Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada
After about 15 minutes a woman rushed in with credit card equipment and proceeded to uncover her tables. They were covered with soapstone carvings, jewelry, felt stuffed animals and crocheted hats and mittens. I searched thru all the bears for any musk ox they might have. There were 2. One was odd looking, standing on it's hind legs playing a drum. The other was laying down with cute little feet, darling. I grabbed that then kept looking. They also had some beautiful silk scarves, interesting item to find in the north.
The counter to the kitchen was also open with a lot of food to try. They had sampler plates set up which were very nice. It had a musk ox slider, smoked Arctic Char, puff pastry with wild cranberries and some sort of relish or chutney on a cracker. Separately they also had a large container of char jerkey and a plate of narwhal blubber and skin. I did not try the latter. Mel had 3 pieces. The musk ox tasted like beef. I had a taste only, hard to eat a magnificent animal like that. The Arctic char was excellent as were the cranberries. We discovered that the Heritage Center which was inside the high school, did not open until noon. We headed to the Northern which is their large everything store, mainly groceries. They were also closed, not opening until 10. It was 9:30, so once again we were in town too early. We jumped on a shuttle and headed back to the ship. We would be in again after an afternoon hike so getting back to the ship early was a good thing. Locals were coming onboard for a performance at 11.
The performance was to be in the atrium of the ship. We went down about 20 min early and found our table mates already sitting on a sofa that had been moved right up front, great seats! While we were waiting for it to begin we found out that our next door neighbor, an Inuit onboard to help sight wildlife, discovered his sister, Aunt and nieces in the dance group. He had no idea that they would be there and had not seen them in 5 years. There were a lot of tears and hugs going around. The performance started with a group of singers in the background, a few dancers out front. Their costumes, or typical dress, were gorgeous. Next up were throat singers. I took a video since it is such a unique thing but it did not come out so look it up on YouTube, fascinating.
The last set was the Arctic games. They had a beanbag hanging from a stand. The point was to kick it. But they had to take off on one foot, kick it with the same foot, then land on that foot. The record is apparently 9'+!!! There were 3 guys trying to do it. The young boy was just learning and doing quite a good job. The last boy, probably in his late teens, was excellent. They kept raising it higher and higher and he just kept kicking it, amazing. Next they had to kick it from sitting on the floor, holding onto one foot! Wonder how they made these up? They had one arm behind them, the other holding a foot then jumped up to kick the bag. Wow.
We had lunch then bundled up again to go ashore. This time we left from the shore for our hike. We had 3 locals with us, 2 with guns. The one man said he wanted to keep us safe. He had something loaded that would scare the bear away only. If that did not work he had bullets. We started along a path near the water. There were many small huts along the way. Our guide said he used his to get away from so many people in town. The town has a population of 480. LOL We saw a shed with chicken wire around it. Inside was Arctic char drying. The wire was to protect it from birds. A bit further down the shore was a small barge being loaded by a fork lift. It was our ship's supplies! There were cases of lettuce, asparagus, etc. It must have cost a fortune to have that flown up here. It was interesting to see. Our guide asked us where we wanted to go. Strange since HE was the guide. We walked a bit further then decided to turn around. A couple who always wants to be in the front took off on a different road, headed in the right direction. Several couples followed them so we did too. After walking for a bit I turned around and realized that none of our guides were with us nor were they in sight! We had no idea where they had gone. We decided it would be better to cut across the field to get back to the road near the shore. It was not easy walking but we finally arrived back where the zodiacs were. The guides and the rest of the group arrived about 10 minutes after us. So much for keeping us safe. We had walked 4.5 miles.
I changed back into my waterproof boots to go into town. Six of us got in a van which was being used as a shuttle. They used every vehicle available for us. This driver started talking to us about a nice cafe in town that we should really go to. It is owned by his friends and off the beaten path, so few find it. So he wanted to drop us there. We said we wanted to go to the regular drop off but he went to the cafe anyway. He said they had art for sale inside so we finally decided, what the heck. But he said he would wait for us. They had a few things but we were there for less than 5 min. Coming outside again we realized that he had left us. We went in the direction he told us to go and discovered we were very close to our destination anyway, so it was not bad. Another couple stuck with us because they had not been to town earlier so did not know their way around. We went into the Heritage Center which was inside the high school. We had to remove our boots. That's one way of keeping things clean! They had some beautiful native dress and a few miniature displays of Inuit life. It was also the town library.
We returned to the community center where Mel ate more narwhal and I looked at the new vendor tables. One carver had a beautiful rock walrus for sale. At $1500, it was a very good price because of it's size. We had seen pieces like this in Montreal and Quebec, they were thousands. Mel really wanted it but the logistics just were not right. At probably 30 pounds, it would have been difficult to get on the ship, then off, then to ship home! Not only that, the carver did not accept credit cards and we did not have that much Canadian cash. With the excellent exchange rate we have now, we did not want to give him American dollars. We left and went to the Northern. They did not have much of interest but I did find the special needles they use to sew the leather mittens. I may finish mine eventually. Returning to the center to get a shuttle, the carver said he would take $1200 for the walrus. Sorry Mel, it wasn't happening.
Our shuttle driver back was the previous one's wife. I told her that her husband had dropped us at the cafe. Then I asked if she would take us to the Maud. She did, and made up for her husband's error. The Maud is a Norwegian ship that sank in the bay in the early 1900's. They used it for storage for many years until it really sank so was of no use. Recently the Norwegians decided that they wanted it back. They build beautiful museums to display these old ships. The Maud was already up on pontoons, ready for the voyage. She left port 2 hours after we did, great timing. It will be amazing if it makes it back across the Atlantic. We headed back to the zodiacs, by now it was 5:30. There were only 17 passengers behind us, I heard them report in the radios. First off and almost the last on, that's what we like to do.
It had been a long but great day. We were ready to have a quiet day at sea. We had walked over 8 miles total and were pretty tired. After dinner we had a message on our machine, Unexpected Adventure at 8:10 in the morning, so much for quiet day! We had to change the clocks forward also, loosing an hour of sleep. I hauled my cold weather gear out again and went to sleep as soon as possible.
HI PIPER!!! Glad you are following our blog! We miss you! Love Grandma
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