After a beautiful and sunny Saturday, Sunday arrives overcast and gray. The wind picks up. Around 9:00, the call goes out: Narwhals in the bay! We dash out of tents to find narwhals close enough to see with the naked eye. Three or four pods swim close by. One whale pokes its tusk out, a white streak against the gray-blue of the water. After several minutes, the whales begin to lounge just under the surface. We watch the spouts above the water.

The weather delay stretches until after lunch. Since the wind gusts from the south, we travel to the far side of our little peninsula, where there should be protection from the wind. There, on the north-facing slopes, patches of snow are more abundant. We see several flocks of Snow Geese and many gulls. At one spot, a dead narwhal lies washed up on the beach.

We climb off the boat farther down. Onshore, we find Artic fox prints in the sand. Charlie points out the humongous prints of a polar bear and a large slab of old bowhead whale skin.

It starts to rain while we’re on the beach, and we head back towards camp. Along the way, we debate about stopping to see a cliff where soapstone is found. But the wind and rain increase, and the water becomes choppy. We race back to camp as an Artic storm bears down.

The rest of the evening we spend huddled inside. The wind sets our tents to flapping. Rain splatters over the rain flaps. Our dinner of caribou stew is a quiet affair, and a few people prefer to remain in their own tents rather than to brave the storm. We all turn in early.

The wind picked up today and we delay going out until past noon.   When we do finally venture out, we go to the appropriately named Fair Weather Bay.  

Onshore we discover the skeleton of a Bowhead whale and footprints from an Arctic fox. 

We also see the relatively fresh footprints of a polar bear.