The Black Flag Cafe is the place travelers come to share stories and advice. Moderated by Robert Young Pelton the author of The World's Most Dangerous Places.
Baffin Island is HUGE! Some 1,065 km from Iqaluit (where I'm based now) up to Pond Inlet where I spent the summer months. I'll be flying around here till at least March. Rivers are starting to freeze over now. Some petroleum leakage has shut down the town water so the Federal Government and some of the larger resource companies are flying up pallet after pallet of bottled water. Locals are refilling them upriver after cutting through the ice. Still haven't been through Pangnirtung Pass and seen that range, though its one of our regular routes. The guy I'm flying with is a bit of malcontent concerning weather. Maybe next month....
Still no polar bears but I've been warned I venture too far without the 12 ga in hand. Polar bears destroyed two company helicopters last summer at these spots, while the crews were sleeping nearby. I hope to eventually see one, from a distance....
I'm still figuring out how to photograph the northern lights. It's surreal - I was completely encapsulated in the twisting lights, felt like I could touch them.
If you're not carrying you may end up as ursa munchies. Once I was told that if you piss off the locals up there enough, they may drop you out to the middle of nowhere so that the bears would take care of you. Not sure if she was shitting me.
side note - IF you chase a bear out of camp, the general consensus is not to fly straight back to camp, as the bear will follow your track and mess up your ride. Better to fly at least 30 degrees off your track until over the horizon. I just read the same logic in The Last of the Gentlemen Adventurers: Coming of Age in the Arctic set in the 1930s, but with dog sleds as opposed to choppers. Don't mess with polar bears.