Bathurst Inlet Lodge - Arctic Tour

DAY 1 – MONDAY
Bathurst staff will pick you up at your hotel or bed & breakfast, and will take you to the float base or airport for your flight to Bathurst Inlet.

The flight by either floatplane or wheeled aircraft will take about 2.5 hours. If the flight occurs over lunch, we send box lunches along.

Weather permitting we route the aircraft to fly over Diavik and Ekati diamond mines, and to follow the last 20 miles of the Burnside River for a spectacular flight experience.

Upon arrival, we do a brief (but very complete) orientation to the lodge and the community, and guests are introduced to those of the staff who are available. Luggage arrives, and guests unpack and settle into their rooms. We take this time to discuss any special diets requested with the individuals requesting them.

Time permitting; a wildflower walk along the beach to the east of the lodge is conducted to introduce guests to the local flora. An established wildflower trail, with individual plants identified and marked with little signs and a wall display of plants in bloom that week, is available for guests to become more familiar with our arctic flora.(Photo © Paul vanPeenen)

Dinner is at 6:30 PM (or approximate) each evening.
After supper the first night, programming includes a presentation on the history of the community and the people of the Inlet, a lodge tour with opportunities to photograph drying fish and a tour of the Inuit community. Presentation discussion topics typically include the history of the Copper Inuit, the explorers, fur traders, missionaries, and later years of mining exploration and government, as well as the concept and history of the establishment of the Nunavut Territory.

DAY 2 – TUESDAY
Coffee is available from 7:30 AM on.

The lodge is open 24 hrs.

Breakfast is from 8 - 8:30 AM. Cereals, including porridge and granola, are set out, and individual breakfast orders (eggs, bacon, ham, etc.) are taken.

During breakfast, guests are briefed on the planned activities for the day based on the current conditions. Appropriate clothing and footwear are identified and the potential photographic opportunities that will be available.

Each day, ingredients for lunch are set out, and after breakfast, guests have the opportunity to make their own lunches, thus ensuring that they have sandwiches to their own tastes.

We usually meet at the boat at 9:30 AM. Occasionally, we leave on the first morning at 10 AM; depending on how much time the group seems to need to get ready.

While we are going through the shallow channels near the Lodge, we do a boat safety lecture, emphasizing how we handle the boat while docking, how to get on and off the boat, and safety features of the boat. We always tow an aluminum boat, which we dock separately from the large boat. We also carry an HF radio or a satellite phone on the boat, as well as three separate first aid kits.

(Photo © Paul vanPeenen) The first day’s trip involves a medium amount of hiking. We spend time on the sea, perhaps cruising the edge of the sea ice, and try to ensure that people learn how to identify the birds commonly seen on the inlet. Yellow-billed, Pacific, and red-throated loons, oldsquaw ducks, glaucous, herring, and Thayer’s gulls, tundra swans, and possibly red-breasted and common mergansers are often seen. When conditions are appropriate we visit a cliff-nesting site of peregrine falcons, rough legged hawks, or golden eagles, sometimes all three. Ringed seals are common on the Inlet, and we discuss their biology. We usually land about twice during the first day, on the mainland or on interesting islands. In the early part of the season, we usually cannot go far due to the presence of the sea ice. This is balanced by an abundance of wildflowers and by the fact that the small birds are still courting with many singing males, or are incubating, sitting tight to their nests.

The sea ice itself holds enormous attraction for visitors to Bathurst Inlet. Even as it is deteriorating, it is still awe-inspiring. In places, it is still a meter thick, and will easily bear the weight of a person. In others it is candling, fracturing into long crystals that fall apart and create the music of the ice as they wash against the ice floes. It piles up on the shores, creating huge buttresses of ice, and provides a floating platform for dozens of ringed seals. These haul out on the ice to bask in the sun and molt their winter hair. During our first two weeks, we do spend some time in pursuit of the ice, providing our guests with an experience they are unlikely to get anywhere other than in the Arctic.

The Blue Loo returns to docks at the community of Bathurst Inlet at approximately 5 PM on this first day of adventure. Supper is normally at 6:30 PM.

After supper, a slide show or educational program is provided to our guests in the lodge lounge. This program will vary, but typically includes a slide show or discussion on the local geology early in the week, so people have a better understanding of the stories of the land as they pass it or walk over it.

Another evening option is canoeing in the sheltered waters of the snye, which extends west of the community. People sign canoes out, and canoeing is either guided or unguided.

DAY 3 – WEDNESDAY
Usual morning routine including breakfast, briefing, packing lunches, and depart.

Trips for Day 3 – Day 6 will vary depending on wind, weather and sea ice.
Alternative daily activities can include:

Young Island, FON Island, Banks Peninsula. This is a cruise and hiking on the western side of the Inlet, in an area with many islands, some of which harbour caribou, and all of which have wonderful displays of wildflowers.(Photo © Paul vanPeenen) Young Island offers superb tundra flowers, golden plovers, nesting rough legged hawks and possible caribou. FON Island offers good shorebirds (least sandpipers, semi-palmated plovers, and occasional Baird’s sandpipers), possible nesting peregrines and red-throated loons, good basalt intrusions, and numerous meat caches. The Banks Peninsula is located across the Burnside from the Lodge, and is an old delta of the river when it was much larger than today. It is a prime area for caribou, and we often see bears and/or foxes there. We land at a large conglomerate rock where there are old camps and an old Inuit grave.

Swan Lake and the snye. This is a trip west up the snye and through an opening in the Bathurst Ridge to cruise a large lake. During our first week we sometimes can’t get all the way to Swan Lake, but have good wildlife viewing along the shores of the snye. We see waterfowl on the snye, caribou and sometimes foxes on the delta, and golden eagles along the ridge. Musk oxen are frequently present in this area, especially in early summer, and if their location permits it, we stalk them. Tundra swans are almost always seen in Swan Lake or on the snye. By the second week of our season, we can usually access most of Swan Lake, including Flower Island, where there is a superb display of flowers, and excellent examples of the huge variety of different rocks deposited by the great continental ice sheets.

There are several possible hikes in the Swan Lake area. We can hike up Musk Ox Creek to seek and stalk musk oxen, and to see the huge variety of tundra vegetation. Or, we can climb to a stone fox trap high on Kaotuk Hill, then circle this striking landform, through a water gap in the Bathurst Ridge.

There’s another excellent hike up Hydro Creek to see nesting rough-legged hawks and (sometimes) a nesting gyrfalcon. Hydro Creek also offers a superb little waterfall and excellent birding (yellow warblers, blackpoll warblers, yellow-rumped warblers in tall willow riparian habitat and nesting tundra birds like Lapland longspurs, white-crowned sparrows, redpolls, and horned larks on the slopes). Caribou and musk oxen are possible on any of these hikes, and the barrenground grizzly is sometimes seen in this area.

The Bathurst Ridge. Our guests often want to climb to the top of the Bathurst Ridge, a huge diabase sill (1250 ft. elevation) to the south of the community. We can either do this from the lodge, hiking up a ridge to the east of the community, or can take the boat up the snye and land at the midway down the ridge, hiking along the ridge to reach the crest, called Kingaun Hill, or “The Nose”. This is a beautiful hike past an old inukshuk game drive system, with diverse displays of flowers. Birds include ptarmigan (either willow or rock), Lapland longspurs, northern pipits, redpolls, golden eagles, peregrine falcons, ravens, and more. Plant communities include typical heath tundra, glacial rebound beaches with lichens webbing the rocks, conttongrass meadows in drainage systems, and high lichen-rock communities on the exposed volcanic rocks of the ridge.

Burnside Delta. This area between the snye and the main channel of the Burnside is a fascinating mixture of old sand dunes, oxbow lakes, thickets of willow, and level open tundra on the flat sandy deposits of an older delta. It provides excellent nesting habitat for a number of birds, including willow ptarmigan, red-throated loons, yellow and yellow-rumped warblers, white-crowned, Harris’ and savannah sparrows, redpolls, lesser yellowlegs, semi-palmated plovers, least and Baird’s sandpipers, tundra swans, and more. Caribou wander the low dunes, and red foxes and wolves are frequently seen. Hiking on the delta is a surprise package; one can seldom foretell what will be seen. Marsh harriers and short-eared owls hunt low over the willows, and golden eagles and peregrine falcons also hunt the area. Red-necked phalaropes nest on the tiny tundra ponds.

Early in the season, sea ice may prevent us from travelling far on the sea, but the rich variety of wildflowers and abundance of caribou, often cow-calf herds, makes the shorter trips well worthwhile. In early summer, musk oxen are more abundant close to the shore, as they feed selectively on the new leaves of the willows as they emerge.

Evening Programs
Bathurst Inlet staff offers an interpretive program each evening at the lodge and guests are encouraged to attend those that interest them (most people are interested in ALL programs we do). Examples of these programs and their presenters include:

Glenn and Trish Warner, owners and operators of Bathurst Inlet Lodge and long-time arctic residents: slide presentations on Glenn’s life as a RCMP officer in the North, and Trish’s life as a young bride and mother in the remote arctic communities. Trish’s presentation also includes a description of what it was like to be stranded (forced down by weather) for a week on the tundra to the east of the Inlet.

Bishop Jack Sperry, Retired Anglican Bishop of the Arctic, missionary and linguist: slide show on his 50-plus years in the North, the first 20 as a missionary in Coppermine (now Kugluktuk), and an additional two decades as Bishop of the Diocese of The Arctic. Bishop Sperry also sometimes does additional programs on the local language (Inuinaktun) and culture.

Page Burt, botanist and Senior Naturalist, Bathurst Inlet Lodge: history of the local Inuit and the community, a summary of the geological story of the Inlet, diamond exploration/mining and geology of kimberlites in northern Canada, and the biology of large mammals in the central arctic (caribou, musk ox, wolves, grizzlies), wildflowers and adaptations of arctic plants, life in arctic communities throughout the year, and more.

Quiet readings: Bathurst Inlet Lodge maintains a superb northern library, well over 800 books and papers about the North. This library is available to all our guests, and copies of some of the more applicable books are available for purchase.

Evening service: On Sunday evening, Bishop Sperry offers an optional ecumenical service for those interested. This short service is tied to the cultures and environments of the North, and is deeply treasured by guests who have experienced it on previous visits to Bathurst Inlet.

In addition to the indoor evening programs, there are also a variety of outdoor options, such as early morning or evening bird walks, paddling on the snye and along the delta, or opportunities to assist with ongoing research projects, such as plant phenology (blooming sequence) research. In addition, evening hikes in the area of the Lodge are often of interest, including evening hikes on the Bathurst Ridge or even to its summit, called “The Nose”. For those interested in casual fishing, it is sometimes possible to arrange trips with local residents, to local areas where anglers can try their luck for arctic char, lake trout or large tomcod.

DAY 4 – THURSDAY
After the usual morning activities, we depart again by boat, our direction and destination governed by the weather, wind and sea ice.

Trips on the sea are shorter while there is extensive sea ice, but there is such a diversity of habitats on nearby islands that this is not a problem.

In addition to the trips described above, the following trips are of deep interest to the guests:

Old Burnside Delta, western Young Island, and Kayak Island. This trip up the western side of Young Island provides opportunities to land at old Inuit campsites on the mainland, on the old delta to the north of the main channel of the Burnside, to parallel the shore looking for fox dens, musk ox and caribou, often gathered around snowbanks on the shores. Also, nesting rough-legged hawks, possible peregrine falcons, caribou on Young Island, and a multitude of sea birds including oldsquaw ducks, three possible species of scoters, and three species of loons. Kayak Island offers splendid wildflowers and old campsites, including some well-preserved kayak racks.

South Quadjuk Island is a huge slanted diabase sill that bisects the Inlet. Extending some 15 miles north, it offers a multitude of interesting landing spots, including immense sculpted sandstone “heads” (hoodoos) with superb shows of wildflowers, golden eagle nesting cliffs, and small bays and narrows where we can hike to the top of the island in small passes with ancient hunting hides. The sea ice usually allows access to the south end of this island even the first week of our season. Due to its size, this island often harbours herds of caribou, which remain, into the middle or later part of the summer. We have seen wolves, wolverines and grizzlies there.

Oldsquaw Bay. Due to the sea ice, it is usually not possible to get to Oldsquaw Bay during our first week, but we can often get there the second week. According to naturalist Walt Anderson of Prescott College in Arizona, Oldsquaw Bay offers some of the “most incredibly magnificent wilderness hiking in North America”. Fascinating outcrops of algal limestone, jagged vertical outcrops of metasediments, old glacial rebound beaches, steep talus slopes, sheer diabase cliffs, and shallow bays support diverse plant communities, and offer excellent wildlife habitats. Flocks of male oldsquaws, common (and sometimes king) eiders, surf, white-winged, and black scoters, red-breasted and common mergansers, Pacific and yellow-billed loons, and ringed (rarely, bearded) seals are seen on the sea. Raptors, caribou, arctic hares, and occasionally, wolves, wolverines, or grizzlies are found. Snowbanks provide habitat for short-season plants that can occur only where there is little competition.

Small bays support nesting populations of least and Baird’s sandpipers, semipalmated plovers, and occasional less-common shorebirds like white-rumped sandpipers, lesser yellowlegs, and semipalmated sandpipers.

On the sea, we often see any of three species of jaegers, pomarine, parasitic, or long-tailed, as well as ringed seals.

Each of the above options is a full day trip.

DAY 5 – FRIDAY
Occasionally, we have a “weather day” in which there is too much wind to use our big pontoon boat, or in which we cannot go far beyond Quadjuk Island or Peregrine Point due to ice movement.

Options for these days include shorter boat trips, or hiking from the Lodge.

Peregrine Point, Canso Bay, and the Bathurst Ridge. By boat around Peregrine Point, landing at either the spring caribou camp or at Canso Bay, looking for nesting peregrines and rough-legged hawks enroute. Then hiking along Peregrine Point and across a low saddle to Canso Bay, where there is a large snowbank community and one of the best examples of a place where people caught caribou, dried the meat, and stored it in stone meat caches. On one hillside, there are six beautifully constructed meat caches, plus taluit and a stone fox trap. There are a number of hiking options in this area: walking home along an arctic beach, hiking up a wildflower-strewn slope and walking home along a morainal ridge, or climbing up to a saddle on the Bathurst Ridge to see more ancient hunting hides and gorgeous views south down the Inlet, then home along the ridge. This area can also be explored by hiking from the Lodge.

Hiking options from the Lodge:

Phalarope Pond and the crosses. A lovely early AM or evening hike along the shore to the west of the lodge, on a path that meanders through dense willows along the snye to a series of small tundra ponds below the ridge. Grey-cheeked thrush, Harris’ sparrow, many redpolls, white-crowned sparrows, horned lark, willow ptarmigan, short-eared owl, red-throated loon, and more, including possible nesting northern pintails, green-winged teal, and red-necked phalarope. This hike can be extended to include part of the Bathurst Ridge, or a circle around by the community cemetery with its picturesque white crosses.

“Nose” hike. This can be a full day hike, or an evening hike. Hikers leave the Lodge via the trail to the airstrip and hike up the moraine ridge to the south of the strip, bearing right along the old glacial rebound beaches on the Bathurst Ridge, where Iceland moss lichen, reindeer moss lichen, and a grey cushion moss web the stones together. Once on the gravel above the tundra, we bear left until we find a fault zone extending to the top of the ridge. This fault zone offers tiny tundra meadows with dense arctic heather, rhododendron, swales full of arctic cotton and bulblet saxifrage, and dryer ridges with mountain avens. The views are incredible, and we often see caribou, peregrines, golden eagles, and tundra swans. It is a real achievement to reach the top of the Nose, with its elevation of 1250 ft.

Bathurst Ridge hike: Another alternative, usually combined with a boat trip on the snye to Swan Lake, involves a drop-off on the end of the Bathurst Ridge at the Sean Lake, and hiking home along the shoulder or crest of the ridge. This hike requires a fair amount of stamina, and usually only part of the guests feel prepared to make it. However, it offers superb views over the Inlet, and opportunities to see wildlife close up.

DAY 6 – SATURDAY
The week continues with boat trips on the sea or inland to Swan Lake.

On Saturday night, we offer a cultural program that includes interpretation of the display of tools and artifacts collected from the general area over the past 40 years. Sam Kapolak discusses these and their importance to his ancestors. We also demonstrate and discuss the traditional clothing from the central arctic, modelled by the local families, and one of the local women demonstrates the lighting of the soapstone lamp. After the program, there is an opportunity to see, handle, and try on the clothing. This is a very full evening, with enthusiastic participation from the community and all guests.

DAY 7 – SUNDAY
On Sunday, we continue with our selection of trips as described above, and a shorter evening program, perhaps a casual slide show of some of the winter activities in which we participate, or a review of the wildflower bloom for the week.

Throughout the week at Bathurst Inlet, we weave together stories of the land, and the geological forces affecting it, of the development of the diverse plant communities that occupy this rich arctic oasis, and the wildlife populations that utilize the land. On top of this is laid the human history of the area, from the coming of the Paleo-Eskimos to the development of the modern Copper Inuit from their Thule ancestors, from the explorers to the traders and the missionaries, to the development of small communities, and the development of these communities with the coming of the government, settling of the land claims, and the recent birth of the new Nunavut Territory. We may weave part of the fabric of knowledge out on the land, in a slide lecture, in casual conversation, or over dinner. Depending on the interests of our guests, practically every minute can be a learning opportunity.

DAY 8 – MONDAY
On the last morning, we usually schedule a boat trip to the nearer islands, to ensure that our guests do not feel that anything has been left out. We visit a superb Thule tentring site on the south tip of South Quadjuk, where people likely camped during the 1500s to 1700s, while hunting seal and caribou in the spring. South Quadjuk also offers incredible shows of wildflowers, including dense stands of alpine arnica, and moss campion and several ferns growing on the cliffs. We discuss an additional historical story, and then boat across to Bear Island if we have not already stopped there. This small island is quite lovely, and was also a Thule campsite. We’ll visit their tentrings, and an unusual rock monolith where people stored bags of seal blubber, fuel for the coming winter.

Then, it’s home to the Lodge and final packing for the arrival of the aircraft that will convey the group back to Yellowknife.

Depending on departure time, you will usually arrive back in Yellowknife by 5 - 6 PM, ample time to check into your hotel for overnight.

DAY 9 – TUESDAY
Flight back home.