Mike's Arctic Adventures

Greetings from Iqaluit, Nunavut! It’s been a hectic, but rewarding couple of days here in the nation’s newest territorial capital. Since my last check-in, we hopped aboard our chartered flight (thanks to the generous support of major SOI sponsor, First Air… we love First Air!) that flew us direct from sweatily-oppressive Ottawa to the cool and drizzly Iqaluit. It was quite amusing to see many of the much-underdressed students, including our two Tennessee boys – Derrick and Kevin, make a quick bee-line for the terminal. We were immediately bussed to our home for the next two days – the dormitories of Arctic College. The accommodations were definitely a bit sparser than what many were used to, but it was warm and the people welcoming. For the rest of the day, we were treated to some presentations and introductory games. The highlight for me was seeing a former SOI alumnus from 2010 – a great guy named Jonathan Alexander. Big Jon was a memorable student for me – quiet and introverted at the start of the expedition, yet Mr. ChattyPants by the end. And now, at only 18, he’s a Conservation Officer at some local parks and has serious plans to take studies in Environmental Technologies. He remembered me right away and it was obvious that SOI had a positive and continued influence on his young life, and it’s a great source of pride that I played a small role in it. After a good night’s sleep, it was a mad morning of student-staff Speed Dating (nothing creepy, just a way for all the students to get to know all the staff), followed by a great presentation on the Arctic by our resident polar explorer and expert, David Fletcher and the former president of ITK, an Inuit socio-political organization, Mary Simon. But being in the dorms for 24 hours was getting a little claustrophobic, so it was time to hit the town.

First up was one of the most surreal experiences of my four expeditions. As mentioned last entry, we have a bit of an ice problem in Frobisher Bay. It’s decided to stick around longer than usual, and the entire bay is packed with a dense collection of “bergy bits” – relatively small chunks of ice ranging from large trucks to small houses. Normally floating in the water, we arrived to find that hundreds of them had been temporarily stranded on the ground by Iqaluit’s famous tide. By walking through the muck for about half a kilometre, we were able to walk amongst these bits of ice, take amazing photos and videos and carefully climb aboard the smaller flat ones to truly become Students ON Ice. It was like walking through an alien forest of icy-blue “vegetation”, and will definitely rank high on the list of unique opportunities that only SOI karma can create. As I said to fellow staffer, Eric Mattson – “I’d cross that off my bucket list… if there was any remote way that my imagination could come up with adding that to my bucket list in the first place!” We then toured the Museum and Visitor Centre, and the Nunavut Legislative Assembly – both of these places I had been to before when visiting here at the end of 2009 Arctic. Then it was off to visit Matty McNair’s dog yard. Matty is a well-known explorer in her own right, having travelled by dog sled to both poles of the Earth. Her beautiful dogs were a highlight for me, but a slight tinge of homesickness coursed through me as I thought of my own dogs and cats I left back home. Although well looked after, some of them are elderly, and I can’t help but worry about them and miss them. So now, after an evening of some music, presentations and planning, we are preparing for tomorrow. I can tell you that one huge hurdle has been overcome – our ship, the Akademik Ioffe, has made it to port, thanks to the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Terry Fox. Major hurdle #2: how to get 120 people and thousands of pounds of luggage through the dense sea ice to safely get aboard our floating classroom. Stay tuned!! UPDATE: August 1st – We had a great launch event today at Sylvia Grennell Park, with well wishes by Inuit elders and the premier of Nunavut. But despite all the good SOI karma we could muster, the ice just didn’t co-operate. Instead of Students On Ice, we’ve become Students Stuck In Ice. Spending another night in Iqaluit!