What Helen Did On Her Summer Vacation: Part IV

We checked in earlier this week to get the scoop from Helen Klengenberg, who is spending the summer on the land revisiting some of the camps and lakes she remembers from her childhood. Faithful readers will recall that Helen's adventures so far have included her very first polar bear and a successful search and rescue mission.

So of course we were looking forward to the update. She had been scheduled to head back to Kugluktuk earlier in the month, then out to Yellowknife to meet with granddaughter Kimnek Rose and long lost husband Paul for the weekend - but ice breakup prevented the rendezvous.

We finally caught up with her by satphone. The conversation was a bit difficult because Helen was dealing with both a fading battery and a shattered tooth (missed just ONE piece of buckshot when cleaning a goose - not a wonderful experience when you're 900 kilometers from the nearest dentist). There was, however, better news than that: just the night before, Helen had shot her first beluga. Three of them, in fact - they unwisely chose to visit the bay she was camping beside, and there she was with a boat and a rifle, and ....

"I've been up all night. It took about ten hours to cut them up and cache them", she reports. "And we're going to have to get some help to get all the meat back to town.  But it was great. One more tick on the bucket list. Now I'm going to sleep."

A couple of days later help arrived from Kugluktuk. It took 7 boats to carry all the meat back to Kugluktuk for distribution amongst family and other residents. And Helen finally connected with granddaughter Kimmy. They've left for the camp in Maligut east of Kugluktuk. Paul Murphy reports that they're now  headed out to scout out some caribou, hoping that Kimmy (11 yrs old) will get her first one.

Kinda makes that weekend at the cottage seem a little...tame, doesn't it?