We woke up a bit earlier today, around 07:00.  We hung out in the lounge for a bit, watching it slowly fill up until breakfast at 08:00.  We had breakfast with Neil and Denice, and talked about proteas and plumerias among other things.  On the morning drive we noticed it felt colder than yesterday, but warmer than two days ago.  There was lots of new ice overnight.  We could actually hear ice chunks crashing into each other at the shoreline, a kilometer or so away from the Lodge.  Mike told us that the ice formation really speeds up as soon as the daytime temperatures don’t exceed 0 Celsius, as there isn’t any melting that undoes the freezing from overnight.  We saw the blue-headed snow geese yet again, this time a bit closer.

There was also a silly Ptarmigan in the road that we tried to coax to the right (so that the other vehicles could see it), but it kept waddling down the road directly in front of us, so we were the only ones that had a good view of it, since we were randomly in the front vehicle yet again.  [The guides seem to rotate who gets to lead, and we were rotating amongst the guides, but for the third ride in a row we had ended up in the lead vehicle.]  We headed east, and went on the same walk along the riverbank as yesterday, but there were no meese this time.  So we just took in the scenery and looked (in vain) for wildlife.  We walked back to the rhino, and then headed more or less directly back to the lodge, not seeing much of anything besides ice.

At lunch we ate with Vern, Shari, Ken, and Kathy.  We discussed how more people need to vote, just so the representatives are in fact representative.  Hopefully the turnout is consistently high in Spain (we have no idea).  We gave some photos to Jason to use in the slideshow; he was putting together something like Jess had done at Seal River.  Crystal decided to skip the afternoon drive, and spent the majority of the time reading.  Mike had lent Crystal an autographed copy of “Franklin’s Lost Ship,” regarding a subject she’s always been fascinated by.  In 1845, British sailor John Franklin took two ships, the Erebus and the Terror, to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage.  But both ships became trapped in the ice, and stayed stuck in the ice for over a year, with about 20% of the crew perishing during that year.  The survivors eventually abandoned the ships and headed out by land, but were never seen again, presumably perishing in the tundra.  The wrecks were only recently discovered, in the last 10 years.  Crystal wanted to read the book, but she also wanted to finish the last of the paperback books she’d brought with her, so she focused on that one.

On the excursion, Justin was riding shotgun with Emri, and once again ended up in the lead vehicle.  The group headed west, and saw few animals but a bunch of sea ice, plus a cross for a former goose hunter [before becoming a polar bear safari lodge, Nanuk was a small goose hunting lodge].  Justin spotted a couple Snowshoe Hares, but they were very hard to photograph in and amongst the bushes.  The group stopped in roughly the same spot for sundowners as yesterday, but with fireball instead of Baileys (not nearly as good).  There were no meese (Eric was really jonesing to see a bull moose).  At sundowner time there was a “competition” for bad jokes, told mostly by Mike and Emri.  There was one about a “golden toilet” (the punchline being that a drunk guy pissed in a tuba) that was pretty decent.  We saw a Northern Shrike just after we started the return drive, and Justin got the impression from Emri that this was not a common sighting.

When the group got back, Jelly Belly was on top of a wood pile, but got down quickly because we inadvertently spooked him.  He wandered around for a bit, then disappeared into the forest, and everyone came inside.  We went into the lounge around 17:20, and chatted with Vern for a bit.  It was a nice sunset, very colorful.  We had dinner with Vern, Glo, Denice, and Neil.  Vern did most of the talking, telling us about all the “toys” that they use at the various lodges, including the two vehicles we saw just sitting in the courtyard at Seal River.  Apparently the tires can act like balloons, and the vehicles can float on water and maneuver like a boat.  Vern said there is a Build Films movie about the floating vehicles, called Sherps.  We also discussed Letterkenny (Neil and Denice are huge fans), South Park (Crystal commented that with our parkas on and the hoods up, we all look like Kenny), Schitt’s Creek, and Righteous Gemstones - all hilarious inappropriate comedies.

After dinner, Vern and Shari gave us instructions/directions for tomorrow, but it wasn’t 100% clear, and a lot of the guests had questions that interrupted the flow, so our guess is that pretty much everyone will have to ask again tomorrow.  We watched the slideshow of pictures, but  it was out of order and missing all of the photos we’d submitted, so that was a bit of a bummer.  We also received some gifts, including polar bear stuffed animals, which we decided to send to our niece.  After the slideshow, many people went back to their rooms, but we stayed in the lounge and chatted with D-Nice and Eric.  Vern came in and told us the Northern Lights were out again, so now for the 5th time in our 8 nights at Seal River and Nanuk.  Because of the bright moon tonight, all of the long exposures looked nuts, including some that made it appear as though they were taken in broad daylight.  We enjoyed the show for a while, until the cold air got to us.  We came inside and went to sleep a little before 23:00.