Life in Camp

The base for my research is the Quttinirpaaq National Park warden station at Lake Hazen often called Camp Hazen. Each day I head out to my sites to gather data but Camp Hazen is my home for the 2 months of my field work.

My sleeping quarters for 2 months is a spacious but cozy and warm orange tent. Most of the time it is calm at Lake Hazen but when the wind picks up it really blows, hence the copious large stones tethering the tent, nothing worse than seeing an orange balloon sailing down the lake!

Food is much discussed and a major preoccupation when working outdoors all day. Large plates of pasta or curry and rice are consumed to satiate our large appetites. The kitchen is the original Atwell hut that was erected at Camp Hazen in 1957 by the Defense Research Board. It was modernised a few years ago and now sports a gas stove for cooking, a gas fridge and an oil burning stove for heat on the odd chilly day.

Water for drinking, cooking and washing comes from Lake Hazen, for a while, through an augured hole in the ice and now just from shore as the ice is too rotten to go out on the lake. Water was being pumped up to a water tank in the kitchen and we had the luxury of cold water from a tap but the water tank has a leak so we are now back to hauling wheel barrows full of water containers between the lake and camp.

The shower is an upended coffin where a camp shower bag can be slung and a grey water pit underneath. The sun’s rays are too weak this far north to heat the water in the black shower bag so we heat water for a shower on the stove.

The toilet is a Storburn “comfort station” which has a propane fired burner under the toilet to burn the human waste. We all laugh about the name “comfort station”, it is not a place to linger!

Our friend the rock ptarmigan is still in residence and entertaining us with his desire to drive a snowmobile.

Happy Nunavut Day!

July 9 marked the annual celebration of Nunavut Day in Canada's north. While Nunavut officially became a new territory on April 1, 1999 (no joke!), Nunavut Day is celebrated on July 9 each year. On July 9, 1993, the Parliament of Canada passed the Nunavut Act establishing the territory of Nunavut, to come into operation sometime in the future, hence the July 9 date of Nunavut Day. Besides, the weather is better and there is much more sunlight in July than in April!

Here is the Nunavut territorial flag.

Flag of Nunavut

It features a red inuksuk - an Inuit land marker - and a blue star, which represents the North Star and the leadership of elders in the community. The colours represent the riches of the land, sea and sky.

At Camp Hazen we had an incredibly warm day on Nunavut Day - nearly 20 deg. C. Unfortunately that meant the bugs were out in full force to celebrate, too. To celebrate, we ate a veritable smorgasbord of delectable delights, including shrimp and chocolate cake.

Mountain Goats

Mcgill and Omingmak mountains are the back drop to our camp on Lake Hazen. Omingmak means muskox in Inuktitut and McGill Mountain was named by four McGill University graduate students who spent the winter at Camp Hazen in 1957-58 recording the weather. Over the weekend we climbed both peaks and got nicknamed “mountain goats”. To be fair we were already ¾ of the way up McGill anyway visiting one of my field sites so it was only a 1/2hr scramble to the summit. While writing in the summit register I realised I had been on the summit of McGill 2 years ago that same day but oh how different it was. In 2013 there was deep snow everywhere and it was cold. This year we were in shirt sleeves on a lovely sunny day and the purple saxifrage was already in flower right on the summit.

McGill Mountain taken from the still frozen Lake Hazen 

with Camp Hazen in the foreground. My highest 

field site is ¾ of the way up McGill Mountain on 

the right hand skyline.

On our way to hike up Omingmak the next day, we were excited to see a large herd of muskox with 4 young calves and how appropriate as we head up their name sake. The muskox is related to the goat so it was fitting that the “mountain goats” were climbing Omingmak. We made good time getting to the summit in just four hours including having to ford the Snow Goose River. It was another beautiful sunny day with great views along the 60km Lake Hazen, the Agassiz icecap to the south and the Abbe Glacier to the north.

Omingmak Mountain from Camp Hazen. Omingmak
means muskox in Inuktitut. It took us 4hours to reach
the summit from camp. 

Summiting Omingmak Mountain with the Snow Goose 

River Valley in the background.