Day 12 – Kekerten Island and Pangnirtung

As I believe I mentioned before, other than the town of Kuujjuaq, all of this year’s excursions are at places I’ve never been to before – until today. This morning we returned to Kekerten Island (which I learned today is redundant because Kekerten is Inuktitut for island). Kekerten is an old whaling station that was one of my first stops on last year’s expedition and I recall being stuck by the haunting stillness of the place. If you stood still, you can literally imagine the whalers hauling these majestic creatures up the shoreline, slicing them open for their blubber oil and other body parts, the entire beach running red with blood.

It’s graphic but it’s reality. Kekerten has since been transformed into a park, with interpretive trails and displays. It was nice to be able to revisit this place and recall my memories from having experienced it a year earlier.
But there was little time for reminiscing, as my cabin-mate and fellow educator, Jeff Baxter, a teacher from Paulatuk NWT, had planned an activity to demonstrate how blubber insulates against the cold. To make a long story short, it involved Ziploc bags, duct tape and LOTS of shortening. The students really seemed into it, and raised it as a highlight in tonight’s briefing.
Pangnirtung was also a blast to revisit. Students On Ice visits this community every year, as it is at the head of a fjord where we always hike. They always give us a warm welcome, with demonstrations, food and tours. For many of the northern kids, it was a chance to revisit with some family and friends who live there. And for almost all of the students, it was a chance to taste civilization again. The Co-op and Northern Store were heavily hit, with junk food, pay phones and energy drinks the most common commodity.
The elders of Pangnirtung also generously take some time to talk to the students about the changes they have seen in their community during their lifetime that have resulted from global warming. It’s valuable first-hand evidence of this crisis, and I challenge any climate change nay-sayer to contradict their reports as the oral history of the Inuit peoples far predates any written meteorological records.

Tomorrow we're headed up Pangnirtung Fjord to Auytittuq National Park. This is where all the staff and students get separated into two groups – one for a longer 25-km hike to the Arctic Circle, while the rest do a 10-km hike to a beautiful waterfall. There was some minor disappointment as students who expected to go on the longer one were put on the shorter one as some staff felt they were physically better off there. But in the end, it will be a rewarding and challenging experience for everyone.

I hope my endurance has a better showing than it did a few days ago on Digges Island…