We went ashore at Cambridge Bay at 9 am, a short Zodiac trip with the wet landing. We learnt the origin of some stunning metal statues that have been made by disruptive youths. The Royal Canadian mounted police had announced that 10 of the kids were becoming really bad people , so the elders had set up this scheme to train these troublemakers in constructive use of of waste scrap metal to make these statues.
For a larger photo, click on the thumbnail photo below
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We were then escorted by 3 16year-olds, allocated by the local basketball teams, to guide us round the town. They were rather sweet and that they kept giggling and did not know what to tell us but after three hours, they became more relaxed and certainly answered most of our questions. We ended up at CHARS, a $300 million building supposedly for research, It’s architecture was fantastic, but David was not convinced that it was purely for research, It was certainly also used as a community centre. Albeit an expensive one.
Whilst we were there, there were hundreds of military around: we were told they were just there for a month on an exercise to reinforce Canadian sovereignty over the high Arctic. After this, we were escorted to the two local stores and then to the redfish house where we had fantastic local food., The girl who had prepared this this was obviously well educated and turned out to be the daughter of a notable Cambridge Bay resident, oneTanya Tagaq, A throat singer and painter..
The RCMP station had a memorial to a constable murdered here in 1973
In the afternoon, there was a talk on the Fram, The boat used by both Nansen and Amazon. We had dinner in the Terrassa with Leslie, the Inuit guest lecturer, and her Greenlandic friend: an enjoyable evening.
For a larger photo, click on the thumbnail photo below
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