'Ah," Eoin Mowat crows as we skip from the Arctic Ocean into the air over Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, "nothing takes off like a Beaver."
Hunched at the controls wearing a battered leather jacket and ball cap, Mowat looks the part of the bush pilot, flying a classic 1956 de Havilland Beaver.
And this is serious bush country. To find its polka-dotted plains of brown and green tundra on a map, trace your finger north of Edmonton, past Yellowknife, and keep going until you fall off the northernmost edge of North America.
It's the middle of nowhere, in other words, and after 25 minutes in the air, we can see that it holds our destination: A huddle of red buildings on a slope overlooking an inlet - the home of Elu Inlet Lodge.
Martina Kapolak greets me on the dock. Along with her husband, Peter, she runs this small, out-there retreat in the Nunavut wilderness for those who love hiking, paddling and fishing.
From previous Arctic trips, though, I've learned that no matter what you've got planned, nature is truly boss here. You never know what you're going to see next: sunshine, a blizzard, a baby caribou wandering up to you while bleating for its mommy.
Still, there are some human surprises in store. Built on stilts, my cabin is rustic - all knotty pine, with caribou antlers mounted on the wall as clothes hangers - but it's also luxurious by Arctic standards.
So is dinner. The aroma of freshly baked bread soon fills the dining room. And when I first meet Peter, he has barbecue tongs in his hand and asks me a question I've never heard north of 60: "How would you like your steak done?"
Over a white tablecloth and a killer appetizer of smoked Arctic char, I meet the other guests as well. There are two Johns from Manitoba, both keen wildlife photographers. My cabin-mates are Elvira and her husband, Hans, Canadaphiles on their 28th visit from Germany and also members of the long-lens club.
After coffee and Martina's fresh apple-berry crumble, I head for bed.
The stars are so bright I could read a newspaper by their light. A wolf howls, then there's silence so profound that it feels like pressure on my eardrums. The kind you want to clear by yawning.
I sleep like the dead.
MUSK ROCK VIEWING
The next morning, it is sunny as we set off by motorboat through a labyrinth of islands and inlets - and eventually to a blindingly white shell beach. It all seems strangely Caribbean. If not for the chill (the average summer temperature is 10 degrees) and water that could flash-freeze your toes.
In fact, the shell beaches, left behind by retreating seas tens of thousands of years ago, are so vast they look like snow on satellite photos. We have a picnic lunch on the beach and suntan. Ring seals bark from the shallows and an Arctic fox lopes along on a distant hillside.
We then set off for a hike across the tundra. There are no trails, so we trek through a knee-high bonsai forest of miniature willows and wildflowers.
The grassy hummocks make it feel like we're walking on a spongy meadow of feather pillows, interrupted by stones painted with filigree, Technicolor lichen.
At one point, Hans thinks he spots a musk ox. Wrong.
Then John chimes in with another false alarm.
Peter just smiles. "Musk rocks," he says wryly, "very common."
Soon, though, Peter does whisper "musk ox," and we squint to spot them munching on tundra and snoozing in beds of shells as we grapple with telephoto lenses and tripods. "I count 33," an excited Hans says.
Like carpet bags on legs, the musk ox are scruffy with quivit, a fluffy under-fur used by the Inuit for clothing. There is the occasional testosterone-fuelled head-butting and snorting; Peter moves us closer, keeping an eye on the alpha male.
