narwhal

I’m standing on metre-thick sea ice, about ten kilometres beyond the tip of Baffin Island in Canada’s Arctic.

The past two summers have allowed us to learn a lot about how the Arctic is changing, both from our own observations and by talking with the locals in northern communities.

The narwhals have stopped transmitting signals.

The 4 narwhals still with working satellite transmitters are now spending most of their time towards the edge of the Canadian continental shelf, at the edge of Davis Strait, not far from the international boundary with Greenland.

Two of the narwhals have struck out fast along the coast, now off Auyittuq National Park in southeast Baffin Island.

With so much latent heat still in the water column, the Arctic sea ice is slow in reforming again this autumn. Our 4 narwhal with radio transmitters still working are moving fairly slowly SE along the North Baffin coastlines.

The Sailing to Siku crew encounters a pod of narwhals.

Arctic Bay was our first community since leaving Grise Fiord a week ago. It was time to resupply with fuel, water and fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. We also took this opportunity to meet people in the community to learn about the latest news.

We had just stepped ashore in Qeqertat when the small boat approached the beach, dodging its way in between icebergs.

Well, after 10 months, the final narwhal radio has either fallen off or is malfunctioning! Not at all bad though, and the adult female still transmitting position signals into mid June was right up there as one of the longest datasets yet for telemetry/radio-tracking of this species!