August 10 - Seeing the Coast

We woke up to a delicious breakfast scramble from Jill, excited to get back out into the field. After breakfast, most of the group got ready for field work and began hiking to the north of Nester One while Eric, Andrew, and Joaquin stayed back at camp management for a day of catching up on rest and cooking for the group. As the group walked up a beach ridge towards our sampling site, we split into pairs, rotating periodically, and answered various prompts in an attempt to get to know each other better. This created lots of laughter and new connections between group members and was a fun way to pass the time while hiking. A few kilometers into our hike, we stopped at a couple of cool archaeological sites, including a hunting blind and a tent ring, and learned a lot about the history and use of the area from Jill. We then walked a bit further to W-10, our permafrost sampling site for the day, and began our work. Our work here went quite well, and we were able to complete the site in just over an hour, even while stopping to look at some caribou that passed by the transects.

After finishing our permafrost sampling, we hiked on to the coast of the Hudson Bay for lunch. Everyone gathered wood while some of the JCRs built a fire for us, and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. When we had finished lunch, we walked down into the tidal flats, exposed by the low tide, and found several really cool fossils in some of the rocks. The group then continued hiking northward towards a fox den, which would be our second sampling site of the day. Our work at the fox den was also relatively efficient, and soon we were able to begin heading back towards Nester One. At this point, we were all tired, and the way back seemed quite long, but the time was passed with more prompts and enjoyment of the beautiful views from our beach ridge. 

We finally arrived back at camp hungry and exhausted at around 7:00, and were delighted to find a delicious dinner awaiting us. We had adobo chicken cooked by Joaquin and a curry cooked by Andrew, both of which tasted amazing and were perfect at the end of a long day of work. After dinner, we had some downtime and soon started getting ready for bed, however there was one more surprise of the night. Just before lights out, the northern lights appeared above camp, and many of us stayed up late on the observation deck watching them. We finally went to bed very tired and amazed by everything we had seen. -Ezra and Eric