Freehand 360° video pan of the top and surrounding landscape of the Ibyuk pingo.

Disclaimer:
The following Pingo images were taken in 2018.
Before my trip I was researching the Pingos and found no indication on the internet in regards to visitation rules. There also were no signs up anywhere locally or at the viewing platform once I visited.
I now see there are rules prohibiting the climbing of the Pingos from the base up, signed this March 2021 by the Parks Superintendent.

I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand I see excessive visitations by too many people [since it is marketed to mass tourism] may cause some wear or establish a trail. I was very conscience about not leaving any footprints or cause any damage and on one of the Pingos I found a large piece of plastic, the wind had likely carried up here, which I took back out.

Since it became a Canadian Landmark under Parks management, a viewing platform has been built in a location that gives a very panoramic view of the larger Pingos with no human structures visible. I’m not a friend of board walks and platforms in natural landscapes. They are in many ways eyesores to me as a photographer and aesthetically a small trail has much less impact. But in this location I found both rather well designed. To get to the boardwalk, one needs to organize a boat ride or have a watercraft to get to the Parks dock, which at that time was damaged and difficult to land on.

On the other hand I think it was [could be] an incredible experience to use these Pingos as lookout, just like generations of Inuk have done. The thing missing in these coastal regions are high points. So I can see why these Pingos had an importance for hunters to scan the ocean for game, ships, ice-conditions etc.
The lack of any high-points in Tuktoyaktuk itself, along the coast or the highway leaves something to be desired. Short of flight-seeing the coast from Inuvik, one does not get a picture of the beautiful Arctic coast.

The top of the Pingos are mostly sand with peat at some places and the sides covered by dense tundra shrubs, berry bushes, Labrador tea and some grasses on the top. I noticed some faint footprints in the sand on top, which obviously disappear with the wind/rain and annual thawing/freezing cycles these hills are constantly exposed to. The science behind these ice-cored hills is described in detail in a study paper by J. Ross Mackay:
Pingos of the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula Area
t.ly/Xs9U

and this video by Stephen Wolfe:
Pingo Distribution, Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula Region, Western Canadian Arctic
geosympos.ca/?p=618

So these photos are very special to me, as I or others may not be able to document/experience these magnificent ‘ice-hills’ again without breaking the law. Drone flying is also banned within the Landmark.

2018 Road Trip to Tuktoyaktuk, NWT via Dempster Highway and the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway or ITH (Tuk Highway).

Tags:   #CO2IsLife #LearnFromEXIF #NoClimateEmergency Aperture Arctic Coast Arctic Ocean Beaufort Sea Canada countryside EXIF fall flickred Fujifilm Fujifilm X-T2 grass landscape MikoFox nature NWT ocean outdoors outside pingo sand September shorline water X-T2 video 360° panorama

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Last night I managed to capture the grizzly with the game-cam, when he came back to an area he had dug over earlier in the evening. He is a frequent visitor to our lot, digging for Bear Root or Liquorice Root [Hedysarum alpinum], which bears need to cleanse their system for the long hibernation period.
This bear has a habit of resting his head on his front leg when digging, which looks very relaxed. Maybe they all do that, but I have only seen it with this grizzly. He is quite unimpressed by humans, or by trying to scare him away, but so far has shown no aggressive behavior. Nevertheless when he is around at nighttime, we are a bit anxious when he have to go outside.

Tags:   grizzly bear-root digging game-cam wildgamecam yukon fall september wildlife bear nighttime mikofox

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This ermine has been a regular visitor in the past, probably after the mice in the attic.

Tags:   yukon winter ermine mikofox

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2018 Road Trip to Tuktoyaktuk, NWT via Dempster Highway and the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway or ITH (Tuk Highway).

Tags:   #CO2IsLife #LearnFromEXIF #NoClimateEmergency Aperture Campbell Lake Outlook Trail Canada countryside EXIF fall flickred Fujifilm Fujifilm X-T2 hiking trail lake landscape Lightroom MikoFox nature NWT outdoors outside rocks September Topaz Labs X-T2 video

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Just a couple similar colored timber wolves moving along Fox Lake this evening. The snow is now soft and soggy. I was out trying to shoot the setting sun when I noticed them loitering around at the end of the lake.

Test: Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 Di III-A VC RXD at 70mm [105mm] f5, ISO 800 on tripod, IS Off.

Tags:   #CO2IsLife #iShootRaw #LearnFromEXIF #NoClimateEmergency #ShowYourEXIF Aperture Canada countryside Fujifilm Fujifilm X-T2 landscape MikoFox nature outdoors outside winter X-T2 Yukon April wolves animals snow lake wildlife video Tamron 17-70mm f/2.8 Di III-A VC RXD

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