Some Of My Favorites

Here are a few of my favorite photographs from this summer

A cow and calf out for a walk

Two Sandhill Cranes taking flight

 Black and white view from the cabin

View from the hill in back of the cabin

A brand new morning

Two caribou that came to check us out

Morning mist at the cabin

A caribou trying to hide behind a rock

Zellie and the Inukshuk

End of August Already

Well summer sure did fly by pretty fast!!!!!

End of August means berry picking around here so of we went a picking...   them not me, I just went along for the ride and some fresh air. Actually I went along hoping that there would be a big fat buck I could shoot. I did see a nice buck with my binoculars but it was to far across the tundra so I decided that I would go look for it the following day. Someone got to it before I did so no luck yet on a big buck.

Here are some picture from our berry picking adventure.

Mona and Maria picking (mostly eating) berries

Zellie picking 

Shadow protecting us from the big bad caribou

We did see few caribou that day...   just not the right one

My favorite caribou picture

The Hunting Trip

About a week after a big herd of caribou were passing through we decided to go hunting. We packed up the Ranger and headed out. The plan was for Maria to shoot her first caribou however she could not get the job done. I got a nice little bull and Zellie shot her first caribou, a nice little female.

From the time we spotted my bull to when I finally shot was about 30 minutes. My first shots were with my new Winchester 300 win mag which I soon learned that the scope had been bumped and wasn't shooting straight. I retrieved my .243 Savage from Maria and started to look for the bull once again, once located I knocked it down with the first shot.

After we cut up my caribou we decided to head back home as it was getting late in the day. The next day we packed up the Ranger again in the hopes of Maria getting a caribou. Once again after several shots she was unable to shoot a caribou. So with only two bullets left we drove a little further down the road where I spotted a little female. I asked Maria if she wanted to take a shot at it, she tried to line up the shot but it was really windy by this time and she could hold the gun steady so she gave up. I then asked Zellie if she wanted to try. She said yes so I told her to climb in the box of the Ranger and use the roof for a rest for the rifle. The caribou was on the downside of a little hill so told her to try and aim for the head, she did and shot her first caribou with one shot. Was she ever happy!!!!

Here are some pictures of the trip. I did not include Zellie's caribou as it was a head shot.

Maria and me walking towards a bull caribou that is on the other side of the hill

Me trying to find the bull after switching rifles

Me and my bull

Now the work really begins

Me showing maria how to aim the rifle with a scope

Zellie and Maria trying to sneak up to a caribou

Rainbows, Sunsets, and Sunrises

While we were at the cabin we were treated to some nice rainbows, awesome sunsets, and some spectacular sunrises.

Long Weekend at the Cabin

Well it's been a while since I posted anything on here...   we went south for a three week holiday in Timmins to visit the family. When we came back we spent some time going to the cabin to finish setting it up and we also did some caribou hunting. I got a decent bull and Zellie finally got her first caribou, unfortunately Maria was not able to shoot anything this year. But she sure did try!!!!!!

We decided to spend the long weekend in August out at the cabin, it was our first time staying out there for more than a day. I spent my time going odd jobs around the cabin like finally building an outhouse and building a bench for the outside of the cabin out of some scrap wood.

Here are some pictures from the weekend:

Maria, Zellie, and Myna in front of the cabin

Here is Zellie driving the Jeep to the cabin

Maria walking by the bay

Nancy and Maria on the big rock in front of the cabin

Fishing Derby

Well last weekend was our annual spring fishing derby so we headed out to our cabin by the lake for the weekend. It was a good weekend but no fish.

The kids ridding the Ski-Doo

Zellie and Maria

Maria driving the Ski-Doo

We had a fire to roast marshmallows and make smores

Carving Snow

Here are some shots of the girls carving some snow blocks

They said that they were going to build me an igloo so I could sleep in it...   yeah right!!!!!!

Weekend Trip

We left Saturday morning to ice fishing at our other cabin by the lake for the weekend. It took us about 40 minutes to get there by snowmachine and this is what we found once we got there.

Yes that's the door in back of all that drifted snow. After about one hour of hard shoveling and chopping we finally got to the cabin door.

A Couple More Pics Of Our Trip

Shadow playing in the snow

Zellie pulling the qamutiq with her ski-doo

The New Cabin

Well we finally made it to the new cabin to clean up the stuff that was left behind. We took out about eight garbage bags full of stuff. It was a beautiful day and the sun was shinning, it was warm enough to walk around outside with just a hoodie on.

The cabin will need some work done to it such as some new paint and taller door so I don't always hit my head when I walk in. It may not be perfect but I'm happy we decided to buy it and now I can hardly wait to see it in the summer time when all the snow and ice are gone.

Well here it is

Here is a view of the Inukshuk that is in back of the cabin with Maria, Nancy, and of course Shadow.

Sled Dog Race

We had the afternoon off on Friday so we decided to go watch the start of the dog sled race down at Itivia. We got there just as the teams were leaving but I did manage to get a couple of pictures.

Here is one I converted to Black & White:

This is a picture I took of Zellie's dad who was with us at the race:

Went For A Ride

Was hoping to make it out to the new cabin today after work as the weather was perfect. The sun was shining and the temperature reached a balmy -4 C. But we had some shopping to do for somebody and when we got home I had to cook supper, by the time we finished eating it was to late to go to the cabin. So we decided to take a short ride out to Thompson Island to have a look around.

Zellie and Maria

If the weather is as nice as the weatherman says it's going to be this weekend we will make the trip out to the new cabin.

A View Near The Cabin

This is a picture taken last fall near our new cabin.

Notice the geese in the air...  should be a good spot to hut some Snow's and big Canada's.

New Cabin

Well we decided to get a new cabin on the coast of Hudson Bay just outside the Hamlet of Rankin Inlet Nunavut where I have been living for the past 11 years. The cabin is not new but it is new to us and it will need a little bit of work to make it a perfect getaway from work.

After hearing about the cabin being for sale me and Zellie hoped on our snowmobiles one Sunday afternoon to go have a look. With the directions given to us by the cabin's owner we set out on our journey to find it. Well for those of you who have never experienced travelling on the frozen tundra of the arctic this was not an easy task. I knew the general area that the cabin was located but the exact spot remained elusive that afternoon as we could not locate it, so back home we went. The next day after work we decided to resume our search for this elusive cabin out on the tundra. We received what we hoped were better directions to the cabin and we set out again on our snow-machines. Once again after about 2 hours of searching the snow covered land we could not locate this ever elusive cabin. We decided to call off our search and again headed home empty handed. Once home we called the owner once again and it was decided that her son would take us to the cabin the next afternoon.

After arriving at the cabin I began to look around to see exactly where I was as we took a different route that was on the frozen Hudson Bay sea ice. I soon discovered that the previous day we were driving towards to cabin but I made a u-turn about 30 seconds to early.