Land of the Midnight Sun

Friday
On Friday after work, we went on a seal hunt with Charlene. We rode on a skidoo drawn sled, which made for a fun, bumpy ride across the frozen blue ice of Hudson's Bay. The scenery was breathtaking.

Unfortunately I was not nearly as prepared for the weather as I thought I was. Even though it was only about 0 degrees outside, it was wet. My boots were soaked through to my socks from the melting snow, so I got a bit scared of getting frost bite or chilblains or something, but Charlene and her brother Patrick were amazing hosts and made sure I was comfortable. First Charlene offered me the boots off her feet, which I obviously refused. Then Patrick gave me a poncho-type jacket with a fur hood, which warmed me right up, but they still weren't convinced I was warm, maybe because I didn't want to get out of the sled anymore. They warmed up some tea on a portable gas stove using snow for the water, which I found pretty ingenious. They also had soup in pouches that they threw into the leftover tea. I had chicken breast soup, which to my surprise actually had a piece of chicken breast in it. Later on, Patrick took out a sleeping bag for me, allowing me to take off my boots and socks, so my feet could actually warm up. Finally, he even went so far as putting a tarp over the sled and turning on the gas stove to help me warm up. I felt really bad for wasting their gas just to keep me warm, but Corey was smart enough to think of warming up another kettle for tea, which made me feel a bit less guilty.
So back to the seal hunting. The way seal hunting works I learned, is that you find a hole in the ice that the seals use to take a breath and cover it with snow so the seal won't see you. Then you stand still with a harpoon listening for their breaths. This part takes a lot of patience or luck. The first hole we waited at, I scared away a seal when I was walking toward Charlene to get a closer look. But after a few hours and trying a few different holes, Charlene finally caught a small ringed seal, which is the most common type of seal.


After catching the seal, they cut a small hole in it to let air out and keep it fresh. Then they put it on the sled right behind me. I was a bit surprised it didn't give off any smell.
We also saw caribou twice while we were out on the ice. It was unreal to watch them running across the ice. Patrick took us almost within arm's reach of one. It was very cool.

By 1am it was clear that it never gets dark here anymore since I was pretty sure the sun was rising again without it getting dark. We ended up staying out til after 2 and I managed to avoid answering nature's call on the ice if you know what I mean...

Saturday
In the afternoon, Maria called me asking me if I wanted to come to help out with a medivac (air ambulance) for a baby I had seen the day before. Of course, I said yes and came right away. The patient was a baby with a ventricular septal defect and a patent foramen ovale (which are both holes between the chambers of the heart) that I had heard with my stethoscope yesterday. I wasn't of much help, but it was pretty cool seeing how the process works. The baby was going into respiratory distress, which was pretty obvious. You could hear him wheezing from the other room. It was really sweet to see his brothers keeping him entertained and giving mum a break. At the airport, we met the flight nurse, Phillip, who came in from Rankin Inlet. He was really cool and told us that we were welcome to ride a medivac to Rankin Inlet if the opportunity arises. Baby had to be taken to Churchill for treatment, which apparently costs about $25k...ouch.

Sunday
Everyone here is really friendly, especially the many kids passing by on their bikes. They'll say hi and sometimes ask me my name. The kids here have a lot of freedom. You can see them on the road without any parents in sight, playing on the land. Today while I came back from wandering, I met Andy and Floyd:
They showed me their moves on their bikes and Andy even let me ride his for a bit. By the end of it they were saying "I love you", probably because I gave them each a mini orange. We had lots of fun together.