for my readers who are canine fans….this pup was one in town hiding underneath the edge of a house ….sometimes if I have left over food scraps will feed them. Then of course walks with Koda whose curious nose is everywhere Affectionately licking my toes swimming in local lake which was lovely to cool off but challenging with a 60 lb goofy lab who thinks you are a playmate.

More arctic flowers.....

Dwarf Fireweed   Epilobium latifolium River Beauty is found along streams, sandbars, and lakeshores and on alpine and arctic slopes.

The beautiful Arctic poppy grows in many places, even among rocks. The flower is made up of four petals formed into a cup-shape. The stems are hairy and 10 to 15 cm high with a single flower on each stem. The flower heads move to face the sun and soak up the heat of the sun.
http://www.saskschools.ca/gregory/arctic

Salix arctica (Arctic Willow) is a tiny creeping willow (family Salicaceae), a dwarf shrub which grows close to the ground to avoid the cold wind. It has adapted to the permafrost by growing shallow roots. Sometimes it spreads out covering the ground like a carpet. Inuit call it the tongue plant because of the shape of its leaves.

It is adapted to survive in harsh Arctic and subarctic environments, and has a circumpolar distribution round the Arctic Ocean. It grows in tundra and rocky moorland, and is the northernmost woody plant in the world, occurring far above the tree line up to the northern limit of land on the north coast of Greenland. It also occurs further south in North America on high altitude Alpine tundra south to the Sierra Nevada in California and the Rocky Mountains in New Mexico, and in Asia to Xinjiang in China

It is typically a low shrub growing to only 1–15 cm (0.39–5.9 in) in height (rarely to 25 cm (9.8 in) high), however in the Pacific Northwest it may reach 50 cm (20 in) in height and has round, shiny green leaves 1–4 cm (0.39–1.6 in) long and broad, rarely up to 8 centimetres (3.1 in) long and 6 cm (2.4 in) broad; they are pubescent, with long silky, silvery hairs. Like the rest of the willows, Arctic Willow is dioecious, with male and female catkins on separate plants. As a result the plant's appearance varies; the female catkins are red-coloured, while the male catkins are yellow-coloured.

Despite its small size, it is a long-lived plant, growing extremely slowly in the severe Arctic climate; one in eastern Greenland was found to be 236 years old

Mountain avens is the common name for dwarf, trailing or mat-forming shrubs in genus Dryas of the rose family (Rosaceae). The genus includes about 4 species found mainly at higher altitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Three are native to Canada. Furry, evergreen leaves, a single decorative flower and a mat-forming ability make mountain avens popular for rock gardens. They may be grown from cuttings, tuft division and from seed, particularly in sandy soil. The very hardy species D. integrifolia was chosen (1957) as the floral emblem of the NWT, where it is abundant and blooms from June to July. It grows on rocky, barren slopes in the mountains of BC and Alberta, and throughout the territories and the arctic archipelago. This species has a corolla of white petals with a yellow centre. Canadian Encylopedia

Following up to the post on country food, & the arrival of COOP sealift barge this week, the following article from Nunavik on the Inuit Health Survey  is typical of the nutritional dilemma faced in most Inuit hamlets I have worked in...again the photos are mine

"On a Saturday afternoon in summer, the foothills that frame this Inuit village on Quebec's northernmost coast are dotted with white tufts of Arctic cotton, the purple-pink of dwarf fireweed, crowberries and liverwort and yellow oxytrope. With its beach glass and fossil-crusted stones, the shoreline would be picturesque, too, if it weren't littered with broken bicycles, Pepsi cans, Gobstopper wrappers and potato chip bags.

Caribou-hunting season has begun, so older men with rifles saunter down muddy, rain-soaked streets. But young Inuit have other things to do nowadays, like hot-rodding through town on 4x4s, or staring out the doorways of weather-beaten houses smoking cigarettes.

Down at the Salluit Co-op, a utilitarian depot that sells motorcycles, fox pelts and Kool-Aid, the food selection is sketchy and prices exorbitant. A lone head of iceberg lettuce, its leaves wilted and black, sits in the vegetable case. A dozen eggs cost $4.29. Three litres of long-life milk sells for $10.39. Not so surprising that grocery carts are a nutritionist's nightmare, loaded with sugary snacks and ready-made frozen dinners.

In little more than a generation, life in remote northern communities like this one has changed radically. But as these once nomadic people put down stakes, cope with shifting weather patterns, adopt sedentary habits and trade traditional "country" foods for a sweet and starchy southern diet, health experts are getting nervous.

"If you were to go to a grocery store in the north, it's basically three times more expensive than down south here in Montreal," McGill University epidemiologist Grace Egeland said.

"You add a high unemployment rate and low cash flow through the homes, and that will affect purchasing behaviour," Egeland said. "And if you don't have access to country food - you don't have a hunter in the home or perhaps because of changes in the climate there's not the same access - the dollars may not stretch as far in terms of replacing country food with healthy market food alternatives.

"Fast food for Inuit has historically been easy and good for you, where it would provide all the nutrients you needed through the marine mammals and land animals. The stomach contents of a caribou is probably their tossed salad. ... You would need 50 hot dogs to get the same amount of iron as a little piece of seal meat that would fit in the palm of your hand."

On board the Amundsen icebreaker since Aug. 17, Egeland is leading the Inuit Health Survey, a comprehensive look at the health and welfare of Inuit in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Labrador's Nunatsiavut communities. Éric Dewailly, a public health investigator at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Québec, got things going in Nunavik three years ago, using the Amundsen as a base to see how changing diet and exposure to contaminants were affecting the health of Quebec Inuit, focusing on heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Starting in Sanikiluaq, an outpost of the Northwest Territories( my correction Sani is part of Nunavut ) deep in Hudson Bay, Egeland's 40-member team - nurses, nutritionists, dietitians, lab technicians and bilingual interviewers - has been using the ship as a travelling medical centre, collecting blood samples, testing glucose levels and bone density and looking for evidence of chronic diseases or contaminants.

"The logistics of doing state-of-the-art biomedical tests is really hindered in communities if you don't have a support system," Egeland said. "What's nice with the ship is that everything can be handled in a timely way, prepared and stored in minus 80 degree freezers and then packaged in a sound way and shipped for more analysis down south."

Heeding requests from Inuit leaders and with major funding for International Polar Year, Egeland broadened the scope to include mental health issues, like addiction, depression and suicide, and social conditions, like household crowding and hidden homelessness.

Researchers have been asking participants whether there were visitors staying in their home who had nowhere else to live. "We have heard of people saying that homes are so crowded that people sleep in shifts."

The long list for public housing means it's not uncommon to have several generations living together, an accomplishment in communities where houses are tiny and the birth rate is high. "If you have flu or a respiratory problem, it can spread quite easily in a more crowded home environment."

Geraldine Osborne is deputy chief medical officer for the Nunavut government, a key partner in the travelling health study. Until now, Osborne said Inuit have been shielded from chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease that have clobbered so many First Nations communities. Experts have long credited those healthy hearts to the traditional Inuit diet of fish and marine mammals drenched in omega-3 fatty acids. But as more families move away from traditional food, Osborne said, "we feel those chronic diseases are right around the corner."

The impact of diet change is already evident in children. In Nunavut, for instance, cases of rickets are increasingly common. "The southern diet people are adopting is not one rich in vitamin D. Milk is very expensive and many people are lactose intolerant," Osborne said.

"There's a push to get people to make smart choices, eating more eggs and oily fish, but it's not always an easy sell."

"Older people tend to eat better because they still rely on country food," said Chantal Parent, a Montrealer who has been nursing at the CLSC in Puvirnituq for three years. "When they try, they don't really know how to cook our food. So it's much easier for them to eat things that are ready made - pizza, chicken nuggets, candy and sugary soft drinks."

In the tidy clinic, adjoining the Hudson Bay Hospital Centre, Parent and nurse Émilie Fréderic are already seeing the consequences - adults and children who are malnourished yet overweight. "Diabetes is not as common as it is in Indian communities, but it is starting to be an issue," Fréderic said.

Dental health is another big concern. "Babies fall asleep with the bottle in their mouths, so even if they don't have their teeth yet, it affects them as they are teething," Parent said. "Then they eat a lot of candy and soft drinks. We often see women who are 25 years old who don't have any teeth."

Dietitian Nancy Faraj, a member of the advance team that visited Sanikiluaq before the Amundsen dropped anchor nearby, was taken aback to see children as old as 4 or 5 who were still drinking formula from a bottle - and Carnation Evaporated Milk at that. But Faraj said their job was to collect data and offer suggestions, not pass judgment. And she said the Amundsen proved to be an icebreaker in more ways than one. People who'd initially refused to take part in the study changed their minds after the ship arrived - and it wasn't only because the crew offered rides in the Amundsen's motorized Zodiac raft. "I got the feeling they realized that this was something monumental, a once in a lifetime event, and they wanted to be part of it."

Christine Iqilak, a local volunteer in Sanikiluaq, said it was also an occasion for nurses to learn something. When a visiting nurse said seal blood was rich in iron, Iqilak asked how much her friend would need to take to go without iron pills when pregnant. "The nurse did not have a clue. So I think it's a good idea to teach them about differences in culture and what you are brought up with."

Egeland said that as recently as the 1970s, Inuit families were moving in from their far-flung camps to settle in towns and villages. Now climate change is adding another wrinkle to disrupt their concept of what's normal. "If the ice is breaking up earlier or setting in later, that has an impact on whether they can get out on the land to hunt."

Eventually - full results won't be ready for two years - Egeland hopes this most comprehensive baseline study of Canada's Inuit will provide the tools needed to shape policy and health awareness campaigns, while allowing for scientific comparison with Inuit in Alaska, Greenland and Denmark.

"When you work with other cultures, they hold a mirror up to your own," Egeland said.

She noted much of our present understanding of the role of good nutrition in health stems from a landmark study that showed the low rate of heart disease among Greenland Inuit compared with Danes and other Western cultures. "That has led to a lot of interest in omega-3 as it relates to heart disease. Now it's time to give back to them."

Continuing on some of the information I have found and photographed....primarily from same internet sources as last post but the photos are ALL MINE.

When I first headed to the arctic in the summer I wanted to identify some of the flowers and the only reference books, I had referred to flowers in the Rockies. My experience was that there would have to be some similarities to those in the high alpine meadows. Two summers I did some photography weeks through the Friends of Jasper and hiking up to Mt. Edith Cavell we encountered yellow arnicas, red Indian paint brushes, Labrador tea, and tall purple fireweed. I remember that first summer of 2002 in Kugluktuk bringing 14 different home flower samples and trying to identify each with my flower book from the Rockies…very close but not identical.

Therefore, for my next few posts I am going to look at some of the similarities and differences of the two areas, high alpine and arctic.

The vegetation of tundra is low growing, and consists mainly of sedges, grasses, dwarf shrubs, wildflowers, mosses, and lichens.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Macmillan Reference USA, COPYRIGHT 2005 Thomson Gale, a part of The Thomson Corporation

Tundra is found where the climate is too hostile for trees to grow. The ground stays frozen year round, except for a thin layer at the surface.

There are two major types of tundra.

Arctic tundra dominates the far North, above the Arctic Circle.

Desert like conditions, less than 10 in /year short growing season in winter, the ground is covered by a blanket of snow several feet thick. In the dead of winter, the sun never rises above the horizon. By contrast, summer days are warmer and endless. Above the Arctic Circle, the sun never sets in summer. The upper layer of soil thaws, but just a few feet below the surface lies the permafrost, which never melts. Much of the area is covered with standing water, forming shallow marsh associations that support a blanket of sedges. These shallow marshes are critical nurseries for much of North America's waterfowl and shorebirds. In the drier areas, wildflowers bloom in one brief summer burst, along with dwarf willows and shrubs in the heath family (Ericaceae).

http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/ecology/eco_tundra.html

Alpine Tundra

Alpine tundra, found above timberline in the Rocky Mountains, Sierras, and Northern Appalachians, supports a flora similar to that of the Arctic tundra. Cushion- and mat-forming wildflowers grow amongst a carpet of dwarf shrubs and trees, sedges, grasses, and lichens. The two types of tundra are so much alike because during the last ice age, mountaintops were the only refuge for tundra plants.

Alpine tundra is tundra that occurs at high altitudes at any latitude on Earth. This is usually somewhere between 11,200 and 12,000 feet depending on latitude and slope exposure. Alpine tundra also lacks trees, but does not usually have permafrost, and alpine soils are generally better drained than permafrost soils. Alpine tundra transitions to sub-alpine forests below the tree line; stunted forests occurring at the forest-tundra ecotone are known as Krummholz.

Because my work hours are the same as those if the Park's office i.e. closed from 12-1 PM, I have not had a change to learn much of the local history or view some of the artifacts, so have decided to devote this entry to some of that information. 

K i m m i r u t ,   N u n a v u t
 F r o m   W i k i p e d i a , 
 
C o o r d i n a t e s:  6 2 .5  N    6 9 . 5 2 W
 A r e a:   2 . 2 7   k m 2   ( 0 . 9   s q   m i )
 E l e v a t i o n :  5 3   m   ( 1 7 4   f t ) 
 T e r r i t o r y:         N u n a v u t
 R e g i o n:        Q i k i q t a a l u k   R e g i o n
 E l e c t o r a l   d i s t r i c t :       S o u t h   B a f f i n
 A n g l i c a n   m i s s i o n:        1 9 0 9
G o v e r n m e n t : M a y o r   &   M L A        
 T i m e   z o n e :  E S T     -   S u m m e r   E D T   
 P o s t a l   c o d e        X 0 A   0 N 0
 W e b s i t e        w w w . k i m m i r u t . c a
 
 K i m m i r u t  k n o w n   a s   L a k e   H a r b o u r   u n t i l   
J a n u a r y  1,  1 9 9 6 ,   i s   l o c a t e d   o n   t h e   s h o r e   o f   H u d s o n   S t r a i t   o n   B a f f i n  
I s l a n d ,  

This is an accidental shot but beautiful clear day!
Men's boat race Girl's boat race An elder and pre-schooler setting off a boat and they are off... a breeze swept them fairly quickly and also helped keep away mosquitoes.

  Boiling heather to heat water for tea… Good strong flavour!

 that I am God…be still and know that I am. In the stillness of the evening, quietness and calmness that is what it was when I went for my hour hike tonight about 930 PM.

Often asked if being in the arctic if it is totally light at night….no, we are a month past solstice, summer is waning and sunset 2217 hrs and sunrise 314 hrs.

The tide was out so I walked over muddy pools and other than the occasional annoying mosquito there were very few sounds. A few ravens and gulls swooped in the cliffs and this shore bird peeped and tried to divert my attention no doubt from a hidden nest. Looking back towards town the scene was a combination of quiet natural beauty of the cliffs and water and detritus of previous human activity, as this broken down ATV and large wooden boat dry docked, no doubt, for many a season, with evidence dog teams recently moved.

In the other direction the sky was changing lovely pinks and blues, the light reflected on the absolutely still lake. An inukshuk was silhouetted on the cliff top and then I noticed another shape… a lone wolf had also come to observe the sunset , sitting quietly for maybe just 5 minutes and then disappearing.

I was rather in awe of this moment shared and headed back with a sense of at least for now all is well… reminds of closing taps sung at summer camp "Abide With Me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide. When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQlUAhdvkXA

I know this may offend some southern " baby beluga " sensibilities, we all know the song that we or our children were raised on... but until you spend time in a culture that is traditionally dependent upon hunting and fishing and shared communally, you do not have a true appreciation of the situation.

  This morning from my office which looks over the water, heard some gun shots and wondered what was up.There were at least five boats out and the Inuit hunters were out in the bay, which is not uncommon as after seal, but they shot a medium beluga whale. What followed was cutting up and sharing meat with all, on the shore, including yours truly..it is called country food.

Last week on Nunavut Day, July 9, there was a traditional feast at the community hall including races and a dice game with these pre-schoolers.

Several seals had been caught and as you see here skinned and the meat and organs shared, some raw and some to be taken home. I sampled some and liver was actually quite good, but the balance I took home and made a stew with potatoes, carrots, mushrooms and salt and pepper. Extra bones one of the nurses is giving to the dogs.

Now I am a southerner, a "kablunac" and admittedly do not understand alot of traditional Inuit culture, but I have witnessed and shared in country food and understand some of the effect of the EU ban on seal products. Although they say this excludes Inuit traditional hunting, it is still a global market, and has an affect on the prices of seal skins etc. When some of the animal rights groups, who are often urban based run ads and campaigns showing cute white baby seals being clubbed to death ( which btw has been banned since 1988 ) or use the inukshuk as a symbol, my ire is raised.

So my rant for today.....

With no surprise to those of you who know me, I have found a dog here I can take for walks or the occassional hike. Koda is a male 3 year old chocolat lab that belongs to the local RCMP. His owner has been travelling with work and left the dog to be walked by his dad, who told me Koda was energetic and sometimes got into trouble chewing things in the house. Personally I have found him a big floppy goof ball  and enjoyed my runs with him, but making sure my pockets are stuffed with treats. Here are some shots of time together. This bleached caribou antler provided much amusement as he tired to tow and chew it. Getting shots of the minute arctic flowers and spattered rock patterns in the stream was a challenge  as any time I stopped  a curious nose would often be right there. The bleached and broken kamotik was easier to get at a distance. Of course there is the lure of the water

 that was the situation on the last leg of this trip north as the only passenger on 30 minute  morning flight to Kimmirut from Iqaluit.  Before the outer hatch closed, I was offered earplugs, told where the first aide kit was located and how to release the door if needed...a stark contrast to the flight instructions on the previous two days.Boxes in front of me, fastened my seat belt for a unique short flight.About 9:30 AM out my window   Both clear and overcast, the ice open beyond floe edge  On the way down to Kimmirut

Kimmirut is a hamlet of about 400, originally a small trading center with a mixture of Inuit, whalers and the Hudson's Bay company. Now known as the Northern Store note the rock image on hill "HBC"  Est.1911, Surrounded by hills and small lakes this is the view across the bay .... Shore front at Kimmirut, ice had gone out just a few days previously. Dog very shy and retreated back into his house   and near the health center, young Inuit carver Peter.

Getting settled is still going to involve a few moves, my little house needs 2 broken windows repaired and inside covered with soot, so repairs scheduled for this week. In the interim staying above the health center and welcomed by the local nursing staff and RCMP in  potluck Friday night.Social service office...well a question of what works and what doesn't...and needed a basic cleaning which I did Friday afternoon amid fielding phone calls and drop ins. Work i suspect pact is going to be busy.

Saturday afternoon had a chance for a walk on my own. New ropes on komatik looking back towards town. Sled dogs tied on the retreating ice, used new zoom lens for this shot. Lovely saxifrage only about 2 inches tall Caribou bleached antler Minute arctic flowers in early July Lovely pinks. Walking back.. Sled dogs tied up. Tides out and path on right..

Later I had a chance to get out on ATV with the two RCMP members. As a passenger on the ATV I had my pillow,  sun glasses and helmet! We went down and up this hill and fished at the point.  RCMP guys setting up the fishing rods. Surprised,but pleased and abit taken back I actually got a bite and landed  a  reasonable sized fresh water cod, my first fish ever in the north! Holding my first catch Inserted a stick and kept fresh in water. Here caught another few cod but released as too small and was not a fish eater.. some sites from the return trip..Reversing falls at a distance. Summer canvas tent: note base with rocks, in past tent rings often marked Thule sites. Road back, tent site Back at the apartment the cleaning process was tough,but stuffed the cod with stir-fry veggies,  &  did some buns from frozen dough.