Edmonton to Kugluktuk, Nunavut

The boys chilling while we wait for our flight.

Summit Air - our gateway to the north.

Arriving in Nunavut.

Into arrivals.

The buses from the airport to the dock.

Our home for the next 17 days waits.

Massing on the dock waiting for the zodiacs.

Loading 10 people per zodiac.

Kugluktuk as we pull away.

Boarding the Ocean Endeavour.

John in our room with three beds and two baths.

Note: It was impossible to upload photos from the ship, so the blog is obviously behind.

I am now home from the trip and will update one day at a time.

Friday, September 1^st. Edmonton to Kugluktuk

We were up bright and early. I had a crappy night’s sleep and felt pretty awful. We had the included breakfast in a big hall in the basement of the hotel. Then we grabbed our bags and walked to the departure desks. We are going on Summit Airlines to Kugluktuk, Nunavut. Security was strange. They singled me out to have my backpack emptied and all electronics wiped looking for god knows what. Then she took me to the front of the line where I put the backpack in one tray and all my other stuff in another. I went through no problem and my stuff tray came quickly but the backpack didn’t come for about 15 minutes… very weird and I was getting a bit worried. John and Bruce’s boarding passes didn’t work, and they had to go back to get new ones. We got to the gate by 9:30 for an 11:30 flight, but it didn’t actually board until 11:45. We found out later it was some sort of mechanical problem, but no announcement about it. All the Adventure Canada passengers were loaded onto two planes which left at about the same time, although they were supposed to be an hour apart. I sat on an aisle seat across from John and one behind Bruce and couldn’t see a thing because I was over the wing. They fed us a sandwich for lunch, and I drifted off a bit. We flew over the imaginary Arctic Circle at 66.6 degrees north. We arrived at 3:00 and landed smoothly on a gravel runway. As we were offloading and waiting two shuttle buses came with all of the passengers who were from the Into the Northwest Passage trip and are now heading home. They had had to have all their flights home reorganized from the ship because they were not flying to Yellowknife as expected, because of the fires, but to Edmonton. The weather was cool and grey, and the town or settlement was constructed mainly of wooden houses along roads of dirt and gravel. The place looked very bleak especially with the low hanging grey sky. The buses took us to the wharf where a fleet of zodiacs were waiting for us to take us to Adventure Canada ship, the Ocean Endeavour. John and I were the only two who didn’t get lifejackets for some reason, which is a pretty big mistake on their part as there were three people who were supposed to be inspecting us (one on the dock, one on the zodiac and one getting off onto the ship) before we got on. My first opinion of the ship is it is not as attractive as the Antarctic one as it is black rather than red. We got on the ship and were allowed to go straight to our rooms. They must have had an amazing flip of the ship to get all the rooms ready for us. Our room is quite spacious with three twin beds well spread out and two bathrooms, but only two power plugs. We had a mandatory meet and greet in the upstairs lounge where they introduced us to the who’s who of the expedition crew. Then we had to go to our rooms before they sounded the alarm for us to muster at our stations for a fake evacuation. After all that I went back to the room and just lay down. John and Bruce went for a wander so I could try to sleep, but it doesn’t come easily for some reason although I am exhausted. They didn’t come back until after dinner, which they said was so-so. There was another mandatory meeting about the plan for tomorrow, but I skipped that as they can tell me later. John made me a hot tea, lemon and honey drink and they went off to ask about the doctor. Shortly after a young doctor’s assistant came to my room. I told her my symptoms but she didn’t know if it was bacterial or viral and said a visit to the doctor would have to happen between 8 and 4; so I had her book an appointment for first thing tomorrow. I skipped dinner and just stayed in my room.

Not a great start to the trip, I hope I improve quickly.