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Rocky Football

Posted by: Chris Debicki, expedition leader 

We arrived in the village of Nuussuaq yesterday and plan to head out today with local guides to explore the floe edge north of here where narwhal have been sighted. 

We first heard about narwhal sightings while in Nutarmiut on the weekend. No sooner had we weighed anchor there than six people came out by boat to greet us and invite us ashore for coffee and cookies. None of our expedition members speak Greenlandic fluently. But Alex, who speaks Inuktitut, has found Greenlandic easier to understand as we travel north. And it is Alex whom Greenlanders are most interested in talking to. They feel an immediate connection with Alex, who is from Pond Inlet on the Canadian side of Baffin Bay.

Our hosts gave us plenty of helpful advice during their conversation with Alex. They told us that narwhal had been seen in the area only a week or so ago and they predicted more would be at the floe edge close to Nuussuaq. An older man named Pauluq suggested a potential route to help us skirt a wall of drifting pack ice that will otherwise impede our progress.  As a word of caution, he also told the story of three small hunting boats that got pinched in the ice off the Nuussuaq Peninsula only weeks ago. Sadly, several lives were lost and the rescue operation recovered only two of the boats. 

Their advice about the ice conditions added to the information we’ve gleaned from satellite imagery. We’re lucky to have met these very knowledgeable local residents and will rely on their instructions as we travel north.

Photo above, Alex Ootoowak shows our hosts in Nutarmiut pictures of life in Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet).