Our rafting trip ended on Nunaluk Spit, a gravel bar on the edge of the Beaufort Sea.
After a day exploring here, our plane landed to take us to Herschel Island, then on to Inuvik.
Unfortunately, the high winds washed away part of the Herschel air strip,
so we had to be content with a brief flyover on our way to Inuvik.

Please scroll down to see the photos.
Click here to see wildflowers in Inuvik or photos of other rafting days.
View other photos on Jean van Berkel's web page

Photo     Date       Comment
#5992     July 24     Navigating around ice in the Firth Delta

Google Earth     The Firth Delta and Hershel Island

#6000     July 24     Have to get out and push across the shallow delta

#0999     July 24     Our best sighting of caribou while pushing through the delta. Herschel Island is in the distance.

#6001     July 24     My tent (partially) shielded against the howling wind - note the distant ice flows in the Beaufort Sea!

#6003     July 24     How our guides protect us from the wind while eating

#6004     July 24     Steve in our kitchen

#6006     July 24     Our position on Nunaluk Spit

#6009     July 24     Even our biffy is protected against the wind

#1016     July 25     Sheila swims in the Beaufort Sea - cannot use traditional measure of how cold it is.

#6018     July 25     Arctic Tern - acrobatic and protective!

#6020     July 25     Walked to Stefansson's cabin - built by direct descendants of the famous
Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson - 1.5 km west of our campsite

#6021     July 25     Poppies on the spit near the cabin - looking south to the Yukon mainkand

#6022     July 25     Thyme-Leaved Saxifrage - Saxifraga serpyllifolia (TT) - P. 75

#6025     July 25     Dandelions are up here too - P. 192 - among the ???

#6029     July 25     Arctic Forget-me-not - Eritrichium aretioides - P. 144

#0603     July 25     Seabeach Sandwort - Honckenya peploides (TT) - P. 33     (Photo by John Limb)

#1058     July 25   Long-Stalked Starwort or Chickweed - Stellaria longipes - P. 36
There are actually five very deeply divided petals rather than ten. The book says this often confuses amateurs :)

#1063     July 25     Arctic Tern and two little ones

#1065     July 25     Jean and a beluga Whale vertebrae, contemplating the Beaufort Sea - Herschel Island is behind

#6041     July 26     The sun at its lowest point of the "night". It was actually at 03:24 Inuvik time,
so our time zones were a bit out of whack!

Many thanks to Jean van Berkel and John Limb who contributed some of the photos.

Please let me know about any plants that are misindentified! Surely some are.
If you can email the correct ID to me, I'll be very grateful (please refer to the number above each photo)

Reference pages are given from:   "Wild Flowers of the Yukon, Alaska and Northwestern Canada"
by John Trelawny. 2nd edition, Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, BC, 2003.
It seems to be the best book covering the flowers we saw along the Firth River.