Thursday the 28th: Qik to Iqaluit via Pangnirtung and the gorge
The day started with
a good hearty breakfast by Doug the hotel chef, manager, everything man.
Our
Beech needed some more fuel and we had arranged for a drum to arrive at the
airport for 9am, but it turned out to be the wrong fuel.
After quite some time the correct fuel finally arrived and
our hand pump eventually saw use.
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| Phil and John churning the hand pump |
Luckily John knew how to put the pump
together and Phil got his ratio of physical exercise by turning the pump.
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| all three aircraft ready for take off from Qik |
The plan today was to fly two shorter sectors via
Pangnirtung, swap crew and teams around and then head for Iqaluit, the main
town in this part of north eastern Canada.
I was lucky to catch a ride in Sam’s comfortable Saratoga
with padded woolen seats, window shades and head sets that didn’t
scratch your ears out (like ours!).
(My computer just collapsed again after I have written a
long story, so annoying!).
Anyway, I will briefly recall what I had written:
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| the team infront of the Beech |
There were
two shocks or scary moments shortly after take off: one was a very close encounter with the
Beech as Sam's team tried to film her taking off.
The second one happened just minutes or seconds later: as I opened the window (Sam's aircraft had specially designed openings for filming), my beloved little ZOOM camera was
suddenly sucked out of the hole as it was so light-weight and I didn’t expect
such a strong draft! oh no!!!!
Rest in peace my little thing in the icy waters of
Qiqiktarjuaq! I shall miss that camera
very much.
I did most of my documentation and many interesting interviews
with it and won't be able to replace it during the reminder of this trip.
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| Betty in formation flight down the gorge |
Luckily I still had my ipad and a gopro to film what was to
be one of the most incredible flights of my life:
We cruised in a three-ship
formation along this stunning gorge with some of the tallest cliffs in the
world and glaciers running down the slopes on those rugged mountains.
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| Tim filming with his Gopro in the Beech |
It was
just out of this world! I managed to get a few great shots of the Beech flying
close behind us before we landed at Pangnirtung – another remote little town.
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| John concentrating on the controls |
We managed to find the only restaurant in town which curiously was a Kentucky
Fried chicken come supermarket!
The next leg took us across some vast expanses of flat
tundra dotted with thousands of little lakes, tiny bushes and shrubs. We tried
to spot a crashed DC 3 that had run out of fuel a few decades ago – just as
well that we had decided to top our stocks up in Qik!
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| Paula getting slightly bored with the long-winded refuelling process |
After an hour and a half we touched down at the capital city
of Nunavut, one of the largest provinces of Canada namely ‘Baffin Island’.
It
came a shock to our system to see big transport jets and other aircraft buzzing
in and out, vehicles driving up and down the runway and ATC rushing us to
refuel and get parked.
A short drive took us to the best hotel in town, the
Frobisher Inn – the very same hotel as Prince Charles was supposed to stay at
only 24 hours later.
Sorry we missed you Charles! Unfortunately though the
hotel seemed to have lost our reservation and it took a long time to dig out a
few rooms for us.
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| the Primary school of Iqaluit |
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| and its Anglican church!! |
I gave dinner in the noisy hotel bar a miss and went to
explore this town. There is an Anglican church that looks like a Mongolian ger,
a primary school without any windows and a huge supermarket that doesn’t sell
any booze!
I climbed a hill to eat my sandwich and enjoyed the views over the
bay. What a trip, what a journey, what amazing unforgettable experiences!
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| view from the top of my hill overlooking the city |
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