I spent as much time as I could out on the tundra. I did, after all, have a new plants book, and thus I had to learn some plants. I also just liked hiking around. You can go anywhere, except when you get yourself stuck on scree slopes going up cliffs. I did this one day – I went to Uluksan Point, and then started wandering along the rotting ice at the base of the cliffs. There was open water along the land, and I'm a chicken, and I know that you are more likely to see a polar bear along open water. I impulsively decided I needed to be at the top of the cliffs, and there was a scree slope… and once you get to a certain point, you realize you can't go backwards so forwards you must go, even if at times all four of your contact points are sliding. I was absolutely terrified, convinced I was going to smash down loose scree and then plop into Adams Sound. I didn't, though, but it took a long time for my heartrate to return to normal. For the rest of the day, I wandered along the top, past soapstone ridges and lakes and boulders…

I always oriented myself by King George V Mountain , which is just south of Arctic Bay . It's 564m high. I went up twice, once with Lea (who was in town for a week) and once with Barry (who came for four days). Lea and I took a nasty scree route that had us up in under an hour. Barry and I took a more sedate but still scree-strewn route, and it took more than two hours. With Barry, I came down on the other side, through a lush (as lush as the tundra can be) valley that I was just in love with.

The tundra was one of the highlights. The many kids were another. While I was there, the Midnight Sun Marathon was held. The marathoners choose from 32 km, 42k m and 100 km courses (nuts). The day after, they hold a road race for the community – a 6 km and a 10 km course, with free t-shirts and toys. The kids come out en masse, and they run in rubber boots, blue jeans, whatever. It was very cool.

The kids are always around – there is no such thing as bedtime (you see as many people at 1 a.m. as you do at 1 p.m. – it never gets dark, so why not) and they're always on the streets. After a few days, some of them started running up to me and showing me whatever was exciting that day, including a snow goose gosling (should that be snow gosling?) one day. There isn't much by the way of organized activity – the town has an arena (that should have been in my list of buildings) and ball diamond and a basketball hoop on the school grounds, but not much else. They play on the ice, puddle-jumping, and on the tundra. The older ones do what teenagers like to do, they hang out on the steps of the northern store, smoking and eating chips.

Unfortunately, eating chips became part of my routine, too. Much as I liked going on the tundra and fascinating as it was to learn a little bit about an Inuit town and work with an Inuk (Mishak was great), I missed home. When you live on an organic vegetable farm, the contrast with a northern diet is… striking. So, I didn't protest when Barry rebooked my departure to match his (my work had gone well, and staying in Arctic Bay is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination – so he decided that I would be more effective in my office at home…). It was just under a month, but it felt like three, in some ways. When it never gets dark and you adjust your rhythms to staying up all night some of the time, you lose track of days. Coming home was exciting because the stupidest little things became exciting again: strawberries, romaine lettuce, wearing sandals, beer stores (no beer stores or liquor stores in all of Nunavut !), speaking the language…

I always did appreciate patio beer, but I appreciate it even more now. It's summer, and you sit outside, and people bring you great-tasting stuff in cold pint glasses. Aaaaaaahhhh… I wonder if Lawren Harris loved coming home from his adventures? And with that, I leave you with some more of my favourite images. As I finish putting together these pages, I notice that it's Friday, and I need to go have a beer!