9 months is a long time to wait for summer - but I dare to say it is worth it.
I will admit that during the first week of June when I was still looking out my front window to see ice on the Bay I was getting a little concerned. I knew that it would eventually go away but it sure did seem to be taking it's dear 'ol time.
Turns out the ice leaves as quickly as it forms. I remember back in October watching it form on the bay during 1 day. Well, it left in one day as well.
This was my view during the first part of JUNE!!!!
Oh dear - that sight was getting a tad old.
It didn't seem like it was going anywhere, so we decided to make the best of it. We spent one entire week-end fishing. Ice fishing.
As you can see the hills are mostly clear of snow - just some of the deeper crevasses held onto the last of it.
As most people going out ice fishing I expected to be fishing on a lake of solid ice. To say I was hesitant going onto this lake is an understatement. I thought I might throw up. Back on the East Coast it would not even cross my mind to venture on a lake that looked like this.
As you can see we were the last of the 4 quads to go on the lake. Our friends in front of us gave me a little pep talk about how the people we were with had been doing this for their entire lives and that they knew what they were doing. I sucked it up and agreed to go on. I was nervous until we were stopped on the lake and looking down the holes so that I could see exactly how thick the ice was. It was easily 3' deep.
Here we are checking out one of the prime fishing spots. We didn't make any of our own holes. We fished in natural holes in the lake like the one below and old fishing holes from past fishing trips.
This was the first catch of the day. An Arctic Char. We were all pretty excited. R, N and I didn't catch anything....I had one bite but I freaked out and lost it. He did tease us though - we watched him circling the hook for the next 15 minutes but he just wouldn't bite again.
This was day 2. We got smarter and brought chairs with us. Check out our fancy fishing sticks. Yes sticks with fishing line hooked onto it. I should have gone around the lake and took pictures of all the fishing "sticks" we had. There was a wide array including a wrench with fish line and an old swifter handle with line tied to it.
Who knew? We have a fancy fire truck. N and I were both quite impressed. N even got a little tour and pulled on the horn, how fun!
One of afternoon adventures lead us out to our old sledding hill. I wanted to see if there was still ice down on the lake. There was. While we were there we spotted some flowers so we checked those out for awhile and while we were there the sched plane came in. N loves planes so he was quite thrilled to see it. After this we jetted of to the airport to get a better look.
We may not have fancy playground equipment....but we make do.
The next few pictures are shots of the day the ice left the bay. It was really windy one Saturday and during the course of the day the bay went from full of ice to empty. Pretty crazy how quickly it happened. Check it out.
Remember - it is still not getting dark here so these pictures are from around 8:00 am to 11:00 pm. Still - quite remarkable. I wrote it on the calender so next year when I start freaking out about looking at ice in June I'll remember. This year the ice left June 16.....and also written on the calender is 1st mosquito bite - June 13. More on that later.
Having gone to sleep with the bay free of ice I was a little surprised to see some of came back.
I thought it might a cruel joke but for the next few days depending how the wind blew the ice came and left. Mid June and bay mostly free of ice means it's time to go boating. Still to early for me, but clearly some people just were not waiting any longer.
I have many pictures of all the flowers blooming up in the hills. The hills are alive with all different colours, it is spectacular!
This is down on the sandy beach. I ice formed here last and is also the last to leave. Regardless - the sand was warm, the scenery was amazing as normal and there were NO mosquitoes....JACKPOT
Aboriginal Day. I took so many great pictures from this day but this is my favourite. It is my favourite because it shows 4 truly Northern things all in one picture.
- the quad - our main mode of transportation during the summer
- the bug jacket - not an unusual site
- drums - well N has a plate, but the men have drums and later their was singing and drum dancing
- packing - this is how almost every child under 2 gets around.
LOVE THIS PICTURE
Here are a few more pictures from different trips to the river. Every trip down we had a whole new view. The hills were a different shade of green with trip. It doesn't matter how often we go there, it never gets old.
You cannot really see it well here but if you look close you can see the Arctic Turn (bird) that is flying towards N. On this particular day they didn't bother us too much. During a repeat visit we were dive bombed by those stink'n birds. I can tell you they look a whole lot bigger and meaner when they are mere inches from your head. We took the hint and bailed quickly.
The huge herd of caribou (150 - 200) were spotted out towards the river near the end of June. We didn't find out until around 8:30 at night so it was too late for us. It didn't seem right to wake N up to go on a caribou hunt. I was almost giddy the whole night. I was so excited to get there and see them. We had seen a few off in the distance on our fishing trip, but I could only imagine how cool it would be to see hundreds up close.
There was a bit of community commotion the next day so we weren't able to head out on our search until later in the day. We went out with a few other people who were just as excited as I was to see them. We couldn't find them.... We did find where they had been. We spotted 6 carcass's and lots of tracks. They were far away but with binoculars we off in the distance we spotted the heard. We each took turns checking them out and then decided to continue down to the river.
We ended up meeting up with one lost caribou. She must have gotten seperated from the heard. She was down the big hill and instead of running away from us she ran up the hill infront of us and then eventually ran off on here own. If you look close in this picture you can see here (close to the right side). She looks like she is far away, she might have been in this picture but was much closer to us many times I just could did my camera out in time.
Depending on the size of you screen you might be able to see what is written above the door of this camp. It's cute. Welcome to my Inuvaliut RV. Cracks me up everytime I see. These camps are totally mobile. When they want to move them they just drap it off to it's new home. Remember the camp that was out on the bay. It has found it's new home up the road a ways. We were back out this way yesterday and everything around here is as green as green can be.
Canada Day
Like many places throughout the country we had a celebration up here. There was music, a bbq and canoe races. With 24 hr daylight we missed out on fireworks but New Years more than makes up for that.
We tried to hold out for the canoe races but the bugs got the best of us. It was ridiculous. You can see them in this picture. Nasty.
Last weekend we went over to Crowts. I'm not sure that's how you spell it but that's how it sounds so I'll go with that. Holy pretty. We were on bear alert but it was still awesome.
Could there be any better way to start the day?
I think not.
Kidding - it was a fluke, but pretty cute.
This is over at the point, where the birds attacked us. It is on the Arctic Ocean so use your imagination and imagine it's as cold as it could possibly be without having ice on it. 2 year old boys don't care. He just wouldn't stay out it and was having so much fun. He started off fully clothed and in an attempt to keep some of his cloths dry for the quad ride home he ended up wearing....zip.
What a guy.
For anyone wondering (Dad) it was a land locked char.
And there we have it. A month in review. I think June is my favourite month so far - so much happens in June. Not only with all the community activities but the landscape completely changes from white to green with specks of yellow, white and purple. Loved it.
July has been great so far to. We have put some serious miles on the quad and we are loving every single moment of it. It is hard to believe this has been our home for almost an entire year and this time next year it will likely be almost time to say good-bye.
