Farewell for now, Iqaluit. This beach was home base all week. Each day, I watched the tide, and the ice, come and go. I saw a beluga between these ice floes and wondered each night if the ships would still be around in the morning. I loved the flowering tundra and met many new people….
(Post 1 of 4) This is the place I was looking for. Just another house, or so I thought. I walked all around the neighbourhood this afternoon looking for the artist Matthew Nuqingaq. I didn’t know this was his studio, and I didn’t find anyone nearby, so I gave up and went for a cup…
(Post 2 of 4) The first thing I noticed at the Baffin Deli was this necklace, and then the guy wearing it. I stopped to ask him about it, only to find out that he is Matthew Nuqingaq, the guy I was looking for. He brought me back here, to his studio. Notice the homemade…
(Post 3 of 4) Barbra Akoak is a young artist working in Matthew’s studio. She engraved these ulu earrings with patterns from traditional tattoos that honour the seal. “The zig zag represents the flame of the qulliq” (a seal oil lamp). “I bless the metal, the stones, myself, everything. My family tells me that I’m…
(Post 4 of 4) I met artist Matthew Nuqingaq by chance at the Baffin Deli, where he goes twice a day with the Grumpy Old Men’s Coffee Club. Maybe you will see him there.
(Post 1 of 2) It’s been about six weeks since I returned to the Arctic for this project, #meetthenorth. I will spend the next two years meeting northerners from different countries, and this weekend, during #ParksDay, I introduced myself to this friendly face. As often happens with Meet the North, an introduction led me somewhere…
(Post 2 of 2) Sunday morning at St. Simon’s Mission in Apex, Nunavut. Paul Idlout looks very different than he did yesterday where I met him at the park (see the last post). Paul was a pastor who worked in several communities. What he didn’t mention, but others did, is that in 1996 he became…
(Post 1 of 5) Grounded in #iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut on Baffin Island, with lots of time to check out the neighbourhood. The long view from this part of town: the river, the fog and two locals checking their fish net. Arctic char come in under the same ice that is locking down boat…
(Post 2 of 5) This one’s is lovely: Pedicularis hirsuta (hairy lousewort, but common names are not encouraged by my guides, Jeff and Roger). I’m walking with @museumofnature botanists here in Iqaluit. The tundra is lush compared to #svalbard where I spent much of the spring. Here it’s heather, sweetgrass, willow, poppy, saxifrage, and bearberry…
(Post 3 of 5) Here’s a man who knows how to handle a bistort. Senior research assistant Roger Bull uses his impressive plant collecting knife to prepare some Bistorta vivipara root for me to try. Yummy.