Madness! The adventure of Mogg Bay

Last weekend I had quite the adventure. It all started as a little "fishing outing"...at least that's what I was told. Twelve hours and numerous thoughts of, "WTF?!" and "this is normal, right?" later, I returned home exhausted and blown away by the beauty of my surroundings.

A colleague/friend's parents came to visit and, as any good host would do, you want to show them a good time. In Igloolik and the Arctic, this time of year means getting out on the sea ice. But, just a piddly little walk or bike ride wouldn't do. Oh no. They went all out and hired a local guide to take them to a popular local fishing and goose-egg picking area. Seems reasonable enough....

...except that we've been having lots of rain...which sits on top of the ice until it drains through the cracks and seal holes in the ice. In order get to our destination, called Mogg Bay, we needed to travel across this water-bound ice for about 45 min to 1 hr. I was riding in the qamatik and let me tell you about the suspension on a wooden sled. The suspension is right about L1-5 in your spine. Or, if you're lucky enough to stand up, the knee joints do a great job absorbing the impact of qamatik landing after launching off an unmelted island of snow on the water-bound ice. I learned that if I got on my hands and knees inside the qamatik, I could absorb the cracking, brain-hurting landings with my elbows, wrists, shoulders and hips, rather than my vertebrae having all the fun. The force was so great, I could not help but laugh. Laugh in sheer terror that this wooden box sled thingy was going to split apart around me and break my back. Who does the stress tests on these things? How many banging landings can they take before no more? You know what I think? I think we learn that number when the thing splits apart around you while you're riding in it. lol. The one good thing about riding in the qamatik is that it is longer than a skidoo. Why does that matter you say? Welp, there are cracks in the ice you see. Leads. The ice going about its annual pattern of melting as the summer progresses. It's all fine and dandy if you can speed fast enough in a skidoo to cross the crevasses, but if you don't, well..... The qamatik, on the other hand, glides right over those cracks and you barely feel a thing---except of course your heart in your throat as you see the murky dark depths of the sea below the ice. The other bonus is that if, for some reason, our guide miscalculated and his snowmobile did not make it across a crack, we would see him fall through the ice. That would give us a precious second or two to jump out of the qamatik. Yep, typical Saturday out on the town right? hahaha. Luckily for me, we made it to our first fishing spot.

I can't describe the views on the ride out--the sky is bigger than anything I've ever seen. It's like the view of the sky and clouds from a plane window, but in this case, you feel you are right there in that sky and land. It seems infinite. The horizon, where the sky meets the sea ice, is indistinguishable giving one even more feelings of expansiveness. The colors are brilliant. Caribbean in their hues. The air is the purest you've ever breathed. There is not a one scent that you can note. It is everything and nothing all around you.

Our first fishing stop was not too successful and so our guide suggested we go to another place. Sure thing we said. What we didn't realize was that the "other place" was about 10-20 km away over LAND. land. We were on snowmobiles. Had just driven the better part of an hour across sea ice. Now, we were going to go on an overland commute? The snowmobile drivers looked at each other in disbelief, but they jumped on and did what they were told by our guide. It was a hilarious sight and one I did not know snowmobiles were capable of. I fully expected a ski to be snapped off by one of the tundra boulders or one of the many many rocks we were "skidooing" over on rocky beaches to sheer some important tie rod or something. Just bonkers.

Finally, we made it to the 2nd fishing and goosing location. There were tons of birds. I got to eat a freshly boiled snow goose egg. It was huge, but tasty! Very mild like a chicken egg. Might not even be able to tell the difference if you were blindfolded. We spent many hours there fishing and lounging and enjoying the day. The "day" can become very long since the sun never sets. You lose sense of time. Our guide, Simon, caught 5 Arctic char, shot two geese, and got about 7-8 eggs. So, overall, a productive day. I shot lots of pictures for the family as my contribution to being allowed along.

We started heading back and it was an epic trip back because there was even MORE water on the ice. The skidoos were so waterlogged that they were struggling to get traction on the ice under the water. In the qamatik, we actually almost came to complete stops as the pulling skidoo struggled to pull us in that deep water. Everyone was fully soaked. Again, I did not know snowmobiles were also boats. lolol.

It turns out that snowmobiles are all-terrain universal vehicles. lolol.Read more