Northern Life

• Whew, I’m glad I got that out of my system.

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• Tattoo you.

  I had a most interesting committee meeting last night. Without getting into a lot of details, I’m on a committee for the local DEA (District Education Committee) dealing with an important aspect of education in Nunavut. An exercise that we worked on last night was building a timeline for schooling in Arctic Bay. An incredible

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• The Moon

  On Wednesday of this coming week, there will be a full eclipse of the moon, visible over most (if not all) of North America.  I believe that it is happening around 10pm EST but check your local listings.  Whatever time it starts rest assured it will be half past something else in Newfoundland. This will

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• Starry Starry Night

  "I know nothing with any certainty, butthe sight of stars makes me dream."                        – Vincent Van Gogh While I am grateful for the return of the sun, I am also grateful that we still have inky black skies at night. Last night, I was walking back from a

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• The Sun as promised

  Here are a couple of pictures of the sun, just after it rose today, before it disappeared behind the hills that surround the House.

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• -40

  I know I live in the Arctic, but -40 and below is just wrong.  I tell people all the time that it really is no colder here than the Prairies, and it’s true. It’s just colder longer.  Normally, we receive about a week of -40 weather up here each winter, and it was much the

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• At last

  The sun has returned to Arctic Bay. I had the briefest of glimpses of it at lunch as it rose through the ice fog above the hills on the far side of Adam’s Sound, just before disappearing behind the hills of Arctic Bay. The House is situated such that we barely see any of it’s

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• Ikii

  It probably won’t come as a surprise to many people, but it’s cold in the High Arctic.  Actually, it’s really no colder than where I grew up in Manitoba, it’s just colder longer. And with much of the country in the grip of "Arctic Air" last week, I don’t think I’m going to generate much

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• Hardly getting your bait back

  It isn’t often that babies are born in Arctic Bay. These days, actually for quite some time now, expectant mothers are flown out to Iqaluit, usually about a month before the due date. There is a logic to this of course, Iqaluit is much more equipped to deliver babies and to handle the emergencies that

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• Did the earth move?

  I’ve only been in one earthquake. It was disappointing. Only days after the Los Angeles earthquake of 1994 Janice and I were in Vilcabamba Ecuador. It had been a little surreal watching the destruction played on the news on a TV set in Cuenca Ecuador, and staying in a little cabin on the mountains overlooking

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