For ten days the snow has melted much, the ice is flooded. At the ice camp, the cabin was moved to a dry place, and the tent was dismantled. In a few days, with Joannie, Simon and Thomas, the mission final team, we will do the last field work for GreenEdge 2015.

Beautiful dive today, sampling seaweeds, ice algae, clams, sea urchins and sediments. Lots of fresh water at the surface, which freezes out when meeting sea water whose temperature remains negative. All this transforms the underside of the ice, spectacular.

June 21st, permanent day light: music, solstice, melting and bow repair!

Camping at Kivitoo! Last weekend was the opportunity to try our new tent (thanks to Christian), away from any snowy slope this time. Celine and Yves joined us on Saturday night for campfire, paragliding, tasting a ptarmigan...

Following our mishaps (see June 1st Nunavut newspaper), we received a lovely card from our friends in Grise Fiord!

And all our boots were found, as the snow has melted on the still frozen Nedlukseak lake.

Marcel Babin, director of GreenEdge, was in Qikiqtarjuaq again for a few days. I joined him for a visit to the mayor to whom he presented more about the on going project. Warm welcome! Qikiqtarjuaq offers easy access to deep ocean conditions, uncommon in the Canadian Arctic.

Back from diving, I brought all samples to the lab where Joannie was looking forward to get them! She loves sorting out benthos.

Aurore and Leonie were praised today, with most of their classmates, during a nice ceremony held at the school. On June 10th, students are on vacation until August 10th!

Elders finally came to the ice camp; indeed, for two weeks it was never the good day, bad weather or other priorities... it was becoming urgent before most of them would go to their summer camps.

With curiosity, quite a bit of good mood and kindness, about 15 people aged over 60 years followed us into our flooded tent. Magic atmosphere inside in the darkness, popping turquoise light from the sampling hole, sparkling red reflections from the red bottom of the tent, with about 5 cm of water flooding the floor. Every pair of eyes followed the messenger closing the Niskin bottle, inspected the strange instruments standing by on top of boxes, a filtration ramp here, a large plankton net there... This net also showed us some nice iridescent blue plankton. Then outside, playful atmosphere around the ice core, handmade, with the contest of who will finish the ice core! Algae from under the ice became a reality for each of our guests; some before told us that it was sediments from the bottom of the sea...

At the stroke of noon, some came in the heated hut to enjoy sandwiches and pancakes that we made. Then the roles got reversed. Inuit women offered us the traditional ceremony that leads every important event: one of them brought a qulliq (oil lamp) to bring out the fire. Life. Earth enamelled or made of metal, the container is filled with seal oil. At the edge is placed a small pile of dried plants that are lighted up, and then spread across one of the edge of the qulliq, acting like a candle wick. This was the heating and the stove that kept life and light in igloos and other houses made of turf and driftwood. Helped by one of them translating, patiently, the elders answered to all our questions. We were like children, looking at their past, their knowledge. Scientists and Inuits, like in an igloo, together quietly warmed up by the qulliq. The exchange is real, ending by their words: "We will not forget you, thank you for having welcoming us!"

Great trip to the top of Broughton Island this morning at 5am. The snowpack is perfect, ideal to travel anywhere on the ice and on land, it is the right time to climb to the Dew Line station. Feeling of freedom. Enjoying it before the coming melt!

The GreenEdge team is having barbecue tonight!

We all need to rest at the end of this week, Eric even took his Saturday off. The weekend starts with a bit of wind, we take the opportunity with Eric to play with our kites (despite persistent pain after the avalanche). When the wind dies down, I go with Leonie who decided to ski pulled by Ponyo. I do the same with Piculi. The puppy begins to be as strong as his mother! But the wind comes back, so I switch my dog ​​for the kite, while Ponyo, very excited, follows my sail with Leonie!

After some maintenances in the engine room or under the sun (repairing the generator, acrobatic sewing on the solar panels), comes the end of weekend getaway. Eric rushes back from the ice camp to join our family on Sunday afternoon. When the snow becomes hard again, late in the day, he makes a snowmobile trail with Aurore, while Léonie and I are following by skijouring with our dogs, up to a nice view. Overlooking the sea ice in the sun, Eric set up the keyboard on the back of qamutiq, Aurore is dancing, and I play along with Eric with a flute. These magic moments engrave some smiles in our hearts.

Days remain busy since the avalanche and the long skidoo trip back from the Fishing Derby. More than 10 hours. We even managed to get stuck in the slush for two hours between the village and the boat, at 2 in the morning... The award ceremony was an opportunity to thank all those who helped us out of the avalanche.

On May 21st, the weather is perfect to explore and measure the ice thickness around the ice island, with Christian and Jaypootie, 40km south-east of Vagabond. We sailed nearby early October with Vagabond, returning from Greenland. On May 23rd, a hunter who followed our track finds that a huge chunk already covered our snowmobiles tracks!

Before leaving, Christian gives me a new "icemeter" and a drone to do more measurements and observations during the melt period.

Meanwhile, planes hardly land in Qikiqtarjuaq (bad weather and technical problems), and GreenEdge mission is reaching a peak: 26 of us are going out for a picnic on May 24th!

At the ice camp, we welcome students on May 26th and 28th, just before the great end-of-year school party.

On Monday morning, an avalanche hit us. An avalanche of powder snow, ultra fast. We were having breakfast in the tent when the snow has buried us, our sledge was lying partly on top of us. Fortunately people have witnessed the accident, some had to run to escape the snow slide. It was a great fear for everybody. Eric managed to extricate himself from the ripped tent, I thought I suffocate under the weight of snow with Leonie on top of me in panic... Anyway, we just escaped. Then we lived a great moment of solidarity. Twenty friends worked, some helping to found our material, other reassuring and warming our traumatized girls, welcoming us all into their warm shelter, which one was quickly removed from the danger zone. Only our shovel and our boots were lost, our tent was destroyed, and we ended up with few injuries. Leonie has a bruise and a scar that heals slowly on the back of the head (which has worried us), Aurore has nothing, Eric wears a neck brace to relieve pain after a blow (hard to know exactly what happened...) and I heal a small cut to the ear, but something hit me hard on the same side, my jaw which had moved have recovered, there is probably only a small fracture in the cheekbone. Eric and I relief pain with analgesics. The shock passed, we understand that it could have been much worse...