Tuesday 10 July 2018

Nunavut Day in Resolute

Yesterday was Nunavut Day and the community at Resolute held celebrations at Lake Resolute. There was a fishing contest, a boat race, a picnic of Arctic char and caribou, and a big bonfire of wooden pallets, that last years supplies came in on, to keep us warm. It was a cold blustery day but good to be outside doing something while we wait for good weather to fly into Alex.
Nunavut Day in Resolute.
Fishing on Lake Resolute for Nunavut Day celebrations.
The lake is still frozen and thick enough to walk on.


Boat race at Nunavut Day celebrations in Resolute.

At the reconstructed Thule site nearby, I was excited to see a red phalarope flying around. The last and only time I have seen this colourful shorebird before was at Lake Hazen in 2014. The Thule site has quite lush vegetation from the nitrogen and other minerals accumulated from years of human activity there from about 1400 to 1650 A.D. There was purple saxifrage, tufted saxifrage, sulphur buttercups and Draba corymbosa in flower and Arctic poppys in bud.
Cushion of Parrya arctica with purple flowers. Along with purple saxifrage,
this species in flower all around Resolute.

Bright yellow flowers of Draba corymbosa.
Look carefully you will also see the fleshy leaves of sulphur buttercups
and the nodding stems of Saxifrage cernua.

There is a a large low pressure system hanging over Ellesmere Island that doesn't seem to want to move on. With it comes bad weather and with the bad weather it is not possible to fly into our field sites. A group of researchers from Queens University who had been at PCSP Resolute for a week finally got into their field site at Cape Bounty, Melville Island last night but I hear it was a rough ride with the strong winds. Besides our group waiting to get to Alex, there is a group of microbiologists from McGill University waiting to get to Axel Heiberg Island.
A rare albino flowered Parrya arctica near the Thule settlement at Resolute

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