Nunavut News/North Article

I know how it looks, but replicating stone
 tools really has nothing to do with the
"Failing on education" headline. 

I'm wrapping up a week filled with a lot of office and computer work.  I had a final report to prepare for Parks Canada on the High Arctic workshops as well as a few last minute jobs that I want to get done before Christmas and the end of the year.  I'm planning to step away from the computer over the holidays and put the blog on autopilot for a few posts.  But in order to get that little break I'm doing double duty now creating a small cache of photo posts to go up during the last half of the month.

I suppose by now you are tired of hearing me go on and on about the trip to Resolute and Grise Fiord.  I feel your pain.  So to spare you, here is someone else writing about the trip:

Click to enlarge.

 Photo Credits: Nunavut News/North

Apparently Polar Bears Don't Mind Fire

The two on the left are very large cubs belonging
to the mother on the right

If this post goes up on Monday, it means that I've left Resolute and I don't have internet access in the lodge in Grise Fiord.  I scheduled this post to go up while I was still in the South Camp Inn in Resolute Bay, which, by the way, is a fantastic hotel.  Its definitely one of the nicest places that I've stayed in the North.  Last Sunday, the hotel manager, Cheyenne, gave me a ride to the airport to pick up a couple hundred pounds of rock and other materials that I shipped up as cargo ahead of the workshops.  On the way back into the hamlet we swung by the dump to check out the bears.  We saw five hanging around, although I'm sure there were more that we couldn't see in the dark.  It was 2:30 in the afternoon, so it was already quite dusky.  The thing that really amazed me was how calmly the bears were rooting through the burning garbage.  The flames didn't bother them at all.

One of the cubs actually grabs a burning ember and drags it closer to itself.  A coal lands on its paw and the cub doesn't flinch.  Just lets it burn out.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast