Northern Life
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Of ships and sovereignty
Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Nanisivik yesterday, to announce that Nanisivik has been chosen to be the new deep water port to service the new Arctic patrol fleet. The choice of Nanisivik as the port is the only logical one for the government to make. For one thing, it already exists. Nanisivik has been
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Sorrel in my salad
Lately I’ve gathering Mountain Sorrel (Oxyria digyna) and adding it to my green salads. Mountain Sorrel is one of the (few) plants used in a traditional diet up here. It’s red waxy flours were used to make tea and the leaves eaten. Very high in Vitamin C, it’s leaves are crisp and have quite a
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Fire
Some days life offers up more excitement than you expect, or really need for that matter. Yesterday was one of those. Yesterday happened to be Travis’ fifth birthday, although the celebration really took place on Saturday (can’t be celebrating on the Sabbath you know). The day had gotten off to a relatively slow start, with
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Breaking Up is Hard to do
Arctic Bay, the body of water as opposed to the Hamlet, has begun breaking up, about a week earlier than normal. In of itself, one week is not a lot of time, but if you couple that with the four weeks that freezeup was late this season, that makes five weeks less ice this year
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Let the Weekend begin
Much like the rest of Canada, the July long weekend finds many people in Arctic Bay hitting the road. But of course this being the Arctic the road is quite different. This weekend, for a lot of people here, is spent out on the land, many young men heading out to the Floe Edge where
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A night at the Beach
It was one of the nicest days of the year yesterday, in fact one of the nicest days of the past several years. We headed down to Victor Bay, driving over the pass directly into the late evening sun, but still managing to keep the truck on the road. Leah’s mom and dad were over
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Some days are like that.
So last night, or more precisely this morning, I was sitting with Hilary watching TV when I heard a noise, and then the sound of running water. Opening up the kid’s washroom I quickly discovered that the running water was running out of the ceiling light and onto the floor. There is a client bathroom
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Flowers!
Early last week, while we were out on a drive, we stopped at a little side road to look for Lapland Longspurs. We didn’t see any there, however there was another one of our spring arrivals poking out of a little gravel and mud, the first Purple Saxifrage of the season. They are our earliest
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Celebrity Nunavumiut
Nashville Predator’s Jordin Tootoo visited Arctic Bay yesterday. Jordin is the first Inuk in the NHL, and is immensely popular in Nunavut. This is, I believe, his second tour around Nunavut communities (but his first to Arctic Bay) promoting a "Stay in School" message. Jordin only spoke briefly, and then answered some questions and gave