Hey! It's a lookout!

On Saturday ManNorth and I went on a small adventure that gave me a chance to check a few “firsts” off my list. Here’s a smattering of them, along with some photographic evidence.

1. I travelled the farthest north I’ve ever been.

2. I both melted and added to the ice of a winter ice road. (Hey, when one’s had too much coffee and there isn’t an appropriate facility for hundreds of miles around, what else is one going to do?) No, there’s no photographic evidence of that. Here’s another section of the road instead.
3. I crossed a section of Canada’s northern tree line and was surprised at how abruptly it ended. See the trees on the closest two hills on the right? There’s only one on the next hill and then nothing but tundra. 4. I drove on, walked on, ate and drank the Beaufort Sea (also known as the Arctic Ocean). (Drinking occurred after I hacked off a piece of ice from a pressure ridge, had it freeze to my tongue and then melt. It wasn’t as salty as I thought it would be. Eating was accomplished by chewing some of the ice.) 5. I climbed on a pressure ridge made of sea ice and marvelled at how much it looked like a frozen wave. (The formation of the ridge necessitated relocating a portion of the winter road onto the southern side of the ridge. You can see the old section of the road on the left side of the photo below.)
6. I saw my first pingo 7. ..and then I saw a whole bunch of them. 8. I discovered that although groceries are expensive in Northern Town, prices aren’t bad compared to those of Northern Hamlet. 9. I was asked, quite loudly and enthusiastically, if I was “Spikin?!?” by a happy woman wearing beautifully beaded sealskin boots on our way into the Northern Store in Northern Hamlet. “No,” I answered rather confusedly, although I wondered if perhaps we were or should be.

Big Red even experienced a few firsts, one of which she was quite familiar with, although never this far north:
1. She was the farthest north she’d ever been.
2. She got to drive on the Arctic Ocean. 3. She got stuck the farthest north she’s ever been and for a truck that has been stuck pretty much any where she goes, this wasn’t a particular surprise, although we’d hoped she’d forgo the thrill of it in Northern Hamlet.
(She capitalized on the opportunity to get stuck while making a sharp turn from Northern Hamlet back down a steep and narrow slope onto the ice road. In spite of her winter tires, they wouldn’t grip enough to back out of the snow bank she was close to sliding into, which she’d ended up in because her turning radius was too big, she has only rear wheel drive and the steeply angled road was made of ice. Before we could pull out the tire chains, two friendly and bemused locals helped her & us out, with a friendly tip to ManNorth that the trick of winter driving here is to avoid the snow banks. I completely forgot to take a picture to the very great appreciation of ManNorth who had been the one behind the wheel.)

One of the men helping us out informed us that a local hunter had just taken a polar bear quite close to town a few days ago, making it a total of three bears successfully hunted by the community this winter. He chuckled and said that it was lucky to take a bear so easily without having to go far and that it was good that someone was having fun in the cold. (Not the bear, of course.)

Last but not least, here’s my favourite story from our weekend adventure:
While driving around doing the secretive-touristy thing through Northern Hamlet (which involves looking like lost tourists while wandering around and hiding one’s camera while taking photos on the sly), we found a road that seemed to be taking us to one of the nearby pingos. I was keen to get a closer look and was pleased when the road abruptly ended at the edge of a small pond with a pingo perfectly framed between two low hills. Tourists who come this far north are sure to visit at least one of the nearby pingos and so I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that the local residents had decided to capitalize on the tourism and create the road and lookout to the nearest pingo for their occasional tourists.

I did wonder though, at the material used to create the barrier, believing for a moment that they’d used whatever scrap metal they had on hand.

Of course, ManNorth was shaking with laughter at my shout of “Hey! It’s a lookout!” and my musing about the barriers for we’d just arrived at Northern Hamlet’s sewage lagoon. “Can’t you smell what you’re standing in?” ManNorth inquired with a huge smile as I took a look under my feet at the brownish ice and a second look at the “lookout barriers”.

Hmm. That explained what the big truck leaving the lookout had been doing just before we drove up and why part of the lagoon was still steaming.

I won't leave you with that lovely image of the lagoon. Here's a favourite photo of the sea ice and another taken on our way back home.