Beechy Island, Glacier face, Taloyoak,

Sunsets were spectacular.  So were some of the sunrises, but with the warm temperatures we had a lot of fog in the morning.

This glacier face was about 2 Km long and probably 5 stories high.

Beechy Island.  These are graves from Franklin's last expedition.  These bodies were exhumed and examined and found to contain deadly levels of lead - probably from the canned food that they brought along.

It was cold in the wind.  The ground was entirely stone with almost no vegetation at all.

The remains of a house.  You can see the barrel hoops scattered about.

These two buildings are at Fort Ross and were the Hudson Bay Company outpost.  One had been nicely fitted out but with time and the help of  a polar bear or two the interior is in sad state.  The other building has been fitted out for campers.  Recently 3 yachts had turned up and spent the night in the bunk house.

The community of Taloyoak were very welcoming and there was a party laid on for us with dancers, throat singers and wonderful food - arctic char, seal stew, and bannock along with some other dishes.

The next day we travelled to Pointe de la Guiche where our historian, Ken McGoogan had several years earlier place a cairn and a plaque to commemorate John Rae finding the final link in the North West Passage.  Ken is on the left, with Robbie in the middle.

We were fortunate in having not only one Inuk guide, but then 2 young ladies were shanghaied in Pond Inlet and kept us company for the rest of the trip.  They were delightful to meet and gave us great insight into living in the north.  

Icebergs and Pond Inlet

Most of the ice that we saw was either in Greenland or in the Baffin Island area.  Once we went further south the water was mostly clear.  

 In the picture below there is a little black dot just left of centre.  That is the zodiac with 10 people aboard.  Just puts a perspective on things!

 The colours of some of the icebergs were amazing.  This was probably as high as a 4 story building.

We passed quite a few of these monsters while cruising.  At least 10 stories high if not more!

Pond Inlet

Greenland, Kayaking, Ilulisaat

We watched this Inuk doing all sorts of feats with his kayak.  Remember that we are above the Arctic circle and the water is about 0ºC!  He did a variety of rolls, and then in the last picture he is paddling while upside down - a sneaky maneuver to get past a polar bear.  Yikes.

Two more shots of Sisimiut.  

In our "wet suits" coming into the harbour at Ilulisaat.  It was foggy and the bay was filled with ice.

There was a lovely boardwalk to take us to a fjord to see the ice bergs that had calved off the glacier.  It was across rough tundra terrain and as we came around a corner we could see the tops of the bergs in the mist - a very magnificent sight.

North West Passage - Greenland

Our trip through the North West Passage with Adventure Canada started with a charter flight from Toronto to Kangerlussuaq and the following three pictures were taken from the plane over Greenland.

 The spikey bits in the above picture are labrador tea.  We found cranberries in this area too.

 Just an evening view from the ship.  

SISIMIUT

 husky pups

 Kayaks

an old whale bone

Jubilation

The  last theme for our International art group www.12bythedozen.blogspot.com was Jubilation.  What could be more joyful than leaping off a rock into the lake on a beautiful summer's day.  This is a picture of my neighbour's rock and her granddaughter.  

These are the flowers on my perennial hibiscus.  They are the size of my hand.  You can see from the geraniums below how big they are.