Seal hunting at the floe edge

This week is Professional Improvement Week. We have the week without kids and we get to do some fun individual and cultural activities. I decided to go seal hunting with a guy from my hockey team.

This guy is using a harpoon to check the ice. As they walk near the edge, they poke the stick into the ice to make sure it is thick enough. They also scratch the harpoon on the ice to attract the curious seal.


A hunter waiting on the floe edge. All of the floe edge (where ice meets water) is thin ice that constantly breaks off and comes back. When the ice shifts in, it breaks up and rolls into the hills of ice that you see at the edge.


Here is Alvin in his kayak. After you shoot the seal, you have to go out in a boat or a kayak to find it before it sinks. The entire floe edge is full of mist because the "warmer" water comes into contact with the cold air. The blue hazy mist can be seen for kilometres.


Alvin is getting ready to get back onto the ice. If you look closely, you can see the seal tied to the side of his kayak.


Johnny is pulling the seal across the ice. The texture of the seal is a lot like jello. I was told that this one was "a good eating seal".


Because it was a good eating seal, Alvin cut it up right away.


I learned today that a lot of the blubber gets left on the sea ice. Traditionally, they would use the blubber for oil lamps. But since we now have electricity, they leave the blubber on the ice. The polar bears come and eat the blubber and in return they get fatter bears to hunt. Of course, we all have a chance to eat some of the meat immediately. I had some more liver dipped in fresh, warm blood.


Here is one of the many cracks that forms because of the shifting ice at the edge. While we were there, the ice was cracking and shifting.


A picture of me at the floe edge. The water was so close. One more step towards the water and I would have been in.

Some randoms from late 2008

Since everyone complained at Christmas that I wasn't updating the blog enough, I though I would throw on some random pics for you to see.

We had a surprise birthday party for Marty in early December. This is a picture of the shot spear....and this is the last time it will ever be used!


World's Biggest Suck.


Some random people from Marty's party.


Dad's steaks from Paesano's. Mom's wimpy filet is in the middle somewhere.


The moon that never seemed to leave the sky in November and December.


And finally, the mustache I wore for a solid two weeks until Laura had enough and I had to shave it. I still think I was the best looking Mexican in Igloolik!

Return of the Sun 2009

Well, I finally found the time to start the blog again. The Sun is back!!! The return of the sun festival is happening this week with some different events each day. Today, we had the afternoon off today so that the kids could go play some games.


They build an igloo village with about 5 or 6 igloos. There are some elders who have been sleeping in them all week. If you want, you could put your name on a list and sleep in one of the igloos overnight.


The typical parking lot at any Arctic Event: snowmachines and qomatiqs.


Lots of people arrived with their traditional caribou skin clothing.


A dog team of puppies was giving kids rides during the afternoon. They were very cute!


Laura and Ellen enjoying some of the festivities. Ellen is the one in black who refuses to expose even 1 inch of skin.


Steve and Laura inside one of the igloos.


This was one of the igloos. It looks like two from the outside but they are joined together. They had a coleman stove heating the inside and it was very warm.


A girl sitting in the igloo beside the qulliq (traditional stove used to heat the igloo).


Laura and I inside the igloo. It was very cold outside but inside it was very nice but not quite warm enough to avoid seeing your breath when you breathe.

Parka making

The girls of Igloolik have decided to make parkas. Laura, Larissa and Maren decided to make some parkas before the onset of the cold weather. It is Larissa's first year and she decided to make a winter parka for herself. Maren is making a parka for Jay, her boyfriend, as a birthday gift from last year. Laura is making a parka that she will be able to wear back in the South when we return.


Laura and Meeka are helping Larissa size the fur around the hood of her parka. She bought the fur from Northern store and it cost about $25 a foot (it wasn't cheap).


Laura adjusting the sleeve on her parka. She wasn't happy with the location of the trim on her sleeve and actually took it all off and moved it further up her arm.


Meeka helping Laura with the sewing machine. Some stitches around the arms and the zippers were very tough but the girls managed to do a very good job.


Meeka cutting the fur from Larissa's hood.


Maren, Meeka and Larissa busy in Laura's sewing room (also known as our kitchen). It was very enjoyable having the girls over all the time to sew. I am not being sarcastic at all (maybe a little...)


The finished parka!


The back of the finished parka. Notice the pointed hood. Traditionally, every community in Nunavut would have their own style of parka. Igloolik was well known for their pointed hoods but they were traditionally only put on the hoods of the males.


Meeka and Laura enjoying a smile after the job was finally done. Laura got a lot of help from Meeka and Karen during the making of her parka. She is very grateful for all the time Meeka spent with her on the making of her parka. To practice her skills, Laura is now making me a parka for the spring time.

Fishing for some lakers

Well, it has been a while since my last post and that is probably because it has been a while since I have had any luck catching fish. This past weekend, I went fishing Saturday and Sunday and didn't catch a single fish. We went to a lake where people were taking out 10-20lb Arctic Char out of nets but nothing was biting when we were jigging.

My luck changed today. We had the day off for Rememberance Day so Marty and I decided to go fishing out on the land. We had to cross the sea ice which finally froze a couple of weeks ago. The ride is about 50 kms away over the ice and then over land the land to a small lake. We were very lucky to find an Inuit family who showed us the way to the lake. Luckily, we had a GPS that tracked our journey because the weather got bad and we had some "interesting" turns on the way.

And remember, we only have about 5 hours of sunlight now so that is only a couple of hours of fishing after you finally get to the spot!


Here is Marty with a couple of Lake Trout. These pictures were taken moments after we got back. Does everybody notice the light? It was only 4:00pm and we had been driving in the dark for about an hour.


Here is the laker I was lucky enough to catch. It's the only fish I saw but it was big enough for me.


Here are the 3 fish that Marty and I caught The Inuit family we were with each caught a fish as well. The Inuit family also emptied their net from another lake today and had about 30 fish in their qomatiq. They had a lot of fish.


Marty and I cleaning the fish. It was nice to clean something that was bigger than 1lb.


Marty cooking up the fish. Marty, Ellen, Laura and I had a fish fry for dinner tonight. It was good!

The Thanksgiving Fish n' Smoke

Laura and I went ice fishing on the weekend again. We have been taking advantage of the "mild" weather to go outdoors before it gets too cold outside. We got some snow on the weekend so the ice is finally getting covered in snow.


Steve fishing with Marty's snowmachine in sight. We had the lake to ourselves for most of the time on Monday.


We went to the lake with a good group. Steve, Marty and Ellen, Jay, Bob, Dean and Leah and Laura and myself all made the trip out. I finally thought there was enough snow to take the four wheeler out to the lake. You can see Jay's 3 fish beside the right side of the snowmachine.


Laura taking a picture with the fish I caught. I missed two fish that day and only caught one. Look at the snow "fly" by Laura in the picture. We decided to leave shortly after this picture because the weather was starting to turn worse.


When we got home, a couple of us decided to smoke some of the fish. Here are the fillets soaking in the brine.


Jay and Steve placing the racks on the smoker. Marty shipped up a Little Chief smoker and it is doing a great job.


Jay placing some fillets on the racks. We fit about 6 of the fish on the racks.


I checked on the smoking midway through to make sure everything was going well. We used some cherry, hickory and sugar maple chips. The fish tastes good except for Jay's fish. He removed the skin before smoking and his fish ended up absorbing an insane amount of salt during the soak in the brine.


The Little Chief smoker is inside. Last year, I built an insulated box so we could continue to smoke during the winter. Without the box, the smoker gets too cold and won't smoke the fish properly. I parked the ATV outside and used the inside of the shed to avoid the wind during the smoking.

Finally some fish under that ice!

We went ice fishing again this weekend. The weather was below zero all week but it was still a beautiful day out on the frozen lake. We all had better luck this week and most of us were able to catch some fish.


Last weekend the ice was only about 3-4 inches. Over the week, the ice thickened to 7 inches. We were able to drive our machines on the ice this time. There was also very little snow on the ice so we did a few donuts on the ice on the way to the spot.


Steve fishing in his hole. We were fishing in about 6-7 feet of water. You could see the fish biting your line and there were tons of little fish keeping you busy while the bigger ones were being fussy.


My insulating bed from the ice was a cardboard box and Laura's yoga mat.


Me with my two fish. We spent a lot of time changing holes because the ice is still thin enough to make new holes very easily.


A picture of me trying to find the fish at the bottom. Every once in a while, a fish would swim by your hole. We just kept jigging the whole time.


Larissa making a hole in the ice with the chipper. It still only took about 3 minutes to get through the ice. I am not looking forward to chipping through 3 feet of ice again in a couple of months.


Kim catching her first Arctic fish.


Steve caught the first fish of the day.


A picture of the first fish I have been able to catch in Nunavut. It took a while but it finally happened. I did a little filet action on these puppies and then beer battered and fried them. They were delicious!!! The meat inside was very red.