Ulakhoktok, Northwest Territories, Canada
The zodiac ride was less than 15 min. They had a step to help you get out of the zodiac so you could almost step from that to dry land. It was good to have the boots on though, just in case. We had brought other shoes to use to walk around town so changed into those. We were told which buildings had art work for sale or otherwise. This area is known for their art prints. We went to the community center first. They had tables set up with many crafts. There were a lot of qiviut items such as hats and headbands. Qiviut is yarn made from musk ox fur. They were beautiful but expensive. Most of the carvings were made from musk ox horn so thin and stylized. I bought a print and several cards. From there we went to the school. They had some nice displays of old tools, clothing, etc from the area, the only museum like place in town. They had set up tables to sell in the gym, most of them were empty. I did find the artist who did the print I had bought. He was selling the same one for half the price. I bought another one from him. Nice man. There were some beautiful mittens and boots made of leather with fur trim or seal fur. There were also some carvings and beaded jewelry. They were giving out Arctic char chowder and bannock. It was a very tough, donut shaped bread, fairly tasty.
From the school we visited the art center. They had a woman working on a knitting machine and another making a print. The technique was one I had not seen before. She was using makeup brushes with stencils cut from plastic. It was nice to see how the prints were made. There was really not much more to see. We went to the Eskimo Cooperative, they had never gotten around to changing the name. The food items were very expensive, $12 for a 5 lb bag of flour! We thought about buying a dish towel that said Ulukhaktok, but it was $20!!! We walked around town taking a few pictures then returned to the ship.
They had some Inuit women on board teaching how to make native mittens at 10 and 1. We had another excursion at 1 so we're glad that we made it back just before 10:30 so I could go to the class. It was pretty frustrating as the women were very slow in showing us how to mark then cut the leather. Then it took ages for them to cut the fur trim. I took a lot of pictures so hopefully I can complete my mittens at another time. I barely had time to do a few stitches when I had to go to lunch and get ready to go ashore again. The women were lovely, trying their best to help us. It was really kind of them to come onboard.
Mel has had a cold for the last few days and didn't think the cold air had done him much good in the morning so decided to cancel the afternoon hike. Crystal was nice enough to not charge us even though we had been told we had to cancel 48 hrs ahead to not be charged. I took off on my own. The couple we had dinner with at the specialty restaurant was in the group and everyone is friendly enough, it was not an issue not having Mel there. We were told to use the restrooms on the ship as the facilities were not great on shore. Then the first thing we did was stop at the Art Center for 20 minutes to use the restrooms! We were met by several local guides. One was the vice principle of the school. He was there with his dog. Another was a young lady who is a scientist, just helping out I think? She was carrying a high powered rifle. That made walking in the Arctic a different experience. The main guide was Inuit. He also had a gun. The gun toters were placed in front of and behind the group. There were about 30 of us. The guide and long legged hikers took off at breakneck speed. I ended up somewhere in the middle of the pack, having several people pass each time I stopped to take a picture. We followed a road out of town. We saw the garbage dump at the edge of town. Garbage is a real problem since it is so expensive to haul away. And with the permafrost, it is pretty impossible to bury.
The landscape is very stark with very low lying plants and a lot of lichen. The rocks were black. There were several small lakes and a small cemetery just outside of town. Our destination was a larger lake where they get their drinking water. A heated pipe goes 40' down into the lake bringing up water year round. There was a container holding a filter system at the edge of the lake. The vice principle let his dog loose and he tore around, happy to be free. He even jumped into the lake!
We did not follow the road back but headed up to the top of a ridge for the return trip. It was mostly rocky with a nice view of the golf course on the other side. The course is all brown and gravel except for the greens which are AstroTurf. Crazy. We walked along the ridge as long as it was smooth rock then went back down the hill to the road and returned to town. We had walked about 4 miles. Most of the group headed back to the ship. I returned to all the places we had been in the morning. I wanted to see if any more people had shown up to the gym....not really, maybe 2 or 3....then went to the community center to just take a longer look. The man collecting payments said he had done very well and that sales were better this year than last year with the same cruise. We had heard that there were some community complaints that people did not buy much.
On the way back to the zodiacs I took a few pictures. I saw three ship containers with about eight people making an assembly line to empty them into the back of the store. Ulukhaktok gets one supply ship a year. It had arrived into the harbor just before we did so they were busy unloading it. It had brought three prefab homes as well as a lot of food supplies, atvs, etc. The people unloading noticed me taking their picture so started waving. Everyone was extremely friendly in town.
At the shore there were several ladies selling things who had not been there before. I fell in love with a wall hanging. The woman who made it said it was of her ancestral home, an igloo. There was an Inuit hunting seal thru a seal hole in the ice with seal and a walrus underneath. At the bottom was another Inuit looking to see if the hunt was successful. It was not cheap so I debated in buying it or not. Before I could ask if that was her best price she said a she would be very happy if I gave her a bit lower price. Sold! Her friend said I would be very happy with it. I said I knew I would be but not so sure about my husband. They both started giggling like crazy, it was very cute. One even high fived me. Agnes, the maker, was very happy with the sale. I mentioned to someone as I was going to get on the zodiac that I had bought one of Agnes' wall hangings. They said Agnes was extremely happy. Guess I made someone's day! It was a big sale for them.
The zodiac back to the ship was uneventful. I arrived at about 3:30. It had been a very interesting day.
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