Nunavut VIII

So, I've attemped going caribou hunting. I went for a whole day out onto the tundra, looking for the elusive animal, searching over wind-swept plains seeking the furry-deer-with-antlers, all for... nothing.... sigh....
People were so generous! Feeling, I guess, that I was a pretty wimpy city girl, various guys lent me all this gear... and I thought I was the Pillbury boy with my parka... I had a caribou skin face mask, balaklava, goggles, skidoo helmet, seal skin mitts up to my elbows, goosedown ski pants, wool soocks, vests, and boots... I could barely fit on the skidoo after all that, but I must say... I was totally toasty the whole afternoon, though I suppose I was just -that- much more additional deadweight...
I was probably the most useless person on the expedition. I couldn't talk, cause I had too much stuff over my face. They wanted me to have some tea at the halfway point since they were worried that I was getting too cold (how could they tell? I couldn't tell them anything!), but realized the huge effort it would be to get all my stuff off my face to actually have some would not really be worth it... I couldn't hear anything. I could barely hoist my leg over the skidoo b/c of the great weight of my legs in their boots... it was pretty much sadness :) :) :) And, most importantly, if a polar bear did show up, since I couldn't shoot a gun, I'd just waste get-away weight on the skidoo.... sigh... :) :) :)
At any rate, it was fun! It was kind of like riding those zhemi-jahns in Benin, but even more scary... I just had to keep repeating to myself, "It's just like riding a horse, it's just like riding a hose..." ... except for I had no reins, the horse could go 60km/hr over rocky tundra, and it wouldn't stop if you thought it was going too fast! However, I've been having the post-horse-ride gait since then, walking kind of bow-legged since my thighs are killing me! :)
It was gorgeous. The Arctic is terrifyingly beautiful. I can see how easy it would be to die out here alone, not only b/c of the cold, but the disorientation, and the vast distances... no caribou were found, but as I was told, it's been getting harder to find them as they've been heading norther with the encroachment of global warming... oh well. I was kind of looking forward to help hack off caribou head and skin the animal... they figured my surgical skills might've come in handy...
So for the whole expedition, I ended up catching a bit of frostbite on the end of my nose... it just figures; cover my face with a caribou in order to hunt caribou, so the guardian angel of the caribou afflicts me with frostbite for such war-mongering thought....
Love you!
julia