Spending Time with Friends

If you are from the south living up north you sometimes experience homesickness.  These past couple of weeks were like that for me so I thought the one way to help is to get together with friends and this past Saturday we had our first pizza party.  There were about a dozen of us and we all took turns making pizzas, we had your classic meat lovers, chicken with spinach and feta, bacon cheese burger and our now signature Mt. Pelly Pizza. Matilde whom we met last year is back again this year doing research on our muskox and it just so happens she is from Italy.  Needless to say at one point she kicked Craig out of the kitchen and took over making the dough.   To top off the night the guitars came out and Matilde, JS, Les and Craig took turns entertaining us.  Here is a pic of Matilde and Les admiring Craig and JS.

  

Sunday we did our get together with the Cathy and Jim to do some fishing.  It has been a couple of weeks since our last fishing day trip with them as the weather had been crappy.  It was still a cloudy and windy day but it wasn't raining for a change so off we went. We drove to the end of the DEW Line road and then onto a trail of rocks, marsh and bumpy ground. The ride was rough at the end and I jarred my shoulder so I didn't do any fishing and left it to Cathy to show the boys how it's done.  She did not disappoint and she was the only one that caught a fish, 4 lb. lake trout.

 

Cathy with the catch of the day

Jim, Craig and Cathy (on her lucky rock)

The boy discussing the fine details of fishing

Part of the shoreline

 

Arctic Willow along the shore

This video is a 360' tour of our fishing spot

 

Last Friday the ladies from work and I went around to give our fish heads to some of the elders.  One of the coolest things about living up here is that you just never know what you may stumble upon.  We came across Bessie and her daughter Eva cleaning seal skins with their ulu.

 

 

After I took the dogs out for their tundra romp last night we drove behind the DEW line road to take some picture of the Arctic cotton grass.  They are in full bloom and some places look like snow on the ground as there is so much of the cotton.  Arctic cotton grass grows throughout the northern hemisphere and arctic tundra in acidic bog habitats.  The white fluffy cotton was used for 'down' and is a food source for snow geese and caribou. 

 

Sometimes it's the simplest things that make me smile

One of my favorite spots to sit and watch the world go by

Yup, those are my co-pilots

Lemming hunting at it's best

Catching some Arctic sunshine

My Yin-Yang

 

Talk soon!