Survivor Ellesmere

Despite the crappy weather, Debbie and I went on two walks today. The fog made us veto the hike over the ridge and into the next valley over, for fear that if we lost sight of town we'd never make it back. Instead we walked around town and down to the bay this morning (where I touched the liquid Arctic ocean for the first time) and out to an old fisheries lab this afternoon. I'm so happy Deb's here, because with the weather the way it is and the number of beluga whales the town has brought in recently (being stored on the beach) I would have been terrified of polar bears had I gone out alone. I was terrified of bears anyways, but having someone with you somehow makes it better.

This picture is from the old lab, which was abandoned in the late 90's. I would have loved to see the Resolute Bay Aquarium in full swing. Apparently they used to come up here in the summer with a group of 25 university students of varying levels and collect marine wildlife to study. They had a small aquarium with three tanks describing some of the fish and other creatures (anenome and sea cucumbers!). The lab was still in good condition, we had to break in, but it seemed no one with malicious intentions had done it before. Everything was still in place - lots of tanks for the creatures, scuba equipment, beakers, you name it. Deb wasn't sure why it closed, but I suspect lack of funding is the culprit. Whatever the reason, seeing it the way it was, all packed up but ready to use, made me sad. The lab in Eureka was almost closed in 2002, and as we poked around this closed lab I couldn't help but visualise AStrO closed up in a similar way. And future people breaking in and looking at all the abandoned equipment in the same way. There should be more money for science in this country.

The fog doesn't make for great pictures, but here's one of the bay and essentially the Northwest passage, which comes right by Resolute. The picture below is of the Gjøa, the first ship to ever navigate the NWP, that I saw in Oslo in March. The NWP is in the news today, with Steven Harper in Iqaluit going on about Arctic sovereignty. Apparently he's bringing so much attention to the NWP that he's going to by pass it by flying to Alert (at the very tip of Ellesmere, the island Eureka is on) and then on to Yellowknife and Whitehorse. Good for him, visiting the Arctic. And Arctic sovereignty is going to be an issue if things keep warming up the way they are. I don't like how he's going about it, but it is time to draw the rest of the country's attention to the massive barren North that is used by Canadians in a non-conventional manner. But I don't bring this up to discuss politics. I bring this up to ask your advice. If Steve is heading to Alert, there's a good chance he may stop in Eureka too. He's set to go there tomorrow, and I'm set to go to Eureka tomorrow morning. So what if he stops in Eureka? What do I say if I meet him? As background, I disagree with most everything that man does. I think he's ruining the country, and if he ever gets a majority government I think he'll ruin it more. So on the small chance that we are in the same place at the same time, what do I say/do? I can't shake his hand. It isn't nice to meet him, it's not a pleasure, and it most certainly isn't an honour. So how do you not shake someone's hand and have it not be incredibly rude? Or do I care about being incredibly rude? I hope he doesn't realise Eureka exists, and so doesn't stop there.