Imagine Cape Cod water at its coldest, and here it is mid-summer and 34 degrees.  (at least on the calendar.) 

When we got here at the end of August there was no ice, giving us the wrong impression.  Apparently, ice-out

up here isn't until early July.  Some sport fishermen will fish from shore, but the coastal shelf is quite shallow

here, and we got not a single bite from the char.  I did lose quite a few lures on the rocky bottom.

 

 

 

We had anticipated the risks of interacting with the wild animals, and possibly

being in the middle of some dangerous situations.  Mark wasn't in any danger

of losing his life, but some of the artwork in this shop would have seriously

endangered Mark's wallet.  Good thing this guy was labeled "for display only."

 

 

I would not have liked to run into this guy on the ice.  We had originally thought we were going to

take a boat many miles away  from Cambridge Bay, and set up in tents.  This might have made

us a more possible target for a bear.  However, we ended up in the small cabin, which didn't

expose us to the inclement weather or animals.

 

 

 

"Stay low."  That's what Mark kept telling me as I'm trying to crawl along

over the sharp rocks to get his pictures.  And this cameraman didn't even get paid!

 

 

I didn't really ever drive this quad.  I just wanted the picture.   I figure going down a

steep bumpy slope on skis is a lot safer than trying to drive one of these through all the rocks.

 

 

Someone had set out their finest furniture on the shore, so we stopped

for a bit to appreciate the scenery.  Later on, we came back.

 

 

We set up the coffee table, and a party of wine and cheese and crackers

as charter members of the "Nunavut Wine Tasters Club."

 

 

We had brought with us a nice bottle of German Ice Wine to toast our trip.

The wine was, however, already gone by this point and we couldn't get any more.

So I substituted "Grape Tang."  After all, who's going to know if I don't tell anyone?

 

An excellent nose, good legs, and a long finish.  I'm talking about the wine,

remember? 

 

More Later....

 

Larry

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We really didn't hear any Inuktitut spoken.  Everyone up there speaks English, except perhaps

 for the "oldest elders," and maybe those Inuit  living north of French-speaking Quebec.

Cambridge Bay area has been highlighted in yellow.

 

 

The visitor center we stopped at in Cambridge Bay (with the standing polar bear) had a lot

of information on the land and language.  This little poster is a "Rosetta's Stone" for

reading the Inuktitut alphabet.

 

 

 

 This is a photo of a photo which showed a family scene which I thought was interesting.

It's not very old, considering the Thermos bottles.  Everyone is in their winter skins and

fur, but this must be spring because of the child without mittens on and full sunshine

with the sun up at least halfway in the sky.   If you've ever stood for a photo facing the

sun while in a snow scene you know how bright it must be.

 

 

 

 

 I had to take a photo of a photo that was hanging on a wall.  It tells me a lot.  These snow goggles

carved out of bone are how the Inuit have dealt with bright snow conditions for the many generations

before the advent of sunglasses.  But as a dentist, what struck me immediately in this picture, as well as

on the faces of my guide, his mother, and some kids walking down the street:  how obviously

crowded their teeth were!  These isolated Inuit villages don't see a dentist very often, and when

they do, the children have a lot of decayed baby teeth extracted instead of filled, and the 

premature loss of teeth results in the spaces closing up, and when the new teeth come in, they

are crowded!  When we were walking through town, one of the few non-Inuits we met was a

woman who was a dental assistant!  She was there with her dentist-employer who came up from

Saskatchewan to work in a well-equipped clinic they have up there. 

 

 

 

 

 

 This was another illustration on the wall of the town hall.

 

 

 

 Everyone goes everywhere on quads. 

 

 

 

 We visited the house of a man who was known as an expert in tanning arctic fox furs,

and carving.  He brought out a string of furs for Mark to make an offer.

 

 

He then showed us some beautiful carvings (ivory or horn) on top of the

vertebra of a whale

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