We awoke to discover a world blanketed in the first real snow of the fall. The clouds were low, and small pans of grease ice floated on the ocean’s glass-like surface. We had arrived at our first stop on Ellesmere Island.
Fortified with a delicious breakfast and undeterred by a bit of snow and ice, many of our guests decided to take advantage of the calm conditions and soon set out in kayaks. Meanwhile, some of the staff went ashore to scout for wildlife and assess hiking conditions given the new-fallen snow. Brandon Langdon, an Inuit Community Liaison from Cambridge Bay in western Nunavut, and I soon found a small group of muskoxen, the largest land mammals in this part of the world. It is always a treat to see these magnificent animals in their natural habitat, and to see a group with a small calf on a landscape blanketed in new snow was truly special.
