Click for more photos from Day 14

Aboard ship as we sail up Frobisher Bay toward Iqaluit, there is much to do with packing and organizing. Some of our crew will leave the expedition here, while the rest will travel south to Ottawa and on to the four corners of North America and the world.  With a final Zodiac trip from ship to shore, we're treated to another warm and cordial community welcome, with singing, speeches and another lovely shared meal. This time it's Phillip Comeau's (our resident rapper's) grandmother, Anne Meekitjuk Hanson, the Commissioner of Nunavut, who officially welcomes us, saying how pleased she is to support what we're doing. There are songs and celebratory words of various kinds, including a special address by Sheila Watt-Cloutier, past chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.  

In a couple of sentences, she crystallizes what we have learned in two weeks at sea: "The environment is just so important. We never see the disconnect because we're so close to it. And, of course, we're in a world today in an urban setting where much of the disconnect between people and their neighbours and between people and the environment is why we're debating this whole thing about climate change in the first place. So you've been travelling in a land where we have not disconnected from any of that. I'm sure you have palpably felt that throughout your trip, wherever you went, where you saw the wildlife and saw how all of that is connected. That is the story I try to tell in that way, of letting the world know that we must all come together as a shared humanity. It is through connectivity and understanding, through all of these connections that we can move mountains." Amen, Sheila!