Author: Justine

This morning we were camped on such a shallow beach that leaving at high water was desirable! A small push from the ebb current and a wind that swung behind us meant we made quick progress north, playing Russian roulette by taking short cuts inside islands over channels that dry out with alarming speed. Today at least, we got away with it. We stopped for a late lunch of homemade smoked salmon, crackers and dried mango. We were on the rocky intertidal zone for no longer than 30 minutes and the water level dropped almost a metre leaving our kayaks high and dry. It's one of the reasons we chose plastic boats for this trip. We also were dismayed that in the same time the wind had switched direction and we now fought a headwind that increased in strength over the next hour so we were making only 1.5knots progress at one point. Things change quickly here, with no noticeable lull between.

We landed on a small island off Ivik island at pretty much lo w water. A 400 metre portage with the kayaks on our trolley feeling like a better option than paddling on into the wind.

Once on land, in the shelter from the wind, the sea looked like nothing, we couldn't look on it with smug satisfaction thinking look what we battled. We just felt like wimps! But really we knew it was a tiring battle.

The mosquitos are out in force on this island. Bowen inside the tent, i can hear them buzzing outside! I hope i don't need a pee in the night!

The landscape was a little different today, the intertidal zone offering a few more landing options, and the occasional gravel beach breaking up the rocky monopoly.

When paddling, we can identify areas of land that don't get covered by the sea by their black colour, the rocks are covered with a brush of tiny black lichen. Sometimes there is a bed of grass or moss, oftentimes it's just smooth, or jagged, black rock. We are surrounded by birds, pigeon guillemots , eiders, geese, gulls and the occasional loon. We've only seen 3 seals, perhaps because they are hunted here.

On this island there are a few stone circles, obviously made by man, whether in ancient or modern times i don't know. Yesterday our campsite was littered with used toilet paper. There is subtle evidence of man here all around, but we have seen very few people. Its not a well traveled highway and we're enjoying having it largely to ourselves.

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If it’s windy here, you can’t just get off the water when it gets too strong as for 6 hours out of every 12, you can be 2km from shore with an uneven boulder field between you and a dry campsite. So today we decided to stay put in fairly strong NE winds. We watched the whitecaps from the tent this morning and went back to sleep. Launching is only really practical an hour, or at some places 2 hours either side of high tide. This means we get to lie in longer each day as today high water was 10am, (but then we paddle later too).

This afternoon we walked 4 miles to a river that looked promising for fishing. We found some deserted cabins and then a massive rubbish dump, before coming across a community that we had thought was abandoned ( and that isn’t marked on our map). Aupaluk had a massive water treatment plant, police station, a well stocked store, kids playground, 90 post office boxes and even an ice rink. The people we saw smiled but didn’t engage in conversation with us, apparently not that curious about 2 strangers who walked into town. We left with a box of eggs and some orange juice with lots of unanswered questions. It just felt a bit wierd to start asking questions to someone.

Now we are back in the tent, happy to be out of the wind. Its really very cold when its windy. We may be stuck here tomorrow but we’re hoping for a change in forecast. Thacks to Karel Visel for sending us daily forecasts.

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Despite the alarm going off at 5.30am today, by 1pm we had kayaked less than 4 miles! We couldn't blame the weather today as it was almost calm. The first set back was my left wrist. I woke up conscious of an intense pain when i flexed it. I hadn't had any discomfort paddling so i must have slept on it strangely. It was tender on top of the wrist and i was almost useless at packing up camp as i couldn't do any twisting or flexing. JF had to put on my spraydeck and even undo my drysuit zip when i needed a pee! Some ibuprofen gel and a wrist brace made it feel much more secure and strangely paddling didn't hurt it at all. I probably even paddled with better technique than usual as i made sure to keep my wrist straight.

Our second delay was when 15 minutes out JF spotted some moving dots on the shore. The binoculars showed they were magnificent musk ox. Excitedly we turned back to land and walked a few hundred metres to get a good view of the herd, with one little baby scampering around amongst them. It's the first time I've seen them and if have liked to get even closer but we didn't want to disturb them.

Delay number 3 was when JF started drooling over a big river that he supposed would be a good spot for fishing. When we started hearing motor boats in that general direction he knew the fishing must be good as we hadn't seen anyone else for a couple of days. Close to the river mouth, a big green canoe with an engine on the back saw us and made a detour over. The 5 occupants had been catching arctic char in the river and were looking for seals and beluga whales to hunt and eat. We followed them into the river and tried our luck at fishing. No bites in 30 minutes and the tide was dropping quickly. We better leave while we could. I enjoyed a bouncy run down some class 2 rapids, thankful of a plastic boat. One of the locals called us over and showed us an atlantic salmon that he'd caught in a net and he offered it to us for our dinner. We happily accepted before waving goodbye.

After lunch on a rock, it was 1.30 pm and we had barely made any progress paddling wise but we were happy and smiling, it's about the journey after all.

A 9 nautical mile crossing of Leaf Bay took forever. Inside the channel to our west are the world's largest tides and despite being 10 miles from the narrow section we felt the effect of being carried in various different directions. We were happy it was calm and we didn't attempt this yesterday in strong winds. The last km or so took forever as the current turned against us.

We landed in the very pretty Gyrfalcon islands and made use of an unexpected conveyer belt of current to carry us north. Once it ended, we landed on a rocky, barren pile of stones of an island and have made camp with a lovey view of many of the surrounding islands. Of course, we had salmon for dinner.

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The wind blew our tent all night and we thought maybe we’d have the same following sea as last evening but alas the SW forecast came true and we battled into 20 knots making about 2-2.5 knots progress. It wasn’t enough to motivate us to keep going and we stopped after only about 6 nautical miles. The prospect a 4 and 6 mile crossing at a snails pace not inspiring us. We landed at a headland 3 hours after HW where the long portage up to the high tide mark was “only” about 400 metres on mostly gravel and stones. It was as good as it was going to get! We didn’t set up the tent at first as it was a beautiful warm, sunny day and we hoped the wind might drop later so we could paddle on. We went for an explore of the tundra and found lots of carribou scat and fur and a dusting of tiny flowers. As the sea went out further we marveled at the massive power of the tides. It was windy enough that we hadn’t seen any mosquitos for 24 hours but as soon as we decided to sit in a rock and enjoy
the sunshine, they appeared in a swarm around us. The wind still felt like 10-15 knots but it must have dropped enough for the hardy Arctic stinging machine to tolerate. As gusts came, the mossies disappeared but with every lull they gathered forces and returned en masse with the sole mission of funding any tiny millimetre of exposed flesh. We rallied our defences and braved the battlefield for a while longer. Then suddenly in an instant the wind swung round to the North West and intensified. I went from hot to needing 2 jackets and a wooly hat in 5 seconds. The only saving grace was that we never saw another mossie for the rest of the evening.

We cooked udon noodle soup with homemade deer jerky, filtered some water from a nearby pond and watched with admiration, and then alarm, as the sea came further and further up that beach towards us. JF quickly studied the tide tables. It was almost 2 hours until high water and we could expect it to rise another 1.5 metres. Oh dear! We reluctantly moved the tent, kayaks and pack alarm to higher ground, This time going above the highest grounded iceberg! Its now 45 minutes before high water and would be under a foot of water eighty now if we hasn’t moved! Its a learning process and a grand adventure.

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