Celine Gilbert is a Cartographer living in Nunavut, Canada. She was a former student of our principal Mr. W. Thompson. She has been emailing us pictures of her life in northern Canada. We hope that you will enjoy some of the pictures and stories.
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There are many houses in town that keep caribou antlers on the roof. sometimes it's for decoration, other times, the antlers are being left out to dry before they are carved into art or jewelry. This house is located in the part of town known as 'lower base'. | ||
| We were out field testing some equipment around town when
we came upon some caribou up by the power plant. Instead of being afraid
of us, they actually came closer. Some people think the caribou have
figured out that if they stay near the buildings they will be safe. No one
is allowed to shoot them inside the town limits.
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Sample of Inuit carving |
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| These men are two of several Inuit artists who come by our office selling their art. Gyta (holding the canvas stencil) produces mainly stencils and some small carvings. He hasn't been by the office lately because he is out hunting and living on the land. Our office manager, Kitty, worked with Gyta as a park warden in Auyuittuq National Park. Pauli makes jewelry from ivory (walrus tusks) and bone. He is wearing an amauti; a traditional women's coat designed to carry children | |||
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Official sunset is at 9:46 p.m. and sunrise is at 1:20 a.m. This picture was taken at approximately 11:30 p.m. and shows the sky at about as dark as it gets. During the summer we never see a night sky. I have had to put tin foil on my bedroom windows to be able to sleep. something that I found quite odd at first was that since the spring, the sun rises in the north - north - east, travels south in a great arc, and sets in the north - north - west. I am told that on June 21 st. the sun will just barely disappear beyond the north ridges for about an hour or so. | ||
On Saturday, June 10 th. a group of 5 of us boarded a
little Twin Otter and flew into the Artic Circle. Our mission was to:
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After approximately 2.5 hours of flying we made it to the site. Because we were not landing on an actual runway the pilot went through a series of pretend landings where he flew as close to the ground as possible to see if the ground was alright. After each pass he immediately banked the plane right over on its side to turn around and do another flyby - more fun than a rollercoaster! The pilot then allowed the plane to touch the ground briefly before taking off again. another visual flyby was made to see the result of these fresh tiretracks. On the next pass we landed. | ||
| When we landed, we walked over the ground for the final visual inspection. The pilot seemed pleased. We then began to mark out the runway. Orange garbage bags were filled with dirt and set at 50 pace intervals. Finally, little troughs that ran across the runway were filled in and evened out. |  |
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Our next stop was Longstaff Bluff (on the coast, approximately due west of the basecamp). This is an abandoned DEW line site. It is also where the fuel cache for the basecamp is being stored. The pilot saw this message and made the logical assumption. | ||
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| After going through the same process of pretend landings we put down on a very narrow road. This time however, the minute all 3 wheels were down, the pilot put the plane on full brakes. We landed in an unbelievably short distance. The pilot did a really good job of keeping the plane out of the snow. Up here you learn very quickly how deceptive the snow can seem. What looks like it's maybe a couple of inches deep may actually be a couple of feet deep. | |||
| As we manually refueled the plane, the pilot went for a walk and discovered that there was a real, hard surface, airstrip just up the road. The message had been made for helicopters. Our little adventure ended uneventfully. The tip of this peninsula is now home to approximately 25 people this summer. |  |
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revised 06/01/2001
