A cabin and a boat along the shoreline...
The community of Cambridge Bay has approximately 1,400 people, and serves as a transportation hub and government centre for the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut. Although the population is much smaller than Inuvik, some of the amenities are the same. There is a Co-Op and Northern Store, as well as a KFC/Pizza Hut Snack Stop. The hotel I'm staying in is the Inn's North Arctic Islands Lodge, which is similar to my hotels in Paulatuk and Ulukhaktok. The Lodge is of course, the only restaurant in town.
The main drag...
One and a half days of meetings here in Cambridge Bay involved 6 days away from home, but at least I had some time in Yellowknife to do a bit of shopping and eating Boston Pizza's Greek salad! Since there were no meetings yesterday upon my arrival to Cambridge Bay from Yellowknife, and my predecessor at ILA was also in town for the meetings, the two of us decided to rent an ATV and go for a ride.
Cambridge Bay boasts Ovayok Territorial Park where there is Mount Pelly, which consists of three hills which, according to Inuit legend, are said to be a family of starving giants. The giants were traversing the land to look for food, when the father, Ovayok died, followed by the son Inuuhuktu, and finally the mother Amaaqtuq ("packing baby") with her baby on her back (ref: Wikipedia). A bit of a sad story...
The sign that marks Ovayok Territorial Park.
A monument to the Inuit who served the regiment and the nation in peace and in war in commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of Princess Patricia's light infantry.
There is a 16km gravel road that goes out to Mount Pelly, which is quite unique, in my experience in the Arctic thus far... To have a road running that far out of town. So Mike and I split the cost of renting an ATV and drove on out to the mountain. It must have been my lucky day, because we came across a herd of muskox that were off the side of the road. There were 16 of them, including one or two calves (if that's what you call a baby muskox?). We got up close enough to get some good pictures before they started forming their circle around their babies in case we were to come any closer. Luckily, as I had heard from my friends in Sachs Harbour, muskox are chickens, and unless they're being extremely threatened, will not attack (not that we were really close enough to be worried anyway). So, as soon as we turned the ATV engine back on, they started running away. They look even cooler when they are running, since their long fur blows in the wind.
Finally!! Some real, live muskox!
The group of them. Aren't they just adorable?
Then, tonight the group of meeting attendees were invited out to a local's cabin, on the same road out to Mount Pelly. We were served arctic char, steak, salads, pie, etc etc etc... a real feast. The cabin had a woodstove and generator so we were plenty warm, although it is minus four here and snowing a bit. The lakes are starting to freeze over here as well, meaning that winter is just around the corner.
I haven't got much else to report, so I'm going to
and leave you with a final picture from the top of Mount Pelly, looking back at the sunset over Cambridge Bay.
Back to Yellowknife tomorrow, and Inuvik and Tuk on Friday.
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