I’ve got an update on that crew of tourists that I was on the plane with last week. You may recall that they were supposed to join their tour in Kuujjuaq but there was too much ice at that location for the ship to get in and pick them up. So, First Air took them on to where the ship was waiting for them in Iqaluit but it seems that they also had problems at that location as the ice was also too thick for the ship to get into port. I’m told that the backup plan had been to take the passengers to and from their boat by snowmobile and sled but the ice which was too thick for the ship was just a little bit too thin for safety with ski-doos and komotiks. They ended up using Zodiac inflatable boats to shuttle the people a few at a time between the ship and the shoreline a few miles down the coast from Iqaluit, at a place called Apex. What an adventure for this group from France and I hope they appreciated the extra effort that the tour company made for them. This is just another case of life in the north never being boring or routine and having to adapt and change plans regularly in order to make things work.
As a further note to this our own ship with the new store onboard which was supposed to be here on the 18th has now been delayed. The “Umiuvat” arrived in Iqaluit several days ago but was unable to offload due to the heavy ice. It wasted a couple days hoping the winds would change and blow the ice offshore, but they finally gave up and sailed out to its next port-of-call late last night. She is now scheduled to arrive here in Salluit on the 20th or 21st and will go back to attempt Iqaluit on it’s way back to Montreal later on.
Global warming does exist and is getting worse but this sure has been a bad year for late ice so far. Even the caribou are running late as they were all over hills a month earlier than this last year but there have only been a couple around so far and we're well into July. The world is changing and we have to adapt and learn to take better control of what's going on around us.
I’ve got an update on that crew of tourists that I was on the plane with last week. You may recall that they were supposed to join their tour in Kuujjuaq but there was too much ice at that location for the ship to get in and pick them up. So, First Air took them on to where the ship was waiting for them in Iqaluit but it seems that they also had problems at that location as the ice was also too thick for the ship to get into port. I’m told that the backup plan had been to take the passengers to and from their boat by snowmobile and sled but the ice which was too thick for the ship was just a little bit too thin for safety with ski-doos and komotiks. They ended up using Zodiac inflatable boats to shuttle the people a few at a time between the ship and the shoreline a few miles down the coast from Iqaluit, at a place called Apex. What an adventure for this group from France and I hope they appreciated the extra effort that the tour company made for them. This is just another case of life in the north never being boring or routine and having to adapt and change plans regularly in order to make things work.
As a further note to this our own ship with the new store onboard which was supposed to be here on the 18th has now been delayed. The “Umiuvat” arrived in Iqaluit several days ago but was unable to offload due to the heavy ice. It wasted a couple days hoping the winds would change and blow the ice offshore, but they finally gave up and sailed out to its next port-of-call late last night. She is now scheduled to arrive here in Salluit on the 20th or 21st and will go back to attempt Iqaluit on it’s way back to Montreal later on.
Global warming does exist and is getting worse but this sure has been a bad year for late ice so far. Even the caribou are running late as they were all over hills a month earlier than this last year but there have only been a couple around so far and we're well into July. The world is changing and we have to adapt and learn to take better control of what's going on around us.
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