Rhythm of the Tides: my arctic experience

Sylvia Grinnell

One might rightly wonder, who is Sylvia Grinnell and what is she doing in the arctic? The truth is that she was never in Iqaluit nor on Baffin Island, but the park next to the city bears her name.

An American by the name of Charles Francis Hall, who was a friend of Henry Grinnell, arrived here and named the park and the river that runs through it after his daughter. Did he ask the Inuit permission to do that? After all, it was their land! It didn't matter that it already had a name – Iqaluit Kuunga. Because Grinnell funded his voyage, Hall felt obliged to honour Grinnell's daughter. One can only suppose that Sylvia must have been delighted with the christening that happened in 1861, before Canada was even a nation.

Hall was one of the arctic explorers we learned about in school. He had come here in search of the lost Franklin Expedition and discovered that the straight, which Frobisher thought was the Northwest Passage to India, was actually a bay.

One sesquicentennial later, more or less, two more explorers appeared at the park's entrance, ready to do some exploring of their own. It's a beautiful sunny day when Don and I arrive and have the park all to ourselves – there's no other soul in sight. We walk for hours and hours without encountering anyone. 

While Hall did his exploring with an Inuit guide by the name of Kooyesse, for whom he named the inlet at the end of Frobisher Bay, we do ours without any help, if we don't count the numerous signposts and inuksuks. As we have neither a guide nor a benefactor we aren't burdened with the task of renaming anything. We just enjoy the sunshine and the spectacular scenery.

At the park entrance, an information panel catches my eyes. It talks about the Inuit calendar having six seasons. Strange, I thought, to me it feels like two: winter and summer, with winter taking most of it. But no, there is winter (ukiuk), early spring (upirngasaaq), spring (upirngaaq), summer (aujaq), early fall (ukiassaaq) and fall (ukjaq). While it's true that winter lasts at least eight months, it's during the other four months that everything happens in the tundra. And so, it's logical that this short period is so finally dissected.

The purple mountain saxifrage, which is the Nunavut official flower, marks the beginning of early spring. These seasons are not fixed to a calendar date; Mother Nature announces them instead. It's also the season when the polar bears emerge from their hibernation with their newborn cubs and hunting begins.

In spring, people start fishing for Arctic Char, hunting geese and gathering goose eggs.

Summer is when the tundra bursts with life as colourful plants emerge from the ground and bird songs fill the air. People start hunting for seal, whale and walrus and gathering plants.

The ripening of the lingonberry (cranberry) announces early fall and the time when people go picking berries, including blackberries and cloudberry (bakeapple). It's also time to go hunting bears, foxes and wolves, and sew parkas and other garments for the winter.

And when the tundra turns into a carpet of red and gold, which doesn't last long, people know it's fall.

Finally, when that carpet turns snow-white, it's winter and the bears take the cue and go into hibernation. Winter is when the sun pretty much disappears and darkness covers the land for several months. The days are spent making hats, boots (kamiit) and mittens, sewing hunting clothes from hides and fur.

The ancient Inuit didn't have a calendar, but all ancient agricultural societies did. Some had a solar calendar and others a lunar one, or a combination of the two. They all needed to know when to plant their crops, and so they paid attention to these celestial bodies. For example, the first full moon after the winter solstice was time to plant early crops. Even today, with our modern calendars, some farmers look to the moon to tell them when to plant. 

The Inuit, being hunters and gatherers, didn't pay attention to the equinoxes and solstices. They were meaningless to them, but instead they paid close attention to the earth and the wind. Mother Nature was their calendar.

In the distance, we see a peak with a long pole stuck in a big pile of rocks, so we hike to it and find out that we have reached the highest point in this area of the park. At only 68 meters above sea level there's no risk of altitude sickness, but it gives us a good vantage point. The panel beside the mound of stones tells us that when the ice melted here, at the end of the last ice age, most of the park was under water. The ground had been pushed down by the weight of ice, and has since come up due to what scientists call isostatic rebound. We're in the middle of the tundra and we're learning science and history!

The river flows like a torrent and in many areas we spot white water. It's a good place for white-water-rafting enthusiasts. The rapids look challenging, but doable. The main challenge is the freezing-cold water. Along this stretch of white water there are numerous white vinyl tents. One of them is right on the edge of the river: it's not occupied. In fact most of them are unoccupied. We see signs of possible use, propane containers and barbecues, in just a few. This is peak summer season, if they're empty now, when will they be full?

We're exploring a tiny portion of the park, a thin wedge bounded by the river and the airport runway. So, although it feels like we're in the middle of nowhere, we're not really far from town. When we reach the thin edge of the wedge, we're right at the end of the runway and a plane passes over our heads within spitting distance. It's deafeningly loud!

Nearby is a large area designated for bonfires. A week earlier the entire team came here one evening at the invitation of Habitat for Humanity Iqaluit for a bonfire and marshmallow roast. Our hosts had brought some wood and fired up one of the fire pits. We all sat around in conversation enjoying the company and the heat from the fire, not to mention the snacks and the marshmallows. Now we stand on the same spot in solitude.

Other than birds, of which we spot many, from the small plovers to the big gyrfalcons, the most common animal we see is the lemming. We are on the look out for arctic foxes and hares, but it's in vain. And with the decimation of the caribou herd, we're not expecting to see any, even though the city guide says that they can be seen here. The guide is probably well out of date.

The Sylvia Grinnell River waterfalls are not comparable with the ones in Niagara. In fact, during high tide they can be easily mistaken as big rapids, but when it's low tide, they have a drop of more than four metres and they're very impressive. We have been told that just below the falls is one of the best fishing spots for arctic char.

From the falls we hike to near the mouth of the river, and when we reach the road we take it back into town. Here we see a team of huskies for the first time since we've been here. Apparently, this is where their owner keeps the dogs during the summer, when they're not needed to pull the sled. Part of the old culture is still alive, but just barely. In any case, it tells us that not every hunter in town has snowmobiles!