Fires and Friends

I haven't had much time to blog recently so this post is a couple of weeks late, but here it is!

I mentioned my friend Denise is in Iqaluit for the summer and I met up with her on my way to Pang. She briefly introduced me to some of her co-workers/friends while I was there, and now one of them is my friend too! Sara was in Pang last week for professional development and we met up to go on walks. There is a road through town that goes across the bridge, and past a campsite towards Auyuittuq National Park. The road stops at some point but we didn’t get that far. It was a nice long walk and we got to know each other pretty well over the week. I took a lot of pictures because the view was so amazing! The mountains look prettier and prettier the closer you get. You can make out more details and different coloured rocks, grasses and mosses. We also found small buds starting to grow and saw pools of water on the ice – signs of spring!

Sara left on Friday, but the fun didn’t stop there. My roommates and their friends were having a bonfire Saturday evening which they invited me to. It was really nice to get out and socialize rather than sitting in my room all weekend. Spending the evening sitting by a warm fire eating smores was great. On the way home I also rode in the back of a pickup truck for the first time. I see trucks driving around with people sitting in the back all the time in Pang. It was SO much fun. A while ago I got my first ride on an ATV/quad which was also a lot of fun. Apparently, it’s called a Honda though – when I called it a quad someone corrected me (“you mean a Honda?”). I wonder where that comes from since they’re not all the same brand but at least now I won’t sound silly calling it the wrong name :)

Come Monday Sara was back in Pang! Only for a day this time but we made the most of it and decided to hike up the side of the smaller mountain right next to my house after work. Walking on the tundra is so different from walking on grass in Edmonton. The ground is soft and super squishy…almost bouncy. It’s like walking on a sponge. It feels so weird but also so cool at the same time, I love it! Right now all the snow is melting so it was a very wet hike (thank god for rain boots). Water was flowing down the mountain in thin streams, making its own intricate paths like little rivers. I stopped every other step to look at the tiny plants growing on the surface; some of them had new buds and were beginning to grow. I can’t wait until the flowers bloom! The climb is pretty steep and wet and slippery with the melting snow so about a quarter of the way up I needed a break. We were sitting and talking as a husky ran up to us! I met her owner on Saturday at the bonfire, so he stopped to say hi and told us he had just left another little fire on the side of the mountain with a view of the opening of the fjord. We decided to go try and find it instead of hiking to the top. Getting there was hard! Instead of following a dry patch (and by dry I mean without snow) up the mountain we had to now go across the side through patches of snow. There was no way to tell which parts of the snow would be deep, so we ended up sinking in multiple times. Once I thought I’d lose my boot trying to pull my leg out, but we made it! And the view was spectacular. We sat up there on the little plateau around the fire talking and watching skidoos go across the still frozen water. After the fire went out we hiked back down looking at more plants. We ended up finding a couple of bones on the land which was pretty cool to see. I also found a sea shell! There are shells on the coast, but it was weird to find on the side of a mountain. Overall it was a great night :)