The docks in winter

I went for a walk one bright, sunny but still cold afternoon. I headed down to the docks to enjoy the view of the frozen Arctic ocean in winter time.

Last week had been a tough week for the community of Cambridge Bay. We were hit with the three day blizzard. The post office has also remained closed all week.  With the post office and the convenience store forced to stay closed due to a break in, we could not receive or send mail, nor did we have a place to buy basic supplies like Tylenol after the grocery stores closed at 7PM.

So for me, it was nice to get out of the house after the blizzard and enjoy the sunny weather, out on the ice.

It's not obvious where the ocean is in the winter time when everything is frozen. You could easily mistake the frozen ocean as more land.  But the sight of the ships and boats frozen in the ice is unmistakable, and a very beautiful sight to see.  The larger majestic ships like the Martin Bergmann looked frozen not just in the ice but in time as well.

more boats parked at ht dock, waiting for the spring thaw

I also came across a patch of ice with shells from fireworks that had been set off.

In other news, a newspaper from Greenland, the Arctic Journal, recently published my piece about Cambridge Bay's blizzard last week! You can read it here.

The end of the blizzard

(continued from yesterday's account of the blizzard)

After the blizzard: Cambridge Bay has a lot of snow to shovel

When we woke up on Wednesday morning, the blizzard was still raging...but we could tell it was getting tired out. At least we could see the houses on the other side of the street.  The schools and offices were closed again for the morning, but we all felt hope in the air.

And finally the weather cleared up. The announcements were made that the government offices would open again in the afternoon, and schools were also running. The Hamlet office announced that municipal services were running again, but it could take up to two more days before water could be delivered to all the houses. Still, the sun was out, the blizzard warning was lifted, and it was warming up to a balmy -33 degrees outside with the windchill. It hasn't been that warm since November.

I embraced the warm weather and went outside for a walk. The snow drifts were impressive and daunting, but the snow ploughs were already hard at work.  The water and sewage trucks were on the roads (I tried to flash them a charming smile to direct them to my house first, but they were busy).  Kids were out in their yards playing, and teens were busy making money shovelling porches.

 Ploughing snow must feel like a Sisyphusian effort sometimes here in the Arctic

Hey boys, come over to our place!

Poor dog

 

It was really neat to see similarities between the snow drifts piling up against the houses after the blizzard, and the sand-covered abandoned houses I saw in the African ghost town of Kolmanskop in Namibia.

Arctic / Africa

 Namibia / Nunavut

Thank God the blizzard finally ended. The pile of dishes in my sink was getting to be overwhelming. We were out of utensils and had no more space left in our kitchen. After three days without showering, we were starting to stink. I could practically visibly see the stink lines rising from my body, like the Peanuts character Pigpen.

My father-in-law was also stuck in blizzard on his farm in Prince Edward Island, with the snow piling up to 10 foot canyons. His wise words of advice to surviving the blizzard were, "Remember as long as the internet is up, you are not alone." It's true. It really did suck to go from Sunday to Wednesday without a shower or running water, but I think we would have all gone antsy, if we didn't have Facebook and Netflix.

We had spent a lot of our snowbound time watching Wentworth Prison. It was interesting to watch a TV show about a prison while stuck in your house during the blizzard. On the bright side of things, being stuck in your hours for even a week is nowhere near as bad as being stuck in a stabby prison for 12 years. On the other hand, even prisons have working toilets and running water...

But even so, our time during the blizzard made me really reflect on what we do with our day.  To be honest, a lot of us up north secretly crave a blizzard day: a day where school and work is cancelled and we are suddenly given the unexpected freedom do to what we want for the rest of the day. Now's that chance to read the book we've been meaning to read, or try that new work out, or make a delicious slow-cook meal, or clean the house inside out. But the reality is, after a day or so, you get tired of this so-called freedom and become impatient to go back to the old routine.  For some reason, we no longer have the energy to attack that to-do bucket list - especially when you have to conserve water - and then you find yourself lying on the couch, sedating yourself with eight hours of Wentworth Prison.

So when the blizzard died down and we could finally go out, it felt glorious to feel the sun on our face.  It didn't matter that it was -33. I felt warm! I felt alive.

This dog broke loose from his chain during the blizzard

Ready to play

My last Arctic blizzard (I hope)

Saturday teased us with a minor storm, but by Sunday night, there was a blizzard warning up about an upcoming blizzard due to hit a big chunk of the territory.  As we went to bed, we kept looking out the window, wondering if it was really going to come. It seemed so calm and clear outside.

Sure enough, the blizzard did hit overnight. On Monday morning, we woke up to howling winds gusting to 100 km/h, a windchill of -50 and near zero visibility. Once again, all government offices, schools, and many of the major businesses were closed. It was a blizzard day! And what's more, the weather forecast predicted that the blizzard was going to last until later Wednesday morning. 

start your day right, shovelling your car out of the snow drift, while your wife helpfully takes photos

 

John Deere to the rescue!

Always have friends in high places..and by "in high places" I mean with heavy machinery equipment

The municipal government of Cambridge Bay advised us to conserve water, so no washing dishes, no doing laundry, no flushing the toilet and no showers, because if we ran out of water, we weren't going to get any more water provisions until Wednesday morning.

But conserving water is a lot harder to do when you've got the stomach flu. You can't not flush the toilet. And eventually, a hot bath would do some healing wonders. But...all of that requires water.

Some of my friends from down south tell me that it's been a fantasy of theirs to be snowbound in an isolated cabin with a lover. How romantic it would be to spend the night together, with only each other for company, keeping each other warm. Like right out of a romance novel.

 

 

No one's getting around town during this blizzard exccept the skidoos

Let me tell you now, it's a myth. Sure, it's pretty awe-inspiring to watch the blowing snow. But going days without washing will make you less eager to hold your partner in your arms. Watching TV on separate couches on opposite sides of the room seems more desirable. And you can only inspire so much romance after yet another day of wiping yourself down with Wet Ones.  It was bad enough that I had to trek through the blizzard in search of toilet paper.

So I ended up spending three hours melting snow to draw a bath. This was quite the process. I have no idea how people did this during the olden days.  First I had to go out into the 100km/h gusts of winds to gather up the snow into as many large basins I could find. Then I had to melt it all on the stove.  That's where you realize just how dirty snow is.  Leafs, grass, animal fur, and even dead mosquitoes from the summer. It doesn't help that I suspect Rob has been using that snowbank as an ash tray.  The process took forever, and I didn't even end up filling up the tub halfway. Also, it felt as though you'd actually come out of the tub dirtier than when you went in because of all the animal fur that was in the snow.

It was such an annoying process that I decided I wouldn't do it again the next day. My plan was to trek through the blizzard to go into town to buy water and then haul it back home on a sled.

 Unfortunately, the next day the blizzard had gotten worse. You couldn't see the houses across the street. There was no way I was going to be able to make it into town, and even if I could, the weather was now so bad that even the stores had closed - and that's something, because the stores rarely closed.

Looks like it was going to be another day of watching Netflix and not showering.

It was amazing to see the difference between the first day's blizzard and the second.

Blizzard Day 1 vs. Blizzard Day 2

March 15

March 16

March 17

 

I don't  remember what my backyard looks like any more

We settled in for the night. The blizzard was going to continue for third day...
(to be continued)

 Greetings from the Cambridge Bay blizzard

(Part 2 of my blogging about the blizzard can be found here)

St Patrick's Day without the pub

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day down south has always been a big holiday for Canadians, even if it tends to be a somewhat one-sided view of Irish culture. People wear green shirts and head out to the pubs to start drinking green beer early in the day.  The festivities often turn into one long day of bar hopping, going from Irish pub to Irish pub.

Doing that in an Arctic community is a little trickier, if not mainly due to the lack of pubs. Our group of friends put together an excellently coordinated St Patrick's Day "pub crawl" that involved us moving from house to house on a strictly timed schedule to celebrate at different venues. We decided to do this on a Saturday, so we could thoroughly enjoy ourselves and have a day to rest before people had to start their week.

But first, we had to figure out the decorations.  The other houses had planned ahead and ordered St Patrick's day decorations ahead of time. Our house did not, so we had to go around the house looking for green things that I could cut up and turn into party decorations.

paper chain made out of card stock that I happened to have

I took some green card stock and CD covers and cut them into clovers

I made more clover wall decors by cutting up a greenish gift bag someone had given me

I cut up a clear green dry cleaning plastic cover to make streamers for the door

I recruited Christine's slave labour to separate the green, orange and white sprinkles with a tweezer

delicious  cookies

We also took the time to explore other aspects of Irish culture that we could incorporate. I made up a playlist of contemporary Irish music to play at the party, including a bunch of Irish indie bands I was excited to discover. You can listen to the playlist (and play it at your own St. Patrick's Day party) here.

Rob and I looked up Irish cuisine, and he ended up baking delicious potato bread served with corned beef.

Sandwiches made with fresh baked potato bread and corned beef

I asked my friend about her Irish roots. Turns out her family's from Northern Ireland and they don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Instead, she told me Northern Ireland does the Orange Day parades, which she explained involved Protestants marching through Catholic communities and throwing oranges at the Catholic homes.  I didn't think it was a good idea to do that in Cambridge Bay.

There was a snow storm on the day of our pub crawl. A relatively minor snow storm for the Arctic, as it wasn't too cold and the wind wasn't too strong, but the snow was piling up in troublesome drifts on the road that made it difficult to trek through.  But we the north don't let such trivialities stop us from living our life.

 Bad weather

"Pub" stop #1 featured the most amazing brunch spread ever. I was reminded of the fancy Sunday brunches at the Explorer Hotel in Yellowknife. It featured a wonderful feast of stews and casseroles that I still fondly remember.

Start your morning right with a cup of coffee with a bit of Bailey's

Our friends hosting the first pub stop are a friendly couple from Newfoundland, and it was really interesting to spend St. Patrick's Day with Newfoundlanders who have their own special relationship with Ireland. While we ate brunch, they showed photos from their trip to Ireland, and as they drank their beer, their Newfoundland dialects grew stronger, and eventually once a good traditional tune came on, they were all dancing. Because, as we know, Newfoundlanders, like the Irish, love to dance. The owners' two big dogs also danced along with us, although maybe they were just trying to get at the bacon.

Cheers!

Dancing to some good traditional tunes

Pub stop number two was at another house on the other end of town, and we were left figure out how we were going to get their in the middle of the snowy winds. I had several suggestions (CAT train, kamotik sleds pulled by skidoos or our friends' dogs), but eventually we just piled up in the back of our friends' pickup truck, Nunavut-style (also, Namibia-style, as this was frequently my mode of transportation in Africa as well as the Arctic).

"These open air convertibles are totally overrated."

We discovered that lipstick is hard to apply when frozen.

We all arrived in one piece at Pub Stop #2, where three big dogs and a yummy bowl of caribou muskox stew ("cari-musk" stew?) awaited us, with a side of bannock and green jello. Despite the fact that we had just finished eating brunch, we dug right in.

This house was in an end of town near the tundra where the snow piles up pretty high, as was evidenced in their windows:

that's a lot of snow

Afterwards we hiked over to Pub Stop #3, where they had just pulled a homemade pizza out of the oven.  There was also more green jello. 

Like all the previous stops, there was also a dog at this house. A big, ferocious dog...

what a cutie

A pensive leprochaun

Pub Stop #4 featured another delicious spread of snacks, including green jello, as well as a gorgeous view of the tundra. There was also another hungry dog.

Pub Stop #5 was our house, recently adorned with DIY St Patrick's Day decorations.

Besides our potato bread corned beef sandwiches and cookies, I also served a drink that I invented consisting of things I happened to have in my cupboard. It's green Hawaiian Punch with vermouth. In honour of my favourite webcomic Girls with Slingshots which sadly just stopped running the day before, I decided to name this toxic drink after one of the characters, McPedro.

The McPedro

We did not serve green jello.  Instead, we served red jello. We did not have a dog.

I did not get any photos of the final Pub Stop #6 because it was late by that point and we had been eating and partying for ten or eleven hours. We didn't stop partying or eating of course, and the dance floor continued.  There was more dogs, and I don't remember if there was more green jello, but I am sure we have had our year's quota of green jello by this point.

My tired feet after treking from "pub" to "pub"

Some people criticize St Patrick's Day as being a crude form of cultural appropriation; a holiday that takes a very rich culture and reduces it to a caricature of drinking green beer. I like to take it as an opportunity to celebrate and learn about a new culture, hearing my Irish-Canadian friends talk about what being Irish means to them, try new foods and learn a bit more about the history.  Most importantly, though, I really liked having a chance to spend some time eating and socializing with my group of friends.  The benefits of being in an remote community means you can plan complicated day-long events like this. I'm not sure if we could get something going like this with friends down south.  In the city, people will always have other plans, other friends, other distractions, and they may be too non-committal to coordinate. But here, we band together against the wild weather and take the time to enjoy ourselves.

My morning after breakfast - ramen noodles and green tea