August 14, 2019

Today was a day filled with travel, packing, and unpacking. We woke up early to clean Nester 1 and to pack. After making everything at the camp look shiny and new, we prepared to return to the CNSC. We returned in groups of four and five via helicopter. 

Once we arrived, we each had jobs to do. Wether it was unpacking boxes or organizing photos we all had things to do. 

After the first helicopter group left, the rest of us took inventory of the tools we had left at Nester One, finished getting all of our bags ready for the helicopter, and started to welcome Dr. Ryan Brook and a group of his graduate students to Nester. There were scheduled to be five helicopters taking all of us and our gear back to the CNSC, but after the fourth group left and the helicopter came back, the pilot wanted to eat lunch. The only students left were Jacob and Mesra, with Jill staying behind as well. We then had to wait for the pilot to eat, and then afterwards take Ryan and some students for a ride. In the end, we were stuck at Nester for seven hours after the first group left, and four and a half hours after the previous group left. 

Once everyone had made it back to the CNSC, we ate lunch and worked on packing our personal items. Then we visited the places when the Sayisi Dene lived in Churchill, they are a heavily persecuted group of aboriginal people who we had read a book about before we went on this trip. 

We finished the day off with a relaxing time by a rocky shore of the Churchill River where we watched beluga whale swim by.

Jacob and Sam