Hello Readers!
As you can see we have not been as on the ball with our xanga updates as usual. The main reason being that we really haven't been up to a whole lot since we've been home! Few new things have happened since our arrival back to Pang from Christmas:
1) Mike got a part time job working at the college teaching computers and career prep (Awesome!)
2) Mike has been attending archery after receiving a bow and arrow set for Christmas (pictures to come eventually)
3) We have visitors this year!! Yey!! We love visitors. We just heard last night that one of Mike's buddy's from college is coming for 10 days at the end of February. And my mom and family friend Jill are coming up the beginning of April! We are very much looking forward everyone's visit!
4) I am now finished my online course and can enjoy doing whatever I feel like at night without the course being in the back of my mind ALL the time!

Anyways, this post was intended to show you some pictures from last weekends adventures out on the ice for the annual sculpin fishing competition. Those of you who have been readers for a while might remember what these suckers look like... they are U-G-L-Y!!! Their name in inuktituk actually translates into "ugly fish".

Here is a picture of the lovely fish they were fishing for:

This competition took place right in front of town. This was my first trip out on the ice this season. Compared to other years there seems to be a lot less snow on the ice then usual. Here is a young boy whose outfit we could not help but notice:

There's no way you could be cold in an outfit like that!!!

Here is a pic of a family with the lady in a beautiful traditional caribou amaunti:

Here are a few pictures of what the view is like out on the ice:

Out on the ice looking towards town:

Some of the competitors out on the ice... no fears of going through the ice when you can take all those vehicles out with no problem!

Dog sled team tied out on the ice and will be there until the day before the ice goes out:

Simply a really cool pic of the ice and clouds looking towards the national park:

After a little over an hour we had had our fun and jumped back on the sled to head back to town but before we got very far we ran into this, a camera you can put in the water to see the fish! It was so great! As you can see, all the sculpin are settled on the bottom uninterested in what's going on around them.

Who needs real tv when you can watch this all day!

That was last weekend... this weekend we got up to absolutely NOTHING!! HAHAHAHAHA

Needless to say we are both extremely rested and ready to face the week ahead as I'm into week 3 already and Mike is starting his first full week at the college!

Hope everyone had a great weekend and a great week ahead!

ttyl
M&N

As promised here are a few shots from our time down south...

Happy to be home with the families

Nicoles side

My side hanging in the kitchen

Looking for scraps

Nic and Siku riding in the car

Some of the birds i was able to photography

a close up of a chickadee back

Siku enjoying the balmy southern weather

Lastly the tree line line front field.

Now that we are back and settled , nic and I are going to try and get back to the routine of writing the blog.
Thanks for reading all of you out there.

More stories to come from the north in 2009

TTYL
M&N

I jst wanted to let all the readers out there know that tomorrow afternoon i will be posting a huge mess of images from our christmas break...sorry for the delay,

TTYL
M&N

Hello again everyone! Happy New Years!
Well we are back safe and sound in Pangnirtung ready to face the rest of the school year. Just wanted to say that it was so great to see everyone we were able to see and for those that we weren't able to see we still miss you and hope that we can see you when we're home in the summer!!!
We will be doing a proper post in the next couple of days when we are a bit more settled and have some pictures uploaded but I will let you know that the flights were pretty much on time with no complications at the airports with all our stuff we were travelling with. One surprise we got was when we arrived at the Iqaluit airport and were told we were traveling on a twin otter. That was a really nice experience as we got to sit right behind the pilots and watch their every moves. We were informed before entering the plane that we couldn't bring our carry on luggage with us so that caused a little bit of panic as we have quite a bit of expensive equipment that travels in those carry ons. So between three of us we were able to stuff our pockets full of all the expensive carry on gear including the laptop that I had shoved up inside my jacket!!

Anyways we're back and school with the students started today. They were quite hyper and I'm hoping that tomorrow things will be a little more settled.

Regardless we are happy to be back into our routines but miss you all dearly.

ttyl
M&N

Well folks we are going to be in the air this time tomorrow for Christmas break. Nic and I are both super excited about going home for a little while. If only we didn't have 12ish hours of traveling ahead of us...but it will be all worth it in the end. So needless to say the loyal readers here who have stuck with us even with the blogging drought will have very little to read in the next few weeks. In the new year I promise to try and keep up with my blogging responsibility and continue to give you a glimpse into our life in the north.

I thought you might be interested in seeing my last piece of 2008. This is a long over due piece of art work for a friend who moved away from pang. Hope he likes it.

Well folks we'll talk to some of you in person in a few hours.

TTYL
Happy Holidays From Pangnirtung Nunavut
M&N

At long Last here are some pictures for you to see. Eben though we have been extremely busy, i have still tried to make a bit of time to get out and take at least one or two shots a day.

I also want to mention that because of my web site i am in contract negotiations now for one of my images to appear in a pamphlet of a major Canadian company .....YEAH ME !!!

Ok well here are the shots from the last few days.

Last weekend I was able to get out and try the kite for the first time of the year

We now don't have to much light here but last week was great for pinks and oranges on the mountain tops

I'm sure you have heard on the news that the moon is the closest it has been to the earth in the last 15 years. That means...great photographic opportunity

This is just a drift. I really liked the lines that it created

This is a shot i played with a bit to make it look like it was from Days long past

One lonely dog waiting to be hooked up to a dog sled

Tonight i went across the fiord around 9ish (pitch dark other than the moon) to take a few long exposure time shots.
because of the long shutter the snow looks considerable brighter..picking up the moon light and the orange glows from town. If i was to have gone out to and tried the same shots when there was no moon light the pictures would be almost completely black.

Hard to believe that these were all taken at night eh? to bad there was to many clouds for the nirthern lights to show up.

Thats all for now folks. 6 days until a bit of Southern Sun. Yippee !!!

TTYL
M&N

We have been so bus these last few days...With Christmas so close, I have been try to get as much art work sold. This has led to Nic and I doing nothing but work. As soon as things calm down. I promise to give you a good long post with a bunch of shots to view.

TTYL
M&N

We've had a pretty relaxing weekend which included lots of sleeping, relaxing, playing of settlers and assignment completions on my behalf. We are both getting very anxious to be coming home in less then two weeks now! The days are quite short now with the sun rising at 9:33am and setting at 12:56pm.. that's right... we have just a little over 3 hours of daylight.. but also remember that that is not direct sunlight as the sun doesn't rise high enough lol... brutal!! It'll be nice to get to Ontario where we can once again have the sun shine on our faces! It's also nice to know that after we arrive back here following Christmas that our daylight will again be increasing instead of decreasing.
We had a relatively eventful week last week but will update you on that in the next couple of days as our photos are not uploaded right now. Our internet today has been quite sketchy..ugh.
Mike ventured out yesterday onto the fiord to do some snowmobiling and kiting for the first time this season. He was out for a couple of hours and got the kite all set up for the season. The temperature and wind weren't getting along that well so he headed back in earlier then usual but still had an alright first time out.

More to come when we get our pictures uploaded!

Happy Monday everyone!

ttyl
M&N

I have a few recent shots for you to look at.

The other night one of Nic's students brought her a few arctic char for us to have. Apparently it's like bringing an apple for the teacher....I like char much better than apples As you might expect free food, and the colours of the fish had to be photographed. In fact we ended up eating a little later than Nic wanted because i might have taken a bit to long,.
Here's the results

The colour....so pink

The scales have some real great colour as well

I tried to add a bit of drama to our future meal

Ice cubes right ??
wrong!! salt

Another try in the sink with water droplets.

These i found deep in the computer. At the time i thought that they weren't all that good, just proves that deleting is always bad.

A sunset across the fjord from last spring

Tidal ice from last spring piled on the tidal flats.

Last fall we climbed up Mount Duval. This was one of the shots that didn't make the cut. But i really think it's not a bad shot at all now.

This was taken sometime after last Christmas, but might as well of been taken today. Last year around this time the ice was barley thick enough to walk on. This year people have been driving snowmobiles on it for nearly month.

03

This was taken Last year December 1st. looking at the mouth of the fjord. Hard to believe the difference.

Thats all for now guys

TTYL
M&N

As many of you know days here in the arctic are getting shorter and shorter with the sun currently rising at 9:09am and setting at 1:14pm. With these short days and our town being fully surrounded by mountains when the sun is up it actually doesn't even touch our town, all we have is the mere sight of the sun hitting the mountains on the opposite side of the fiord. Mike decided that he had had enough of this "no sunlight" and took a trip up the back mountain in the quest to get some sunlight. He ended up with some gorgeous shots.

Here is a pic from the top of the mountain looking towards Cumberland sound:

The sun reflecting off our sweet ride:

Beautiful sun about as high as it gets these days, as you can see it's barely above the mountain:

A really great pic of the sunset with an inukshuk:

And a couple more pics of the scenery from his trip up the mountain:

Hope you all had a great weekend, we certainly are getting excited to head back "down south" to be with family and friends for the holiday season... the count down is on.. only 20 more days!

ttyl

M&N