Bathurst Inlet:Elders speak of changes in water level and migration patterns
Hello this is Glenn with the blog on 6th August. We’ve been at Bathurst Inlet for a day or so. We came in very late a few days ago after a very, very long paddle from the Inlet itself. It’s very picturesque - topographically very interesting with lots of mountains nearby and we’re sort of set amongst the mountains and the whole situation itself is very pretty indeed. Bathurst Inlet itself lies at the mouth of the Burnside River and the Inlet itself is a faultline - a geological faultline with granite on one side and a volcanic sedimentary composition on the other side.
At the moment we are awaiting Julie’s arrival. She’s on her way out and we’re expecting her in a day or two’s time. She will turn up with our resupply and then we plan to head on to Cambridge Bay. We’ve had a good day today - a local helicopter pilot became friendly with us and there’s a mountain nearby and yesterday we were discussing climbing the mountain but he said “Never mind I’ll take you up there”, and so basically he brought us to the top of the mountain today on about 20 or 50 square feet of land and flew off and left us up there. There were fantastic views – it’s been quite and experience. I’m not awfully convinced about our carbon footprint on that one but there we are.
A few interesting things have come out of our talks with local people here. We’ve interviewed a few elders which has been a very good experience for us. One of the things that the Elders here are very conscious of is the drop in water levels for not only the rivers but also the lakes. And they’ve noticed a very definite drop in water. I don’t know myself why that is. I have heard that as the permafrost melts so these lakes start to dry up. Maybe it’s because of that – I can’t say I know what the reason is but this is what they are telling us.
They are also telling us that similar to last year the migration patterns of the caribou are changing. They have their thoughts on why this is and a lot of them seem to point to the mining and the drilling and the exploration that is going on for gold and diamonds. This is scaring the caribou - the noises of the various helicopters and machinery which is sad – clearly they are quite disappointed by this. We’ll expand on this in our interviews when we get back.
Another interesting thing is that here at Bathurst Inlet we’re learning that they are probably going to close the settlement down, the reason being that the elders here are starting to get to a point in their lives where they need more medical treatment. It would appear that the government in the south are finding it not economical viable anymore to ship people out for medical attention. It seems a little odd to us when we see aircraft bringing in pallet loads of sugary pepsi water very day and pallet loads of pizzas into some of these settlements that they don’t see the strange irony of that perhaps the Pepsi cola and the pizzas are making the young people ill and at the same time they’re saying its not economical to fly people out for medical attention. Anyway I’ll let that one hang in the air.
We’d like to say hello to anyone reading the blog particularly our friends over at the Orkney Sea Kaayking association – hello guys – and Seapoint – Gordon and Morag at Skyak adventures – hello to you – and of course our sponsors – we’re very grateful to Vango, Palm UK, Feathercraft, Kobold, Paramo Lomo (the dry bags are great guys). So it’s been really good to have this kit – and we’ll tell you all about our experiences with it when we get back. I’ll sign off now – we plan to make our way to Cambridge Bay in two or three day’s time – there is still a fair way to go and we believe we’ll encounter a lot more bears as they come down and look for the fish and start to come up the river.
Stephen preparing dinner
