7 September 2013 Part II - Day 6 Narwhals! and Icy Inlet Hike

Narwhals in Buchan Gulf!!!!! - August 16th, 2013

Today was my absolute favorite day of the trip. We saw narwhals! OK, before we get started let me first give you some advice. If you want to see some awesome pictures of narwhals and understand how difficult they are to photograph, try Flip Nicklin's photos or Paul Nicklen's field notes.

We were fortunate to have Flip Nicklin on our ship. He relayed his story of photographing narwhals off of Baffin Island. Flip was camped on the ice edge for two months and was finally able to get all of his photos in the second to the last day of his stay. In the link above, Paul Nicklen, also relays the hardships he endured to obtain his photos.

Here is a stock photo of a narwhal for those of you who do not believe that they exist.

Now that my disclaimer is out of the way, we can enjoy this lifelong dream of mine that came true. I have been obsessing about narwhals for a while. I have three t-shirts with narwhal designs on them, a hand-made stuffed narwhal, and a custom painted pair of narwhal shoes. I took a few of the items with me on the ship. They proved to be great talisman, because we encountered several groups of narwhals in Buchan Gulf.

Our narwhals were feeding in shallow water close to the shore. I was up high on the bridge of the boat and had my zoom lens completely extended. We had a lot of guests who were skilled photographers, but none of them shared their photos. I have to admit, I'm very proud of my narwhal blobs, because I was able to see these elusive creatures in their home.

A dental medicine researcher from Harvard University, Martin Nweeia, has published a paper stating that the narwhals tusk, or tooth, has ten million tiny nerve connections. It gives the whale the capability to detect changes in water temperature, pressure and particle gradients. This helps the whale determine the salinity of the water and allows them to detect water particles characteristic of the fish that comprise their diet.

Narwhals only have two teeth, and the tusk is one of them. The female generally does not have a large tusk like the male. Adult narwhals are 13-16 feet long and can weigh up to 1.8 tons. Females are slightly smaller. The tusk can reach 8 feet.

Icy Inlet Hike

We had a beautiful hike later in the afternoon at Icy Inlet. I shared glacier pictures from this hike in the previous journal. Here are the people pictures.