No time to say goodbye, hello!

Following our day in Gwich'in park last weekend, we spent Monday night at a friend's camp out on airport lake. Dave carried all our cooking and sleeping equipment while Kim and I each carried a baby and Aaron thankfully walked. Other friends, Juliann and Shane also came with baby Jackson.

Running shoes were never meant for the arctic. Every time I go out walking I get a soaker. True to form, a few minutes into the walk I stepped onto a patch of moss only to have it sink in a foot with me also, I couldn't get out for fear of toppling Jacob into the water and thankfully Shane helped me up and onto a patch of solid moss. A few steps later I equalised my soggy feet so was grateful to arrive at the camp after a 40 minute hike and remove my shoes - even more grateful that the weather was warm enough for me to do so!

Dave and Kim cooked ribs on the bbq and I'd been put in charge of dessert. I'd prepared spice cake mix and mixed it with canned peaches which we placed over the fire. Unfortunately we started the fire after supper, which meant the cake got started much later, and then we didn't keep it going. So the cake was soggy for the first couple hours until we were determined to cook it, and burnt it... Even burnt it was pretty good, I'll have to try it again.

The kids were so excited to be out camping that none of them slept well. Ethan had to sleep with Kim and Jacob was determined not to sleep, only Aaron went to bed after a little while and slept soundly. Overnight it became incredibly cold and a 7am wake up call for breakfast was not welcomed. Dave cooked eggs and bacon on the bbq and we cleaned up the camp to head back to Inuvik for Dave to get to school on time. We dropped him off 1 minute before the bell rang :)

This week I've found a job working at a gift store in Inuvik. The store sells beautiful handmade crafts and as part of my job is to dust it all, I get to see everything that is in the store, and am also terrified that I'll drop and break one of the beautiful/expensive pieces sold there.

Dave is heading south next week for the high school track and field competition. It turned out my javelin and discus throwing years ago made me the resident field events "expert". It was actually nice to guide the kids and see immediate progress as their form improved and they got a sense of how the throws should feel.

Last night Kim and I had our TV Bingo debut. Bingo is huge in Inuvik and a few nights a week residents gather around the community channel to play as the numbers are called out. Bingo sheets can be bought in advance and the winner calls in to stop the game. Neither Kim nor I was even close which is too bad as the pot was $30,000. Today at the bank I saw one of the winners as they dumped a duffel bag onto the counter and then took a picture of their stacks of 20's.

Last night I also joined the second ever Inuvik Ultimate game with about 30 people joining this time! We played for over 2 hours and then a few of us visited a lounge for a beer before stepping back into the midnight sunlight to head home.

Geocaching

Yesterday we drove to Gwich'in park for an afternoon of geocaching. The day was gorgeous, sunny, with a slight breeze and 10 degrees - although it felt warmer in the sunlight. About 30 minutes south of Inuvik along the Dempster highway we pulled into the park and saw a few dozen people, more people than I'd seen at one time since arriving to Inuvik!

After a few minutes at the playground in which Jacob finally decided he was big enough to go down the slide by himself, and loved, we wandered over to greet some friends. I met a man who was nervous about moving to Yellowknife claming "I'm not much of a city person, all the people and congestion..." Dave pointed out that Yellowknife barely qualifies as a city with its population of 20,000 and then introduced me as coming from NY. Funnily enough, I'd been asking on the way to the park why people had camps, Inuvik is basically a camp. Is the purpose of the camps for people to feel like they're getting away from the trees and dirt close by to see trees and dirt farther away? I'm confused...

We then went geocaching. Dave had set up 5 geocaches a few days prior for his school and left the caches for us to use. We were given the first set of coordinates and after a clarification on using the gps - we initially wandered in the opposite direction - headed off towards the 1st cache. Walking on tundra and crossing all the swollen rivers thanks to the melted snow means my shoes are useless. I managed to stay dry til after the second cache when I got a couple soakers with Aaron on my shoulders.

Dave had hidden the caches well and especially at the second one we formed a search line and then a search radius to find it. Until one mom was too tired to search after carrying her baby, stayed at zero point and noticed it hidden at her feet under some torn up moss. We saw quite a bit of scenery en route and especially walking through the lichen the air smelled like fresh woodsy tea. 

Nearly two hours later we emerged, slight wet and slightly torn for a delicious barbeque completed with s'mores before we drove home for the night.

Breakup Excitement

Apparently a very exciting time in Inuvik is waiting for the breakup, of the ice in the river. During this time, there is no road connecting Inuvik with the outside world so all groceries are flown in and everything becomes very expensive.

Three of us went for a walk last night to check out the river. After walking a few kilometers outside of Inuvik we turned around and headed off the road down a trail towards the river. We encountered a number of large puddles in the trail which we avoided by hiking through the woods. Finally, we got 20 meters away from the bridge which would take us into the town. The 20 meters was covered in water.

Left of the trail was high, dry ground, we left the trail and made our way almost to the edge of the puddle. There we were faced with an impassable 30 meters of lake between us and the bridge. Since the bridge was slightly to the right of the path, we retraced our steps and tried the right side of the path.

To the right of the path were clumps of small trees sticking out of water stretching as far as we could see. For nearly 30 minutes we zigzagged from dry clump to soggy clump avoiding the water between. Finally, there were no more clumps. To get any further we took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants and headed into the knee deep water to get closer to the bridge.

Squishing through freezing mud is not my favourite thing to do, and when we attempted to cross to the next patch the water got even deeper. We had to admit defeat, walk back the kilometer plus we had come and get home an hour later, instead of 5 minutes later.

Today, we went back to the river at a different location to see how high it was. So many people were also out walking and driving their cars to check it out. Did I mention how exciting breakup season is here? The water was about 10 feet higher than normal and had flooded an entire section of road which goes alongside the river.

We also took a look at the place we'd attempted to cross last night, I think we only would have succeeded in reaching the bridge if we had swum. It was DEEP!  On our way back from the river we went up a hillside to avoid the washed out road. I broke a piece of the front wheel on the baby stroller. Thankfully a friend came by and picked up the boys so they didn't have to walk home, and even treated them to ice cream!

In case you were already jealous of how exciting my life is here. Some people were out attempting to have a bbq and caught some grass on fire, which started to spread quite quickly. Thankfully a few firefighters arrived to put it out with a big bucket of water.

Since then I've spent a pretty relaxing afternoon on the patio, getting up from my computer every few moments to pull the 1 year old back from the stairs before he walked down headfirst.

Crossing over north of 60

Early Monday morning I left NY for a two day visit to Calgary en route to Inuvik, NWT. In packing, I left all my "clothes that I wear so people will talk to me in NY" and packed all my "clothes that I love". Aka, my semi-fashionable clothes stayed behind and my super comfy clothes came with! During 1.5 days in Calgary I ate steak, walked around the entire downtown and along the river aaaand hiked in Banff!

My friend Trevor drove us to Johnston Canyon where we hiked along a gorgeous trail alongside a glacier river with a number of waterfalls. Trev had to keep encouraging me forward as I would whip out my camera at every turn: oooh, look at this! oh wow - click.

We rested at the top of the trail alongside the inkpots. The inkpots are pools of spring water that continuously bubble up from the ground. Some of the pools had active bubbles on the bottom where the water was coming up from the ground. The water was a beautiful turquoise with patches of bright green algae in places.

After a picnic and quick wade in the nearby glacial stream we headed back down the trail and into the town of Banff. Banff is every stereotype of Canada rolled into one. Rustic, outdoorsy, clean, polite, with beaver and moose carvings liberally sprinkled around.

Early Wednesday morning I flew from Calgary to Edmonton to Yellowknife. Upon disembarking in Yellowknife a man I had spoken to previously welcomed me "north of 60". I felt like I'd stepped onto a tv set - probably only Canadians will know why :) I re-embarked after surviving the chilly 1 Celsius weather and very nervous for Inuvik temperatures.

2pm. I stepped off the plane. Having spent the last 4 hours watching the landscape become barer, browner and icier I peered around seeking the town of Inuvik as we began our landing descent. I couldn't find it. Only as we soared over the town headed for the landing strip was I able to spot it. A tiny town with a few large streets and a few more small streets.

Kim and the boys welcomed me at the airport, Aaron is now 5, Jacob 3 and Ethan 1. Aaron remembered me, Jacob pretended to, and Ethan gave an adorable chubby grin. We drove straight to the school to catch the second half of the talent show, which Dave performed in towards the end. He and two other teachers performed "In the Jungle" with Dave even swinging on a rope in a singlet - a pretty awesome welcome to the frozen north!