Brittany, France
Now this Ultima Thule in France´s Finistère may not be so remote and northernly as others I have reported here, but it is surely magic in its wilderness, situation and life style. Getting there is not a hard adventure, but living there is.
This piece of rock is certainly the strangest island off the coast of Brittany, one of the six Celtic nations.
Île-de-Sein is a french islet in the Atlantic Ocean, 10 km off the extreme northwest of Finistère, 2 km long for at most a few hundred metres wide. Nowhere does it rise more than six metres above the surrounding ocean.
Lying on the sea routes going south from the English Channel, Sein is well known for the dangers of its waters. The Chaussée de Sein, a vast zone of reefs, stretches for more than thirty miles from east to west, requiring numerous lighthouses, to prevent increasing the large numbers of shipwrecks in the past.
The Island of Sein has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and it was reputed to have been the very last refuge of the druids in Brittany . Some menhirs can be found there.
Three hundred islanders continue to make their living from the sea, gathering rainwater and seaweed and fishing for scallops, lobster and crayfish.
Quai des Paimpolais
The village
In order to be protected from the sea and storms, the village has very narrow streets, a real labyrinth. The streets twist and turn against the wind, and in most places are built only wide enough to roll a barrel. Only bicycles are allowed.
Details of sea life decorate most houses, in the dominating blue colour.
On the blackboard - "croissants available by command for Christmas and New Year's Eve". That shows how isolated the island is from mainland.
like a caribou
The village of Tuktoyaktuk
Tuktoyaktuk is a small very northern settlement near the Mackenzie River Delta, in Canada, located on the Arctic tree line, at the shores of the Arctic Ocean, called here Beaufort Sea.
Pop. around 900 habitatants
Location 69°26′ N 133°01′W
This area was for many years under exploitation for fur trade by the Hudson Bay Company. Many locals still hunt, fish, and trap. They rely on caribou in the autumn, which they keep frozen underground, on ducks and geese in both spring and autumn, and fishing year-round. Other activities include collecting driftwood, caribou herding, and berrypicking.
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Inuit drum dancers
Tuktoyaktuk (=like a caribou) is the gateway for exploring Pingo National Landmark, an area protecting eight nearby pingos in a region which contains approximately 1 350 of these Arctic ice-dome hills.
A pingo is a a mound of earth-covered ice, a landform that raises from the earth as a result of the freezing and melting cycle. They last more than 1000 years - eventually, they collapse.
The Mackenzie river delta, in winter and in summer. The frozen river is the main winter road.
The road to Tuktoyaktuk is an ice road - it only opens for traffic in winter. It's traced on the river Mackenzie and on parts the Arctic Ocean ! During summer the village can be reached only by plane or boat.
Snowmobile instead of car
The old wooden catholic church
A cabin by the Mackenzie
From dogsled trips to the Midnight Sun, Northern Lights and pingos, Tuk has much to offer to an adventure visitor.
Mackenzie Street, Inuvik center (clic!)
Here at Inuvik you can find the main services - even a small café - coffee, espresso and cappucino at 69º N - north of the Arctic Circle !
Aerial view - a remote and extraordinary location, a place at the edge of the map - and if the mean sea level rises 2 feet this place will be wiped out.
Probably one of the best spectacles on earth, a "midnight sun" summer night in an arctic environment can take you all night dreaming awake.
This one is a photo from one of my favorite arctic blogs, Kuummiut, taken recently by Carl Skou, which work I strongly recommend. As I recommend a visit to his present day living area, Tasiilaq and Kuummiut, on Greenland's East Coast, where he can rent you a cabin too. Those two settlements situated in the most incredible landscape, like a small many-coloured cascade of houses down the snowy slope to the sea bay, can be like a surrealistic heaven on earth in the right weather - but under strong winter winds life is really hard, and an arctic night can last months.
Now is probably the best season, some flowers blossom through the ice, the nights are more magic than the Arabian nights, and those settlements are after all equiped with the necessary basic goods. Even icecream if you like.
More Links:
For Kuummiut:
http://www.kuummiut.com/
And in Ultima Thule:
http://ultima0thule.blogspot.com/search?q=arctic+summer
Grise Fiord (Aujuittuq, "place that never thaws") is a small Inuit hamlet, in the territory of Nunavut, Canada, surrounded by high cliffs and, for most of the year, sea ice.
Pop. 160 , loc. 76º 25´N , 82°53′ W , 1 150 km above the Arctic Circle
Grise Fiord is located on the south coast of Ellesmere Island, on the north shore of Jones Sound, and is Canada's most northerly community and one of the northernmost settlements on earth.
It was founded in 1953, when the Canadian government relocated Inuit families from northern Quebec and Baffin Island to the top north, to strengthen Canada's sovereignty on the High Arctic. Later, some improvements were made: the construction of a school, a government administration building, post office, airfield, and in 1966 the Inuit cooperative.
The traditional inuit fishing and hunting activity remains vital. Seal, polar bear, walrus, musk ox, beluga, narwhal and fish are the basic food resources, as the few southern supplies are very expensive.
Another income comes from tourism (some arctic cruises) and the selling of local handcraft made on walrus ivory:>
Looty Pijamini
Inuit artist from Grise Fiord, Canada:
Inukshuks ( = in the likeness of a human) are used as directional markers by Inuit people for communication and survival or as a place of respect or memorial. They mean “Someone was here".
Traditional amautiit clothing (left: seal, right: caribou) .
Amautiit = arctic Inuit parka designed to carry a child in the same garment as the parent
At these latitudes, there are two seasons: the "light" season from May to August, when the sun never sets, and the "dark" season from October to mid-February, when the sun never rises - it´s the long arctic night. temperature stays well below 0 °C for more than eight months of the year. It can dip often to -40º C in January, and snow storms isolate the settlement. Record low was -62.2º C.
The school also acts as a community center, with weekly dances, movies, classes in sewing, cooking, art, adult education.
