When the sun shines and clouds adorn the heavens with magnificent works of art, the world rejoices and we find beauty everywhere. These far northern lands spawn tales of hardship, of searches for fame and glory that tragically end. One wonders if those early explorers were gifted with days like today. Were they able to look far off and simply enjoy the moment they were in?
Molded by an icy hand, the mountains of Baffin Island mesmerized early risers with a mosaic of patterns. Long ago, scoops were plucked from hillsides leaving cirques like delicate porcelain bowls lined with a remnant of white ice or empty basins hidden in shadows. Frozen rivers of ice flowed like ribbons down narrow valleys or poured over crests like thin frosting on a cake. Fresh snow dusted the edges of cliffs and every depression stood out in repeating designs of black and white. Cottony clouds softened the peaks and slipped across the strait to Bylot Island’s shores. Between the two a ribbon of blue beckoned. If we had been a sailing ship with no charts might we have thought this was the passage the world was searching for?
Blue light and clouds dominated the day even as the citizens of Pond Inlet shared their pride in community and culture. Every eye kept on returning to the sea where ice floes glimmered like distant jewels or to the horizons adorned with unimaginable shapes and cloud formations. Modern and traditional lifestyles blended throughout the village. Women still carry their children in the hoods of their anoraks while texting or sipping from their Tim Horton coffee cups. Seal and whale are still favored foods but the pursuit is from aluminum motorboats. Sleds dot the shoreline poised to transport goods from one place to another, pulled not by dogs but gas-guzzling ATVs.
For a time we were able to pretend we were gathered in a big snow house as traditional songs were sung and sporting competitions played in fun. Not far from this modern village, on the banks of Salmon Creek, the roots of these people can be found. Circular foundations of Thule homes and sizeable middens of bones bear witness to the past.
Looking back on the day, it might be safe to say that few of us expected the diversity and splendor hidden here in Canada’s newest territory, Nunavut.
