Last day :(

Yesterday was our last day of the trip. Even though it was our last it certainly did not have the least going on. The day started at an early 7 am to get ready for an 8'oclock check out of our hotel in Iqaluit. From there we walked to a research centre in Iqaluit for a tour. The building has a lab for sampling soil and water for contaminants. Then we met up with a group of students from the french school and had a tour of the territorial park in Iqaluit. The landscape was nice but many of us were tired from a late night when we went to a movie theatre together to watch"This is where I leave you". We had no time for lunch after the walk through the park and were quickly shuttled to the airport to catch our flight to Ottawa. We left Katlyn, a student from Baker lake NU, in Iqualuit as she had plans to meet family there. We then all chatted in the Ottawa airport and slowly said our goodbyes as the group members left. It was a very emotional moment leaving everyone behind. I really enjoyed getting to know all the kids on the trip and I had a great time with all of them. Then I flew from there to Calgary and then on to Kelowna where my Parents was there to meet me. I got home and in bed at 12 am local time but 3am my time and got ready for the next day when I had a full day of school.

This program was extremely fun and was something I am never going to forget. I will hopefully keep in contact with the friends I made on the boat and in Kugluktuk. The things I leaned and experienced are some that will not be able to be found anywhere else. Big thank you to Michelle Watts, the schools on board coordinator, without whom this trip would never have been possible.

-To no longer be continued… Jaxon!

Quick photos...

Just a quick photo of a great shot that Jean-Francois, a teacher from Whitehorse, took.

Zoomed in iceberg

Awesome sunset

Some landscapes

 The CTD Rosette

 Me and some machinery

Full group shot

Time is FLYING!

The last few days have been a blur but have been great! Two days ago we started hitting really rough water and we decided that we should pull into a fiord until the waves died down. We took this opportunity to sample. The first activity of the day was Piston coring, which is essentially dropping a tube into the ocean with a 2000-pound weight on the top to push it into the ground to collect a sample of the sediment layers. I was involved in a sample called box coring which is dropping a box into the ocean bottom and closing the bottom to get a large sample of the ground. Jeniffer White, from Inuvik Northwest Territories, was my partner in the box core. We pulled out amounts of sediment from the sample and then dumped it into a mesh and washed away all the dirt to reveal all the little critters that we’re living in the mud. While we were washing away the mud Jeniffer sprayed some water in her mouth and she said that science tasted salty. Laurence and Noemie led that activity. The second sampling was a horizontal net tow to collect zooplankton led by Jordan and Cyril. I was involved with this activity and after the nets came up we took the samples inside and sorted out Chaetognaths and then filtered the rest of the zooplankton into jars. That night I was up until 2:30am because it was our first full day of sampling and real science. The next morning we sampled again and I got to take part in a vertical net tow. Then we filtered more zooplankton. There were other samplings that had been done that included the CTD Rosette, which is a device that can measure many physical aspects of water at 24 different depths, the Hydrobios, which is a net that can open at different depths to catch depth specific organisms. The water was rough that evening and everyone passed out early feeling a little bit queasy. The next day was a little bit slow because we were in transit to the next location so we spent the day working on power points. We also had a conference call with our schools. I was one of the few students who didn’t have their school call in. Thanks dad. We all kind of hung out for the rest of the day. Today was another slow day but we had an awesome tour of the engine room. We haven’t had Internet for the past few days because we have hidden from the waves in some beautiful fiords. When the Internet is better I will upload some photos!

-To be continued… Jaxon!