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

For the years we have lived here i have been lucky enough to travel to many places and see many new things., this year, has been no different.

A week or so ago Markus was left home alone as Delia had work travel, so to pass some of his time i asked him out to do some snowmobiling in the hills. Once we got there we decided to drive to the end of the point between our Fjord and the next one over. Well was that ever a great choice!!!

When we made our turn we traveled over a few thin patches with a rock here or there. Shortly after that we made the decision to follow the valleys...Again a great choice. We flew through those valleys in what was nearly perfect snow conditions, we zipped up and down the sides of the valley using the walls as our personal Half Pipe. At one point we found ourselves in some deep powder, which of course anyone who has ever snowmobiled knows...IS HEAVEN. So we stopped our travel and played around there for a while carving our sleds like Sea-Doos in a lake.

After a while we continued on to our end goal, or a close as we could get.

The trail stopped rather abruptly and Markus suggested we try our hand a a bit of hunting ( the hope was Ptarmigan or hare ). Almost immediate after we hit the kill switch on the sleds a Ptarmigan flew over our heads followed by a goose, then a few hares hopped around a few rocks a hundred or so yards away. Needless to say we were pleased....

Not long after the urge for a tea had grown to strong and we stopped on the edge of the a cliff over looking Cumberland Sound. We sat and realized two things, The first was that we had reached our goal of making it to the end of the land between the two fjords. The second was neither of us brought any tea... hahahah oh well, water and granola bars was our snack.

Not long later we had to get our butts back home for a game of Settlers. We flew straight home and floated back over the perfect snow.

What great Day !!!

As you might expect i took a pile of photos, and Markus was kind enough to give me a few he took so i good post them along with mine.

I forgot to mention this was the maiden voyage for my 20ga Shotgun so we stopped not long into the trip to fire off a few shells Markus was kind enough to take a few pictures.

This was the first place we stopped for photos, I love the view here and as you can see there is alot of open water out there, and remember this is from two weeks ago.

Then we found the powder and the the endless half pipe hills

Here i am really working hard to get my Big Wide track Ski-Doo to whip around in the soft snow

Markus up one of the valley walls

One ski side cutting a steep hill... Well done there Markus!

When we stopped for the tea that didnt happen this was the sight that the ocean had prepared for us. it was jaw dropping.

I really could not believe how gorgeous it was there, We both kind of stared in awe for quite a while

As you can clearly see the ice had already started to break into pans. It really was something to see. For a second or two it felt like i was watching an Imax film about the Arctic Ocean. Then realized that this was my life... followed by a cheshire cat grin that stretched around my face touching behind my ears.

Ice pans bobbing around.

The shore line had its fair share of ice as well

Markus having a snack and wishing we had tea

I pulled out my big lens to take a few shots and Markus took the opportunity to shoot be a bit.

Here Markus is taking my Nikon and the Big lens for a test drive... I think he might convert over from Canon, He, I'm sure doesn't agree with my thought

On the way home some clouds moved in a bit and made it a bit hard to see (white out conditions) But in the distance the sun was still shinning over the Sound.

And that was our day. and what a great one it was.
While we were in the middle of the board game i think we must have mention how great the day was a hundred times. Or at least enough that our fellow players didnt want to hear about it any more. lol

thats all for now folks

TTYL
M&N&A

This is just a short movie i put together to give you all out there an idea of what we call a pretty bad storm!!!

Hope you enjoy

I know, i know, two posts in one week, no your not dreaming. But dont get used to it...hahaha

TTYL
M&N&A

After many years of talking about it. Donald and I took the Ski-Doos out the other day and climbed the boss of the mountains. Or at least that what Anngijuqquq Mountain translates to in English. What a ride, it was a beautiful day with plenty of soft powdery snow to cruise around in.

We weren't able to get right to the top because of the lack of snow and the amount of rocks, BUT, we were at about 3 and a half thousand feet above sea level and loving every minute of it. At one point a cloud blew over us and with an outstretched arm i was actually able to watch a cloud pass through my fingers... It was a awe inspiring experience.

Now for the shots,

Ready to go, Donald all dress up sporty like.

Relaxing at 3.5 thousand feet as the clouds drift just above us

As the clouds moved in we felt as though we had stepped into the matrix ( remember the white room with no walls or ceiling ?)

looking down the side of the mountain. it was a hole lot higher than it looks here.

a few of the trails we made as we played on the hills

Donald tearing up a hill

the pointed mountain is the one we climbed

more tracks we left

What a great trip

Hope you liked the pictures.

TTYL
M&N&A

So.... As many of you know i have been working on a few contracts for The National Park up here, photographing this and that. After my most recent trip into the park i had thought that i had pretty much finished. Infact i had started to get ready to submit the completed photo package. Well boy was I wrong.

I was called by the park manager and she suggested that i should board a snow ski plane and pretty much have a private flight up to the research station on the Penny Ice Cap. I was of course excited and was able to jump aboard with two scientists that were heading there to re-supply the camp, and to do some tests.

The weather in Pang was really nice, fairly clear and actually quite warm. At the camp it was a different story almost a complete white out with some seriously strong winds . We made several passes and there was just no way to land. I was told that the problem was that the pilots had no way of really judging how far from the ice the plane was and the just couldn't see far enough to get as decent approach. I should mention that there was no real runway up there, it was just ice and a few bags laid out to land between on the snow...Crazy!!! Sadly, as i mentioned we didnt land and the next few days the conditions didnt improve. So i cant say i have walked on the top of the Ice Cap ....yet....

The day wasnt i complete waste i was still able to get a pile of great images of the mountains and some interesting land formations. Before we took off the pilot walked around and cleaned up all the windows for me, so i was lucky to get some nice clear shots.

Now for some of the images i took.

This is the little twin otter we flew in...notice the skis on the wheels...

This is the camp we were supposed to land at. I was disappointed that we didnt land. But image how the people there felt. the first plane in some time flies over a bunch of times then leaves with food and new faces...

This i thought was really neat... you can see the scaring left from glaciers very clearly on the land and the tail end of one in the distance.

This area reminded me of Pang or at least what it must have looked like once. You can clearly see on the left where the glacier ripped through the land and left high mountain peaks.

Lucky enough on the way home i was able to get my first ever glimpse of Mount Asgard (its the flat topped mountin in the upper middle of the image) Also i believe that the glacier that you can see is the tail end of the Turner Glacier, but i could be wrong. Alittle info on Mount Asgard for you
Mount Asgard is a twin peaked mountain with two flat-topped cylindrical rock towers, separated by a saddle. It is located in Auyuittuq National Park, on the Cumberland Peninsula of Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. The peak is named after Asgard, the realm of the gods in Norse mythology. Mount Asgard is perhaps the most famous of the Baffin Mountains.[2]

Asgard's slightly higher North Peak was first ascended in 1953 by J. Weber, J. Marmet, and H. Röthlisberger, Swiss scientists on the Arctic Institute Baffin Island Expedition, led by the Canadian P. Baird.[3] Their route ascended the east side of the north peak, using a climbing traverse across snowfields and rock ribs, to reach the saddle between the two peaks, and thence to the top of the North Peak. The route is graded VI, 5.8/5.9 A1. It is still the most-traveled route and is the standard descent route for climbers making harder ascents on other faces.[4]

The South Peak was first climbed in 1971 by G. Lee, R. Wood, P. Clanky, J. Pavur, Y. Kamisawa and P. Koch. Since then, at least 13 routes have been put up on the two peaks, most involving highly technical free and aid climbing, with lengths varying from 800 m (2,600 ft) to 1,200 m (3,900 ft). One of the most notable routes was put up in 1975 by Charlie Porter as a solo climb. This was "the first Baffin modern, multi-day, technical, big-wall climb", with 40 pitches rated at Grade VI, 5.10, and it was followed by "a 10-day walk-out to the fjord-head without food". The fact that this was all done solo was "a remarkable achievement".[4]

In 1976, stuntman Rick Sylvester performed a BASE jump, skiing off the mountain with a Union Flag parachute for the opening sequence of the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, although the fictional setting was the Austrian Alps. The stunt team and film crew had made their ascent by helicopter.

Good old Thor Peak. Because of my multiple trips into the park and the fact that it is one of Auyuittuq National Parks more prominent and famous mountains. I seem to have more pictures of it from different angles then i do of my daughter. Either way still an amazing mountain.

Just to prove i was in a plane.... oh and can you find Thor? its there!

I liked how you could actually see the crevasses in the glaciers so clearly. I was thinking those suckers must be pretty deep to be able to be seen so distinctly.

Lastly the gateway to Auyuittuq... The Weasel River. Frozen in the most beautiful of turquoise. I wish you all could have seen it.
If entering the park From the Pangnirtung side you have very few options that dont including traveling by boat or snow machine on the Weasel.

I guess one of those options that dont have the Weasel in the equation would be by plane...hahahah

What a great opportunity to be able to be able to get these images. This place we live in is truly amazing...

TTYL
M&N&A

Well its been a while since i last posted something... but we have been kinda busy these last few weeks.

Both of my parents made it back to Pang for their second trip. We really enjoyed having them and were quite sad to see them leave. As you might expect i took a pile of photos....

Here is just a few of the shots.

We were able to drag both of them out to the lake to do some fishing... all who were their caught a few... it was a great day

Markus happy to be out

Mom all decked out in her warmest, fishing away

Dad trying his hand...after catching a few the size of smelt he got a char that was big enough to eat...

A few of our friends with a tiny char

The whole gang

The catch that came home with the Davies

We were also very fortunate to be able to get them to the Arctic circle and in to Auyuittuq National Park

looking at the circle marker

Thor peak in the background

Dad taking advantage of the view

Mom and Natalie ( one of our friends that went along ) excited to be so far north

Mom in front of a few emergency buildings

Heading home

We also were able to get the two of them up to the top of Mount Duval

checking out the view

in front of town

gag me... lol

we all had a great time and were sorry that their trip only last 10 days...it was nice to show them more of what we love about Nunavut.

TTYL
M&N&A

What a great weekend.
Despite loosing yet another fishing lure at the lake and only catching one pathetic char!

Early Saturday morning i loaded up the sled adjusted it for some solo riding, and met Donald Meeka and lena for a day at the lake fishing. Nicole and the baby opted to stay at home as it's still a bit to cold for Abigail to make the 1.5 hour ride.

I went to the lake a week or so ago and found the trail to be less than ideal, so on this trip i expected the same... was i ever wrong... it was smooth powdery and fast. i actually at one point was able to get my sled up to 100km it was sweet.

The groups sled and in the backround everyone is eating some fish soup Meeka made for us from a fish she caught

The dreaded Kulliq trail.. dangerous steep and held up by old boards, and a few new ones....

Donald coming down

Meeka's first time ever driving down

This trail really is notorious... i havent heard of anything bad happening on it, although i'm sure there has been incidents. It's just know as a scary trail and is very few peoples first choice when going to the lake. This year the more preferred route had been un-drivable due to some bad ice at the end of our fjord.

On the way home we came across someone with their sled torn apart and we stopped to lend a hand if we could. well it turned out that the guy just had a dead spark plug so once he had that changed he was off. When Donald went to start his sled he found that his pull cord no longer was working... after some thinking and tinkering i produced a length of rope which we wrapped around his clutch and after a few tries his sled barked to life. We decided not to turn his machine off until wee got home.

all fixed as we breath a sigh of relief. it would not have been fun to drag him and his machine home with my ski-doo.

thats all for now folks

TTYL
M&N&A

Hello Everyone,
Sorry for the lack of updates lately. This one is going to be short and sweet as I'm heading to bed now. Enjoy some videos from our skidoo trip today to the Hudson's Bay Cabin Our friend Sam is here visiting us from Ontario and we're all having a great time!

ttyl
M&N&A&S

Well its been a while since i posted some of my creations... most of you know by now that i sew like the wind blows, and am contantly in the middle of a new project.

I though that you might enjoy a look a just a few my creations...

We'll start of with Abigail's new Bunting bag... i put it together for her for her birthday a few weeks back and she loves it... i have had a few adults ask for one...hahahah.

Anyways what i did was.... i was given a few fur coats from a friend in the south (thanks to Penny, and Mac for them!!!) so i took out the liner of the coat and I was left with just the fur and leather. I then put my pattern down ( the one i created for the purple bag a month or so ago) and tried to line it up with some of the best leather, as there is always some worn out sections. Once i had traced the pattern i cut the leather with an sharp knife ,,,NOT SCISSORS... as they would cut the fur as well and just make the whole thing look lame. once that was done i very patiently took all the pieces to my sewing machine and started to sew inches at a time, making sure to push all the hair to the inside the of the two pieces i was working on... again to avoid lameness. when that was done i made a duplicate pattern with a heavy parka liner and made a second bag, then sewed the two coats together....its just that simple... You may have noticed that the fur bag is a fair bit bigger than her purple one, and also might be thinking you made her a bunting bag already why does she need two? simple answers for both... she needs two because one is more for snowmobiling and there other is more for town. She doesn't really need a fur coat to go from our house to a neighbors, but when we go to the fishing lake the fur will keep her good and toasty. As for the fur bag being way bigger.. I wanted to make sure she had tons of room to wear lots of clothes underneath. Also i made the sleeves really long... in fact so long i tucked them up into themselves (practically double the length you see in the picture)...why??? well after i pull a few stitches it will fit her as a long pullover coat and when i lengthen the sleeves she will have a really warm mink coat up until 4 or 5 years old.. smart eh? so thats that

 

she really is a funny kid. We have had her out a bunch of times in her mink already and now when we lie it on the ground in preparation for an outing she will go over to it and lie down with it waiting for us to zip her in ( she love to visit people) The other thing that makes me laugh is that when she is in she remains in the posture you see until we load her into Nics amauti. 

All ready lets go !!!

Now for the far less cute...

I went out for a ride on the sled yesterday with Delia to find that we were riding in -45c after wind chill. We chatted afterward and came to the agreement that the weather station in town had far less wind effecting than we were feeling way out on the ice. I'm pretty sure it must have been another 5 to 10 degrees colder where we were. I gave you the info on the weather because i went out wearing mitts and a parka that i made for myself. This has been the coldest i have ever been out in in my own creations and i'm  very happy to say that all the clothes kept be nice and warm.

oh and yess the mitts are skunk if you were wondering... SO warm !!!. and yes even though they were tanned and cleaned one of the mitts has a very very faint order of the stinky guy that the fur once belonged to.

A little closer look at my mug.. it was so cold... i checked a few charts and one i found said that someone would only have less than 40 seconds until exposed skin would freeze in the temperature we were out in.... that being said, What fun it was to be out.

Thats all for now

TTYL

M&N&A

If any of you scout people are out there and have spent any time camping with 1st Manvers or my fam in general you would remember this tent. It has been packed to so many different camps and Operation alerts, and Huck Finn Raft races I can hardly count them all. 

 

I have been thinking about this tent since our first winter up here and after much research discovered that this is one of the more popular tents in some arctic regions ... That being said I think it's the only one in this town...most here use what we called Prospector tents, everyone in Pang calls them frame tent. 

 

I decided that today was finally the day to try it out... Markus came along to help and just check the tent out...

 

We left and Nicole received a phone call shortly after from Meeka one of our good friends.  She laughed when she found out we left and told Nicole that we needed a psychiatrist, and that it was even to cold for Inuit .... you see the temperature was -40c with wind chill and up in the mountains where we went it must have been another 10 or 15 degrees colder... you may have guessed the wind was blowing pretty good. Or at least good enough that it was difficult to differentiate the ground from the sky. But Markus and I decided that it would be a good day as it would truly test the tent.

 

So anyway we went out and set the tent up in only a few minutes and in we went with the Coleman stove and had some tea. The tent warmed up to what we guessed was about -15c  nice and warm with the wind  howling outside. After the tea we even cooked up some soup. We learned from this outing that the stove is ok but I'm pretty sure Nic and I are going to convert the tent into a tent with a chimney, and at the bottom of the chimney is going to be a prospector wood burning travel stove. You can pick them up withat Le Baron or other outdoor stores for pretty cheap. You may be asking yourself about firewood... well as you know there are no trees around us but there is a dump with a very good selection of assorted wood....

worked pretty good for a tent from 1940.. there was actually a stamp on it with the date it was made cool eh ?

Markus relaxing in front of the stove

Me havin a cup of tea.. the orange glow is just the tint of the tent.

 

So all in all we were out there for about 4 hours and we both loved every second of the tent. The not so fun part was the drive home, we were not too far but the wind picked up on the way and it made the trail a little tricky to follow.

So that's this weekend's adventure..

Maybe fishing next week.. but not if it's -40c

 

TTYL

M&N&A