Drywall has begun going up inside the house. The water tank room has been drywalled in anticipation of bringing in a mechanical sub again. In Arctic Bay, indeed in much of the north, there are no sewers, or water mains. Water comes to your house in a truck, and the sewage gets taken away in a truck.
Not the same truck thankfully. In the arctic, because of permafrost it is impossible to have pipes in the ground. Some places, such as Nanisivik, our neighbouring mining community that is being not-so-slowly dismantled, had utilidors. In a utilidor system the pipes run above the ground, usually boxed in and insulated, with some sort of heat tracing system.
But here we have water trucks and sewage trucks, which necessitates having water tanks and sewage tanks in the house. Well, the sewage tanks are under the house, big insulated tanks. In our first house here both tanks were in a crawlspace. Because we have five bathrooms and up to six clients, we have three 250 gallon water tanks. Usually they would go in the mechanical room, with the furnace etc, but the engineers realized that there was no room in the mechanical room that was on the plan and they added another room, just for the water tank.
The addition was decided on literally days before the sealift ship was due to be loaded, and much of our material shortages happened as a result of this, much of the lumber was missed on the take off for the mechanical. There was just no time this late in the game. Luckily we ended up with enough roof panels for the water tank room.
So rather than the somewhat unlimited supply of water in a water main, we end up with a certain amount of water to use, when it runs out, you are out until the truck comes back. Likewise, when the sewage tank is full, a cutoff switch shuts off your water supply so you don’t keep sending waste to the tank, which would back up the pipe and, in the winter, freeze. Now when I lived in Fort Providence NWT, which is also on a truck system, it was almost unheard of to run out of water. There, we were on a schedule. You got water either three times a week or twice a week, depending on how much you used. Your sewage was pumped on the same schedule. The trucks ran basically Monday to Friday 9 to 5, and if you needed water at other times there was a fifty dollar call out fee. The only time I can remember ever running out of water was when the sprinkler on the garden was left on. (Okay, now I’m missing gardening.)
Here on the other hand, we are frequently without water because one tank is empty or the other full. The trucks here run, for the most part, seven days a week, most days for two shifts. Now in fairness in Fort Providence the water station for the trucks was less than a kilometre from town, and here it is several kilometres out, at a lake, near the ocean. Also Fort Providence had two large water trucks, whereas here there is one large one and a smaller one. But a large part of it is an inefficient system. Like I said, in Fort Providence you were on a regular schedule, here there is a very loose schedule (if the driver figures you’re due he comes to your place) and you call in when you think you need water, or you are out.
Now as near as I can figure out the calls for water are responded to in the order they come in. Say we call in for water, as does our next door neighbour. But in between our call and theirs a house on the opposite side of town calls in, and then one in the middle of town. The truck come and fills up our tank, goes to the house on the opposite side of town, then the one in the middle, then our neighbour’s. Not the most efficient system.
One tends to take water for granted when it comes out of the tap whenever you turn it on. We frequently go 24-48 hours without water. At least once, when I was still with the RCMP, we were a week without water (on that occasion the drivers had decided to stop bringing us water as they were upset with the number of drug searches I had been doing. That ended pretty quick when I discovered what was going on). If one or both of the trucks break down, the system gets worse. We have a couple of water jugs that we try and keep filled, in case, and a large container for flushing the toilet. But if it goes on past 24 hours you end up with no dishes to cook with, and a toilet that, well you get the idea. During regular business hours you call the Hamlet office if you need water or sewer, after hours you call a recording at the Hamlet garage and the drivers go there and take down house numbers from time to time.
One other water story. When I first got to Arctic Bay there was a pair of utilidor pipes running from town to a small lake in the hills above town. The lake is known locally as Dead Dog Lake. There was a small pumphouse at the lake but there was no equipment in it. Now it turns out that some years before, the government had built the pipe to serve the Hamlet. Dead Dog Lake was to be the water supply for Arctic Bay. Unfortunately no one had thought of checking the water prior to the pipeline being built and who knows what cost. Turns out the water in the lake was unpotable for some reason.
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Thought building snowmen in the harsh Scottish winters was bad, but you seem to take the cake…..Website Very good Keep up the good work..
Regards Fiona