animated Gloria, by Amanda Wong

My friend Amanda Wong is a professional animator, and is wonderfully talented at her art.  I guess she's been interested in the idea of my living in the Arctic - recently she drew this sketch of me:

Doesn't it look EXACTLY like me?  I love it.


She's the same amazing artist that drew this sketch of Rob and me, a little while ago:

And this adorably awesome sketch of me from years ago:

What can I say? I apparently really look like a cartoon character.

frozen shipwreck hike

There was a windchill of -50 that day, which we took to mean that it was the perfect day for a mid-winter hike over the frozen ice. 

 

I love hiking. I will brave snarling baboons, crocodiles and lions simultaenously to go hiking through the African subsaharan landscape during the hottest part of the day. And I will brave blowing winds, freezing temperatures, and possible wolf encounters to go hiking through the Arctic landscape.  It's all about being prepared and dressing properly for it.

  

photos by lori

Basically, "dressing properly" means dressing yourself up like Kenny from South Park.

 

The ocean ice at this time of the year was quite beautiful. Unlike my hikes from last March, the snow hasn't completely covered up the ice yet, so you can still see clearly how thick the ice is.  The wind carves interesting patterns into the snow on the ice, and sometimes you can see fox paws frozen like a sculpture. No matter how harsh the environment gets up here, the Arctic world never ceases to be beautiful.

As I mentioned before, the sun doesn't rise above the horizon anymore, so at best we've got a couple hours of dusky light, a sort of perpetual sunrise/sunset before it becomes completely dark at night again.  It means if you want to catchy any light at all, you gotta go out early during that narrow window of time...but it also means that the skyline is quite beautiful and full of bright colours for the short while that it isn't dark.

standing on Muskox Skull Island

It was pretty neat to walk over to the places that I had been kayaking to in the summer time.  It took a lot less time, using my feet, but it was obviously a lot colder, so we had to keep moving.

the stone church

We visited the shipwrecks on foot. They looked far more surreal in the winter time, frozen in the ice, than the last time I had visited them by kayak in the summer.

The Eagle

The Maud shipwreck

The Maud was less spectacular to look at in the winter, since most of the shipwreck was frozen under the ice. But because we didn't have to navigate ourselves around it carefully in our kayaks, we could get a lot closer to it.

And of course, all the weird random stuff that was on the shore near the shipwrecks were still there, looking even more out of place and bizarre in the snow.

have a seat, make yourselves comfortable

sewing machine.

24 heures sans soleil

Time for another Let's Make Fun of Gloria's French Friday. Gloria's horrible, horrible French.

Ces jours, le soleil ne se lève pas. Quelqu'un m'a dit que quand c'est très froid (-50°C), on doit conduire nos voitures pour longtemps pour réchauffer les moteurs. C'est un bon excuse à commencer le jour avec un petit "road trip".

chaque matin

Ces jours, c'est froid et je dois me baisser sur le sol pour gratter le glace du cadre de porte. La glace s'accumule et je ne peux pas fermer la porte.

Ces jours, c'est froid et nous ne savons pas si les avions peuvent voler. Chaque jour, les voyageurs arrivent à l'aéroport.  Ils ne savent pas s'il peuvent partir. Quelque jours, l'avion n'arrive pas, et les voyageurs doivent essayer un autre jour.

road to the airport

the airport tarmac

noon moon

 

my own Amazing Race in Calgary

My idea was to spend my eight hour layover exploring Calgary, a city that I've never visited before.  The original plan was to leave the airport, do a bit of shopping on 17th Avenue, meet up with my buddy J, a Calgary resident, and then grab some dinner at a nearby restaurant where I can try some of that famous Alberta beef.  It wouldn't be the most thorough opportunity to go sightseeing, but I figured it would give me a good little sample.

But all Canadians know that all of your plans must contain an asterisk with the fine print "weather permitting". The weather was not permitting that day. My flight from Ottawa to Calgary was delayed by three hours, which was annoying because I had shown up at the airport at 6:30AM only to found out that I could have slept in.  Luckily, I have travelled in the winter enough times to be totally okay with sleeping under my jacket on the airport floor like a vagrant.

Ottawa fog

By the time I arrived in Calgary, it was a few hours past the time I had thought I would be arriving in Calgary.  Also, apparently Calgary was dealing with a full-blown blizzard.  I had heard about the snowfall earlier, but had paid no attention to it because, you know, I live in Nunavut and it's been snowing since August.

However, Calgary is not the Arctic and also, it's a much bigger city, so trying to get from one end of town to the other was a much more difficult feat.  So we altered our plans and I met up with my friend J for to grab a coffee at a suburban mall, not too far away.

I love traveling and exploring new cities, but I feel as though all of the suburbs in major Canadian cities look more or less the same.  They all have the identical-looking plazas with the same box stores.  In any major Canadian city, you can grab a coffee at the Tim Hortons or Starbucks, a burger at McDonalds, your various household supplies from the Wal-Mart. Maybe your grocery store is a Loblaws or a Safeway, different in name, but once you go inside, it's the same products available. Maybe you've got a St Hubert's, a Harvey's, or a White Spot.  The differences generally are not substantial. To really enjoy the unique features of a Canadian city, you have to get out of the suburbs, either to the downtown core or to the surrounding nature areas.

Unfortunately, I was having difficulty getting out of the suburbs, and back to the airport.  There were no free cabs passing by. I repeatedly tried to call all the cab companies, but their phone lines were busy the entire time.  I later found out that it was because the taxis themselves were insanely busy - there were calls for 200 cabs at the airport alone, for example.

So I wasn't going to be able to cab back to the airport. The time was ticking. The race was on. I was going to have to figure out Calgary's public transit system.  The worker at the mall's Guest Services gave me instructions on how to take public transit to the airport.  As it turned out, almost everything she told me was incorrect, but she did tell me to take the train.  Calgary has a train? I just learned this.

Yes, not only does Calgary have a train, but it also has a transit fare payment system that actually works, unlike some other major Canadian cities (cough cough, Ottawa, cough cough, presto). Calgary also has really cute place/street names that scream Calgary all over, like Deerfoot and Whitehorne. Time to take the train to Saddletowne.  Yes, I said Saddletowne. That was a real actual stop.

I got on the train, got off the stop where I was instructed, and looked for the next bus that I was supposed to take. The people at the nearby bus stop assured me that the bus would take me to the airport. The bus arrived.

"Does this bus go to the airport?" I asked, stepping on. 

"Yes," the bus driver replied, closing the door.  Thinking back, I have no idea why she said yes and let me get on the bus, because after this, she added, "This bus goes to McCallum, which is not the airport."

I was taken aback. "Is that near the airport?"

"No, this route doesn't go near the airport at all."

"Oh," I said, feeling completely confused. "I was told this bus goes to the airport."

"Yes," she said again, "I have no idea why this is called the Airport Route, because it doesn't actually go to the airport."

I got off the bus.

I was starting to feel as though Calgary was full of extraordinarily friendly people who were screwing with me.

The bus driver told me that in order to get to the airport, I had to get back on the train and go farther.  I don't know why I chose to believe the bus driver at this point, but why not? I got on the train.  I got off the train.  We were in the middle of nowhere.

I found the bus stop. The bus stop actually had a little airplane symbol on it, which could have meant that the bus would go to the airport.  Then again, maybe Calgary was messing with me, and that bus actually went to the aviation museum, or the Church of Scientology.

At that point, I saw a taxi driving by.  I abandoned my plan to conquer the public transit system and began to run after the cab, my arms flailing.

That's when this dude swooped in out of nowhere and stole my cab.  He let himself in and shut the door.  I stopped at the taxi, and before I could realize what I was doing, I yanked the taxi door back open.  The dude looked at me, a little astonished.

"Hi," I said. "You're going to the airport, right? YOU GOTTA LET ME COME WITH YOU."

There was either a look in my eyes or the tone of my voice that made the guy hesitate and yield. Maybe it's my superb lawyering skills.  I got in the taxi with him.  Steal my cab, will you? I'll show you. I'll show you by getting in the cab with you and paying for half of the taxi fare.  The dude actually ended up being a nice guy, and we had a friendly conversation for the rest of the ride.

Now that I was finally in the taxi on my way to the airport, I was better able to observe and appreciate the havoc that the snow was causing to the city of Calgary.  There were cars stuck in the middle of the lane everywhere, with drivers frantically pawing at the snow trying to dig their tires out, while other drivers waited impatiently.

"Did the snow just come this morning?" I asked.

"No, it snowed on Sunday," the dude replied. It was Tuesday.

"Are there not enough snow ploughs?" I asked, appalled that the snow, a foot deep in some places, was just allowed to accumulate in the middle of the road.

"Calgary doesn't really plough the snow," the dude remarked drily. "It just waits for a chinook to come and blow the snow off the streets."

The roads were bumper-to-bumper with people trying to move from one end of the city to the other. It didn't help that it was rush hour, a concept I had completely forgotten about while living in Nunavut. Cambridge Bay has a "rush minute" where you are stuck behind three cars at the stop sign on the main strip.  As a result, what should have been a two-minute taxi ride turned out to be a half hour, because we were re-routed due to accidents on the Deerfoot, Calgary's version of the 401 (of course, Calgary's version of the 401 would be called the Deerfoot).

Finally, I arrived at the airport, breathless, just in time. Ready to fly out. Except my flight was delayed.

Like I said, I've gotten used to sleeping on airport floors.

my first (and last) time trying microdermabrasion treatment

I took advantage of big city luxuries and decided to get a microdermabrasion facial treatment while I was in Ottawa. This was my first (and probably last) time trying microdermabrasion, and I decided to try it because:

a) I'm getting close to 30 and I can't afford Botox yet.
b) I was in an agreeable mood after my relaxing massage and would have said yes to anything (it's a good thing nobody asked me if I wanted to buy this house)
c) I apparently like throwing my money away, or
d) YOLO.

You pick the best answer you like.

When I agreed to the treatment, the aesthetician was very excited and she taped my eyelids shut.  Then she pulled out what appeared to a mechanical belt sander and sanded my face off. I couldn't actually tell if it was a belt sander - maybe it was a floor buffer - because my eyelids were taped shut. Once she finished sanding my face off, she put the hose down.

"The redness is totally normal," she assured me.
"You mean my face? Is my face red?" I asked, because my eyelids were taped shut.
"It's totally normal," she repeated. "Also, you should avoid prolonged exposure to direct sunlight like tanning for a while, because you might get first degree burns."
"That shouldn't be a problem in Nunavut, since we don't have any sunlight," I replied, although really I was wondering, Tell me again why I should be avoiding sunlight? Had the belt sander transformed me into a vampire?

"Also," she continued, "you may feel a slight tingling sensation."
I thought about it, and now that I was thinking about it, my face did feel like it was on fire.
"Do you feel a slight tingling sensation?" the aesthetician asked me.
"I do feel a slight tingling sensation," I answered her, hoping my smoking skin would not set off the fire alarm.
"Okay," she said, and she washed my face for like the fourth time. "I'm going to put on a really cold mask on your face to calm your skin down."
"Why?" I said. "Does my skin need to calm down? What is it doing?"
But by this time she had disappeared and I didn't know where she went, because there was a really cold mask covering my face.

How do I look? Do I look like a young 20 year old thang?

As I drove back from the spa, I discovered that some of the sand crystals had managed to make their way into my eyes (despite them being taped shut during the treatment) and I found myself blinking furiously through the intersection as my eyes watered.  My eyes were welling up like I just found out Ryan Gosling has a new girlfriend. I hope human tears do not reverse the effect of microdermabrasion.

I don't know if I looked younger after the treatment, but with the crow's feet literally scraped off my face, I then went to the mall and pondered buying a sweater with glittery skulls all over it.  So I certainly feel younger.

Anyway, now I'm back in Cambridge Bay, where there are no spas, or aestheticians to give you facial treatments, or sunlight to harm your treated faces.  I do miss the big city luxuries sometimes, but on the other hand, now that I'm back in the land of the familiar, I don't have so many darn questions about what's being scraped off my face. Still, every time I jam my finger in my ear, I find more sand crystals. Also, I may now be a vampire.

Out Of Office Destination feature

I recently wrote about Cambridge Bay in the Canadian Bar Association's National Magazine. The magazine features a travel section, so it was kind of neat talking about the Canadian Arctic for this upcoming issue. You can read the article here (it's in the "Destination" section, just below the "Pilgrim" piece).

Lost on the land: a survival story

There have been a couple of wild stories in the northern news lately about hunters who have gone missing during snow storms while out on the land, such as the man from Baker Lake who was missing for three days or the father and son from Quaqtaq who were stranded under their sled for two days. It's a tragic risk that all hunters face here in the North, and just last week, Cambridge Bay dealt with its own near-tragedy when two hunters, a man and his nephew from our communities did not return as scheduled when they went out on the land.

I got to hear the full story from the hunter's father and grandfather when I attended church on Sunday.  When the pulpit was opened up to testimonies, he went up and opened his testimony with a prayer in Inuinnaqtun.  Then he told us the story.

The two hunters had gone out in the morning towards Starvation Cove on their snowmobile. It was cold that day, even for Nunavut. For some reason, their snowmobile ran out of gas, and they were stranded.  They began walking back towards town. After a while, they checked with their GPS and realized that they were walking in the wrong direction. They corrected their course. The weather got worse. They still had a long way back.

Meanwhile back in town, their families had noticed that they had not returned. The grandfather began asking around if anyone had seen them. "Our boys gone out this morning about 9;30 they went towards Starvation cove.anyone seen them out there," he posted on the Facebook news group. Eventually, their concern turned to alarm and they alerted Cambridge Bay's Search and Rescue Team.

It was pretty amazing to see the community support that was rounded up very quickly. For example, this online thread shows how so many people jumped immediately to offer their prayers and also volunteer to look for them, risking their own safety and lives in the winter weather.

 Out on the land, the hunters were becoming exhausted. They decided to stop walking and rather wait for rescuers to reach them.  Using their snow knives, they dug a tunnel in the snow to create a shelter for themselves in the ground.  There, they sat and waited.

One of the biggest worries that people have in these situations is hypothermia, of course.  The tunnel was protecting them a bit from the cold wind, but the temperatures were still in the minus thirties without the windchill. They would have to be rescued soon.  They would have to stay warm until they were rescued.

At one point, they heard a plane in the sky overhead. They knew it was their chance to be saved.  They stood outside their snow shelter and shot their flare gun into the air - but the plane did not see them.  It was difficult to spot the flares in broad daylight, against a white snowy landscape.  They tried it a few more times, nervous about running out of flares, but the plane flew away, to their disappointment.  


At this point, they were trying to keep their spirits up, but they were tired.  They were afraid of falling asleep and never waking up, or missing the chance to alert other rescuers of their presence.  They decided to sleep in shifts. One would keep watch while the other slept. They would take turns.  But they were exhausted, and fatigue can cloud your judgment, decreasing your vigilance. Soon the watcher fell asleep, and they both slept.

One hunter awoke and realized that he had fallen asleep. "Uncle!" he said.
The other hunter woke up. "Yes?"
"We must stay awake!"
But soon, they both fell asleep again.
The hunter woke up again. "Uncle!" he said.
This time, there was no answer.
"Uncle!" he called again, more frantically. "Uncle! Uncle!" 
Finally the other hunter responded. "What?"

They were hearing the sounds of snowmobiles' roaring motors nearby.

They ran out of their shelters and waved the snowmobiles down.  It was the rescuers, who had been searching for the hunters for hours and hours, trying to follow their trail.  By some miracle, in the middle of the vast Arctic wilderness that is Nunavut, the rescuers had found them.  They had been missing for two days.

Meanwhile, the grandfather narrating this story was at home praying.  The telephone rang.  The hunters, his son and his grandson had been found! He awaited their return to the family home, fearful of the terrible condition they might be in after this huge ordeal.

"Instead," the grandfather told us during the church service, "when they came home, they looked healthier than I was!"

I'm glad this story has a happy ending.  Sometimes these stories do not have a happy ending. It seems that stories like this happen far too often, especially this time of the year.  It's amazing to me when I hear about these rescues.  If you think about how huge Nunavut is, and how sparsely populated it is, it's a miracle to me that people can be found when they go missing.