Week Two Ennadai Lake

Boat Boy and Sailor Sue Do Nunavut - Week Two

On Tuesday evening I was driving around the site on my favorite ‘quad’ and visited the caretaker’s cabin, located well away from the main resort. After getting off to check out the Solar Photo Voltaic system in use I was about to get back on the ATV when I was approached by a lovely fox. She had shed most of her silver winter coat, leaving her with her black summer coat showing through. Just beautiful! She paced me as I drove back to the resort, and went to the back door to await a ‘treat’.  Feeding the animals is bad policy. Building dependencies on the part of the wildlife sets them up for a letdown when the humans go away. And of course, if the wildlife includes the bears, then the last thing you want to do is to attract them. (picture of Vixen courtesy of Scott)

So what was I to do? I gave her a piece of leftover chicken from the fridge, of course.

She was later seen moving her six kits to a new den, further from the resort. I think that Scott's new puppy was ranging far enough from the lodge to be a threat to them.

Meanwhile, the younger members of our crew were out checking out the fauna in the ‘mule’, our all terrain diesel truck. Some of the tales of their adventures are starting to come out at the dinner table. Terns attacked Peter and Seemee when they were fishing along the lakeshore a few evenings ago. Seemee got video of an angry tern flying down, hovering and pecking Peter’s head. The boys must have been practically on top of a nest to cause that reaction.

On Wednesday we were sitting down to lunch as a Helicopter circled the lodge and landed, bringing three visitors to join us at the table. The visitors were our “landlords”, dropping by to inspect the operation on behalf of the government of Nunavut. To Mike, our heavy equipment operator, fell the task of escorting the guests and addressing their concerns. After a few hours they flew away, leaving flattering comments in their wake about the orderliness of the site.

Thursday dawned a windy, rainy day, the first in the 11 days since we arrived here in Nunavut. Different facets of the project are coming together and for our part, the two-story array framework is complete and with the lower tier of collector manifolds installed. Max and I had a quick practice session on the threader yesterday and are ready to start installing some of the two inch steel pipe that forms the main artery joining the mechanical room and the solar array, as well as the ¾” steel pipe that connects each node to that 2” pipe at that artery. It’s too bad the couplings weren't shipped with the rest of the parts last week because we could be installing pipe by now .

It’s Friday and it is another great, wet day in paradise! The weather station says wind speed is only 23 knots, but the rain is a solid horizontal sheet and Susan noticed that the windsock and its mast have blown over. Yesterday morning we did not work due to a light rain and strong winds. Today the rains are worse and it is just as windy.

On the bright side of things we are no longer surrounded by forest fires.

We had an afternoon of showers and were able to work between them. All of the collectors are now mounted and the catwalk to service the top row of collectors will likely be finished before the plane comes tomorrow…

No dice! Nine degrees, rain and wind. With the ceiling under 300 feet for a while, the plane was cancelled for today. We are all waiting for materials, and plugging around the place. Mike has the dirt runway looking like pavement and we are hoping that the pilots fro Air Tindi will be impressed and tell all their buddies how great it is. The skies broke blue with some patches of cloud at suppertime so Sue and I decided we’d go for a putt and a troll. It was pretty exciting.

First we cleaned the water from the gas tank (again). Am I the only one who closes the vent?  And then we were off, exploring the lake and its inlets on the western side of the lodge. We were idling out of one of those inlets after a few casts into the weeds, when Sue let out an excited yelp and the drag started slipping on her reel. “WOW”…says I to myself…”this must be where the big Pike hang out. “

When I put the boat into neutral we seemed to be going backwards…Holy Smokes!

We soon realized that we had a snag – but - well, the excitement got better than this! A few coves later we were entering a weedy patch when a big fish jumped right beside the boat. Within a few boat lengths my rod was giving me some vibes. A hit, then another …but not a solid strike. The rod stayed loaded so I reeled as Sue put the dipnet over the side. It was a good thing she did or we might not have been able to retrieve all those weeds!!!

Only a few casts and it started to rain. We, being made of sugar, we decided that we had better run for it. Flat out, the Mercury 25 had our Lund 16 skimming toward the rainbow and I thought to myself: ”Virgil Flowers, eat your heart out.”