Justine’s Blog

What a beautiful day. We launched into the sun rise at 4.30am and enjoyed 5 hours of calm paddling along a beautiful coastline with high cliffs and lush valleys. As we reached our most northerly point of our journey at Cap de Nouvelle France, the wind picked up behind us and a 3 Knot current appeared against us. We could mostly enjoy the benefit of a strong eddy but had to fight the current at a couple of headlands. Just as we were sprinting around a lively point, we heard the exhale of a large marine mammal and saw a massive grey hulk with 2 tusks poke out of the water. Then another one, and another. 10 walrus were going our way for about 20 minutes, presumably feeding on something in the strong currents. It was wonderful to watch them and they seemed totally unphased by us, except when one emerged 5 metres from my kayak and showed some surprise, diving under the sea again very quickly. I allay saw about 8 big arctic char under the water near the cliffs… maybe hiding fro m the
walrus!?

The coastline changed as we started to head SW, its now lower again, with some flat headlands and a few larger mountains a bit inland. There’s a wide intertidal zone in places again making us stay offshore between points. We enjoyed the following sea for about 15km before flat calm reigned again for 10km, then a headwind picked up and slowed our good pace. We landed after a short battle Into a manageable wind, finding a natural channel in the rocks that delivered us right to the beach, as long as we aren’t within 2 hours of low water. We covered 68km in 12 hours and I’m ready for bed very soon. There’s carribou in our campsite as usual. It’s about 90km to Salluit. Well have another early start tomorrow.

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There’s a bear, JF pointed into the sun in the next valley. I eventually saw the big, squat shape lumbering away from us a few hundred metres distant. But its black, i said. Its definitely a bear, JF reiterated. The binoculars confirmed a blacky brown coloured bear, a massive one, but the low sun and the distance made it impossible to see details. They do get black bears in this area occasionally, maybe it was a black bear, or an unusual coloured polar bear? I guess we’ll never know.

It was a great day for wildlife. We were land bound for the 2nd day in a row but today was sunny and much more exploring friendly. A short lunchtime walk brought us to a fox den, with 2 red colored foxes with big bushy tails scampering around on a lush patch of green grass. We watched a young carribou nervously make its way towards the nutritious feast, his eyes on the tiny red mammal guarding it’s territory. The ungulate made a casual circuitous route to get closer to the grass. He got within a few metres, probably drooling already, before a small movement from the tiny fox had him taking off and settling for the shorter darker grass up the valley.

In an evening walk we saw the foxes again and then our mystery black bear. It’s time for an early night now. The wind has dropped a lot, its still a headwind but probably only around 10 knots. The forecast is for a switch to SE tomorrow so wee well wake up at 3am and if there are no whitecaps against us we’ll launch and hope for a long day covering lots of miles. 2 bad weather days has meant that we have only 4 days to get to Salluit which is about 150km away, and we need to get there on 1st August in time to organise our stuff and get to a postoffice! Fingers crossed for that SE wind tomorrow.

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I didn’t even look out of the tent when the alarm went off this morning. I just went straight back to sleep – or tried to through the sounds of the rain pelting and the wind blasting the thin fabric enclosing us. JF did the same without the need to communicate. It was miserable out there and too windy to make any worthwhile progress.

When our bladders finally demanded we brave the elements, the white caps on the sea against us confirmed our choice. Back to bed until well after noon when it was our stomachs turn to force us out of our warm cocoon. Pizza for lunch, a few jobs and back to the cosy red tent. Total exploration today was as far as the bathroom, kitchen and water supply. It’s nice to have a chilled day off chatting and recuperating. A long trip like this makes you reflect on life and it’s powerful. Despite that, we hope that the bad weather passes sooner than forecast (tomorrow is also due to be windy from an unfavorable direction). The alarm will go off at 3am tomorrow just in case, and it remains to be seen whether it gets the same treatment.

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I was going to be uncomfortably hot in my drysuit this morning. The sun was beating down on a calm day, my watch read 17 degrees C, sheer luxury for the Arctic, and dare I say it, almost too hot for my Kokatat drysuit and onesie. 8 hours later the watch says 5 degrees, it’s raining, and visibility is reduced to about 5 miles distant. Inbetween times we enjoyed a 5 hour stint with a fantastic 10-15 knot wind pushing us along nicely. The conditions are always changing here.

Yesterday we enjoyed a wonderful day off. The first one we’d had for at least 10 days. The weather was beautiful, sunny and calm but we needed a break from paddling all the time. We relaxed, ate well and went for a nice walk on the tundra, seeing lots of carribou. 2 lovely big rackers were grazing right by out tent this morning when we woke up.

We made up for our day off today distancewise, covering 59km in a little under 10 hours. The tidal range in Hudson Strait is much less than Ungava Bay but we still need to pay attention as it’s still up to 5.7 metres. We paddled along one 3km channel between an island and the mainland with baited breath today. Although our maps marked it as not drying, they are not that reliable. We’re now camped in a pretty valley with a beach covered in seaweed. I have my fingers crossed for the rain to stop overnight.

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