Pebble Beach Golf Course

One of the other stops we made while visiting Aunt Mandi and Uncle Ewan was the Pebble Beach Golf Course.  We decided not to actually play golf as the rounds were $495 per person - at least that included a cart. :-) 

The Club house was opulent with a wonderful restaurant and bar.  Even the washrooms were awesome, with marble floors and counter tops. 

We did venture out onto the course to have a look around.  It is a beautiful course.  We were able to take a few pictures near the 18th green.  It was a spectacular view and having the opportunity to wander onto a course where golf's very best players have been was an enlightening experience. 

Jacquie and I enjoyed visiting the Pebble Beach Golf Course.  Who knows once the 649 comes through for us, we may even play there! 



Monterey Bay Aquarium

In October, Jacquie and I had the awesome opportunity to visit Uncle Ewan and Aunt Mandi at their home near San Francisco. One of the adventures we had the pleasure of experiencing was the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It is situated on the Pacific Ocean in Monterey California.

There are many amazing exhibits like the sea otters, octopus, jelly fish, and many other wonderful exhibits. We spent 3 hours or so at the aquarium and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The pictures of our adventure are as follows:

Thanks Aunt Mandi and Uncle Ewan

The Iqaluit Fall Fair

Saturday September 28 was the Rotary club of Iqaluit's Fall Fair. The Rotary Club has been putting this event on in Iqaluit for many years. It is an event that is very well attended with an estimated 500 - 600 showing up for the event this year.

The event his held at the Arctic Winter Games Centre. This year Jacquie and I were the hotdog cookers and we gave out over 300 hotdogs in 3 hours. That was nothing compared to the guys that were doing the french-fries. They had 2 French-fryers going from 11:45 until 3:45 and went through 60 large bags of fries. We couldn't even guess how many orders in total were given out. Also there was pop, juice, chips, and chocolate bars.

There were a number of games and events to keep everyone occupied. Nunavut is in the middle of an election campaign with the Territorial elections taking place on October 28th. Jacquie pointed out 4 of the candidates that are running in Iqaluit. Altogether there are 4 seats up for grabs in Iqaluit and Apex. Anyway, one of the events was a bean bag throw. The way it works is a child gets to throw a bean bag at a target and when they hit it, a balloon full of water lands on someone's head. Some of the candidates,the Mayor and other celebrities took turns being targets. Oh the fun of election campaigns!! :-)

There were clowns and games and events. Everyone had a wonderful time!! Jacquie and I had a wonderful time at the event and it was gratifying to see so many children having so much fun!! :-)

Cormack Bay - Ward Inlet

The weekend of August 22 Larry and I embarked on a new adventure with good friends Scott and Suzy to Cormack Bay in Ward Inlet. We were to leave at high tide on Saturday and picked up again on Monday, again at high tide.

Cormack Bay is known for its good fishing and historically was one of the first outpost stations for the Hudson’s Bay Company. The picture below shows the foundations that show the evidence that buildings indeed existed.

A common site when travelling out on the land are cabins; pictured below is a cabin that is used by the many different travellers that arrive at Cormack Bay. Usage is based upon first come first serve, however in times of poor weather and extreme circumstances no one would be turned away from shelter.

Our trip down the Frobisher Bay went without incident. On the way out from Iqaluit we were able to get “close up” views of the fuel tanker that is unloading diesel and oil for the year (millions of litres will be transferred to the tank farm) as well as two sealift ships. The pictures inserted show one of the sealift ships unloading their cargo onto a couple of barges. The folks that have as of yet to receive their ‘sealift’ are no doubt happy to see the two newest arrivals.

Whenever you travel by boat in the Arctic you must always wear a floater suit. If there is one thing that does happen up here, is people pay attention to safety. These suits were quite large, however they kept us warm on the trip down the bay. A couple of landmarks on the trip are the Frobisher narrows (self explanatory) and Frobisher Furthest an island. Both are good geographical markers to remind you where you are.

We arrived at Cormack Bay around 5:30 and set up camp. There was another group at the more traditional landing spot. Once we had our camp set up it was to the water to do some fishing. It wasn’t long before we had our catch of day. The Char were huge (10-15 pounds).

We had a real treat while out fishing. The other group were also fishing, however they were using nets and needless to say they had a plentiful catch of Char. In true Larry fashion not an opportunity went by. We were given a treat into Inuit traditional ways and allowed to hear their stories and take the pictures you see below to share. Of particular interest is the way the Char is hung to “dry” and watching the female elder do all the prep using her ulu was a real lesson, of which we won’t ever forget.

Our two days at Cormack Bay were wonderful. The weather cooperated and the bugs probably only got a litre from each of us – including Holly. Holly was a real trooper. She went on all the hikes and enjoyed every minute. Of course, she also slept from the time we put her on the boat for the return trip home til about Tuesday. She was one tired out dog.

The landscape around the area was breathtaking. Not a moment would go by that you weren’t mesmerized or appreciating what was surrounding us. On the second day we hiked to two waterfalls. We enjoyed the nearest and took lots of pictures of the one in the distance. We all agreed that none of us wanted to hike up that last hill. We had already done a fair bit and looking from a distance was okay. We constantly thought of safety and were always on the lookout. We also made sure that we had the rifle with us when venturing away from the campsite.

On the last day, the adventure was extended. Our boat appeared for us to watch it anchor out away from shore and then a voice yelling “we just have to change an alternator belt.” We looked at each other and all thought uh oh!. Two hours went by, our kit was sitting at the shore and now we had to start moving stuff as the tide was still coming in. The boat finally came alongside and the owner informed us it was going to be a long trip home because we only had one motor working. On we piled, and all we thought was – how long is long. Lucky for us it wasn’t too cold a night (we started loading at about 6 pm) and the waters were calm, there was hardly any wind.

The “three hour tour” (remembering a certain TV show) turned into a 7.5 hour ride back. We came ashore just before 2 am. Holly and I spent most of the trip below deck. When we were getting closer to Iqaluit, the jelly fish were plentiful and you could see them glowing in the water after the motor of the boat stirred them up. It was quite a sight to see and few probably have the opportunity. We saw some wildlife while away and of particular not were seals, sea birds and fox.

It was a trip for the memory books and one we would highly recommend to everyone.

20th Anniversary of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement

April 11, 2013 was a celebration for Nunavut as it reached its 20th anniversary since signing the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA). As part of the ceremony a large igloo was constructed (see below picture) and a delegation of selected individuals conducted a ceremonial cabinet meeting. I have also included the picture of the group inside the igloo (this was the photo provided by the GN and put in the papers).

The agreement was originally signed July 9, 1993 and served as the basis for establishing Nunavut as a new territory. It officially became a territory on April 1, 1999.The agreement transfers over jurisdiction of territorial matters to the Nunavut government (GN). These areas include: wildlife management, land use planning and development, property taxation and natural resource management.

Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI) monitors proper implementation of the NLCA and ensures Inuit economic, social and cultural well-being. In other words NTI ensures that the promises and obligations made within the NLCA are being upheld by both the Federal and Territorial Governments.

Diving in St. Croix

When Jacquie and I were in St. Croix in February we had the opportunity to go diving. This was the 6th day of our cruise on February 22nd, which is Jacquie's birthday. We took 2 dives; the first being a wreck dive with a maximum depth of 60 feet: We saw 2 interesting wrecks. I had some trouble with weights for the dive and had to fight to stay down. This used my air up more quickly than usual, which meant our dive was cut a little short. We were still down for around 35 minutes.



The second dive was a reef dive and we had the opportunity to see quite a number of sea life: The second dive was a little shallower, my weight problem was fixed and we were able to stay down a little longer. The total length of the dive was some 40 minutes.



Prior to leaving on our trip we had travelled to Jacquie's dive shop in NewMarket. As an aside, Russ and Kim Watson provided wonderful hospitality and let us stay for the night (thanks guys). While at the dive shop, I purchased a shorty, which is a 3 mil wet suit. You will notice it in the next couple of photos.

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Jacquie is an avid diver and I'm glad she had a chance to dive on her birthday. I thoroughly enjoyed the dives too. Thanks sweetie for sharing the experince with me!!

Snowmobiling to Crazy Lake and the Pangnirtung Trail

On Saturday March 30th good fiends of ours (Scott and Suzie) guided us to Crazy Lake by snowmobile.

Jacquie and I were looking to rent a snowmobile and had a couple of options. The best price we could find for a single rider was $175 per day and $250 per day for a double rider. Jacquie was talking to one of her co-workers and Kristi said that we could borrow her machine. That was great of her and she has a 550cc skidoo with electric start, grip warmers, reverse and all of the bells and whistles.



About 10:45 we started on our journey. Scott said we were heading about 20 miles north east of Iqaluit. Scott and Suzie were on their own machines and Jacquie and I were riding tandem.



What was impressive to me is that we were heading out Saturday morning and there were many fresh snowmobile tracks heading out of town. This was especially interesting since I would have thought that most of the people that were going out hunting or to cabins for the weekend would have already left on Good Friday. The trip was uneventful. The trail was excellent and many times we were able to get up to 60KM/hour. After 1/2 way or so, we found some igloos. These were emergency igloos that had been built a couple of hundred yards off the main path. It was obvious that they had been built many weeks before and it's hard to know if someone was using them for shelter to get out of weather or just built them for fun. Scott then gave us a little lesson on how emergency igloos are made.



We travelled for an hour or so and then we made it to Crazy Lake. There was a small cabin on the edge of Crazy Lake that is used as a shelter when necessary.



We then drove across Crazy Lake toward the beginning of the Pangnirtung (Pang)trail. Admittedly, anytime I'm on a snowmobile on a lake, I get this uneasy feeling. There have been countless stories of snowmobiles falling through the ice. However, I was told by a friend that the ice on lakes like Crazy Like can be up to 12 feet deep. So, I've been convinced that there is no need to be concerned about travelling on any of the lakes in the area.



We then stopped for lunch. Jacquie and Suzie had packed a great spread including, smoked oysters, smoked salmon, crakers, cheese, pepperettes, nuts, and tea.



After lunch we off-trailed it, which was a lot of fun. Scott took us from the Pang trail to around Crazy Lake across a river up and over many ridges and through a number of valleys.



We went 25 miles out onto the land towards Pangnirtung and back. We had a wonderful time and it was an amazing experience. As we came into town, we saw a Polar bear hide that was being stretched and had obviously been shot only a few days before.



Thanks Scott and Suzie. Jacquie and I had a great time and very much enjoyed the experience.