Click for more photos from Day 4

Still abuzz this morning from an amazing evening of storytelling last night. A number of people on board had tales to tell but the Inuit trio of Mary Simon, June Schapa and Danielle Meyok stole the show. Mary, former Canadian Ambassador of Circumpolar Affairs and now CEO of Inuit Tapirit Kanatami (Canada's national Inuit organization), stood up and told a wonderful story about growing up in the George River area of Nunavik. June sat down on a stool and told us about Kiviuq, a travelling hero who sounded like an Inuit version of Odysseus, only with really cool magical powers. And finally, Danielle, the youngest of the three Inuit storytellers, told us about going camping with her family near Kugluktuk. No slides, no PowerPoints, just good old fashioned storytelling. Wonderful!

But today, we're making some stories of our own. We stop at Walrus Island — what a glorious stink wafted into our curious nostrils as we cruise near in Zodiacs. We come across a polar bear and cub on that small island as well, who spend the afternoon feasting on a dead walrus until they are both more red than white in the afternoon sun. After lunch we travel southeast to Coats Island, where we land and have a stimulating encounter with young researchers working with the Canadian Wildlife Service, studying (among other things) the feeding habits of cliff-dwelling thick-billed murres. I can't believe our good fortune when they start talking about changes in diet that they think might be tied to climate change. There is nothing virtual about this learning — there we are weaving our way down a trail to observe the birds and hearing from the people studying them about how the murres are responding to changes in the environment. Science up close and personal — there's nothing quite like it!

In the evening, Mary Simon teaches everyone the Inuktitut words for walrus (aiviq) and polar bear (nanuk) and spells them both in syllabic characters as well. But she also reminds us most of the animals we've been gawking at have been food for Inuit since time immemorial and that while many of us are drawing breath at the beauty and majesty of these, the northerners in our midst are doing that as well ... while they salivate thinking about feasts past and yet to come. There are definitely a range of perspectives on this ship, especially with respect to nature and the environment.