Baffin Island

I think I’ve spent enough time in Iqaluit now

July 19 – 22, 2023

I have a lot of mixed feelings about clouds. For a simple mass of miniature water droplets, it expresses itself in an astounding multitude of forms all accompanied by an equivalent multitude of feelings from me. There are the high and bright wispy clouds which illuminate with a bright flash of pastel at sunset. Those elicit a calming joy. The black clouds that roll across the sky threatening the exciting prospect of thunder and clattering downpour. They hold a certain natural power and danger. A low lying fog blanketing the forests steeping the evergreens in a fairytale allure? Also nice. Then there are the clouds over Iqaluit. A choking mist sticking to the barren tundra in a perpetual grey. The sun, barely setting so far north, diffuses through from high above illuminating every waking hour in a constant nightmarish light. The only change is the visibility which jumps back and forth like a lunatic on a pogo stick between a couple hundred meters to a couple kilometers interspersed by bouts of a misty rain. I have no emotional ambiguity about these clouds. These clouds have no redeeming qualities. These clouds offer nothing of value, and it is these clouds we existed enclosed within for four long days. Baffin Island did not go as expected.