Here it is. The sun came out entirely yesterday, well above the horizon, without any cloud. "It's too much dazzling!" said Léonie, while Aurore was smiling, mesmerized; the past few days, when we were showing her the heralding light, she was repeating "it's the moon". She is two years old and after four months without sun, she just forgot about it.

It's during our first sunbath (short by -40°C) that the rangers from Grise Fiord appeared. What a surprise to see coming six snowmobiles and six heavy sledges! And to recognize Liza, Lisa, Jason, Jarloo and Imooshie! A military supervisor is here to watch them work during a three days patrol. Their mission is to look after Canadian Territory. Once they spotted a Russian submarine, a few years ago. In the end, the patrol decide not to go any further and to set up the camp for two nights near Vagabond. We are so glad to have neighbours! Today is the traditional day, they will go hunting in the area for seal, polar bear, muskox, caribou...

Friday, I lost the weight for the probe. It was cold and it got stuck in the hole, in the ice. When hitting it with the handle of the shovel, I could free the weight but the line was cut and it's now on the seabed (-130m). Léonie suggested me to use stones to replace it, but the weight must go through a 5cm diameter hole!

Sun is making himself wanted. Monday, he could almost come above the mountains which are slightly raising up our south horizon. Nearby summits were pink, sunny. But yesterday, the sky was entirely cloudy!

Fascinating exchanges are going on with researchers, trying to better understand why ice is so thin at some places. In the middle of South Cape Fiord, ice is barely more than 50cm thick, and it is not much increasing, while around the boat (near the northern shore of the fiord), ice is 1.10m thick and is increasing according to laws of physics. There is probably major currents in the fiord, bringing warmer waters from the ocean or from the glacier, slowing down ice growth.

Larger-scale measurements are needed now to have a better idea of ice thickness in the area. This is why I set up the icemeter (EM31) on the sledge last Sunday, when doing a return trip to Grise Fiord (appointment with the dentist, better not to miss it as there is one in town only a few times a year!). 110 kilometres done, more results soon.

Then, to check calibration of the CTD's temperature sensor, the probe was plunged into a barrel filled with fresh water vigorously mixed with iceberg chips. Measured temperature: +0.06°C.

Another test was done by leaving the CTD under the ice for about 15 minutes near the boat, where conditions should be close to freezing: temperature = -1.64°C, salinity = 31.98psu. Investigation to be continued.

It was not too cold yesterday (-20°C), because of the clouds, then for the first time, all the family joined the middle of the fiord for scientific routines! Six months ago, at the same place, we were watching from Vagabond's deck narwhals, hundreds of Harp seals, and many birds. What a difference with quiet winter! For sure, South Cape Fiord waters are rich.

"Welcome home!". I received the warmest of welcomes in Grise Fiord. I did a return trip yesterday, to get several parcels: some scientific equipment sent by Mary and Humfrey from the Institute of Ocean Sciences (British Columbia, Canada), and a waterproof camera sent by Rémy Marion to film under the ice. Slipped in the boxes, between these equipments, many gifts for the whole crew! Our friends from Grise Fiord are also offering me oranges, candies, coloured pencils for the girls, and even a nice cut of polar bear meat. Tom hunted it last week, not far from our fjord. A big one, "10 feet plus!" he wrote to me on his return. Tom shows me the head, which dentition is formidable, and the skin, superb in its winter fur (he should sell it 9000$, according to prices displayed in the hamlet office). He explains to me how to prepare the meat to have it nice and tender. He already fed family and friends, and most of the dogs in town! Amon got a nice bear too (8 feet) last Saturday, not far from open water, near Smith Island, south-east of Grise Fiord. I met fresh tracks on my way this morning, not long after leaving Vagabond. It could be from the polar bear who came to our camp on Monday? Dogs scared him away, but we had good time watching and filming him.

I'm buying a whole seal to Tom, to feed our dogs. We should move our net but we didn't see any better place in the surroundings of the boat. Seals like to breath in the cracks, where ice is thinner and easier to break. Liza is providing me with a seal skin, France wants to make mittens out of it, after she made some for the rest of the family. Suddenly Liza and I can see the tip of the sun, shortly, like an orange flash, wow. I was expecting it two days later!

Our friends are repeating it to me, we will have more visitors in a few weeks. For now, for most people in Grise Fiord, especially families with young children, it is too cold to travel the 50km from the village to the boat. Mainly hunters are travelling the length and breadth of the area...

When emptying my sledge last night, on my return on board, while the full moon was illuminating the pack ice, I was playing Santa Claus. Without beard and without going through the chimney!

A polar bear is passing... on the other side of the fjord. Tracks are fresh, the animal just explored the end of my trail. This is were I turn back, every three days, while measuring ice thickness across the 7km wide fjord. Ices are broken up, overlapping, piling up along the shore, due to the tides, like on the beach near Vagabond, and hiding-places are not missing! I'm even more vigilant that I'm alone with the snowmobile, without the dogs. Six days earlier, four of them were joining us, Léonie and I, for scientific field work, and together they caught a polar fox, at the same place (read Léonie's story - in French)! Dogs are quietly staying at camp since, still for a few days to make sure they don't have rabies, which is not very likely, hopefully. Another polar fox is following today's polar bear, at a respectful distance, as can tell the little tracks I also meet. Carrion feeder in winter, he is looking for remains of seal, which is making most of his diet before the birds and their eggs are back in spring.

The snowmobile is allowing me to do longer profiles than on foot, the icemeter (EM31) can theoretically work at a speed up to 30km/h, depending on snow surface. It is usually necessary to slow down because of snow drifts created by the wind, even if the ice is very flat. Also, the heat from the engine is good to warm up the CTD, instantly frozen when taken out from the water (it's -35°C today), and then to do several casts in a row. But this is offset by burning gasoline, and sitting in the cold, noise and smell, not as pleasant and comfortable than walking with a dog pulling the pulka!

After 23 January gale, the big snow drifts around the boat are making a great playground for Aurore and Léonie. First trials with the snow bike (ktrak given by Stéphane Rousson, and mountain bike lent by our friends in Grise Fiord): hard snow needed because the rear track is not very wide!

France, who is dutifully checking our net every night, almost finished to make splendid seal skin mittens for me! Thank you Eva for the seal skin.

Twilight colours at midday are beautiful, 8 or 10 days more before seeing the sun again.

Spending some time in the village is a privilege. When Liza tells us "make yourself at home", this just turns really amazingly simply, even with our culture and language differences; Liza and Aksakjuk are speaking more Inuktitut than English. Their generosity and attention to the child are touching. Without the girls I could join women who meet every Saturday afternoon, and are learning at the moment about muskox wool process. The muskox skin is laying out in a room and each one, with a fork, can extract the sweet wool which is below the long fur, close to the leather. Then we have to clean it, to card it with a machine and finally make some wool spinning to be able to knit! But here we are not yet... On Monday's evening, it's sewing at the church, or at home if the church is too cold; these moments with women only strengthen warmness and complicity, so precious into our cold polar night. Each one comes with her work, the prays and songs take place at the beginning and in the end, and humour is here with all these bubbly old and young women!

The best place to meet people is the Coop during opening times. We go there as much as to buy little things as to chat and know news in Grise!

Even going to the seal net can be a convivial time, with one or two families joining on the ice, then following each other to look for seals breathing holes if no seal on the net. Joining every day our friends is rewarding. At first, it's a hard time to take some seals on the meshes at the moment. And it's not seldom that incidents happened, meaning adjustments with the net or the ropes that pass through the ice. So we can learn how to get out of this tricky situations between water and ice. And keep in mind to have patience...

Kids don't spend lot of time outside in the cold, they meet at night in the gymnasium to play or to let off steam. Junior Rangers, from 12 years old, were there last Sunday for shooting training. Many other activities, no only sport, are taking place here to take advantage of the large, warm and lighted space.

Here is the life in the night, maybe the day incipient again will see each one breath more fully outside, but maybe also will miss the nice warm time into the night... And so on-board Vagabond. (by France Pinczon du Sel)

France, Léonie and Aurore are in Grise Fiord since Friday. Invited by Liza and Aksakjuk, we went with the snowmobile and the big sledge (qamutik). What a surprise to see our hosts coming to meet us by car! On the ice, at 20km from town, the girls jumped inside the well heated vehicle and went ahead all the way to Grise Fiord. Supplies, mail and parcels, real showers and laundry, health centre, Internet and phone... but first of all, the pleasure to see our neighbours and new friends. Léonie is at school for the afternoon, and in the evening, always by car, Liza is taking us all to check her big seal net: nothing. The next morning, not to leave Vagabond and the dogs alone too long, I drive back the 50km, alone, without any sledge. All is fine on board, but wind starts blowing and, it does no harm just this once, despite high pressure (1025mb), bad weather is setting in for two days. I manage to check the net on Saturday night (two hours are needed to break ice around the ropes holding the net under pack ice), before isolating myself inside Vagabond for 36 hours. This morning, all is quiet and our scenery has changed a lot: big snow drifts had formed around the boat, spectacular.

Today, between 12:23 and 13:19 (local time), sun will be at less than 6° below the horizon: it will be daylight for almost one hour (read more here)! Before going back to town to pick up the rest of the crew, I need to check the net again, collect some ice (iceberg for fresh water), feed the dogs, run the generator (batteries), fill up the stove tank, clear the snow from the snowmobile (buried), and above all, go for scientific measurements. Last time, to do longer profiles, I decided to use the snowmobile. But I broke down 4km away from the boat! I could get it the next day, with Tom and Jerry's help, as they were passing by. A godsend.

Twilight is slightly brighter each day, around noon. Horizon is moving back, and we feel like going further away from the boat during daily outing. France made enough harnesses for the dogs, and even already repaired those "eaten" by Marly: we were looking forward to tie them all to the sleigh. Despite the cold (-38°C), Aurore and Léonie were happy on the little qamutik during the first short trips, with 3 then 4 dogs apparently very much waiting for that! It's a real pleasure to travel that way on pack ice, wrapped up warmly in our parkas. Only dogs steps and breaths are nicely disturbing the silence. Also a raven, going around the camp tonight. Light coming back and longer trips should help us to recover our "normal" sleep rhythm. Little by little.

Bravo. It is the name of the snowmobile I got yesterday in Grise Fiord. Rustic and old style, it has very little kilometres and a reputation of reliability, even when it is very cold. It should allow us to do scientific work in an extended area, and to go to town once in a while, or in case of emergency.

A small adjustment has to be done, however, as I had to change twice the only spark plug on my way back. Unpleasant feeling to have a breakdown, alone with a new vehicle, at 1 in the morning, when the full moon is highly hidden by wind and snow... Fortunately, Robert gave me a box of spark plugs with the machine, few hours before, and temperature was rising. When reaching Vagabond, I was even too hot! Wind had stopped and it was -23°C, as against -36°C in the morning.

Liza and Aksakjuk offered us to keep the big sleigh, that can take the whole family and luggages. It was pretty emotional to came back with it, by ourselves, on 2 January, in the very cold and with no moon! It took us a few days then, to recover after all festivities and tiring trips between Vagabond and Grise Fiord, where a lot of people had flu too last week. All crew is up now to run the place, to go for scientific field work, to answer New Year's greetings, and to plan missions for next spring and summer!

Happy New Year 2012!

See our greetings card.

"Are you going back already?", are asking most people we meet in Grise Fiord on Wednesday afternoon. Here, festivities don't stop between Christmas and New Year. But we need to look after Vagabond and after our four dogs. Even if I already did a return trip, alone, last Monday (all was frozen on board), we decide to go back four of us for a few days, in order to warm up the boat, charge the batteries, feed the dogs... to have a little family party as well, to not stop scientific work, and to rest a little bit!

In the end, Raymond arrives by snowmobile on 24 December around 9am, without notice. I wake up the girls and we all board the big sleigh. It's cold (-39°C), but pack ice is quite smooth and the fifty kilometres are done without a hitch, with a faint midday light allowing us to see the mountains. Splendid. At noon, we are in Grise Fiord! We left the village on 6 October and we are a bit confused with this return to "town". By the time we had a shower (what a luxury), and we gave a hand to the nurse to carve a big turkey (little health problems can wait), we meet all inhabitants in the gymnasium. Tables are laid out for 110 people, Christmas Eve party is organised by the hamlet, many volunteers prepared dishes, decorated the room, wrapped gifts... and everyone is bringing place settings and a gift. After the feast start the first games. Aurore and Léonie are very happy to run around with other kids, on a hard ground and with light clothes. France and I are glad to see again our local friends and take some news. At 11pm, almost everybody manage to enter the little church, which door had remained half open. So everyone keeps his jacket on to listen to Larry, accompanied for songs by Jimmie on electronic organ. At midnight, back to the gym where the arrival of Santa Clause engenders general jubilation. It's Ron Elliott, member of the Nunavut Government, who is having the white beard this year, he gives out one by one all the gifts. Ron came to Grise Fiord to better understand local problems. Without outside link for days, the town was missing food, mail, and travellers were not able to leave or come back... but on 23 and 24, three planes could at least land and resupply the town for Christmas.

The next day, we are invited to a Christmas diner with several families, before another games night in the gym. Nights start around 7pm and can last until dawn (so to speak). The town is sleeping in the morning, the store is open from 3pm to 5pm, a meeting place that cannot be ignored. We buy some vegetables and fruits, and take delivery of many parcels! When leaving the nice house lent by Liza et Aksakjuk, with their snowmobile, the sleigh is heavily loaded (gifts offered by our Grise Fiord friends, gifts won at games, seal meat, bags of washed clothes...). I manage to follow my track from two days before, surprised to be able to tow such a big sleigh with a simple snowmobile. Even so, bends are not easy to negotiate!

Tomorrow, we will go lighter to Grise Fiord, where we are invited to celebrate the New Year.