A Night on the Town, A Day in the Forest

Once again we are in a transition time here at CNSC. We just said goodbye to our third Arctic Skies group, this one led by Roger Woloshyn- Starman! The other group's focus was photography of the aurora and the Arctic, led by Jim Halfpenny and David Marx. Both groups warmly welcomed us to join their lectures, and we did just that whenever there was time away from the dishes. Our aurora photography skills have most certainly improved, and Brian is having fun with time lapse. I am looking at better editing programs that I didn't know existed!

So we are on a two day break of sorts. We had the local scouts for a sleepover two nights ago, and they were pretty darn cute. On that night, even with the scouts here, we did keep the aurora watch. I made it until 1 am, and was pleased to get a few nice shots!

On Tuesday afternoon, I went out on a walk with two of our guests and my fellow volunteer, Donna. We started to walk toward the boreal forest, as I wanted them to see the frosted trees with a blue sky as a backdrop. As we walked along, it was amazing to me that all of the snow on the roads and open surfaces had blown away, or at least most of it. The snow which remained was extremely hard, and we could walk across it easily. In the open areas, the wind had sculpted the snow into beautiful designs.

As the shrubs and smaller trees became more numerous, the snow became deeper and softer.  Suddenly, some fresh tracks became evident on the pristine surface of the snow. They were huge and canine. After checking field guides and going back for measurements, it was most definitely was a gray wolf. Just as the field guide said, the tracks were about 4.5 inches long and 3.5 inches wide. Perhaps just a bit larger- certainly no smaller.

Some of our group who were more adventurous than me,  started walking through the snow. Before they had taken more than a few steps, they were in snow up to their waists.  We headed back once Jill and Donna had figured  a way to crawl out!

When Brian and I went back on the second day, we followed the trail for a short way. We saw plenty of other tracks as well, including fox, red squirrel, and plenty of ptarmigans. We saw some small flocks of these beautiful white birds flying by, but we weren't fast enough with the cameras. The ptarmigan photo is from last year.

Brian and I hiked into the forest a bit, to enjoy the beauty of the frosted trees, where we found a sundog rainbow peeking through the trees. We came out of the woods, and  walked back over the tundra pond to CNSC. The reflection of the blue sky on the icy patches was so pretty. I'm not sure the camera does it justice.

Sundog framed by spruce trees

Just before arriving back, we stopped to take some photos of a bright orange lichen on the surface of the bare rocks. It is called Xanthoria elegans and means the elegant sunburst lichen, according to Wikipedia.

Yes, it truly looks this orange in the sunlight!

At the close of the trip, Brian took this photo of CNSC, which made me chuckle, as it looked like they had done some landscaping with all of the spruce trees.

The other part to the title of this blog is "A Night on the Town". Last Friday, Brian and I did have a night on the town. Actually, our assistant director, Heidi, needed a cat sitter and we needed a kitty fix. It was a perfect plan.

Heidi has two kitties, Stuey and Stella. Stuey is about 6 years old, and fairly sedentary.  Stella still has some kitten in her, and she is so light that you can't feel her in your lap. So after some quality kitty time, we walked into town for a meal at the only open restaurant, The Seaport Inn.

Then we had a brisk walk over to the town complex to watch a curling tournament. Fortunately there was a chatty gentleman beside us who was happy to give us pointers about what was going on. There were four matches going on, and we were watching from the comfort of the Curling Club Lounge. I loved the fact that all different ages seemed to be playing together.

When we left the complex, we were treated to another wildlife moment, with a gorgeous Arctic fox checking around the trash can for a free meal. Then it was back to Heidi's house, where we watched an episode of a series new to us called Murdoch Mysteries.

In the morning, we got picked up at 7 for an exciting ride to CNSC. Another little blizzard event was happening,  so the 13 mile drive had some areas with pretty low visibility. I finally just closed my eyes, and it seemed a much better ride. Mike, our director, assured me that he has driven this thousands of times and it wasn't all that bad. Good to know!