9th of July is the official Nunavut Day and we had the chance to enjoy the celebrations with the community. It all started with the feast in the schools’ gymnasium, for menu we could find seal, maktak (Narval skin), caribou, bannock and stews composed of the different types of meat with vegetables. Once everyone had eaten and the gymnasium cleaned the activities could start.
I arrived at the ice camp three weeks ago and during that time many things changed: the nearby mountain tops lost the remainder of their snow cover, the sea ice’s snow vanished and melt ponds just appeared, there are many more birds and seals than there had been, the phytoplankton bloom started, … But to me the most prominent trace of change was the access to the “Polarhaven” tent at the ice camp, where I went for water sampling and CTD operations every other day.
