June 24
We left Calgary at 9:30 this morning and hopped north across the country, Calgary to Edmonton, Edmonton to Yellowknife. In Yellowknife a glacial geomorphologist en route to Ellesmere Island filled the third seat in our row; I was sitting next to Jen near the middle of the plane. Next: Yellowknife to Cambridge Bay. From the air, Cambridge Bay is a flat expanse of brown broken only by the odd pond or patch of snow. Then Cambridge Bay to Resolute Bay in a plane filled entirely with scientists.
Tim and Pete have been to the high Arctic before, so everything is familiar to them. I've been to the Yukon, but the eastern Arctic is totally different, stony where the west is muskeg. Jen has never been very far north of Calgary.
In our rooms at the Polar Continental Shelf Project (PCSP) complex, we found a Parks Canada pamphlet entitled Safety in Polar Bear Country. It says things like:
Polar bears are predators, primarily hunting seals, while grizzlies and black bears mostly eat plants. As predators, polar bears will investigate humans, their camps and may even consider humans as a food source.How comforting.
