The trip started off slowly, since I was stuck in Iqaluit for three days waiting for weather to clear in both Iqaluit, and Igloolik, on different days. I’ve been quite fortunate with weather in many of my previous trips, so I figured it would catch up to me eventually.

Once in Igloolik (which was actually late on Wed. Oct. 27, instead of Mon. Oct. 25) things went much smoother than I ever could have anticipated. I had a great place to stay, since my friend Julie from UofT just moved to Igloolik to take up a Nunavut government position. It’s a nice change to know the person I would be staying with, and it was great to have a full (ok less than full after the weather delays) three weeks to catch up.

I set out on the first Thursday to meet a translator I had talked to before my arrival. He now works at the Hamlet Council Office, so I had wondered if he would have enough time. He was quite interested in working with me, and was very helpful in looking through the list of people I hoped to interview, as well as beginning to inquire with people about their willingness to be interviewed and the best time to do so. Unfortunately, when I saw him on Friday he said that he had a course for the next two weeks, and really wouldn’t be able to work with me. He had already contacted several people though, and they were all happy to be interviewed at various preferred times. We brainstormed a little for another potential translator to work with, and so ended up contacting Theo, who had actually been suggested to me by other people as well. Theo also happened to be on the interview list, so that was neat.

I was happy to meet Theo soon after, as I had heard he was excellent in both languages, as well as a very active and knowledgeable hunter. He ended up teaching me all the time (within and outside the interview context), and was reliable and efficient, and good to work with He set up three interviews a day at first (morning, afternoon, and evening), and since we were making such great progress he set up two interviews a day for later in the trip.

I was also extremely fortunate in that Theo could take me out on the ice to help me get pictures and video, as well as to teach me more about the Inuktitut terminology used for sea ice and various ice conditions or processes. We managed one sea ice trip on Wed. Nov. 3, and one on Thurs. Nov. 11.

The first sea ice trip was a real intro to winter travel (for me anyway!). It was -25°C, with up to -40°C wind chill. I put on more layers than I thought I’d need – so many I could barely do up my jacket – and still, after about 3 hours my hands and feet were verging on completely numb. We had an incredible trip though. We got very near the ice edge, and he pointed out several terms related to new ice. We walked on 2” thick ice, which is disconcerting – especially when I could feel his footsteps moving the ice about 5 feet away from me…just slightly thicker consistency than slush – but with his use of the harpoon to test the ice it is quite clear what is safe and what isn’t. The real dangers often come when traveling by snowmobile, or when there is thick snow cover. We didn’t see much wildlife, but did see one seal from far away, and lots of polar bear tracks (they’re eating the walrus meat caches around some of the nearby outpost camps). Luckily we didn’t cross paths with any bears (especially since the bear hunting season had not yet officially opened).

The second sea ice trip was slightly longer, and although I had even more clothes on, it was much colder. The temperature and conditions were very similar to the first trip, but we drove around a lot more, so I got colder because of more wind exposure, and also because I wasn't moving around as much. We were actually hunting for seals, well Theo was, which is why we drove around more. We were looking for a recently used breathing hole, and only found two that he thought were worth waiting at. No seal though…I only learned after the fact that I was probably driving them away with how I was walking around – and here I was thinking I was following his instructions exactly. I only got 3 minutes of video in 6 hours of travel, which shows how cold my hands were as well as the fact that we barely stopped! I did get lots of pictures though, over 100 between the two trips. On the way back it was pretty neat because we stopped at an outpost camp and went inside a little cabin to warm up. It was an eclectic mix of modern and traditional life, which I tried to take in as best I could between maneuvering a seat around a thawing seal, feeling very awkward that it was probably quite the surprise to the dwellers of the cabin, and admiring the qulliq (seal oil lamp). Anyway, leaving around 4pm it was almost completely dark, and in that last little leg of cold before town, I got almost as cold as I had been for the 5 hours before the cabin!!

The interviews seemed to go very well. We managed to interview 16 people, and conduct 18 interviews total. It was steady work every single day except weekends, and was so much busier than anticipated. I could barely keep up with backing up all the audio and video files, and recording my daily reflections, much less even attempt to start transcribing.