Beginning of dark period in Arctic Bay.

The sun will not be visible before January 29th.

Louis arrived yesterday afternoon, with our friends pilots George and Sophie, aboard the small Pilatus loaded with food and various equipment. Their flight from Montreal was superb! After a happy evening on board and a few hours to pass all the instructions to Louis, we entrust him with Vagabond and the scientific protocols for the next 4 months. Our boat is about to freeze in. There was a lot of hesitation about the ideal anchorage: a good shelter, not too close to the shore, in a depth of about twenty meters, not too far nor too close to the village... The wintering will last until the ice break-up, in July 2020!

The photo album of the 2019-2020 winter will be updated regularly.

Public meeting last night organized by the Hunters' and Trappers' Association at Arctic Bay Community Hall. There are 24 polar bears tags for this season 2019-2020, half male and half female. There has been 9 defense kills in recent months, including two cubs who account for half. It remains a quota of 16 tags for the community. It was voted with two voices close that the 5 local outfitters will be able to organize only one sport hunting each, instead of two usually. These sports hunts are mandatory dogsled and are reserved for foreign customers who pay thirty thousand dollars on average for a trophy. Of the remaining 11 tags, it was decided that 5 will be hunted from midnight last night! Shortly after the meeting, the first boats were leaving the bay... As for the remaining 6 tags, a meeting will determine on February 28th, 2020 if they will be drawn, or left to the first 6 successful hunts like this fall. Bear skins sell for about $400 a meter. The meat is consumed by the community.

The school here in Arctic Bay is... noisy! It's not very disciplined and, especially in the morning, I do not have much to do because I'm almost the only one to work and it's not the same level, barely the average in France (I think...). In the morning, in English we work maths, science and English itself; and in the afternoon, in Inuktitut we do history, health and Inuktitut. We also do sports three times a week and half an hour of cultural class where we can sew or do different things in beads. For my part, I have already made two bracelets and I'm starting sealskin mitts for which I have only the outside to sew because I found an interior already sewn.

There are not many students, especially for me who come back from a class of 39 in Ecuador. In the morning, it turns around 10 students, and the afternoon, more around 13 because some sleep in the morning but still come in the afternoon. It's pretty balanced between girls and boys. It is true that I already have a little idea of ​​what I would like to do later: a biologist specialized in global warming. I'm not sure they have a lot of ideas. We know the family of Horizon (one of my classmates) and I know that her mother would like her to have her own dog team (here, I admit that I am almost jealous...). Otherwise, in sports, it's often games, but I do not participate very much because I have trouble understanding them and them to explain to me. I do what I can to work my French school aboard Vagabond, but I have not received much work...

Yesterday Tom offered me to join him, he needs seal meat to feed his dog team. They too are waiting for the pack ice with impatience to stretch their legs! Well wrapped up in our parkas, we sail up Adams Sound at about 40 knots. The water is smooth as a mirror, it's snowing and we squint to scan the surface for a muzzle that would point his nose to breathe. There, Tom sees one, he stops his boat, stops the engines, and waits for the animal to resurface... Ten minutes, here it is! He shoots a little too high, the seal disappears. We wait again, Tom shoots but misses again. After 4 tries, he laughs about his target he calls "the magic seal", and he decides to go to end of the fjord. The sea started freezing, but to my surprise, smiling, Tom does not slow down: his boat, launched at a brisk pace, comes to clear a path by breaking the 3 or 4 cm of ice. Spectacular! Here and there, we see breathing holes made by a few seals, clearly visible on this young ice without snow. Tom explains that it is easier to hunt when the sea gets thick, just before freezing, because there is almost no swell and the boat is then very stable to aim.

Already one month since we arrived in Arctic Bay. Aurore and Léonie have made their marks at the Inuujaq school, and we are gradually getting to know this community of 1030 people, very welcoming. The preparation of the scientific program kept us busy since September 14th, with Jessica Gould who has just left this morning, back to her university in Boston.

So that's it, 142 samples of coralline met again their habitat, 15m deep, 2km from the village. The first dives were a real relief, I found enough nice pieces of coralline in 4 rather short dives. Then, we had to choose them, clean them, re-cut the bigger ones, soak them for 48 hours in a colored bath to mark the beginning of the study, stick them on their small supports, weigh them precisely, photograph them, and finally install them in groups of 10 on plates equipped with light, temperature, pH and salinity sensors. Finally, on the 28th of September, in a long 50-minutes dive, I hammered down 19 stakes in the seabed, and placed as many plates of coralline samples and sensors. The study of the growth of this special algae began.