In Full Bloom

The Arctic is in full bloom with beautiful flowers that are mostly white, yellow and different shades of purple.   I love July in the Arctic and everyone forgets how cold the winters get when the temperatures have been hitting an average of 17'c these past few days.  The one thing I could do without are the mosquitoes.  Now, I'm a Manitoba girl and I am used to the little blood suckers but the ones up here are smaller and about a zillion more of them.  You can actually hear a low hum when you are out on the land where it is quiet.  I don't like using bug spray but there is no way you can go out to enjoy this weather without using spray.  You can opt not to use protection but be aware as you will have 3/4 of your blood taken away...so out comes the deet.

I had a great week spending time with Les and Tyler from DFO and my home province.  They left Thursday but we will see Les again in a month and Tyler will return in the fall.  Les comes up here every year to do field work on Arctic char and they are also a partner for a monitoring program that should last for 5 years.  Today 3 of our fishers flew out by float plane and 2 monitors to Surrey River.  If things go as planned I too will be heading out tomorrow evening with Stephane (our general manger at work) and we will bring Craig along for the ride.  I have never been to Surrey so I am excited to see it.

Last night Craig and I headed to Ryan, Gary and Kate's cabin which is located on the shore of the Northwest Passage.  It's a quaint modest one room cabin and the views are spectacular.  We arrived around 8:30pm and left around 1:30am and the skies were the same brightness.  I still find it amazing that we have 24 hours of daylight.  When Craig and I arrived in town we headed towards the float base as there have been many sightings of a grizzly bear and cub.  We didn't see the bears but we did seen an Arctic hare on the way home.

Today Craig spray painted one side of our sea container to get rid of the graffiti from the old owners and I edited today's pics and worked on my tan.  You may think you can not get a tan up here but not only can you get a tan but you can also burn.  You know it's summer up here as many of us walk around sporting raccoon eyes, a classic Arctic fashion.

Enjoy the pics tonight - there are close to 40 of them.

Talk soon!

 Molly wanting someone to play ball

Hannah relaxing in the warm Arctic sun

Molly watching the ducks in the pond

Loads of duck foot prints on the shore

Found a lemming

The view of the perfect dog spot

Arctic cotton has bloomed

 So has the Arctic poppies

More poppies

Still a bit of snow in places

Arctic poppies and daisies growing out of the rocks

Hannah loves this spot as much as I do

So many flowers in bloom

If you look closely you can see the many mosquitoes on and around Blitz. 

So many colours

Flowers as far as your eye can see

Purple saxifrage in amongst the rocks

Flowers grow where you least expect them to

Mountain Avens

Molly laying with the colourful flowers

Found these along the roadside

One of the tallest flowers at about 8 inches

Daisies

Shorthair hitting the water

Proof!

Still ice on the bay but check out the crystal clear waters

Seen this Arctic hare on the way home last night

Sparrow's nest on a staircase - look at the feathers inside

Sand piper's nest along the ocean - not much of a nest

Ryan, Gary and Kate's cabin

Their view of the ocean

Old wooden boat I found along the shore

This one is in front of the cabin

Still lots of ice on the ocean - photo taken about 1am

Oscar and Darrell getting ready to leave - they built Oscar a new platform for the quad and I think he likes it

Brutus and Ryan packing up, Brutus is an old pro at riding the quad

On our way home about 1:30am - yes it was this bright out