We spent today in Grise Sound, two fjords east of where we spent yesterday afternoon. But what a contrast. After all the glaciers of yesterday, Grise looked positively barren by comparison.
This morning was spent doing a walk on shore with the medium medium walking group. All our guide wanted to do was to see what was over the next hill which was of course another hill so we had a good workout and got to observe the variety of plant life that lives in this environment even though, from a distance, it looks completely barren.
This afternoon, we went ashore to the community of Ausuittuq, a name which means the place that never thaws out. It is the most northern civilian community in Canada.
It appears to be a totally desolate place but the local community gave us a tour of the town and treated us to a concert which was actually quite good. They seemed to be genuinely pleased to be able to show off their talent to outsiders. Apparently they don't get many visitors.
Each evening we have a recap of the day's activities. Tonight we heard from the two inuit people on the ship that several high arctic communities including the one we visited today came into existence because, in the 1950's, inuit were forcibly relocated by the Canadian government to establish a Canadian presence in the North West Passage.
In winter, the temperature gets down to minus 40 degrees Celsius and the sun simply doesn't rise.
It
is said on the ship that those like us who have done both the
Antarctic and Arctic trips are truly bipolar.
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