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June 19/04 - Morning departure from Pond Inlet by snowmobile and Komatik on the ice! Travel across the sea-ice to the Floe Edge. It is never a direct journey as we have to dodge around the open leads in the ice. Set up camp! Our campsite will be the most sustainable possible, because a few weeks after we leave, it will have melted and disappeared! Stay tuned for more images and journal entries ... and remember - we will be communicating from base camp by computer hooked up to a generator ... from a tent!!
POND INLET NEWS and WEATHER
(Posted Sat. 11:45 am EST)
Geoff Green: by Phone Call - Pond Inlet
“Hello everyone ... we are well, everyone is having a blast! Last night we camped at Salmon Creek Campsite, about a mile outside of town - beautiful! As we walked towards the beach camp - some of the local Inuit students pointed out some local sorrel and edible flowers to snack on ... We all had a good rest. This morning at breakfast we had an orientation session from the local Parks Canada Warden of one of Canada’s newest National Parks ... Sirmilik, in fact, Students On Ice will be one of the very first groups of student to visit the park!
 (Sirmilik National Park represents the Northern Eastern Arctic Lowlands Natural Region and portions of the Lancaster Sound Marine Region. The park will comprise three separate land areas. Bylot Island is a spectacular area of rugged mountains, icefields and glaciers, coastal lowlands and seabird colonies. Oliver Sound is a long, narrow fiord with excellent opportunities for boating, hiking and camping. Borden Peninsula is an extensive plateau dissected by broad river valleys. The park features landforms and superb wilderness hiking and camping, and a major seabird colony in the vicinity of Baillarge Bay)
 “This morning the students are at the Cultural Centre to see some exhibits and then after lunch we will ‘get dressed’ and head out onto the ice in the Komatiks for the afternoon - to where we will set up base camp at the flow edge! Once set up there this evening ... we will experiment with our generator-based, laptop computer connection and hopefully send along an update! Stay tuned.
Page Bottom: June 18, radar satellite image of Pond Inlet.
JOURNAL ENTRY (Posted Sat. 5:00 pm EST)
Belinda, Jenny and Rachell
Hello, Last night we walked on the beach we saw seals skins which is sort of rare because most people here use the skins to make clothing. We slept in tents with huge sleeping bags we all had a pretty good sleep we could barely wake Belinda up. We got up at 7:30 than hitched a ride back to have our last hot shower. The girls got some good showers the boys on the other hand apparently ran out of water so sad L. We had a good breakfast and headed to the park office were we registered our group for our visit to the park. Currently we are in the community library and writing you this journal. We are having a ton of fun and we hope to see you all soon talk later.
Geoff here:
The kids are all dressed in their gear, its is now 1:50pm and we are minutes away from heading out onto the ice!! The real adventure begins. The kids are pumped! What a great group they are and the team spirit is flourishing. AND the good kharma is working! After lunch Ingrid divided up various leadership tasks for each of the students for the week ahead. These include tasks like the Seabird and Arctic Hare surveys, Camp maintenance, Social Coordinator, One-Tonne Challenge coordinator, Polar Bear watch assistant and Journal/Satellite coordinator. So here we go! It's going to be a long and exciting afternoon. My next report will come from the floe-edge, fingers crossed…
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