On our trip into town yesterday, we visited the town beach, which sits on Hudson Bay. Hudson Bay is a very large body of salt water, and it is the 2nd largest bay in the world. The largest is the Bay of Bengal.
Churchill is located on the western coast, which is an area of flat lowlands. Because it is so flat, the tide comes in about 2 miles, through a boulder strewn tidal flat.
In the photos up above, look for the high peaks in the ice and snow. O believe there is a large rock at the bottom of each one. As the tide comes in and lifts the ice, the area around the rock cracks, and water gushes up. The water freezes, and then the wind blows the very dry snow all around them. There is a lot of wind and blowing snow around here! Suddenly, it is a surreal scene of beauty. One of the guests told me this morning, that he thought the sea ice was the highlight of his trip.
Closer to the shore, there were many smaller rocks, and these had thick smooth coatings of ice, causing them to glisten in the sunlight. Yes, we did have some sunlight, finally!
At the town beach landing, there is an impressive inuksuk which stands about 30 feet high. If you saw our Christmas card this year, we included a photo by Jim Halfpenny, of the aurora over the inuksuk. There will be a separate blog entry devoted to inuksuit (plural of inuksuk). I think of this one as a monument of sorts. Usually, they are quite a bit smaller.
The auroras have not been frequent this year. We have had way more cloudy weather than last year, but our resident astronomer, Alan Dyer, managed to get some wonderful photos. You can look forward to a blog entry about Alan in the next week or two.
Earthwatch, a group of citizen scientists, is starting to gather. They begin tomorrow. So far, we have someone from Boston, London (and South Africa), western Australia, and the rest I have not met. These folks will be doing research on the snowpack and the treeline. I think this will be a future blog as well.
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