Terin DeWolf: Mountaineering and Goodbye/Welcome Home Dinner

Colleagues have been telling Krisanne and I that we brought nice weather with us, as most days have been crystal clear with limited wind. Apparently as the days get longer and the temperature increases the weather around Cape Dorset becomes unpredictable with boughts of fog. We experienced a bit of fog this week, but nothing very extreme. This has meant that we have had the opportunity to get out and explore the town as well as hike up Kinngait Mountain yesterday.

The hike was great and not nearly as strenuous as I had anticipated when gazing up at the mountain from town. The view from the top offered an amazing 360 panoramic of the area and a great arial view of the town. In the distance it was possible to see the mainland of Baffin Island to the East and Kivallig Region to the West.

In order to get to the backside of the mountain, which is less steep to climb than the front, we had to first approach the old sewage lagoon. This brought up the question of "where does our sewage go?". This is something I had been wondering for a while. Daily a sewage and water truck make their rounds through town emptying and refilling each house. Due to the extreme weather, bedrock, and permafrost there are no pipes connecting water or sewage to houses. Each house is allotted so much water until the truck returns (which in Cape Dorset is daily so you do not have to worry too much about running out unless you have a lot of guests showering and doing laundry). The water comes from T Lake, which naturally filters down into a water storage tank. The sewage, I just learned, goes into a sewage lagoon/pond just past the dump. The old sewage lagoon is not used as it was quickly discovered that it would lead to water contamination of the bay below, due to run-off.

After the hike I attended a goodbye/welcome home dinner party for two qallunaats (non-inuit). One was returning from a couple of weeks spent surveying the caribou population of the Baffin region. It was fascinating talking to him about what he saw and did not see - he talked about the surprising lack of wolf tracks/wolves throughout the region. The other is leaving shortly for a short term position in Pond Inlet. Although I have only been here for a few short weeks I am constantly surprised and warmed by the fast friendships I have made throughout the community. I have had such a positive experience and have felt so welcomed by everyone I have met that it is truly going to make leaving that much harder.