Spring???

Today is the last day of March. The temperature outside is -34C and the sun is shining brightly at 5AM. I opened the door with some difficulty as the frost on the door latch refuses to leave until July, but spring is in the air. The ravens are noisy in the morning. They gather in small groups and hop around on the roof. They cackle and caw as they dance around, pecking at each other. The neighbour's dog is being harrassed by these large black birds.
I watched the birds and as usual, I was astonished at the bird's intelligence. I really think that they organize thier actions. This morning, the dog has a full bowl of Kibble laid out in front of his dog house. Dogs love Kibble. Ravens love it even more. I stood on my porch with a steaming cup of coffee and watched as the birds surrounded the dog in a circle. One bird would hop up to the dog, squacking and dancing around while the others would stay in quiet formation around the dog. The birds were out of reach from the poor pooch. They maintained a perimeter just outside of reach as the dog's chain would not allow it to reach the birds. As the dog became annoyed by the lone squawking and dancing raven, I could see that he was about to try and pounce upon his tormentor. The dog jumped at the raven as fast as he could and ran about ten feet before the chain pulled taught. The annoying bird had kept just out of reach of the canine captive. The dog barked and whined. During this brief attempt at birdocide, three of the birds at the opposite side of the commotion hopped up to the dish and stole several Kibble each. The dog reared his head and dashed at the thieving ravens but they hopped back into formation before he could reach them. The birds cackled a bit as they all hopped about clockwise untill they all held a new position in the formation. A different bird now became the tormentor. Cackling and pecking at the dog until he attacks, then three other birds grab a bite to eat. After a few minutes, all the Kibble was gone, the dog exhausted and the birds full of dry dog food. The birds would gather around and chatter for a bit. Then off they flew, looking for a new source of Kibble. I watched them fly off over the sea ice and could see many other ravens gathering in the sky. They were soaring in large groups high above the sea ice. This told me that the weather would be windy later on in the day. Sure enough, the winds picked up and the snow began to blow. These birds can teach a person much if one observes thier behaviour.

Tundra golf

Arctic Voyager - voyages

Polar Bear Scare.

It was a sunny yet windy Sunday morning. I decided to take a walk near the beach that morning as I had been couped up in the house for days. The weather had recently been very nasty. Blinding snow, high wind chill factors and low temperatures dominated the days. The sunlight glinting off of the sea ice and the fractal patterns produced by drifting snow, were inviting me for a visit.
I walked down to the beach through an access created by the storm. A large snowdrift covered what would usually be an inaccessible cliff leading to the beach. The thirty foot drop was now a gentle slope made of hard wind blown snow. My morning walk had started off to be delightful stroll in my frozen arctic home. I was getting closer to the town beach after a five minute walk. I proceeded past houses and boats on my way towards the museum. Once past the museum I thought that I would walk into the town and grab a breakfast at the local fast food diner. I was interupted in my plans when I turned around the corner of the Museum building. There stood in front of me a massive hind quarters of a polar bear sticking out the back door of the museum. I froze. I would not move in fear of being heard by the bear. The bear was not moving at all. Here I was stuck in a "statue of Liberty" contest with the world's largest land roaming carnivor. I do not know how long I stood there. I was puzzled by the lack of any movement by the bear. It's head is stuck in the door and he see's something scary so he is not moving, I thought. I could relate to that. This was getting uncanny when to my surprise a man walked out of the door. The same door that this bear is peering into. The man waves a g'morning to me then proceeds to push, with his shoulder, the stuffed bear, into the museum.
He was having a hard time. I offered to help him. He accepted.
I told him that this bear really looks like it is alive. He proceeded to tell me a story about the first days of his employment. Walking into an unlit room and not knowing about the bear...well that's a different story.

short story

We were playing golf at about 4 am in the midnight sun on our tundra course. There were just the two of us. As we were approaching the crooked hole, we noticed that a few caribou were moving towards us from around the other side of the "upstairs" hole. The upstairs hole is a green elevated 25 feet above the fairway, surrounded by Canadian shield rock. The green measures a mere 3 feet wide by about 20 feet long. The rocks surrounding the green jut out of the ground at a near 90 degree angle. Miss the green and you will end up with 13 stroke.
The caribou came closer and more of them were comming from around the hill. Many more. Soon we realized that there were a hundred animals galloping right towards us. We had nowhere to go so we just stood there. I found myself lost in a sea of caribou all wide eyed and snorting. They dashed left and right of me. These animals never saw me until I was right in front of them. As if I were in a scene from Jurassic Park where a herd of small dinosaurs dashed about, turning in unison, jumping over the movie's heros as they lay hiding behind a felled tree. My problem is that I live hundreds of miles north of the nearest tree. I had nowhere to hide. After a few moments, I wondered if my golfing partner had been trampled to death or if I was to face that fate myself. I began to hoot and holler waving my prized 6 iron wildly. This action at least kept the animals from getting too close as they were more aware of my presence. Soon there were just a few stragglers as the rest of the herd ran off to disappear around the next hill. The last caribou pranced about left and right hesitating to cross my path. Eventually the animal snorted at me then trotted away to meet up with the others.
It was very quiet.
We looked at each other grinning from ear to ear. Then the laughter broke out. The whole scene took all of one minute. There was not an animal to be seen or heard afterward. I had trouble remembering what I was shooting. Was I at three strokes or four? We both picked up our balls and walked back to the tee as we could not agree upon the status of the game. After the tee shot, I had found my ball to be lying in what a herd of caribou always leave behind. 'Bou droppings. They were everywhere.

the crooked hole

On the southern portion of Baffin Island, there is a group of men that have built a golf course on the tundra. The course is not a well groomed and artistically landscaped piece of golfery. It is basically a stretch of tundra, sand and rock that has 9 "greens" distibuted about here and there. The greens are reminants of carpet laid out across a flat sandy and mossy patch of tundra. The fairways are what ever God has created and laid out before us. It looks not like a golf course but it is the best golfing available in the eastern arctic.
The crooked hole is a notorious hole that lies on a slope of about 25 degrees. The green (carpet) will not allow the ball to stop within 8 feet of the hole. No matter how slowly the hole is approached with the most skillful of putts, the ball will roll down the hill if it doesn't sink in the hole. So aptly named,The Crooked Hole. Many times I have missed a 10 foot putt 1/4 of an inch to the left of the hole only to watch the ball "orbit" around the hole then roll back down the hill. I call that shot "Apollo 13".
The crooked hole is the hardest hole to putt but Nunavut's make shift golf course has other holes that are much harder to approach.