Immediately when we jumped off our orange dinghy and into the frigid
waters of Arctic Bay we were met with a sea of expectant faces who all
clamored and hollered for our attention. All boys, they pulled at the
dinghy handles and made faces while we stepped into the waters and
pulled the dinghy up onto the shingled beach.
The people of Arctic Bay don’t set eyes on many sailing boats much each
year, only 7 in 2013, and yet, now 4 had sailed right into their midst
and 2 others were potentially following in our wake.
Wherever our obviously foreign feet took us, we weren’t shunned by the
community as outsiders, coming to use up their fuel and buy their food.
No: we were welcomed by all. From the young boys splashing boisterously
on the beach, to the checkout women of the two local supermarkets.
I quickly made friends with some of the local youth who must have been
as interested in a pale, blue-eyed girl with a strange accent as I was
in them. Either way, we were able to connect in seconds and they were
able to delight me in their stories of life in the bay.
