ᓄᓇᕋᐃᑦ - nunarait - flowers

Flowers are everywhere! They're tiny and resolute, determined to bloom beautiful as long as the weather is warm. Apparently, there are hundreds of different flowers, lichen, berries, moss and even a ground loving "tree" in Nunavut. When the snow first melted, everything was brown and dusty. The transformation from white to brown to green has been breathtaking. These little flowers are everywhere; the side of a rocky hill, muddy puddles behind old buildings, rolling across the tundra's vast distance, poking out beside the river, squeezing between cracked cement. It's a short lived season, but one that does not go unnoticed. The berry plants are starting to grow lime green berries that will soon turn into arctic versions of blue/black/cranberries. I'm not exactly sure how long these little plants will be around, but we'll enjoy them as long as we can! I was going to figure out what each flower was called for the blog....but google is not very forthcoming regarding arctic flora. Feel free to make up your own names for the ones I don't know.

Berries from the summer of 2010

Mountain Aven - these buttercream colored flowers like to grow on hillsides

If you sit real still, you can quickly find all sorts of insect life crawling around

Arctic poppy - is heliotropic, which means it follows the sun across the sky

Arctic cinquefoil

Arctic willow - it spreads out across the ground but counts as a tree since it makes wood

Little caterpillar trucking along in the sun

Arctic cotton - these delightful balls of fluff are everywhere

These are my favorite and I have no idea what they're called

Moss campion - little clumps of these flowers are scattered in drier areas

Labrador Tea - is actually used to make tea

Arctic poppy - the tiny details on these flowers are beautiful

These little guys are the arctic version of a daisy

Dwarf fireweed - this plant tastes like spinach and can be eaten raw, boiled or steeped