Day 4- Saturday

Day 4 Saturday
This morning the mosquitoes are so bad I don’t want to leave the tent. I am told that an amaruq (wolf) was spotted over the ridge at sunrise. There are fresh caribou tracks on the beach. We put on our waterproof and bee-keeping insect gear and head out early, checking nets, and this day is spent cruising the coastline looking for caribou and fishing. The nets are full today with many iqaluqpiq and codfish. We do not see caribou but not from lack of trying, we cruise for miles along the beautiful coast, scanning for antlers and signs. We have language class in the boat today and I learn a lot of vocabulary. We catch some fish, one char gets away after being on the hook, to universal dismay. I am taught local geography, we stop at an island for tea, I am shown goose eggs but these are not taken as the geese are already developing inside. I am shown the herbs that are used to make Inuit tea and there is an arctic spider, very big and I take a picture, they are not sure if it is poisonous. We drink tea, it is bitter but good, we head back on the water, find a mussel bed and harvest some of them, there is target practice but no real shooting, they cannot find the tuktu this time! My guides are berated for not shooting that buck when they saw it…everyone laughs good naturedly but there is some seriousness in it too, the chance was there and they should have taken it they say. We return to camp and we have many, many fish today, nets are again full, we have about 6 big char and many more codfish just from the second checking, the 5 geese left, the one duck and we are in good shape. Everyone wants to try the fire-cooked way, this time we make a really big fire, it is indeed a lovely bonfire, we stand around as the northern lights come out again, there are shooting stars, as the fire dies down we wrap 7 fish and 7 potatoes in foil, we have 3 big char and 5 codfish, the fire is so big that there are plenty of embers, I let them cook slowly for about an hour, the smells are delicious, when they are unwrapped it is like ‘presents’ everyone laughs, we eat with our hands right on the rocks, we gorge ourselves, the steaming char cooked in its own juices on the fire in the cold air was very very nice. Grace was said over the food but it is eaten not with quiet reverence but with lip smacking finger-licking appreciation, the pleasure taken in food here is almost sexual, the animals killed with your own hands and eaten in the same way, there is no distance between you and your food, you take it from start to finish and I think that the Inuit appreciate their food very intensely. We sleep deeply and everyone is completely full for the first time.