June 14, 2011

• Spring Melt is On

  Well it has finally come to the North. The warmth that is.

  We have been in full melt for a week or so. Duval river has broken, the snow is gone down on the low lands, and The fjord could open up any day. This winter has been fantastic despite the late start to the snowy weather, we have put thousands of kms on the snowmobile caught tons of fish and had some great laughs.

  Its sad to think that our time with the snowmobile has ended and we are back to the heel toe express. But i guess that will be good for our mid sections

  With the lack of snowmobile and now plenty of open ground we have started to go hiking again. This weekend we went out past the runway to have a look at the degrading ice conditions and just to enjoy the weather. On the walk i again was pleased to have another first, that was the pulling of a boat by a snowmobile across the ice to open water. I have been very aware that this happens all the time but haven't ever had the opportunity to photograph it. I was even luckier to have the boats pulled out of the water and up onto the ice right in front of me... really neat to see.

  Anyways i guess i'll give you a look at some of the shots i have been taking the last few days

  The first three shots were taken one morning at 2am. as you can see we have pretty much 24 hour light now.
  We had a bit of rain that day which helped the river flood and break open. Of course i couldn't resist going out and taking a few shots.

  
  A view of the river with Mount Duval in the background

  
  The crazy lack of snow

  
  The river flowing in full force, incidentally there was a lower earth bridge with culverts in it below the metal bridge. Well in typical Pang fashion that bridge washed away this spring. it has been since re-built .... Only in Pang
  It starting to be a tradition, every spring a bridge gets washed away and the re-built. lol

  Now for the walk from the other day. As a photographer here in Pang im constantly struggling to take new pictures of the same sites. I think on this trip i did a fairly good job making the old views look new and special. It was a great walk, and a beautiful day.

  
  Look out towards the end of our fjord

  
  Looking back towards home. How could one not love this place????

  
  Here is Trevor one of the new teachers. He came along to enjoy the weather.

  
  You can see here the ocean is starting to poke through the ice. I should mention that the ice is still fairly safe in the right places and if you could find a way to the ice by jumping from ice pan to ice pan you would be able to travel a fair way.

  
  Just a nice look at Pang Pass

  As i already mentioned there were boats being pulled by snowmobiles on the ice. Here you can see snowmobiles parked on the ice while the hunters are out in the boats hunting. You can also clearly see on the left a few boats coming in to get their machines.
  

  
  So what happened was these two boats each dropped off one passenger and they continued down towards town in the open water while the two passengers took their snowmobiles to meet them as close to town as possible.

  
  Looking for a good place to take out the boat.

  
  Here both boats have already been driven up on to the ice. This was really neat to watch, basically the boats drove up to the ice and nudged the bow of the boat against the ice, then the driver gunned the engine and the boat for lack of a better word "jumped" high in the air and slammed down on the ice.

  
  After a short while the boats were hooked up to the sleds and off they went

  
  to save a bit of weight one of the passengers walked a ways and then was picked up by the snowmobile.

  This was a far as they could go. We didnt hang around to see the next step so i cant tell you what happened, but im sure they reached town some how.
  

  I mentioned earlier that the ice was safe... you can see that kite skiers have found a way to get to the ice and use possibly one of the last few days of nice wind on the fjord.
  

  Lastly looking back towards Cumberland Sound... what a great day.
  

  I think if the weather keeps up the my little fam is going to go out and have dinner on the land this week.

  Hope you weather is as nice as ours !!!!

  TTYL
  M&N&A

  • 3:38 pm
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