water until we got home and had the photos on the computer.

Evening Stroll

While looking for the Beluga carcasses we really just wanted to get out of the house for a couple of hours. It has been foggy here since Wednesday and the fist cargo planes since then came in today. Funny that we can get two cargo planes show up today but all the people that have been stranded since Wednesday in Iqaluit and here have to wait until tomorrow to fly. The nice weather that showed up today isn't supposed to last past this evening.

The water was as smooth as glass.

My first half decent bird photo of the year. About the time I thought the bird was going to turn around a couple of kids came running over screaming and hollering. To say the least the bird didn't stick around for more photos.

Beluga Whale Hunt - Graphic

The local hunters had a successful whale hunt a couple of days ago. When we went out to the site the day after not much was left. Just the remnants of the two Beluga whales and some square pieces of blubber.

I learned that if you step in the blubber and then walk from the snow back onto the rocks be careful. It's like having no tread on the bottom of your boots and they are coated in grease.

Zoom Zoom

*Update 2*
We may have spoken to soon. The Honda currently isn't running and the transmission is sticking. We've been stuck in reverse, and first twice. *sigh* The machine don't go "zoom zoom" or "put put" it just goes "cough cough". Just returned from being towed back from the park where the machine stranded Michele. Less than a day old. :o(

*original post*
Well maybe more like "put put" since our new toy is a Honda 250. It fits Michele okay but I look incredibly huge or the machine looks really small under me. We are planning to get another larger one but until then I'll use this to get back and forth from work. As you can see I've already got it dirty because we don't want anything that looks too new. I've never met a mud muddle I didn't like.

*update 1* - This is really clean compared to now.

This photo is the first time I've been able to get this effect to work. It's done by zooming out after hitting the shutter button.

A day of Travel - Video

My first successful attempt at loading videos on the blog. The videos below are from a work related trip a couple of years ago. I've always wanted to load these to show what flying in the North is like. The charter we used is from Kenn Borak.

Charter landing at the Kimmirut airport.

Taking off from Kimmirut. Sorry the sound is bad. At the end of the video I pan around the interior of the plane and the last guy that shows up is now our current Mayor. *update* Technically the last guy is me so the current Mayor is the second to last guy.

Finally the landing in Cape Dorset.

Don't Eat the Colored Snow

The arena has cleaned out the ice which makes for some weirdly colored snow. Don't worry the paint used to make the lines is safe to melt away without damage.

Going, Going....

With the warm weather comes the disappearing ice. The gap from a couple of weeks ago is now very large.

Another Cat Break

The sun is out after a long absence and the cats were taking full advantage. They have been fighting over the best areas and alliances amongst them is constantly shifting. Makes for lots of entertainment for the food providers.

Alfie

Bandit

Sweet Pea

Man Lands in M&M Face

I don’t usually draw much of the weird crowd to my blog. Most Google searches that land on my site are about the north or various communities. Surprisingly my blog post “Worst. Meal. Ever.” gets a lot of searches from someone in Ontario. (Whoever you are I’m sorry but the meal sucked monkey balls.) Another odd thing is when someone is searching for Qikitarjuaq my blog is the second option. I've spotted a couple of new ones that are “qiniq christmas” and “inuit IQ day”. The “qiniq christmas” one will take them to my “Letter to Qiniq” blog post. Sorry if you are an employee with Qiniq but I was having a bad day.

It seems today I got my first weird one called “man lands in m&m face”. Apparently some comedian guy landed in the singer M&M’s lap after a failed stunt at the MTV awards and gave him a face full of man but. I seen the highlight on the news and it looked to be staged to me but that is just one of many opinions that must exist about this fascinating subject. Anyway, when you do a search using ‘man lands in m&m face’ the third option is this blog site. Someone in San Francisco, California is now disappointed they didn’t get to see the musician M&M. On the other hand, hopefully they have discovered a whole new world in the North and have taken the time to explore the other great blogs linked to the right.

No matter how you manage to arrive in this little portion of the World Wide Web I say…

Enjoy and Thank You

The M&M of Cape Dorset

IQ Day Continued...

Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit Day (IQ) turned out to be a cold, windy experience. Went to a different lake than I usually go to. This one had very little snow on the ice and you could see to the bottom. First time I ever got to see fish swimming by the hole. We were able to reuse holes already drilled making things much easier. Photos below.

More than fishing was happening and Mike got a goose.

Me holding the big fish. It was the largest until about an hour to go and Mike got one that was 1" bigger.

Close up of the behemoth. It tasted great. After laying on my belly for two hours looking down the hole I said "Screw this I brought a chair". The blue pad helped block the wind and let me be nice and cozy. They stopped making fun of me once I caught the above Arctic Char. I stayed at that hole all day while everyone else kept moving from hole to hole.

Shot of the some of the group and equipment at the lake.

Thanks goes out to Ken for the above photos.

Only in Nunavut

ATTENTION: All Users

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

The Motor Vehicles Office in Iqaluit is relocating to serve you better.
Next week the office will be moving from the blue Inuksukgait building across the street to the red Inuksukgait building.
To accommodate this move the Iqaluit Motor Vehicles office will be closed from Monday, June 1st to Tuesday, June 2nd.
It will reopen on Wednesday, June 3rd in the red Inuksugait Plaza building


Only in Nunavut will you find an address change being announced as moving from the blue building to the red building and we all know where it is. I will have to check it out next time I'm in Iqaluit working at the Brown building. Yes that is an actual place in Iqaluit.