I've recently pocketed a few anti-bear scare tactics in the Elder vs. Polar Bear feat:

- Make noises louder than they can hear their own jaws click. Blowing your nose will gross them out.

- Run downhill; they are expert scaffolders and tend to tumble down hills as the ambition in their gallopy hind legs outweighs the capacity of their front feet.

- Aim for the rump. They have sensitive bums.


If you are still unsuccessful, I'm sure one can always resort to the fail-safe:
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start.

There is a god.

If you fill a ziplock bag of polar bear meat with water and freeze it outside (versus your refrigerator), it'll keep longer. The outside will also freeze your hair within seconds, but I don't know if that'll keep it long.

I flew in the smallest plane imaginable today and landed on a runway that inclined onto a mountain.

Hello Kimmirut, you make my heart beat but I still haven't gotten over Arctic Bay. I don't know if I ever will.

I've got a fever and this cabin is made of sand.

The thing about "please come see me everybody" radio broadcasts is that you can't leave, because you never know when they'll come. Fortunately the 4 hours it's taken me to transcribe a single 20 minute interview is keeping me busy.

Or sending me into the whims of Vertigo ;)

I managed to sneak away for an hour yesterday to visit the Inuujaq school, to teach the students about genetics and polar bear research. What I didn't expect was that the students (gr10-12) would teach me a heck of a lot more than I them. Two of the students had previously caught a polar bear--my 20+ years of schooling could never bring me even an arm's length (and I have really long arms) close to that sort of experience.

The interviews with hunters here (so far) have taught me even more. There are things about bears that you can't read in a paper/ article/ book, see on TV, or even study in a lab, however many hours you spend doing it. Even 1, 2, 3 weeks living in the high arctic won't cut it. The knowledge and experience that some community members have have taken a lifetime to accumulate; a couple of interviews and audiotapes--again--could never bring one even a (Super-Stretch Armstrong) arm's length close to becoming an expert.

In Neil Gaiman's 9th volume of The Sandman (The Kindly Ones), Rose Walker writes:

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”

Touché, Neil not-so-gay Man.

Learned 2 things in the last 24 hours:

1. Arctic Bay is in the same time zone as Toronto, and Google is dead wrong. I've been living in the past since I got here and the only way I'll feel better is if Google grants me unlimited access to the slides and ball pits at their headquarters, airfare inclusive.

2. I am allowed to use the fridge in the inn that I am staying at. I no longer have to lean food up against my window to keep it cold.

The folks at USGS (Pagano et al. 2010) recently published a paper evaluating remote biopsy-darting as a less invasive/ demanding, cheaper, and safer alternative to conventional mark-recapture surveys of polar bears. This is not unlike what the GN has also been up to.This technique involves shooting bears with darts and dyes (to avoid re-sampling) to obtain hair, skin, and adipose (fat) tissue. Once a bear is spotted and targeted, the darts fall off of the individuals sampled (who presumably resume their ways) and are then retrieved---all in less than 10 minutes. The samples obtained from these darts could provide >90% success rates in genotyping (identifying) and genetically sexing individual bears; adipose tissues also provide fatty acid signatures for indicators of body condition/ health. This novel method of sampling has direct implications for the appeal of telomeric ageing if we are able to accurately and/or reliably age bears from biopsy tissues.

This eagle just landed. I can say with the most confidence that this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen, and the most far north I have ever set foot.

Seconds from leaving the airport I could already see bunny tracks and hear a CAW from something that sounded like it was mocking me. I had to procure a plug-in kettle from the Co-op to continue surviving on sad vegan camping meals from my hotel room. On the way I saw snow graffiti and kids tobogganing on cardboard boxes. 

They know what's up.

I've run out of chips. I drank the crumbs from the bottom of the bag. No one should ever see something like that.

-30degrees and carving almost 20 miles-worth of new trails outside of Iqaluit shaped only by wind direction, rocks, rough ice (along the edge of the river): an epic ride when the skyline isn't flat (as it is on King William Island) and you're not hauling heavy sleds packed full with gear.

Somehow I am surviving as a vegan, albeit nothing is more depraved than eating these meals (see sad photo below) alone in a hotel room facing a mirror. Luckily they had a box of vegan cookies at the grocery store, but they looked like they were obsessive-compulsively packaged. My room currently looks like the room a chocolate Easter Bunny would've stayed in if he robbed a Bulk Barn and bathed in its glory. I am running out of spicy plantain chips. The anticipation of the void that ensues is bringing me anxiety.

Oh and in case you're wondering, that is a ~7foot male polar bear head. The hunter told me the best way to strip the meat off for mounting is to let the maggots have their way with it in the Spring, but ensure that the fat has been removed (otherwise the maggots get stuck and can't do much). The best way to eat the meat is to boil it or slice it thin and pan fry it; he was very very delicious (I didn't try it though; vegans eat gummy bears). 

One more thing... the cemetery is a beautiful place. Photos speak for themselves.

Taxis, cinemas, "fine dining", Tim Horton's, and a bar. My hotel has an elevator.

I've learned that not only is this possible in a northern community, but no two communities are the same. Nevertheless I still prefer the view facing outwards and beyond the town's limits.

A girlfriend of mine made this lovely mixtape in prep for my Walk-in Closet pop-up launch on Thursday. Keep warm and plug your dancing shoes into this. 

Plug-n-play everyday for my upcoming Nunavut tour (Iqaluit, Arctic Bay, Arviat, and Kimmirut) beginning March 14th.

This happened. 

Snake beats crocodile.