August 11th

For the second day in a row, our day started off waking up early to a polar bear outside the fence! We had planned to wake up at 7am in order to get an early start on our long 35 kilometer hike to Cape Churchill, but we were shaken awake at 6:15 to see the bear. We then had breakfast and prepared for our day of hiking (free of field gear!). We set off on our hike, taking a fair amount of breaks and beginning to see the tower on the Cape only a few kilometers in. We walked on the beach ridges, at times zig-zagging toward our far away destination. Along our way we saw many caribou and began to pick up fossils as we got closer and closer to the coast of Hudson Bay. Once at Cape Churchill, we sat down to eat our long-awaited lunches and look for more fossils. A large herd of 20-30 caribou were far below us down the coast and frolicked while we finished our lunch and found many cephalopod fossils. We started our hike back around 2:30, but stopped after a short while to take a swim break. Out on an small island of sand only a short way off the beach sat the caribou herd as we splashed around in the shallow, chilly waters. We pushed through our journey back thinking of the pizza and warmth awaiting us inside our Nester One home. Our time at Nester and in Wapusk has been amazing — filled with lots of transects, polar bears, caribou, foxes, sunsets, delicious food, and great friends. Today was cloud-free all day so hopefully tonight we will see the northern lights!

Leah Genth, Park School of Baltimore, 18'