Navigating the icebergs

These photos were taken at around 11pm on July 6, 2012. The small boat carefully navigated its way out through the ice using oars to push away from the hazards. Although it doesn't look like much there is a lot of ice under the surface and each time there was an impact it yielded an impressive thud.

Mega High Tide

Thursday morning saw an unusually high tide, I was late for work because I was taking photographs. Alas I realize that I didn't get any shots of the hoards of gumboot clad Iqalummiut heading out on boats armed with buckets to harvest clams at low tide.

This week's tide table

The roadway to the breakwater was flooded

Normally dry shacks got their feet wet

There is a bench just to the left of the upturned boat, it was completely submerged.

We usually drive onto the beach here, these fishermen had to wade along one of the old breakwaters to their boat

Normally we drive our cars along the beach in front of the boat that you see floating in the centre of the picture

of Bowhead, Baleen and Blubber

Inuit in the Canadian Eastern Arctic have been hunting bowhead for subsistence since the Thule Culture (1,000 to 1,600 AD). The Thule people had a strong maritime culture that included mastery of large boats (umiak) and the use of harpoons with sealskin floats that could be used to hunt Narwahl, Beluga and even bowhead. Qallunaat engaged in commercial whaling in the Eastern Arctic from 1848 to 1911, this had a massive impact on the whale population which had previously been unaffected by centuries of subsistence hunting.  The bowhead is one of the largest baleen whales, second in weight only to the blue whale. Its blubber can be as thick as two feet and it boasts the largest mouth of any animal with up to 660 baleen plates which can be as long as 4 metres.  A single bowhead whale could yield up to 100 barrels of oil and 1500 pounds of baleen (also known as whalebone, strips of which were used as stays in corsets).

The Federal ban on bowhead hunting was enacted in 1979, however in the early 1920's along with the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company in the area, there was a perception that the government had banned Inuit from hunting bowhead. In 1991 the Department of Fisheries & Oceans (DFO) collaborated with Inuit organizations to develop an international bowhead conservation strategy. The first sanctioned post land claim hunt took place in 1996, and was authorized with a DFO license. Article 5.5.2 of the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims agreement mandated that an Inuit bowhead knowledge study be undertaken, the final report was published in March 2000 and includes suggestions for an appropriate rate of harvesting which was initially set at one whale every two years. The DFO's 2009. selective hunting report makes the recommendation that hunts target juvenile male bowheads in order to minimize the impact on the population's recovery. Between 1996 and 2008 a total of eight bowhead whales were harvested in Nunavut. In May 2009 the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board increased the quota to three whales per year, one in each of the Territory's three regions. In August 2009 a bowhead was harvested in the Kivalik region after a 23 day hunt. The communities of Repulse Bay and Pond Inlet were also successful in harvesting whales in 2010.

On Monday August 15, 2011 we watched a group of hunters making preparations to set out on Iqaluit's first bowhead whale hunt in living memory. By 9pm the next day word was spreading that the hunters had caught a whale. The excitement in the City grew as details trickled in and preparations began for a community feast to celebrate the historic catch. High tide on Wednesday morning saw a fleet of community members head out to help butcher the behemouth and 24 hours later the first slabs of maqtaaq appeared on the breakwater, followed by meat and then the return of the hunters on the evening high tide. (The tidal range here is as much as 11m so boats cannot access the breakwaters at all times).

CFLC and HMCS Summerside

This weekend we were lucky enough to join the Canadian Forces Liaison Council (CFLC) for a portion of their Iqaluit ExecuTrek. The CFLC works to promote employer support of the Canadian Forces Reserve, one of the ways in which they do this is to bring employers out to see the reservists in action. The group that we spent the day with were from the Maritimes (for the non-Canuck readers that means New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia) and included HR directors, Company CEOs and City Mayors. As the host destination Nunavut was represented by the Territory's Commissioner and the Government of Nunavut Communications Officer, the City of Iqaluit was represented by the Mayor, the CAO and his assistant, and (this is where we come in) Deputy Fire Chief. The local RCMP detachment was represented too, although he had to surrender his sidearm before boarding the HMCS Summerside!

We gathered at the old jetty on the far side of the inlet at 9am on Saturday morning. A fishing boat acted as a water taxi to ferry us out to the HMCS Summerside where we had to climb a rope ladder to board the 55m Kingston-class coastal defence vessel. 

Captain Luc Tremblay welcomed us aboard and we were given tours of every inch of the ship, from the Captain's quarters to the engines. After an excellent lunch we were treated to a man overboard drill. the water surface temperature registered at barely 5 degrees C so they used a dummy rather than a real victim.

Next on the agenda was a surprise tour of the US Coast Guard Cutter Willow from whom the HMCS Summerside took on 40 tons of fuel. The ships are in the area as part of Operation Nanook which is an annual multi agency operation to exercise Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic.

Clam Digging 101 (a guide for Qallunaat)

Step 1 - Consult the tide tables and identify an appropriate low tide. The lower the low tide the better. On Monday August 1 the 14:55 low tide was 1m, an extremely low tide thanks to the new moon.

Step 2 - Apply liberal quantities of Off to deter the voracious mosquitoes and go to the beach, ideally one without rocks. The example shown in the picture below is of a very poor clam digging location.

Step 3 - Look for clams which you can spot by the protruding "usuk" (penis in Inuktitut tee hee). They are sensitive and withdraw with a squirt of water the moment they sense movement, presumably wishing to avoid being dug up and eaten. Bearing this in mind we would not recommend that other readers take their dogs with them when clam digging as their busy investigation of the beach may cause some (or nearly all) of the clams to go into hiding, leaving nothing but holes in the sand to taunt us.

Step 4 - Dig around the clam which will withdraw into the muddy rocky sand the second you disturb it. This is where the non-rocky beach comes in handy as digging around rocks is slow work. We would recommend a large shovel to save bending over and to speed up the excavation.

Step 5 - Plunge your hand into the icy water and pluck the mollusc from it's burrow. We were told to wear rubber gloves but didn't take any on this exploratory mission, next time we will definitely wear some glamorous washing up gloves for their insulating and gripping properties.

Step 6 - Place the clam in a bucket of water and allow a few hours for the sand to clear out.

Step 7 - Cook and eat. One recommendation was to just boil and eat, another to serve with garlic butter.

The clams here are sort of like mini Geoducks. Neither Blaine nor I like Geoduck so we dug only to see if we could capture the beasts. I am going to search for some recipes that sound appealing, then we will head out to a less rocky spot and dig in earnest.