The Beauty of the Tundra

The inside of the Anglican Church

I arrived 15 minutes early at the Anglican church this morning, so I took a seat around the middle and snapped some pictures while I waited for the service to start. There were only a handful of elders at the Inuinnaqtun service, held every Sunday at 11:15 am. Mary Kilaodluk led the service, and was very kind to tell me the page numbers for the hymns and scripture readings in English. At one point, she turned to David and conversed with him for about a minute. I could have sworn that she said the word, "kublunuk" (white person) several times, but I wasn't sure what was going on, of course. Then, she read the passage in English for me. : )

Later in the day, Lisa took me four-wheeling out to Mount Pelly! It was a beautiful day (the temperature is about 7 degrees Celsius now), and it seemed that everybody was out at their cabins enjoying the fine weather. Now that the ice is almost gone, the muskox are down by the river and wildflowers are beginning to bloom. I never knew rocks and moss could be so beautiful, but that is basically all that the tundra is, and boy, is it gorgeous! On the back of her four-wheeler, I caught myself grinning at all I saw, which unfortunately made for a very gritty mouth.

Moss, lichens, rocks and wildflowers

We hiked up Mount Pelly to the very top, encountering a hunting fort on the way up! I'm sure there's a more official name for it than "hunting fort", but regardless of its name, it's basically a stone wall that people hid behind while waiting for caribou and muskox to come along. Mount Pelly is known to be a popular muskox 'resort' of sorts, since it is home to lots of yummy plants for them to eat. At the top, there is a World War II memorial to all of the Inuit who served.

From the hunting fort...to the top!

The view from the side of Mount Pelly. Just a few weeks ago, all that land was covered in ice!

On our way back to town, we swung by Old Town, which is home to the old stone church, the Eagle, the radio tower (which has its own Wikipedia page!), the (failed) wind farm and the Maud. The Maud is a shipwreck that is visible only during the summer when the ice melts. She was meant to sail the Northeast passage, but in her later years she supplied goods to trading outposts instead. She got stuck in the ice at Cambridge Bay in 1926 and sunk in 1930. All that remains is the bottom of the boat; the wood was all picked off by locals (wood is a precious commodity in the Arctic!).

Lisa took me right underneath the tower! We are not afraid of danger! : )