Flying South

Peregrine Falcon - A summer resident of Nunavut

Time to head south.  Chances are good that I'll be home in St. John's this evening.  I mean, I have my ticket booked and my name is on the manifest for a flight out of camp at 9:30 am to Iqaluit and then Ottawa and home, but when travelling in the North (and when someone else is paying the ticket) you don't really know when you'll arrive someplace until you get there.  In 2008, Lori and I were on a Calgary-Edmonton-Yellowknife-Rankin Inlet-Iqaluit trip that turned into a three day/two night Calgary-Edmonton-Yellowknife-Rankin Inlet-Yellowknife-Edmonton-Calgary-Ottawa-Iqaluit Trip.


Although, I'm really not complaining - Nunavut is a pretty spectacular place to spend a bit of extra time.

Inukshuk, a marker on the landscape.

The Tundra in bloom

Fuzzy little bird. A young sparrow, I think.

Short growing season, intense colour

Sandhill Cranes.  They squawk every second that they are flying around up here and look like giant rubber chickens when you take their picture.  When they fly south, I wonder if they croak and yelp all the way to the southern U.S.?

Equipment cache at a campsite - the half moon shaped object is a qulliq (oil lamp) that was hand hammered from a 45 gallon drum lid.  I wonder why the people never came back for it?

Inuksuit in a line - do they point home?

Peregrine Falcon.  They hate people.  In a few weeks this bird and her chicks will fly to Brazil for the winter.  Grumpy as she is, I hope she has a good year and we'll see each other again next summer.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast