Point Hope, overlooking the Chukchi Sea

In my wandering quest for Ultima Thule, this time I'm back in Alaska, in the western-most extension of the northwest Alaska coast, southwest of Barrow, called te North Slope.

This is no soft beauty - nature is harsh, civilization too far away, life is back to basics, no comfort, no modern luxury. Isolation is heavy on everyday living, but things got a lot better with, first, the building of the new well-equiped school and a good library, and second, internet access for all.

Point Hope, Alaska

Population ~750

Location 68º 21' N , 166º 47' W, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Point Hope (Tikiġaq) is located near the tip of Lisburne peninsula, a large gravel spit in a lowland area with several coastal lagoons facing the Chukchi Sea, south of the Arctic Sea and north of the Bering Strait.

The settlement got its name from a visiting british captain in honour of an englishman family "connected with the sea". But it had been for centuries inhabited by native Inupiat Inuit people.

Lisburne peninsula is in fact one of the oldest continuously occupied Inuit areas in Alaska.

Welcome

The climate is arctic. The Chukchi Sea is frozen most of the year, but ice-free from late June until mid-September.

Point Hope in the distance, seen from frozen sea

Point Hope residents are dependent upon marine subsistence.

Ice conditions allow easy boat launchings into open leads early in the spring whaling season.

Native whalers launching the umiak

This highly favorable site, with its abundant resources, has enabled them to retain strong cultural traditions, after more than a century of outside influences. The history of Point Hope was strongly influenced by whaling, trading and caribou herding. Walrus and occasional polar bears are also traditional resources.

Umiak with harpoons in place

The umiak is made of animal skin on a wood frame

Seal skin covered umiak

Caribou herd

Some local facilities:

For shopping

Tikigaq School, the second largest in Alaska, serving more than 250 children

At the Youth Centre's library

The Post office

The igloo-shaped Community centre

Dressed for the cold

Typical house and sled

A wealthy native family: SUV car, 4 wheeler and sled.

At June's whaling festival: inuit drum playing and dancing

Whale bones are strong native symbols

Point Hope at sunset

Cape Thompson

Cape Thompson is a headland on the Chukchi Sea coast of Alaska.

It is located 26 miles to the southeast of Point Hope.

Towering spires and cliffs host giant rookeries

The cape facing ice floes in Chukchi Sea

Chukchi Sea at sunset:

Ammassalik, Greenland - one fjord, three hamlets, ice wonders

Ammassalik Fjord is a 41 km long fjord in southeastern Greenland.

Coordinates: 65°43'N, 37°42' W

The fjord area has become one of the top attractions in Greenland, due to the fabulous sceneries of iced mountains and waters, and the colourful houses cascading downhill to the fjord's waters. Also kayaking and dog sledding excursions have a growing demand.

There are three settlements in the vicinity of the fjord: Tasiilaq, Kulusuk and Kuummiut:

The Ammassalik fjord area

Ammassalik island

The main settlement of the archipelago, Tasiilaq, is located in Ammassalik island, just south of the mouth of the Fjord, approximately 106 km south of the Arctic Circle, on the shore of a natural harbour. Tasiilaq is surrounded by the high Ammassalik mountains, away from the open sea...

Late afternoon, with view over the Kong Oscar Havn and the mountains

With almost 2000 inhabitants, it is the most populous community on the eastern coast, and the seventh-largest town in Greenland. It slopes like a cascade of coloured houses down to the fjord's waters packed with icebergs.

House with a view on Ammassalik mountain and the fjord

Tasiilaq has a museum of inuit arts and History, a hotel and other facilities, and it has a strategic harbour - Kong Oscar Havn - where goods are brought by special supply cargos from Royal Arctic Line.

The old church, now a Museum

Bench decoration inside the church

Ivory decorated box

Tasiilaq receives supply ships only between June and September, because for the rest of the year the pack ice is too thick for ships to reach the port. The supply ship from Arctic Line unloads at Kong Oskars Havn. Supplies are vital to the inhabitants, so the arrival of the year's first cargo ship has been waited for long.

Further to the southeast of the mouth, the village of Kulusuk

Kulusuk family and their sledge

The typical many-coloured houses, imported from Denmark

Kulusuk ( pop. 300 ) is situated on the East coast, at 65º N. A truly remarkable place, because of its hostile nature and the fact that it has been cut off from the rest of the world for centuries.

But now the settlement is more visited for its airport, the most important of the East coast, and for being the departing point for several excursions by kayak, dog sled or helicopter.

The airport terminal and the local "taxi"

The airport also provides supplies, and brings danish teachers and medical staff who give basic assistance to the mostly inuit inhabitants.

The local hotel has conquered some reputation among ice-adventure tourists. As the other settlements in Ammassalik, Kulusuk remains relatively immune to Western influence despite the regular influx of tourists.

Hotel Kulusuk, an ideal location for ice adventure

The village of Kuummiut lays on the shores of Ammassalik fjord, located on the eastern coast of its central part, perched on the tip of a partially glaciated mainland peninsula, like a perfect jewel in the fjord.

Here is the link to a blog with wondeful photos by Carl Skou, a danish teacher who's working there since 2000:

http://www.kuummiut.com/

Kuummiut in January's sun, by Carl Skou

Sometime ago, I also published this small post related to this subject.

Reflections on the fjord's waters, Kuummiut

Irene over New York

Oh Irene ! What a woman - she left New Yorkers' heads spinning round!

Well, almost nothing then. But what a beauty she was, all that whiteness swirling as seen from the sky above...

Photo NASA

Cambridge Bay, Victoria IslandHere lies the wreck of Amundsen's Maud

Cambridge Bay, on the southern edge of Victoria Island (arctic archipelago of Canada) is a colourful Inuit settlement in the arctic semi-desert tundra.

Location: 69°07′ N, 105°03′ W

The anglican church

The sea-bay front and the antenna.

The arctic visitor centre

Remains of an old stone church

With a land area of more than 200,000 square kilometres, Victoria Island is the ninth-largest island in the world. The region belongs to the territory of Nunavut in extreme north-eastern Canada.

The population of Cambridge Bay is around 1500 people. The native name of the settlement, Iqaluktuttiaq, means "a good place with many fish".

Inuit drum player

Dry arctic char, the local speciality.

The name of Cambridge Bay traces back to the year 1839, when the district was mapped by the Hudson's Bay Company, the skin trade emporium, with a small outpost there:

Hudson's Bay Company cabin

In the 1940s a lighthouse was built in Cambridge Bay, followed during the Cold War in the 1950s by a large radar system which is no longer in operation.

These new conditions led to an increase in population, who had to live in an inhospitable region where average temperatures never rise above 10 °C in summer and the thermometer falls to average levels of below –30 °C in winter.

School bus stop

To enable so many people to live permanently in isolation, the hamlet has numerous facilities in its centre including schools, a health center, a swimming pool...

The shipwreck of the Maud

You are made for ice
You shall spend your best years in the ice And you shall do your work in the ice

In 1918, Roald Amundsen had launched an expedition through the North-East Passage. He had the ship Maud built for this purpose.

The Maud

The expedition failed, and in August 1925 the Maud was taken over by the Hudson's Bay Company and used as a supply ship for Cambridge Bay, where she sank in 1930. Today, parts of the hull offer a reminder of this chapter in the opening up of the Arctic.

The ship now lies just off the shore in the bay, across the frozen ice from Cambridge Bay's former Hudson's Bay Company store.

Tundra vegetation surrounds the hamlet area:

Musk oxen are common in Victoria island:

Cambridge Bay in Nunavut's Arctic Archipelago: