September 6 Hazard Inlet & sea cruising Bellot Strait passed Zenith Point

 

Stunning flat landscape of Hazard Inlet

My head is spinning from the marvellous vistas sliding past our eyes. Travelling through this region of the high Canadian Arctic has been more exciting than I imagined it would be. This morning, after a very early morning reconnaissance run, our leader Ashley took us into Hazard Inlet, a shallow, quiet but very treacherous inlet few have ventured in to - except for Inuits over many 100s of years. We had only a short window of time to get in and out before the tide made navigation dangerous. The area, Qariaraqyuk, was home to Inuit people about 500 to 800 years ago. It seems that they abandoned the area around the time of the northern Little Ice Age; there’s a little debate on dates but it occurred around C14th until the mid-C19th or there abouts (this came after the Medieval Warm Period - interesting pattern!). Dates aside, increasing cold and sea ice probably pushed these people further south. Before that time, it was a large settlement of 300-400 people who survived on Bowhead whaling. 

It was quite a long ride in as the waters were too shallow for our ship

My head is spinning from the marvellous vistas sliding past our eyes. Travelling through this region of the high Canadian Arctic has been more exciting than I imagined it would be. This morning, after a very early morning reconnaissance run, our leader Ashley took us into Hazard Inlet, a shallow, quiet but very treacherous inlet few have ventured in to - except for Inuits over many 100s of years. We had only a short window of time to get in and out before the tide made navigation a little dangerous. The area, Qariaraqyuk, was once home to Inuit people about 500 to 800 years ago. It seems that they abandoned the area around the time of the northern Little Ice Age; there’s a little debate on dates but it occurred around C14th until the mid-C19th or there abouts (this came after the Medieval Warm Period - interesting pattern!). Dates aside, increasing cold and sea ice probably pushed these people further south. Before that time, it was a large settlement of 300-400 people who survived on Bowhead whaling. 

A very tranquil place

The settlement site. There were burial sites along these cliffs 

We stumbled across tiers of gravel then a stretch of delightfully squishy tundra (like walking on a waterbed) to reach the remains of sod houses, whale bones and cliffs containing burial sites. Absolutely fascinating. The houses were made of sod with whale bones forming the roofs and support walls - these had been disturbed.

The backbone of a Bowhead whale

The bones were used to support the walls and roof of sod houses

Our archaeologist, Professor Lisa Rankin, was ecstatic that we able to land there as she had never visited this site and was hoping to return to do more work. Sadly another archaeologist had visited the site some years before and had disturbed the bones in an attempt to do a bone count. Why? one can only wonder as it seriously impacted the archaeological trace. Good intentions perhaps or ignorance, but a bad outcome.  Because of the tides, we only had a short time there so I of course was snapping crazily to capture as much as I could. For me there was the added bonus of looking at the tundra plants - mosses, lichens, grasses, willows, (including quite a few I couldn’t ID) with great banks of seaweed washed up on the beach. Despite this being a ‘desert’, it is quite a fertile area. 

Jewel Lichen 

A stray clump of qiviut, evidence that musk ox roam here. 

Banks of Sphagnum and/or Peat moss. Bottom pic shows the cracks that develop
in the land with repeated freezing and thawing

Quite a selection which I struggled to identify but which caught my attention - endless textures

A few of the plants I found - L: Tufted Saxifrage, Top R: Mountain Avens or Arctic Dryad, R bottom : the fluffy seeds of Arctic willow (the Inuit use this fluff and that of Cotton Grass as wick for their oils lamps.)

The arrow points to Bellot Strait where we sailed this afternoon

That afternoon we sailed through Bellot Straits, a narrow sea passage which passes the northern-most point of the 14,000 km long American continent.  We saw narwhal and musk ox amid driving snow flurries. 

Zoom in the top pix and you might be able to make out 4 Musk Ox. Somewhere along the bank in the bottom pix is the northernmost point of Canada and the Americas land mass.

Before dinner, our Inuit cultural advisors gave a talk on the Inuit names and uses of the local plants - I was all ears as you can imagine. Eli Qaggasiq-Tagtu our young Inuit cultural ambassador has made a date with me to collect berries once we get to Alaska.

Our voyage to date