Resolute

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Here I am - by happenstance and for lack of good weather in Nanisivik/Arctic Bay - in Resolute Bay for 3 nights until the next flight can attempt to land us on a typically fogged-in strip a little south and east of here. Sitting around in the lodge (inhabited by research and construction folk) I was treated to 30 year old scotch and such stories: grizzly encounters, mud-sunk twin otters, downed planes! Riding around in the back of the RCMP truck today, I got to see my first polar bear! What a way to spend the first days of fall. A balmy 7 below, with snow and barenlands, whale carcasses and hungry dog teams. Similar in some ways to the many other Nunavut communities I've visited, but stranger still because truly, no one is supposed to be here. The Inuit were almost forcibly relocated here decades ago, for reasons strikingly similar to what has prompted Steven Harper's two visits to the territory: sovereignty and the promise of resources. There were Thule families here more than a thousand years ago, but it was a different land then - warmer, and whalier. I am intrigued and pretty delighted about my stranded state.