One of the aspects of life up here is that if you are traveling anywhere, you're traveling by airplane. It is pretty much the only option. Certainly a goodly number of people go between communities by snowmobile, it is the only affordable option, but there are no roads, no buses, and for all intents and purposes no marine travel.
And if you travel any amount of time you are going to experience travel disruptions because of weather. I am about to experience the form of travel known as a Milk Run.
My original travel plans to return to Arctic Bay from Baker Lake was to leave yesterday, flying by turboprop to Rankin, and then by jet to Iqaluit, a little more than a three hour journey. I wasn't returning to Arctic Bay for two days, because of travel connections. That (Iqaluit to Arctic Bay) is in itself a three hour plus flight in a turboprop.
But the weather intruded, cancelling our plans from yesterday and resulting in the Milk Run option. For those of you not familiar with the term a milk run is a journey that consists of several stops along the way.
For this particular trip I will leave shortly for Rankin Inlet, then on to Chesterfield Inlet, Coral Harbour, Cape Dorset and finally on to Iqaluit, landing about 6 and a quarter hours later. I suspect this will be a very long day, although I am looking forward to seeing parts of the territory I wouldn't otherwise get to see. A larger part of the land of milk runs and honey buckets.
Comments
3 responses
HAHAHA! The land of milk runs and honey buckets! That’s awesome. Not really awesome for you, of course, but you preserve, as always, your great sense of humour.
You must have explained ‘honey buckets’ previously as no one has asked for a definition…
Thanks Fawn. Milk run didn’t materialize, but it wasn’t really an improvement. More to follow.
I don’t know if I have explained “honey buckets” Lesleigh, so perhaps I should. Honey buckets are thankfully a thing of the past, I hope. I don’t believe they are in use anymore, except perhaps in camps. However before the detachment was built here our Patrol Cabin had one in the cells, as we had no plumbing.
A honey bucket is essentially a bucket (usually with a toilet seat, and some times with a plastic bag liner) that was used as a toilet. Not that long ago many homes here had no plumbing. I’ll leave it to the readers to paint their own mental pictures.