Eleven to One

Cambridge Bay located on the south coast of Victoria Island

Those are great odds if you’re wanting to make some money and your horse wins! However, here in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut it has a whole new meaning. At 69 degrees North Latitude along the south coast of Victoria Island, we are above the Arctic Circle...the Magic Circle as I've called it on this trip's blog.

It's quite simple really. The lands above the arctic circle are referred to as the arctic zone and below is officially...the Northern Temperate Zone. What is this Arctic Circle that we've often heard about?

In mapping, the Arctic Circle is one of the five major rings of latitude mapped on the earth. The Equator, the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, the Antarctic Circle and then there is ours....the one just south of me. The circle really is the point of latitude where the sun either remains above or remains below for a 24 hour period...i.e. the summer and winter solstices.

Viewing from the north pole, Cambridge Bay is on the North West Passage..& the Arctic Circle is noted

Yesterday, the actual Arctic Circle was at 66 Degrees and 34 Minutes North...yes, as of yesterday. I mention this as it actually fluctuates...fully dependent upon the angle of the earth to the sun but it's also moon dependent. So I'm about 31 degrees south of the North Pole...have no fear, though, I'm not planning on going there this time around.

Since tuesday, the sun has officially been above the magic circle. I say officially, since we, here in Cambridge Bay, just couldn't see it...with the fog, cloud, and winds swirling our snow flurries...just not the clear days of last week. Wednesday we had 24 minutes more of daylight...yesterday an additional 19 minutes. Add that to the additional 17 minutes of today and by next monday we will have added over two hours of daylight to our daily darkness.

My window view was various stages of foggy this week

That's right...in a week since the sun crept above the magic circle we will be adding two hours of daylight to our day and that will continue to increase. IN ONE WEEK...that's very significant. Now we have had light...from about 11 in the morning, through noon and on to 1 p.m. Then the dusk would start and by 2 in the afternoon, with no moon, it was totally black outside.

Working my way to the shore I could see "sun"

At 3 in the afternoon, the first week...while sitting in the staff lounge at the Kitikmeot Health Centre, a very strange sight for me has been occurring with regularity. It has been very strange to watch the kids leaving both the ice rink, across the street from the Health Centre, and leaving in groups from the school just down the street in total darkness at 3:30 in the afternoon.

A major difference here from Rankin Inlet has been the absence of school buses. At that community, with a population of almost 5,000, there were school buses visible throughout the town in the morning, at noon hour and after school due to size of town and population. In Cam Bay, I'm told that due to the size of the hamlet (population 1800) only the younger children are bused, the remainder taking their walk four times a day since the town is more compact.

The differences in community size contribute greatly to the lifestyle and amenities of each community. I met an RCMP officer at the Yellowknife airport. He added an interesting facet to the job of a police officer in the arctic regions as he did relief work. Many of the hamlets are small and are staffed by 2 person detachments. Of course, these folks get vacation time and, may require personal time out of the community due to health or other circumstances.

His function was to travel to these communities providing the additional staffing required while the duty officer was “out of the community”. I met him as he unwittingly provided some security for my hand luggage while at the airport. He was seated, talking on his cell, as I pushed my cart by and acknowledged him with a nod.

The bead work and the handcrafted nature
These Beaver mitts are not standard issue!

At check in, an hour before, one of my fellow travellers had mentioned to me that the sun was just beginning to rise. What to do…I wanted to take some early 10 a.m. photos of the sunrise…but I had cabin luggage. Problem solved…I simply left my cart next to the Mountie.

Afterwards when I returned, we started a conversation about many topics…north related. I admired his beaver mitts and asked if they were standard issue…which invoked a response not fit for publication here. He had them custom made…the handwork was stunning. After many stories back and forth, he was onto his next assignment to Fort Smith, or the like….after loading and then unloading, I was weathered for the next two days.

Ready for an early fishing trip...it will be a while !!

It’s hard to believe today is the fifteenth of the month but the changes here have been interesting, to say the least. The first saturday after I arrived was a pleasant, clear, crisp day. With a temperature hovering around the -28C mark, I decided it was a day to explore my new town. Once dressed, I made my way down to the Inns North, had some breakfast in their restaurant and after exploring their conference room artifacts, I left to wander through the town during the next hour or two of some decreasing daylight.

One of two ships "wintering" over

A left and right turn along the way got me past the temporary headquarters of the Canadian High Arctic Research station. The new one will be complete next year and fully operational. It will add jobs to the community and provide a stimulus to the town with new services required, both housing and supplies. This research will be about all aspects of life and climate and geology and encompass the changing face of the Canada’s high arctic.

The wind was blowing lightly as I made my way down the street, along the waterfront and out onto the ice. There are two ships wintering in town this year. The two big ships are attached by cables to the dock…those cables were stretched taut, as these vessels have been moved and manipulated by the heavy ice as it had formed from October onwards. Deep fissures and stress cracks were visible in the ice. There were no open sections of water…those had long since closed…just later this year, once again.

Snow on top of the ice was non-existent. The only evidence of drifting was along the shoreline, against the hulls of the 2 ships and along the edges of the government dock. The ice was clear…reminiscent of my travels earlier last week in Old Towne of Yellowknife. There, while walking on a small section of the expanse known as Great Slave Lake, I had discovered a small four passenger high wing aircraft parked along the shoreline. Objects nearby offered some protection from the winds…but what had amazed me was the plane was equipped with wheels not skis as I had expected.

The reflecting sunshine on the Northern store at noon

Here, in Cambridge Bay, it was just about noon hour and the town siren would sound at any moment as it does every day at noon and repeats again at 10 p.m. at night. The same siren is used in town should the volunteers for the fire department be required. At high noon, the sun was not yet scheduled to come above the horizon…but the vast “sunscape” was beautiful...a combination of colours and textures not just directly to the south but the hues of pinks and purples to the north gave more colours than any Sherwin Williams paint display could ever.

I watched the sun for a few minutes and you could see a bright portion barely visible below the horizon, and I hoped that my lunch hour in the next few days would allow me to see the blip increase each day. Due to cloud cover it never occurred except on paper and on the Weather Underground (Cambridge Bay) website.

After four days of cloud and fog...with visibility less than a mile, today was crystal clear, colder but clear. Hardly any clouds in the sky and by coffee break the morning dusk was starting to break. Today would be the first day that I could see the sun above the horizon. At noon, I put on my over pants and boots…got my coat, toque and gloves…grabbed my camera…and proceeded out the door towards the shore.

It's UP......It's GOOD !

Along the way I cast a shadow…the last shadow I had seen was in Yellowknife below the magic circle almost 2 weeks earlier. At noon, with the moon high in the east, at least half the disk of the sun was above the horizon. It was hard to tell if it was sunrise or sunset…so I just label these shots as “sunscapes” …hoping they fill that description well enough.

Returning to the Health Centre just before 1 p.m. today…. IT’S OFFICIAL…I can take the oath. The sun has arrived, finally, to Cambridge Bay. Today it was available 11 to 1. It took a few extra days to prove it...but there are shadows and sunlight and the red glow in windows and on buildings. Who knows, the way the days are getting longer, so quickly, before we know it...in Cambridge Bay...it will be sandals and shorts weather.