Going on a (Polar) Bear Hunt!

This morning was particularly cold, but the wind was not so strong.  I put my base layer on and my boots and opened up my tent to see that even with the outer flap closed, the snow had blown into the vestibule.  I'm glad I brought my boots in!  I put some outer layers on the bottom, laying my middle layers on top and headed to the bathroom tent.  It was still standing, thankfully.  Then, I grabbed my outer layers and headed to the dining tent to finish dressing.  The guides seemed to sleep in this morning, which meant the generator didn't start till late which meant there was no heat in the dining tent until later.  But as people woke up, body heat started warming up the tent.  One of our group took pictures of the tents with snow on them this morning.  I didn't.  I was too busy trying to not get cold while getting dressed and going to the bathroom!  It did snow a little, but most of this was blown up by the wind!

While we were eating our breakfast egg burritos, someone from a neighboring camp came by the let us know a polar bear was in the area, having just walked through their camp!  Considering how vicious polar bears can be, my hat's off to those guys for not shooting him while in the camp!  He could be seen by the spotting scope from our camp, and Ken estimated that he was probably just over a kilometer from us.  We all hurriedly loaded on the komatiks and took off after him.  Polar bears usually give full camps a wide berth because they don't like groups of people.  They will quickly attack individuals, but groups are a different story.  Our goal, aside from getting good pictures, was to scare him away from camps with the Skidoo engine noise.  We succeeded, and we took lots of pictures while we herded him toward the floe edge.  The guides estimated him to be about a 4-year-old male, only weaned for a short while.

My first look at him, he was behind some drifts.

You can see his gait while he was running.

He slowed down to a fast walk.  We were driving, so lots of shaking.

We would move him toward the floe edge, then stop and watch him for a while.  If he started trying to turn away from the water, one of the guides would maneuver their Skidoo and komatik to cut him off and set him back on the right direction.

When I first looked at these pictures, I thought he had a stick stuck to his tail, but I couldn't figure where he got the stick.  When I went back through all the photos and looked at the progression, I realized, he had to do his business!  I would probably be growling under similar circumstances!

Once he got close enough to the water, we left him alone.  He saw a ringed seal and ran toward it, but it ducked down into its hole before he got there.

The guides said they swim well, but they don't hunt well in the water.  It would have been nice to watch him navigating the brash ice, but we had already made him anxious enough and reinforced the idea that he should be afraid of groups of people.  We didn't need to continue just for our entertainment.

We went to a spot on the floe edge where he was not likely to go.  The brash ice had been blown in close to the edge, so not much hope that narwhals would come in.  We saw some birds and a couple of ringed seals.  I talked with Nina, our only woman guide, who described how they Inuit hunt seals.  They like to eat all parts of the seal, including the brain, so they don't shoot it.  They stand quietly by a seal hole and wait for the water to start rocking up and down.  That signifies that a seal is about to come up to the ice.  As it comes up, you quickly hook it with a large hook you hold in one hand while hitting it over the head with the other hand.  They usually just use their hands.

Glaucous Gull.  These are one of the largest gulls.

Ringed seal

Thick-billed Murre

Glaucous Gull

Ringed seal

One of our guides had a drone that he sent out looking.  There were narwhals in the area, but they weren't coming in from the brash ice.  These are the shots he got with his drone.

After lunch of a rice noodle soup and sandwiches, we moved to another location.  There was still a lot of brash ice there, too, so I didn't even get out of the komatik this time.  Got some more bird shots.  

Red Phalaropes

Glaucous Gulls and a Black-Legged Kittiwake

Thick-Billed Murres supposedly headed to the migratory bird sanctuary on Bylot Island

On the way back to camp, we stopped by a seal hole to get a good, close look at one.  We were almost all very curious, and the guides were happy to sate our curiosity whenever they could!

The brown things in there is fur that gets scraped off when hauling out of the water or dropping back in.

One of our group sent a GoPro down the hole to see what was there, but it was just dark water.  Nothing exciting.

We finished going back to camp, and Nina wrote all of our names in Inuktitut, the local native language.  I'm going to mount it onto some magnet paper and put it on the refrigerator!

And for our last dinner in camp, she and Elisha made a delicious dinner of Arctic char, rice pilaf, mashed potatoes, and carrots and brocolli.

Following dinner, photo dumping, and some chit-chat, I headed to the painful crawl into my tent for the last time!

A Very Blustery Day

 We woke this morning to some wind, and the Windy app (that tracks winds, cloud cover, and multiple other useful information) said it was going to get windier.  We spent a little extra time with breakfast, enjoying our pancakes and berries.  When we left camp (carrying extra layers), we stopped along the way to get some good pictures of the seals that hang out, being careful to not get so close that we scared them down into their holes.  You can see why they're called ringed seals on the one facing the camera.  He has little rings around his neck.

I loved the way this guy wagged his tail!

We stopped by the floe edge, but there wasn't much happening there.  We did see a few birds, but for the most part, it was kind of a bust.

So, we loaded back up and headed to the edge of the bird sanctuary on Bylot Island.  Going onto Bylot Island requires a permit and a Park Service guide, which we didn't have, but the area where the kittiwakes and murres nest is against the cliffs that overlook the mouth of Eclipse Sound as it empties into Baffin Bay.  The area is, of course, still frozen over.  It also has a huge snow pack!

We followed along this crack in the ice until Lee (our lead Inuit guide and the driver of my komatik) found a safe place to cross it.

This iceberg stood at the head of the crack.

He found a spot where we crossed a few cracks.

Once everybody else made it across, we headed on to the bird nesting sanctuary.

Into and over some very large "bump farms", snow and ice that were far from smooth!  We hit enough of these, that I think my spine compressed, and I might be a couple of inches shorter!  (JK)

These guys are definitely experts at driving these Skidoos!

Trying to walk around, I dropped into the snow, up to my hips at one point, the snow was so soft.  When I was finished walking around and appeared to be on my way to the "hangout point", Lee saw me struggling and drove his Skidoo up to me to pick me up.  I rode about 20 feet on the back seat of the Skidoo.  I guess that was easier than walking out and pulling me out of the snow drifts I kept sinking into!

The only birds we saw nesting were the black-legged kittiwakes.  The thick-billed murres are usually there, but apparently, they were running late.  I'm not sure where they'll fit once they get here! 

I loved the different colored seams in the cliff sides.

There were natural tunnels

and natural caves.

Significant amounts of predation had been going on here.  Lee says the larger gulls (such as the glaucous gull) will feed on the kittiwakes and their eggs.  

We saw some tracks that may have been the kittiwake, may have been the predating gull.  Since both have webbed feet (the kittiwake being a member of the gull family), it is difficult to tell.

Of course, gulls aren't the only ones who prey on kittiwake eggs!  Along with foxes and other mammals, the Innuit also gather eggs and bring them back to the community for food.  They are said to be very tasty!  The ropes for climbing are left on the cliffs for easier access.  It's hard to see, but the climbing rope is there.

Elisha (our cook) never arrived with the lunch komatik, and after giving him additional time, we all loaded back up and headed to camp, hoping he was still there for some reason.  He wasn't.  So a search and rescue mission was undertaken.  Thankfully, one of our group was a park ranger, certified in search and rescue, so she loaded up on the back of a Skidoo with one of the guides.  They found him.  It was a communication breakdown.  He thought we were going to a different spot by the floe ice and then followed the wrong tracks when we weren't there.  Thankfully, he was safe.  We snacked on some peanut butter and other things that just remained in the dining tent while waiting and worrying.

After everybody happy that Elisha returned safely and eating a little creamy ramen, the wind died down.  The Windy app said we should have a few hours of calm winds, and most of us decided to go back out to see what might be at the floe edge, hoping the wind hadn't blown a lot of brash ice in.  The Skidoos and komatiks stopped because while driving, Lee saw a narwhal.  I didn't realize we had one right away, and I started putting my tripod up and set it out.  Before I could get out myself, I realized the whales were there!  So, standing in the komatik, I leaned over the edge to take pictures and videos.  These pix were no worse than the others and in some cases, they were better.  I also took video.  The guides laughed at the rapid-fire continuous shooting and said they had never seen anybody take pictures that way!

You can see the windshield of the Skidoo in the video as the narwhal kept moving along.

Once this guy went out of view, I climbed out of the komatik and set up like a normal person.  Not long after that, we had a dark juvenile come by, and it swam right toward us before diving under!  This would have been the ideal time to get a tusk in the shots, but it was too young and didn't have one, but watching it come directly toward us was amazing.  You can see the dorsal ridge when he's above water.

After this one dove, several of us decided to walk over to the next cove because that's where Ken thought it would come back up.  He was right.  It came up almost right by our feet!  Scared the crap out of us!

While in that cove, another juvenile came in.  This one was lighter and seemed to have a playful side.  This one just bobbed along for a little while.  I can't tell for sure what the parts you can see are, between not knowing narwhal anatomy and the camera shake, thanks to my tremor.  But, I think the dorsal ridge comes up once and that one of the pectoral fins is also visible at times.  I'm not sure, though.

After bobbing for a while, this child decided to just turn some flips in the water.  It was so fun to watch!

It was an amazing evening, and I was so glad I came back to the ice.  I was so tired and sore that I considered staying back in camp with some of the others.  After the narwhals left, a few king eider ducks in the distance, and we headed back to camp.

On the way back to camp, it was clear that the ice and snow were beginning to melt.

The wind kicked back up when we got back and was so strong people were being buffeted by the walls of the bathroom tent!  The guides pulled the komatiks around to try to make a wind break.  We had a veggie stew with split peas for dinner in the driving winds.  When I went to bed, I had to ask Ken (our tour leader) to come fix my tent because one of the pegs had come out in the wind.  Having little to no camping experience, I had no clue how to fix that problem, but I knew it had to be fixed!  I brought my boots into the tent with me this time, just in case, climbed in, and slept fitfully, listening to the wind blow and watching the walls of my tent puff in and out.