arctic flowers

Summer is pretty short here in Cambridge Bay - the ice on the ocean doesn't even melt until June.  Despite the short season, I'm impressed by how quickly the plants grow in this extreme environment.  The flowers here tend to be small, because they don't have a whole lot of time to grow, so there are no big tall sunflowers here.  Despite being small, some of the flowers are very bright, adding a lovely splash of colour to a landscape that is just white many months of the year.

As with my knowledge of Arctic birds, I'm afraid I don't know the names of the flowers I've found.  I'm sure some, or maybe many, of them are weeds. They are all definitely wildflowers - Cambridge Bay definitely does not have a florist in town. Even so, they're quite beautiful and prevalent.  I've been finding flowers everywhere, in the rock deserts, by the dirt roads, even in piles of cigarette butts!

yellow flowers

purple flowers

 

dusty flowers

flowers, under our front porch stairs

 

 

Daisies! My favourite type of wildflower

  

Daisies, growing along the side of the road

Flower and fish head

flowers along Ovayok Road