King eider circling Amundsen's wrecked Maud, (renamed the Baymaud by the Hudson Bay Company), in Cambridge Bay. This was the ship that the famed explorer used to cross the Northeast Passage, after he had completed the Northwest Passage in his ship, the Gjoa. Such wooden ships are no longer used amid the Arctic ice.

Escaping satellite TV in Elu Inlet, mid-May. Although some anthropologists would have us believe that Inuit have been assimilated, their instinctive, former traditions--hunting, fishing, and the roles that each person plays in their community--still course strongly through their everyday lives.

My down parka was no match for this manís caribou jacket in Melville Sound. Worn with the fur against his tee-shirt for warmth, and the caribou skin turned out to block the weather, this "dog man" (and his ancestors) had found efficient ways to stay comfortable in the Arctic. Cold conditions and empathy for wildlife have allowed Inuit to become the most environmentally well adapted culture in the world.