Fair winds finally, it is time for Vagabond to leave Arctic Bay and begin her two month mission around Devon and Ellesmere Islands (map). As with every departure, it's a mixture of trepidation and excitement.

Despite the restrictions related to Covid-19, Transport Canada and the Ministry of Health of Nunavut gave us their consent as our family crew has been up North for months. But the various researchers for whom we work are not authorized to join us in Nunavut, nor our team members, in order to best protect the local communities. Only a hydrographer will exceptionally be allowed to embark at the end of August, for 3 weeks, and he will first have to spend two weeks of quarantine in a hotel in Ottawa.

Our daughters Aurore and Leonie, 10 and 13 years old, will be our team members for this cruise. A unique family configuration, unprecedented for a sailing season that promises to be wild. Arctic waters will indeed be very uncrowded this year, we will meet no cruise ship, no yacht attempting the Northwest Passage. Even the scientific icebreaker Amundsen is confined to the south of the Arctic Circle. Neither boat nor ice as sea ice melt already reaches record level.

The recovery of the last coralline samples, to end properly this one-year study, has been entrusted to our friends in Arctic Bay whom we are nostalgic to leave. Tuesday evening, the executive committee of the Hunters and Trappers Association (all Inuit over 16 are members, automatically) invited us to share our impressions and our projects during a friendly meeting. The audience also asked me about the potential impact of hydrophones on marine mammals that some scientists would like to install to listen to underwater activity, especially this summer with little ship traffic. There is also this lake in which fishermen would like me to dive to retrieve a few lost nets... See you soon Arctic Bay!

Three months after my return on board Vagabond, on Saint Brigitte's day, we are sailing again (map).

With special authorization (Covid restrictions), Vagabond is leaving Arctic Bay for a two-month scientific cruise around Devon and Ellesmere islands.

It is the end of the snowmobile season, no more hunting at the floe edge: many marine mammals gather at the edge of the ice to feed from the rich waters of the fjords which are once again accessible. It's +12°C, the ice is melting very quickly this year and we are the first to sail in front of Arctic Bay! Yesterday I dived from our boat while the day before there was still too much ice to navigate to the site.

We are busy on board Vagabond during the day with scientific work, end-of-winter maintenance and preparations for the summer mission, and we camp in the evening at Victor Bay to enjoy the flowery tundra.

Our tent neighbor Philip knows our daughters since he works at the school. He lives with his wife Sarah in a very small cabin, all year round, at Victor Bay, as there are eleven people in their house in Arctic Bay. The housing shortage is significant in Nunavut.

Sarah and Philip's niece Julian and her husband Isaia invited us to their son Morgan's birthday party on Saturday night. He was born a year ago, the day after his brother's suicide from whom he inherited his first name. Around the tents and small cabins, there were many of us to share these moving moments, happy despite everything. Their friend Cherita organized on June 26 in the village a suicide prevention march.

After a nice hike on Sunday with a magnificent view on open water and three icebergs in the Admiralty Fjord, we visited Paul. The hamlet's mechanic, so helpful to us throughout the winter, lives with Hanna in a little red house he built 7 years ago. Hanna teaches traditional culture at the Arctic Bay school, she helped France to make Leonie's parka pattern. She has just lost her son, another suicide... Paul tells us about his childhood far from his family, the residential school he went to be able to eat three times a day, and the government help he received much later to make up for the years away from his father and from his hunting and fishing apprenticeship. He caught up. He explains without bitterness that thanks to his education and his work, over time, he was able to offer several snowmobiles to his father.

In recent decades, behind the beautiful Arctic postcards, social problems have been more difficult to overcome than the polar cold. Fortunately the coronavirus did not reach communities in Nunavut.

The artists from Groupe Tonne tell us about their show "North-West Passage" (26 minutes film), this project started on board Vagabond in March 2020.

More:

North-West Passage by Groupe Tonne

Report: Groupe Tonne going with donkeys

Diary: Days too short in Nunavut

First impressions in Arctic Bay

All reports from Le Fourneau about Groupe Tonne

Nanisivik, "the place where people find things", in Strathcona fjord. A lead and zinc mine was running from 1976 to 2002. It was on a beach near the mine that Vagabond stayed for two winters, between 1981 and 1983, during an expedition in the Northwest Passage to the magnetic North Pole. The beach has not changed!

Frank May took us to Nanisivik last Sunday. It takes just over 30 minutes by car from Arctic Bay, the 36 km track is well maintained, even excellent. Frank has lived in Arctic Bay "only" since 1985 and therefore could not remember Vagabond! He was mayor for 4 years and gladly shares his memories. Some elders remember the boat overwintering more than thirty-seven years ago.

Today Nanisivik has grown into a small Canadian Navy base, just up and running, primarily to refuel ships. Its creation was decided when a Russian flag was deposited on August 2nd, 2007 at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean, at the North Pole.

May and June are THE season for camping. Then, the sea ice becomes risky to walk on drily, and then the melt ponds are too big and the black ocean appears like a sneaky puzzle.

15 days after my birthday, it is the fishing derby long weekend but without a snowmobile we can't join. The wind is strong and many people have to turn back, as driving when dragging the heavy family qamutiks is dangerous. Holes are opened all over our bay for the village's version of the fishing competition. As soon as the wind calms down, we go camping at the entrance of the fjord, outside our bay. In 5 hours walking and skiing along the cliffs and with only one crack to cross, we are in another world. Still cold, however the tent is no longer set up on snow but on a perfect carpet made of small stones split by the frost. And we breathe, with a larger horizon on the pristine Admiralty fjord and its 20km wide!

10 days later we cross Victor Bay to settle at its north-west point. The sea ice is more beautiful that in our bay, however we have to make 2 big detours in order to find where to cross the two cracks too wide for our steps. When we arrive, nearby a lonely weekend hut, we discover the life that is reborn. Many geese can be approached, or are screaming in the sky. And now we have two dogs: Stone and Mickie, the second one is loaned for one month by Paul, the hamlet chief mechanic. So each girl has her dog, for their greatest happiness!

For June 10 Eric's birthday, we leave again harnessed in the same way to our pulkas and our dogs, but on a turquoise sea ice full of melt ponds. Eric even tries to kite with a little wind. Magic journey but cold foot bath guaranteed. And the return trip will be even more aquatic: we will feel like going from islets to islets across-lake! In a pretty little bay we spend few heavenly days, crawling on the rocks, discovering a multitude of birds and nests, snow buntings as much as gulls and even a hawk. The air is maritime, while the blue flooded sea ice still hides some thick ice.

Mid June, going camping on foot by the sea ice is no longer reasonable. Otherwise, before the first rains, we bivouac under the stars ... or rather under the permanent sun!

Qaapik Attagutsiak is celebrating her 100th birthday in Arctic Bay, gathering 6 generations. Watch on APTN National News.

To study the coralline growth, in addition to diving to regularly recover some of the samples prepared in September and to check the various sensors (pH, salinity, light, temperature), we have a protocol for water sampling at both sites. It's my job of the day.

Even after twenty years of field work on the ice, I still think this job is cool.

On skis, I'm hauling my sled to the first site where I set up the tent and the mini lab. I open the hole, it's easy at this time of the year even if the ice thickness is more than 1.6 meters, and I lower the Niskin bottle down to 15m depth, right next to the coralline samples. It is this water that we are looking at. Previously, to monitor the experiment, I drop the 360-degree camera give by Exocéan. Well setup in the tent, I carefully follow the protocol for filling the different bottles which will be kept either frozen either in the dark until they reach Jessica Gould's lab. She has just received a prestigious award for her work!

By VHF radio, I talk to Léonie who is usually doing this lab work on board Vagabond when it is too cold to setup a mini lab on the ice. On the Internet, I check the correct setting of the pipette. It's amazing to be so well connected in the field, having a mobile phone in winter is completely new for us! The 25 communities in Nunavut have had a cellular network since September 2019.

Zachary is coming back from hunting and stops to greet me. He offers me a skidoo ride to the next site! I just hook my sled behind his machine for the 10 minutes trip. He helps me set up the tent, we share a tea and look at some pictures. He missed a goose this morning, 3 hours south of here. I show him what the seabed looks like under our feet, he is surprised by their richness and would have bet that I took the photo in tropical waters! For sure the contrast with the ice at the surface is incredible. Three days ago, Zachary visited us at Victor Point, where we were camping with the family, and showed me a picture of a young seal lost on the ice, too far from its hole. Fifteen seals have been lost in recent weeks in the Arctic Bay region, such as the one found near Vagabond in 2012. In two days time he will go Arctic char fishing and seal hunting with his father Mishak, who is also collaborating with the SmartIce program: ice thickness surveys similar to those we regularly do for Christian Haas (co-founder of SmartIce), either alone or with him.

While finishing the water sampling, putting everything back into the sled and stopping the timelapse camera, the wind picks up gently. I'm happy to use the kite to cover most of the 4 km to Vagabond. Science, a hunter's visit, skiing, snowkiting, photography, on top or under the ice. A great day. It must be my birthday tomorrow.