Thursday, November 15, 2012 – High 14°F Low -2°F - To Gypsy's for breakfast and it feels, if possible, even colder. The weather changed about 3am. When we went to bed there was no wind sound from the bathroom vent which we had determined was due to South wind and the ice blowing away from shore. About 3am, my head boomed and woke me up out of dead sleep. Cynthia, another in our group, said she woke up like a gong had gone off about 3 am. We both suffer vertigo and we decided that it was a major barometric pressure change we felt. So, as we went out the snow was blowing sideways in hard little sharp shards. Pat said the wind chill was -29. I don’t know whether he meant C or F, but really it didn’t matter because we knew it was really, really, very cold.
We got an old Rover today. It did not have foot rests, but the window dividers were better placed than on our previous new Rover. The driver today did not clean the snow off the floor before setting out like Bill had done. There was a lot more snow today. Our driver today was Baz and he was a French Canadian. We drove and drove as visibility came and went. Eventually, around 11am the sun came out. This old Rover had a big furnace in the back with a fan to blow the heat forward. We were bouncing to loosen our brain stems from our spines. In addition to the nausea from the pre-vertigo attack aura that I suffered all day today, I had a headache. Eventually, I got really sleepy and I looked back and all the people behind me were asleep. I got up and went to sit by Clay to incoherently try to tell him that we’d all be dead of carbon monoxide poisoning before anyone found our frozen bodies. He couldn't understand me, which really frightened me, before I pointed back and he saw the furnace I was talking about and all the sleeping people. He just said it is too hot in here.
About this time, we got a little excitement from a Tundra Buggy stuck up to its axles in the snow. Eventually, we drove around it and continued to our first stop by the Great White Bear Tundra Lodge.
Other Rovers were leaving and the word was no polar bears here. We drove to where we had gone on the Nunavut tidal flats before and it looked like the bay. It was a high tide storm surge that had completely flooded the area. Baz didn't know which way to go and Pat had no advice for him. Baz sat here for a long time and talked on his radio to others before turning left and away from all the other buggies and rovers.
I spotted a small black and gray shore bird as we drove and we stopped to try to photograph it. We didn't get a picture of it, but our group’s best photographer did and she shared it. Pat called it a shore bird. Obviously, but I don’t know exactly what it was. It was black and gray and fairly small and unremarkable, except for being the first and only wildlife we have seen today.
We parked and sat for a long time while Pat gave us a lecture on polar bear reproduction. I watched a huge sheet of ice break off and drift away and tried to stay awake. We had hot chocolate. We saw all the other buggies in the distance moving and word was they were following a bear, but no one could see it even with big binoculars. Baz tried to start our Rover, but couldn't. He said the throttle was frozen. He had a spray bottle of alcohol and got Pat to help him open the doghouse. A passenger held it up for them, but they still couldn't start it. One of the other Rovers came right next to us and the driver got out and came into ours and helped and got it started. This was a little scary because we had been sitting for at least 30 minutes or more and the vehicle had gotten very cold by this time.
All the buggies and Rovers followed him and he got pretty stressed. We decided we should leave him alone as more buggies arrived and Pat said we had to start back to get our Rover turned in by 4 pm anyway. Then, he got away from most of the buggies and rovers anyway and sheltered in the edge of some willows for a nap.
One bear and a ptarmigan is all we saw today. Oh, and a shore bird. It was a long, hard and pretty sad final day. (Mom watched the Tundra Buggy Cam pretty steadily today and was so happy to see so many bears and they were so active rolling in the snow and play fighting. She was so happy for us. I will point out that we never saw the Tundra Buggy with the webcam on it today and clearly we were in the wrong places almost all day long! Polar Bear Alley blog reports Great White Bear expected a slow bear day and so he must have heard from the people in the Rovers we were in sight of all day that only saw this one bear. The other experiences he reported were clearly in Tundra Buggies as their experiences reflect what Mom described she watched online.)
We were happy to see one bear really well though. We unloaded and all gathered for a group photo by an example Rover. Here is most of our group in a photo courtesy of a fellow passenger.
As Pat took us back into town, he stopped by a town sign for photos, and then to the hotel for a rest before dinner pickup at 6:50pm. Tonight was free and he offered another fox hunt and Northern Lights tour for those who wanted to go. I don't remember what Clay had and he didn't take any photos of our last 2 meals at Gypsy's for some reason. I had another steak. For dessert, Clay had rhubarb pie heated and a la mode. I had another strawberry and whipped cream filled pastry horn. It was slim pickings tonight in the pastry case.
On the way back to the hotel, Pat drove us by the Town Complex to see the bay. It was crazy! There were great rolling breakers and no ice visible in his headlights. Pat said it was a combination of another front coming in from the North as well as the rising tide. Hudson Bay is dramatically altered every time we see it. After dinner, I stayed in. Clay had volunteered a memory stick and to upload a fellow passenger’s volunteered photos and thought about working on that, but instead went out on the bus for Pat’s fox hunt. He saw one fox and Northern Lights that were good, but he said not as dramatic as the first night. I worked on packing for the morning and by 9pm, I was asleep. I did not hear Clay come in and go to bed.
For some reason, today was the day that Clay photographed our room, 139, at the Aurora Inn. I think I talked about it resembling a 1-bedroom loft apartment and if I didn't that's what it was like. Anyway, below are a series of photos Clay took there this morning before we went out for the day. Excuse the mess, it is all ours and housekeeping did a good job, that is not really reflected in these photos. Sorry!
Photos
Photos
