Media management in the wild

Of course the early inhabitants of these parts didn't have diesel generators, they backed up their data using seal oil lamps. And an oral tradition.

Eating muktuk

Raw narwhal skin, that is, with a little blubber still attached. It's a bit like very very chewy octopus. Like a very weird sushi flavour - interesting but I probably wouldn't order it again next time. Maybe if I had had some wasabi.

Twins

John Tran and Sam Omik, two men obsessed with shooting stuff.

John steps up too

John, tired of hearing so much about how superior Sanjay's boots are, has upped the ante. In your face, Sanjay. These boots go up to 11.
This is how arms races begin. Although in this case arms don't really play a part.

Waiting on the shore, not quite sure what we are waiting for.

Here we are, having just been dropped off at an Inuit family's hunting camp, after a three-hour boat ride into a place called Milne Inlet. Apparently people call this area the Serengetti of the Arctic. I think Serengetti may be some kind of pasta. I do hope so, we haven't had lunch yet.

washing narwhal tusks

This guy was washing his narwhal tusks in the stream that runs through town. He had six of them. I am a bit confused about narwhals, they are not listed as endangered or at risk, but only Inuit can hunt them. In fact, it seems that there just isn't all that much information about them, nobody really knows how many of them there are. So perhaps they are protected from indiscriminate hunting just in case, by a society that puts care of the environment above immediate gain, and moves cautiously and wisely before endangering the delicate balance of nature.
Just kidding.
The Inuit hunt them for their meat and blubber, which they do love to eat, but the really valuable part is the tusk. They need to be registered and tagged before they can be sold, so they have to pass through the co-op, which I guess then resells them for more money. We saw the prices they go for at the co-op, they are posted. For a six or seven foot tusk, $240 per foot. This guy has six tusks, of various lengths; I figure he is soaking about nine thousand dollars in the stream. He won't be able to hunt narwhal all year, this may be his one big haul for the year for all I know, but still, in a place where there very few actual jobs as we know them down south, hunting narwhal is a pretty good thing to get good at.
It does make me wonder who is buying these things. Once they are tagged, marked up, and shipped somewhere they must cost the final buyer several thousand dollars each. Who is willing to spend that kind of money to put a weird animal tooth up on their wall?
There is a theory that narwhal tusks passing from hand to hand over a trade route from the north to Europe may have given rise to the myth of the unicorn. Maybe some of that magical value still attaches to them. Or maybe they make good pool cues. I don't know, it still seems like a lot of money. But I guess as long as someone out there disagrees, it's good news for this guy.
Bad news for narwhal, though.
Also - note to self - drink from upstream of this point only.

Dr. Seuss, field biologist

Here's an interesting-looking plant that grows all over the place here in Pond Inlet. We saw them in Greenland, too. They look oddly familiar; it took me a while to realize why. This is clearly the plant upon which Horton heard a Who. I was once in California and saw trees that looked exactly like the odd trees in Dr. Seuss' drawings, and realized that while I had thought his imaginary worlds were pure cartoon fantasies, in fact to some small extent he must have been drawing from life. Now I realize that he was faithfully depicting the arctic habitat as well. What a genius.
To further support my theory, I suggest that you look up a picture of a narwhal. See? Obviously drawn by Dr. Seuss. I rest my case.

Pond Inlet bulletin board

Naming places

In the Sirmilik park office in Pond Inlet they have a map showing the Inuit place names in the area. Europeans tended to name places for kings, queens, politicians, or their wealthy sponsors, that's why several islands in the far north are named for beer company owners, for example. The Inuit are more descriptive, if there are sharp rocks somewhere they name it accordingly. I want to visit number 233.

Shawarma below the Arctic Circle

Big news in Iqaluit: they now have a shawarma and donair place. Behind an unassuming facade next to the airport you can now find a delicious little piece of the Middle East in the Near North, which strikes me as a pretty great combination of moderate extremes. I hope I can be there one day when some people from the Midwest come visit.