Baker Lake Nunavut - DAY 7

Barb, Archer, Donna and Corinne spent this morning at the schools. They started the day at the secondary school and spoke with a group of 100 kids in grades 6, 7 & 8. The videos about Guide Dogs and Avalanche Rescue Dogs had them enthralled. Afterwards, they all moved to the elementary school where Archer was a star! He was a wonderful boy letting many of the children lead him around and showing off his obedience skills for them. The kids' excitement when he sat when a child told him to was priceless!

Archer soaking up the attention at the school.

The rest of our team had the day off and spent the morning shopping for souveniers. We found a gift shop and another shop that specializes in local art. We also stopped at the Northern store. It is the "everything" store in town. The prices are more than a little shocking for us "Southerners" $12.99 for a gallon of milk!

Monica, Cynthia and Laura in the "backseat" of Bill's truck.

At noon Bill came and picked us all up and drove us out to the barge-yard at the end of town where we were starting our hike with Sue and her dog Bandit. Hairy Sunshine joined Gina, Jen, Elaine, Monica, Kim, Zoe, Cynthia and Laura on the hike across the tundra. We were all well layered as the wind is pretty chilling but it was a beautiful warm day in the sun. Sue took us along an ATV trail that ran along the lake and says we hiked 12km in total. We went up hill and down valleys, over rocks and through mud. It was a fabulous day! The intention was to pick some blueberries along the way, but we didn't find very many. And those that we did find didn't make it into the bucket! There were a number of other types of berries we found, so we all got a lesson on artic fruit - cranberries, cloudberries, and crowberries. We were hoping to see a Muskox that Sue had seen in the area before, but no luck. We did, however, see an artic fox in the distance hunting some geese, and some caribou tracks in the sand.

along the trail

At the end of our trek the group was resting on the rocks in the bargeyard waiting for Bill to come take us home, when saw this Artic Hare. He came right up within a few feet of us and wasn't afraid at all. Well, at least he wasn't afraid until we tried to feed him dog food and crowberries! That's when he ran away.

Artic hare.

Most of our group spent the evening enjoying a wonderful dinner, a rowdy game of full-contact Cranium and a mouth watering double-chocolate banana pecan pie!