June 7 - birding around town
I woke up at 5:30 am and I think I fell asleep around 8 pm. I did not even notice the long daylight. I did not wake up during the night or anything. So a wonderful sleep. Continental breakfast was at 7 am. While we were downstairs in the lobby we met up with several retired RCMP people on tour with partners mostly. They had started in Regina and were going to Tuk today. There were 48 people on this huge bus which I had seen parked in the parking lot.
At breakfast we met up with our guides Tom and Bruce and we briefly chatted. I also happened to meet a lady from Bruce's first tour and she was from Austin Texas. I did not recognize anyone on the birding tour to get up here. That tour ends today and we are on the next birding tour that eventually heads south along the same route as the first tour which headed north.
We also met a fellow, Martin, at breakfast from Ottawa who is here for work on studying the permafrost on the Dempster Highway. The research involves flying big 5 metre drones down the highway and surrounding area to see what the potential problems could be with permafrost melting. Martin said to look out for mile 27 on the Dempster highway from the Yukon as there was a mountain that was starting to cave in from melting permafrost which has the potential to take out the Dempster highway below. Martin has also done this for the Gaspe area last year and after this job is done, he will go to Gaspe to do further research for Transport Canada out of Ottawa. Very interesting.
I called about our luggage before we left the hotel this morning. Still no word on any progress, even though I spoke with Air Canada yesterday. It is so hard to talk with anyone directly at big companies, usually just an email address is published but I had a phone number.
Louise, Emily and I decided we would bird around the Inuvik town site for the morning. It was sunny and got warm by noon. Here are some lupins which were along the road on the bush side.
I can't say we say a lot of birds. In fact we were disappointed as we were expecting lots of birds here. We saw Yellow Warblers, White crowned Sparrows, Robins and one Northern Waterthrush. Common Ravens are everywhere. We went down forest trails a bit and at one house we met a fellow who had just put out food for the Raven that he called Casper. Casper was sitting on the hydro pole waiting for us to leave so he could come down and eat. We continued on. Most of the roads are dirt here and every time a truck goes by, there are clouds of dust. This picture was painted on a fence of a house.
Everyone we met up with was friendly and we chatted with several people. The locals can tell that we were tourists. We noticed this system of pipes around the town. These are these covered pipes lead from houses and buildings and down to the main street. Louise said that this was the sewage system. We found out later that this system and the pipes of water, hot water and sewage are housed in a casing and the whole system is called a Utilidor. Due to the permafrost, water and sewer systems cannot be dug into the earth like at home. We noticed that the houses are built on pillars and the buildings also. So it all makes sense
We also walked down the main drag and one can see forests from anywhere in town.
We had planned to try the fish tacos at Alestine's for lunch today. We found the yellow schoolbus restaurant but it turned out that the restaurant was closed for lunch. The lady who runs it came out and said they were out of supplies and she planned to open for supper if the supplies came in. Here is Alestine's (sorry for the finger in the photo, just noticed).
We went to lunch at the Northmart for fast food. I wanted to call the airline again to check the status of our luggage. I know from yesterday the flights get in by 1 pm.
I got through the third time and the lady said that she was looking at our luggage!!!! It was at the airport here and had just arrived. It would be delivered to our hotel sometime before 5 pm YAY YAY. It was fun to pull out toiletries and slippers and stuff....
So right now we are in the hotel resting, reading or watching TV. We pretty well have done the town short of going as far as the Dempster Highway which we could see but it was very cloudy with the dust. Maybe it is a dirt road. Not sure.
Sue and Don have arrived and came by our room for a visit and to catch up on news. So almost everyone on the tour is in. Sue told us about meeting Catherine McKenna, the Minister of the Environment on the plane to Inuvik. She is here for something on the Environment in Tuk today. She is staying at our hotel tonight.
We all met up downstairs in the hotel lobby to go to Alestine's for supper. We enjoyed the second floor patio and the fish tacos were delicious! We toasted the start of the trip and marveled at the venue and the town. We had dessert here also, sort of like a beaver tail.
After supper we walked back and by accident stumbled into the open door of the church where the weekly tour was being offered. The presenter talked about the history of Inuvik, how it got started the people here. She answered most of our questions about the town site and the flight over the many miles of straight lines (seismic testing for oil and gas). From the plane trip one can see absolutely straight lines in the middle of no where. Then Alanna spoke on how the church got built and how it got its design. It was really fascinating.
After this we returned to our room and some of our friends on the tour gathered here with a bottle of wine to toast again the start of the tour!
It was so nice to have my stuff this evening. My sleep clothes and my toiletries, my clean clothes etc. Simple pleasures!
This is the view at 11 pm of the view outside our window. This is the RCMP detachment.
At breakfast we met up with our guides Tom and Bruce and we briefly chatted. I also happened to meet a lady from Bruce's first tour and she was from Austin Texas. I did not recognize anyone on the birding tour to get up here. That tour ends today and we are on the next birding tour that eventually heads south along the same route as the first tour which headed north.
We also met a fellow, Martin, at breakfast from Ottawa who is here for work on studying the permafrost on the Dempster Highway. The research involves flying big 5 metre drones down the highway and surrounding area to see what the potential problems could be with permafrost melting. Martin said to look out for mile 27 on the Dempster highway from the Yukon as there was a mountain that was starting to cave in from melting permafrost which has the potential to take out the Dempster highway below. Martin has also done this for the Gaspe area last year and after this job is done, he will go to Gaspe to do further research for Transport Canada out of Ottawa. Very interesting.
I called about our luggage before we left the hotel this morning. Still no word on any progress, even though I spoke with Air Canada yesterday. It is so hard to talk with anyone directly at big companies, usually just an email address is published but I had a phone number.
Louise, Emily and I decided we would bird around the Inuvik town site for the morning. It was sunny and got warm by noon. Here are some lupins which were along the road on the bush side.
I can't say we say a lot of birds. In fact we were disappointed as we were expecting lots of birds here. We saw Yellow Warblers, White crowned Sparrows, Robins and one Northern Waterthrush. Common Ravens are everywhere. We went down forest trails a bit and at one house we met a fellow who had just put out food for the Raven that he called Casper. Casper was sitting on the hydro pole waiting for us to leave so he could come down and eat. We continued on. Most of the roads are dirt here and every time a truck goes by, there are clouds of dust. This picture was painted on a fence of a house.
Everyone we met up with was friendly and we chatted with several people. The locals can tell that we were tourists. We noticed this system of pipes around the town. These are these covered pipes lead from houses and buildings and down to the main street. Louise said that this was the sewage system. We found out later that this system and the pipes of water, hot water and sewage are housed in a casing and the whole system is called a Utilidor. Due to the permafrost, water and sewer systems cannot be dug into the earth like at home. We noticed that the houses are built on pillars and the buildings also. So it all makes sense
We also walked down the main drag and one can see forests from anywhere in town.
We had planned to try the fish tacos at Alestine's for lunch today. We found the yellow schoolbus restaurant but it turned out that the restaurant was closed for lunch. The lady who runs it came out and said they were out of supplies and she planned to open for supper if the supplies came in. Here is Alestine's (sorry for the finger in the photo, just noticed).
We went to lunch at the Northmart for fast food. I wanted to call the airline again to check the status of our luggage. I know from yesterday the flights get in by 1 pm.
I got through the third time and the lady said that she was looking at our luggage!!!! It was at the airport here and had just arrived. It would be delivered to our hotel sometime before 5 pm YAY YAY. It was fun to pull out toiletries and slippers and stuff....
So right now we are in the hotel resting, reading or watching TV. We pretty well have done the town short of going as far as the Dempster Highway which we could see but it was very cloudy with the dust. Maybe it is a dirt road. Not sure.
Sue and Don have arrived and came by our room for a visit and to catch up on news. So almost everyone on the tour is in. Sue told us about meeting Catherine McKenna, the Minister of the Environment on the plane to Inuvik. She is here for something on the Environment in Tuk today. She is staying at our hotel tonight.
We all met up downstairs in the hotel lobby to go to Alestine's for supper. We enjoyed the second floor patio and the fish tacos were delicious! We toasted the start of the trip and marveled at the venue and the town. We had dessert here also, sort of like a beaver tail.
After supper we walked back and by accident stumbled into the open door of the church where the weekly tour was being offered. The presenter talked about the history of Inuvik, how it got started the people here. She answered most of our questions about the town site and the flight over the many miles of straight lines (seismic testing for oil and gas). From the plane trip one can see absolutely straight lines in the middle of no where. Then Alanna spoke on how the church got built and how it got its design. It was really fascinating.
After this we returned to our room and some of our friends on the tour gathered here with a bottle of wine to toast again the start of the tour!
It was so nice to have my stuff this evening. My sleep clothes and my toiletries, my clean clothes etc. Simple pleasures!
This is the view at 11 pm of the view outside our window. This is the RCMP detachment.
Comments
Post a Comment