Snowy Iqaluit

Zoe Panchen

We are in Iqaluit! It is a little colder than Ottawa and there is still a lot of snow but there is bare tundra in places. Like Ottawa and the northeastern US and even Europe, spring is much later coming this year than last year in Iqaluit.

View from our kitchen window

We haven't figured out Iqaluit's pattern yet. On our first day we walked down the centre of the potholed road while the car passed us along the smooth sides of the road. It is hard to get directions to places as no one uses street names but it is such a small place that it is easy to wonder around to find them. We are not sure if there is really a downtown as buildings of importance are dotted about in different parts of town.

Snowy Iqaluit

We went in search of the plants we want to monitor and found 20 species we are interested in just across the road from our apartment! Even though the temperatures are hovering around zero and there are flurries of snow there is already signs of life with a few tiny green leaves peeping through and flower buds expanding. We identified many of the plants from the seed heads and leaves from last years growth.

Tofieldia pussila (Bog Asphodel)

Saxifraga tricuspidata (Prickly Saxifrage)